[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] reganstott:
Fully working Samsung Galaxy S - Using 16GB External Micro SD to run OS and function as External SD!!

Ok so to set the scene I will quickly explain the issue I had with my Samasung Galaxy S.

One day it worked....

Next day it didn't...from then on it would only boot to first screen then continually repeat this step.....

After day two of having no luck at fixing the issue I got an S3...great phone!

BUT DONT GIVE UP JUST YET! It can be fixed!!!

Overall I think I would have spent somewhere in the ballpark of about 40 hours trying to fix the Galaxy S...stubborn? Yes....and my Galaxy S was such a good phone I hated the idea of binning it.

I wont waste your time listing the hundreds of methods I tried or posts I read, but in the end all things pointed to a dead internal SD.

I should be able to run the OS off an external SD... shouldn't I? The answer is Yes!

Many hours were spent on this stage and for about a week I had a working pone with OS running on External SD, but no access to the camera or anything which required an external SD.

I now have a perfectly working phone, using a 16gb External SD to run the OS and remaining space on it recognised as the external SD.

I can't promise this will work for everyone but here is the last of WAY TO MANY methods I used which completely solved this problem for me.

Let me know if this works for you & GOOD LUCK!

Step 1:

Your phone must be rooted!

The best, easiest and only way I was able to do it is with the following guide, big thank you to the person who put it up. As my Internal SD was dead! my external SD was to be my new internal SD...so the standard add to zip method for rooting on external SD... would obviously not work for me! yes I worded that perfectly!

BIG IMPORTANT NOTE IN CAPITAL LETTERS! - Make sure you have your external SD inserted during the below process!

http://xdaforums.com/show....php?t=1852546

NOW! You should have your phone booting as it used to back in the good old days! However.....some of you wont...if this is the case please follow Step 1B.

Step 1B:

If the above did not work for you then you need a way to connect your Micro SD to your PC (I did this using a USB adaptor).

1. Download and install EaseUS partition master

2. Insert Micro SD in PC

3. EaseUS partition master

4. Wipe all partitions/data.

5. Create EXT4 partition approx 2gb

6. Create FAT32 partition with remaining space.

7. Remove battery from phone

8. Insert SD, Battery back in.

9. Turn on, you should have your phone booting as it used to back in the good old days!

IF NOT THEN.....Start with Step 1B then do Step1 then if all looking as it should move to step 2. If not...sorry...I have failed you!

Step 2:

You phone should now have booted like the good old days....but if you go into SD/Storage on android OS, you will notice it does not recognise the remaining space on the External SD as an external SD...it must be very confusing for the green robot!

So next steps as follows!

1. Install script manager app and mount r/w app from Google Play (market)

2. Use mount r/w to Mount the system partition in r/w mode.

3. Browse using script manager app as root (change setting in config).

4. Go to /system/etc folder and change file permission for vold.fstab to rwxrwxrwx (This means tick all the 9 boxes on the left not the 3 on the right.....such a technical explanation)

5. Then edit the vold.fstab file as text and change the following

Change:

dev_mount sdcard /mnt/sdcard auto /devices/platform/s3c-sdhci.0/mmc_host/mmc0

to

dev_mount sdcard /mnt/sdcard auto /devices/platform/s3c-sdhci.2/mmc_host/mmc2

Change:

s3c-sdhci.0

to

s3c-sdhci.2

Change:

mmc0

to

mmc2

Save the file and reboot the phone!

If all has gone well then your sdcard partition will be mounted and old faithful is ready to ride once again!

I hope this worked for you, if it didn't...gutted and I guess you have moved onto the next post...good hunting!

Please note this solution was created from a pile of posts I trawled through to get a solution. The above vold.fstab solution was taken from the following post. Unfortunately this posts overall solution didn't work for me, but I would not have been able to mount remaining External SD Space as well...you know THE EXTERNAL SD! without his post, which is the best part!

http://xdaforums.com/show....php?t=1193010