[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] chrysochire:
Page 2 of the Q&A Forum

Introductory Remarks:

- Ext Partition is only needed if your rom uses App2SD+ (Froyo app2sd works with basic Fat32 partition)

- "Install apps to sd" (ext) must sometimes be configured in your ROM, check the thread for your rom for infos...

- Backup your SD card before you start ! The following steps will wipe the contents !

- Ext partitions are only visible in Linux = Windows can't see it.

- Swap Partitions are no longer useful.

- You can check if you have a working ext partition with Quick system info (in app market)

- On first reboot after partition, android will move some apps to the SD, this will take a lot of time. Some people have reported a bootloop on green HTC Screen, one reported a need to Battery pull 4 times before it finally worked), so be patient!!!!

- If the device is plugged into a PC when you try to boot with the partitioned SDCard it never gets past the white HTC sceen & logo.

Now the tutorials:

A. Easiest way is to install Rom Manager:

1) install rom manager

2) choose partition sd card

- 512mb ext

- 0 swap

3) let RM do the rest... ;-)

- I believe Rom Manager (as of end of July) creates an ext2 partition, therefore if you want ext3 or 4, easiest is to go through Gparted, or if you have amonRa Recovery, I believe this function is present.

B. Another one is using Gparted:

(copied this from http://wiki.cyanogenmod.com/index.php?title=Apps2SD)

You can use a livecd of GParted, or use it from within Ubuntu (vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVK-t...eature=related)

+ You can do this using your phone to mount the SD card or a Card adapter directly connected to your computer.

1) Connect your phone to your computer (or use an SD Card adapter...., in this case skip to 4))

2) Pull down the notification bar and mount the phone

3) Start Gparted

4) Gparted will search available drives. (Your phone should show up as a USB drive, and will be something like /dev/sdb1 or /dev/sdc1, etc..)

Warning: double-check you've not selected a hdd by mistake!

5) In the upper right corner, select the correct USB device for your phone. (i.e. check to make sure it is correct size for your SD card)

6) Right click on each partition and select 'unmount'

7) Right click on each partition and select 'delete'

If you know what you are doing, you can re-size the partitions and add a new 2nd partition formatted as ext2/3/4

8) Right click on the big gray bar (should say unallocated x.xx gb) and click 'new'

9) Enter configurations

Free Space preceding = 0

Create as = Primary

New size = [don't touch]

File system = fat32

Free Space Following = 512 (or whatever you want)

10) Click add

11) Right click on the big gray bar (should say unallocated x.xx gb) and click 'new'

12) Enter configurations

Free Space preceding = 0

Create as = Primary

New size = [don't touch]

File system = ext3 or 4 (recommend ext4)

Free Space Following = 0

Click add

13) [CHECK AGAIN you are working on your SD card and not your Hard Drive!!!!] Click edit, then 'Apply All Operations' to write changes to disk

14) Quit GParted

15) Unmount your SD Card

16) Reboot your phone and wait (see introductory remarks)

C. Recovery Images

Some Recovery Images also have a option to format your SD card from the recovery screen. (see http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=721792).

I have not tried that.

As long as you have an ext2/3/4 partition and the ROM you're flashing has A2SD support (check before you download the ROM), you are not required to do anything more.

D. How to check if it worked?

To check whether A2SD is working once you've flashed your ROM,

1)Download Quick System Info from the Market, and check under A2SD Storage, it should give you enough informations.

2)download the Android Terminal Emulator app from the market and use the following commands

su
ls -l /data

You should see your app directory pointing to /system/sd/app and app-private pointing to /system/sd/app-private (courtesy of ikkokusenkin)

E. Further Infos

See: http://geeks.pirillo.com/profiles/blogs/how-to-partition-an-sd-card or :

http://androidcommunity.com/forums/f...rtition-14232/ or:

http://theunlockr.com/2009/10/15/ho...-android-when-using-swap-hero-and-or-apps2sd/ (With Rav Recovery...) or:

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=534714 (most complicated way.... )

related thread: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=731432&page=2

F. Open Questions:

What I don't know:

- If the size of the ext partition matters (if you have to choose 256/512 or 1024, and can't have 600mb for example?

- What ROMs require ext partitions? (all with app2sd+, basic froyo app2sd doesn't require ext partition).

- If Class 6 SD cards really are that important (some webpages say that class 2 cards are not able to handle ext2 partitions and end up bricked.

- How to manage the contents in the ext partition when changing SD Cards... (do you need any management of your ext partition?) or you have to reinstall those apps????) See here.

- How to check if you bricked your sd card...

- etc...

Good Luck