[Droid Incredible General] soniclude:
The Problem

The HTC Droid Incredible shows a "Low on space: Phone storage space is getting low" warning despite having gobs of space free because the "Application data storage" folder (also known as /data/data) that is shared by all apps on the phone is only 150mb in size. As soon as only 10% of this folder is available, the warning appears. If it gets too much lower, apps stop responding and the phone crashes.

The Story

After many months of clearing app data, uninstalling apps, resetting my phone, and generally walking on eggshells trying to keep my data storage under the limit, I was getting ready to upgrade my device. I would search every few weeks to see if anyone had solved the problem, but all I found were more people stuck in my boat, and I was ready to give up. But then I stumbled across a series of threads on xda-developers.com that gave me new hope. In the course of one night, I learned from scratch how to root my phone, and I applied a fix that increased the "Application data storage" folder to a whopping 750mb. I am now able to download as many apps as I'd like and not have to worry about clearing out app data ever again.

However, it took a bit of scouring the forums and reading various guides to figure out how to do all this. Some of the items are quite technical in nature, and some of the guides skip steps that more experienced users would know how to do already. So I joined the forum to write this guide for the "regular" users out there like myself. My goal is to explain in plain English how to fix this nagging issue once and for all and to consolidate all the relevant info and files into one place. If you find this useful, please share this with others so we can all fully enjoy our phones!

The Credits

I did not invent any of the steps, tools, or methods I am about to describe. Hats off to the following people for supplying all the info and files I needed to fix the problem and write this how-to thread. Please let me know if I've missed anyone that should be mentioned and I will add them.

vbhines for the "New to Modding/Rooting" guide

The unrevoked team for their excellent one-click rooting software and drivers

dreamersipaq for the guide to rooting an Incredible

scotty1223 for the guide to rooting a 2.3.4 Incredible

jermaine151 for the "no data limit" mod that actually fixes the problem

cmlusco and tiny4579 for all their help answering questions and troubleshooting in this thread

The Ingredients

Here's what you'll need to perform this fix:

An HTC Incredible (obviously) with an SD card

A micro USB cable (you can use the one you charge your phone with)

A computer with a USB port and internet access (PC, Mac, or Linux)

An hour of free time

The Fix

Step 1: Read the "New to Modding/Rooting" guide so you know what you're getting into and can understand the terminology: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=744807

Step 2: Back up your contacts, pictures, etc. This guide is safe for your phone and will not erase any of your data if you follow it correctly, but it never hurts to back things up just in case.

Step 3a: Make sure your phone is decently charged. (at least 50%)

Step 3b: Make sure your phone isn't currently showing the "low on space" error. Delete some apps or data until the error goes away. You don't want to go through all this effort only to have your phone crash halfway through!

Step 4: Uninstall HTC sync software from your computer. Also make sure you are not running any software that communicates to your phone using USB, such as PDANet or DoubleTwist. If you haven't had to plug your phone into your computer to do anything prior to now, you're probably OK.

Step 5: On your phone, go to Menu -> Settings -> Applications -> Development and put a check in the "USB debugging" box.

Step 6: Plug your phone into your computer, select "Charge Only", select "remember my selection", click "Done", and then unplug your phone.

Step 7: If you are on a Windows PC, follow this user-friendly guide to install the USB drivers you'll need: http://unrevoked.com/rootwiki/doku.php/public/windows_hboot_driver_install

When I did this step, I actually found my Android entry from the first screenshot in the guide under "Android Phone" and it did not say "Android 1.0". Don't worry, you can still use this entry to continue with the next step in the guide to "Update Driver Software".

Mac and Linux users can skip this step.

Step 8: Root your phone. This step is a bit more involved, so be sure to read the directions carefully. On your phone, go to Menu -> Settings -> About phone -> Software information and look at what it says under "Android version" at the top.

If it says 2.3.4, do this:

Download Clockwork 5.0.2.0: http://dinc.does-it.net/Recoveries/CWM_5.0.2.0/PB31IMG.zip (link updated 6/22/12)

Extract the recovery-clockwork-5.0.2.0-inc.img from the zip file and put it somewhere you'll remember.

Download Unrevoked 3.22 (this is intentionally NOT the latest version): http://dinc.does-it.net/Unrevoked/Unrevoked_3.22.exe (link updated 6/22/12)

Run Unrevoked_3.22.exe

Inside the program, go to File -> Custom Recovery and select the .img file from above. At the bottom of the program window, it should now say "Recovery: Custom" and "Waiting for device"

Plug in your phone and wait while Unrevoked runs automatically. It will reboot your phone several times and will take some time, so be patient!

Once it's done, unplug your phone and ensure that a "Superuser Permissions" application is inside your app drawer. Don't run it. Instead, go to Menu -> Settings -> Applications -> Manage applications -> All, scroll down to "Superuser Permissions", click it, then click "Clear data". Return back Home.

If it says anything other than 2.3.4, do this:

Download Unrevoked 3.32: http://www.unrevoked.com/recovery/

Run reflash_package.exe. It may start up right away, or it may ask you to extract the files. Put them somewhere you can find, and once the extraction is done, find and run reflash.exe.

