[Hero CDMA General] hexskrew:
*There are many ways to setup an SDCARD for A2SD, but some people don't feel comfortable doing it in recovery, or their recovery doesn't support it, or they don't rely on recovery, or they are scared of the adb shell. This is a newbie friendly way that anyone can do..

***THREAD ADMINS! I posted this recently in the Development thread, however just so everyone is SUPPOSED to look here, or the QnA thread first, I decided to post it here as well. Admins, if you have an issue with the double posting between threads I completely understand and just take either one out.

What's a VERY easy way to setup your sdcard for apps 2 sd? With Linux!! (don't run in fear yet! Follow along with me!)

Some background to read first:

Backup all your stuff before hand!

Think of it just like if your repartitioning your hard drive. It's that simple.

OK! So here we go!

Setup:

Go here: http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/get-ubuntu/download

I suggest you select the 32bit option, and 10.10(latest) version. Click download

I also suggest unless you know how to use unetbootin, or how to burn an iso image(very easy) that you read the how to from that download page on doing so.

Links: cdburnerxp (if you don't already have a cd burning utility. I HIGHLY recommend it)http://cdburnerxp.se/en/home

unetbootin: (for booting from thumb drive) http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

*Some older PC's (and I mean unless made within the last 3 years recent) have trouble booting unetbootin made live thumb drives, so if in doubt, just eat the 20cents you paid for that cd-r and get it right the first time.

1a. BACKUP EVERYTHING ON THE SDCARD!

Cannot stress this enough as the way we are doing this, you will lose EVERYTHING on your SD card. I am not responsible for your adhd!

Execute!

1.boot to ubuntu live cd *see your motherboard instructions on how to boot to cd if it does not automatically but usually when you boot it will give an option to "Change Drive Boot Order" or something similar, by pressing F8, F9,F10, or F11, but if you do not see this, and it does not automatically boot to the ubuntu live cd, go into your BIOS at startup of your computer (which varies depending on the computer/motherboard, but usually it's either the Delete key, or F1 at boot, and change your drive boot order to boot from cdrom first)

1a. Just boot into Ubuntu. It wont hurt ya! And heck you might like it! It doesn't mess with any files on the system unless you intentionally do so.

2.put sdcard in computer

3.go to System > Administration > Disc Utility

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4.

Select your sd card from the "Storage Devices" list on the left.

Select your sdcard volume

Click "Unmount Volume"

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5.

Select the volume again and select Delete Partition

***IF YOU HAVE NOT BACKED UP YOUR STUFF YOU WILL NOW LOSE IT!!!! BACK UP YOUR STUFF!!!***

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6.

Now you have a fully wiped SD Card. Congrats, not good for much at the moment :P

Ok, so now the magic happens. Select Create Partition

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7.

I put 512 just cause I was messing around but for a swap, I would do between 40 and 80mb. You don't have to name it, just make sure you select Swap Space from the partition type, and the size you want. Click Create. *DO NOT SELECT Encrypt underlying device. It WILL NOT WORK!* If you do that, your phone wont read it and well.. Then that would be just pointless now wouldn't it?

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8.

Notice it looks like a pie or a chart? See it's not hard at all now is it? It's pretty simple from here.

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9.

Select the "Free" partition space, and then select "Create Partition" again.

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10.

Uncheck "Take ownership of filesystem" because if you do, you probably won't have "Ownership" of the partition when you put it in your phone which would probably turn out to be a bad thing. Select type "Ext3" and select create.

You can do Ext2 or Ext4, but I have heard issues about Ext4 partitions, and Ext2 is kinda old ya know? I mean you can do it if you want, but I dunno what to say if it don't work (you can always repartition though)

As far as space, that's up to you. If you think you just need a tad of space available for downloading games and stuff, go with 40 to 100mb, but if your like me and want EVERYTHING (BUHAHAHHA!) Go with between 250 and 512mb. Keep in mind that when you activate a2sd, you may also want to copy over dalvik cache which will take up a fair amount of space. btw, I never was able to get close to 200mb taken up on this partition when I had a2sd running on my phone..

11.

Select the "Free Space" again from the Volume chart, and click create partition.

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12.

Now we are going to finish this off! For the Size, leave it be! It's the remainder of the drive, which is how much space is left after we have made the previous two partitions. Select the type as "Fat"(yes it is fat32, I don't think the disk utility handles old fat16 anymore..) and select create.

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13.

DONE! Now you have a happy sdcard ready to take on your Dalvik Cache, any programs you download AFTER setting up the card, flashing your rom, and or your swap if you activate it (different roms take different approaches to this but many activate A2SD automatically. Something else of note. 2.2/Froyo roms have built in A2SD-Like functionality that uses the fat32 partition, so the Ext partition is not needed).

Select "Safe Removal" and take out your sdcard and put it into your phone. Your now ready for takeoff :D

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***See your ROM's thread for details on how to activate swap, and move Dalvik cache to the sdcard after this is finished or if it activates automatically.***

14. If your reading this last line, your probably scratching your head thinking to yourself "How the hell do I get out of Ubuntu and back into my Windows system?!". It's simple. Click the Power Icon in the top right corner of the screen, and select "Shutdown" from the list. After it shuts down so far, it should spit the cd out. Take the disc out of the try, and press enter, and it will reboot the system, and you will wake back up in microsoft land and you can forget this ever happened :)