Plug in your phone and wait while Unrevoked runs automatically. It will reboot your phone several times and will take some time, so be patient!

After the above steps, everyone should do this:

Launch the Android Market and search for "ROM Manager". The first result should be "ROM Manager" by ClockworkMod and it should have a picture of a top hat above a gear as its icon. Click it, then click "Download", then "Accept & download". If it is already installed, you can just return Home.

Once ROM Manager has finished installing, launch it and select "Flash ClockworkMod Recovery" (the first option). Confirm your phone model (HTC Incredible). A window will pop up asking for root permissions - click to allow it.

Optional: After the download completes, scroll down and click "Backup Current ROM". You may need a lot of space free on your SD card to perform this backup depending on what you have on your phone. Once you create this backup, you can use ROM Manager to fully restore your phone (including all apps, data, and settings) in case anything goes wrong. This can take a significant amount of time, so again, be patient!

If all went well, your phone should be exactly the same as it was before, except you now have a couple new apps, and more importantly, root access!

Step 9: On your phone, go to Menu -> Settings -> Applications -> Development and uncheck the "USB debugging" box.

Step 10: Apply the Fix. This is the step you've been waiting for!

Go to this thread: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1623038, click the link for the EXT4All files in the first post, download "Convert2Ext4_no_data_limit_normal_dalvik.zip", and put it somewhere you'll remember. You can also go directly to this URL to download the file: http://dinc.does-it.net/EXT4_Mods/ (links updated 6/22/12)

Plug your phone into your computer, bring down the notification bar, select the "USB connection type" item, select "Disk drive", and click Done.

On your computer, find your phone's SD card. If you're unsure which drive is your SD card, look at how big each drive is. The drive that has a size of 6.59GB is the phone's internal memory, so the other drive is the SD card. The SD card that comes with the Incredible is 1.83GB in size, but yours may be different if you bought your own SD card.

Move "Convert2Ext4_no_data_limit_normal_dalvik.zip" from your computer to the SD card. Do not put it inside any folders.

After the file has finished moving, bring down the notifications bar, select the "USB connection type" item, select "Charge only", then click done.

Unplug your phone from your computer.

Launch ROM Manager from your app drawer and click "Reboot into Recovery" (the second option). Click "OK" to proceed.

After the phone reboots, you will now see a black screen with some blue options on it. Use the volume buttons on the left to scroll down to "install zip from sdcard" and click the optical trackpad button at the bottom of the phone to select it.

Click "choose zip from sdcard" (the first option)

Scroll down to the very bottom and select "Convert2Ext4_no_data_limit_normal_dalvik.zip"

Scroll down to "Yes - Install Convert2Ext4_no_data_limit_normal_dalvik.zip" and click it. This step will take some time to complete, and the progress bar may not move at all. Be patient!

Once it is done, click the power button at the top of your phone until you're back at the main menu, then select "Reboot system" (the first option). If you hit power too many times and end up with a blank screen, just hit power one more time and you'll see the menu.

When the phone is done rebooting after this last step, verify that the fix worked by going to Menu -> Settings -> SD & phone storage and look at the "Application data storage" section. It should now say that the "Total space" is 748mb!

At this point you can run happily through an open field, shout from the highest mountaintop, or just shed a tear of joy, because you can now install tons of apps and let them accumulate all the data they want. Enjoy!

P.S. Please let me know if any of these steps are incorrect or unclear so I can fix them. Thanks!

Troubleshooting

Here are a couple of issues people have come across while doing the steps in this guide, along with the solutions. Thanks to cmlusco for these helpful answers!

The guide says my phone should have rebooted back to the main screen, but I'm on a black screen with a bunch of blue options!

If you're on this step and the guide doesn't say you need to be here yet, just use the volume buttons to scroll to the "Reboot System Now" option and click the optical trackpad. Then you can continue on with the guide!

I'm stuck on a black screen with white bars on the side!

If your phone is "s-off", reflash the recovery-clockwork-5.0.2.0-inc.img file from Step #8 using hboot. To get to hboot, turn your phone off, hold the "volume down" button, and turn it back on. Keep holding the "volume down" button until you get to the menu where you can flash the .img file.

If your phone is not "s-off" or you have no idea what "s-off" means, run Unrevoked again with the same .img file from Step #8.

In either case, you should be able to continue using the guide from where you left off!

My phone keeps rebooting over and over and I can't do anything!

Pull out the battery, wait for 15 seconds, and put it back in and turn the phone back on. If it still keeps rebooting, pull out/re-insert the battery again, go into hboot (see above answer) and try the following steps. You can stop as soon as one of them works!

1. Restore a backup that you made in a previous step (if you have one).

2. Reflash the .img file from Step #8.

3. Flash the .img file here: http://dinc.does-it.net/wildstang83_inc_4.08.605.2_11232011.zip (note: this one will take you back to stock, so you'll have to start the guide over).

I'm still stuck!

If all else fails, please post your issue in this thread so someone can help you out. You can also try restoring your backup (you made a backup, right??) and starting over from the top. Good luck!