ADB/Auto Partition/DroidSwap How-To Guides

[supr2nr]

Here are some walk through guides on how to install the Google Android Software Development Kit (SDK), Installing the SDK/ADB USB Drivers, Preparing Your SD Card for Swap and App Install Partition (ONLY AVAILABLE FOR UD9.8 AND UD10.0), and Installing and Setting up DroidSwap.

To begin with you will need the following information;
Current Android SDK - Download Here
DroidSwap - Download Here


Now here are the walk through guides:

Section 1:
Installing The Google Android SDK -

1. After downloading the SDK (link above) we want to unzip the file to the root of your hard drive.
   
2. After unzipping the file click on Start --> My Computer (or Computer) --> Local Disk (C
3. You should now see a folder named android-sdk-windows. For simplicity lets rename this folder to android. To do this:
   - Right Click on the folder android-sdk-windows
   - Click on Rename
   - Type android and hit enter
4. Click on Start
5. Right click on My Computer or Computer
6. Click on Properties
7. Click on Advanced System Settings
8. Click on Environmental Variables
   
9. Under System Variables look for the Path variable and double click on it.
   
10. At the end of the text add the following information ;C:\android\tools\
    
11. Click Ok
12. Click Ok again
13. Click Ok again

Section 2:
Installing SDK/ADB USB Drivers -

1. Click Start
2. Click My Computer or Computer
3. Double click on Local Disk ( C: )
4. Double click on android
5. Double click on SDK Setup.exe
   
6. Scroll down the list of packages until you find USB Driver Package Revision 3. Click on it.
7. Click on Accept to the right
8. Click on Install at the bottom.
   
9. Allow it to download and install all updated packages including the USB drivers for debugging mode.
   
10. After it completes close down the SDK Setup program.

TROUBLESHOOTING GUIDE -

If for some reason you run into an error with getting the SDK setup to connect and download, follow these steps to correct.  
1. Double click on SDK Setup.exe
2.  Click on settings in the Android SDK and AVD Manager

3.  Check Force https:// ... sources to be fetched using http:// ...
4.  Click on Installed Packages on the left
5.  Click on Update All and try again.

Section 3:
Running ADB -

1. On your phone open Settings
   
2. Click on Applications
   
3. Click on Development
   
4. Place a check mark next to USB Debugging
5. Hook up your USB Cable from your PC to your Phone
6. Your phone will play your notification tone twice. Once to let you know your in debugging mode and another time to let you know your phone is capable of being mounted to your PC to transfer files.
7. If your PC has an error after hooking up the phone and its looking for the USB drivers, instruct it to look in the C:\android\usb_driver directory. The drivers will be there if they didn't install correctly.
8. On your PC click on Start
9. Click on Run
10. Type cmd and hit enter
11. In the command prompt type cd C:\android\tools and hit enter
    
12. At this point you are now ready to run all ADB shell commands. A good place to go now to gather further information on ADB and what commands you can run would be here. ADB can be used for a multitude of different things. One great thing you can use ADB for is to put new boot animations on your phone. Read this manual over fully to get a better understanding of how to use ADB to it's full potential.
    

Section 4:
Partitioning Your SD Card -

1. Copy ALL the contents of your SD Card to your PC as the steps I will walk you through here will format all your data. You have been warned!!!!
2. After copying all your files from your SD Card to your PC. Unmount the SD Card by pulling down the notification bar and clicking Turn off USB Storage.
3. Allow your phone time to finish preparing the SD Card for use.
   
4. After you see the notification of Preparing the SD Card go away open settings on your phone.
5. Click on SD Card & Phone Storage
   
6. Click Unmount Card
   
7. Click on Format SD Card
   
8. Click on Format SD Card
9. Click on Erase Everything
10. After the phone is successful in formatting your card it will re-mount the SD Card and prepare it for use.
    
11. Re-connect your USB cord from your PC to your phone.
    
12. At the PC click on Start
13. Click on Run
14. Type cmd and hit enter
15. Type cd C:\android\tools\ and hit enter
    
16. Type adb shell and hit enter
17. Type cd /system/xbin and hit enter
18. Type sysrw and hit enter
19. Type chmod 755 parted and hit enter
20. Type chmod 755 mk16sdpart.sh and hit enter
21. Type exit and hit enter
    
22. Reboot the phone into the recovery menu
23. In the recovery menu arrow to Mount Options and hit the camera button to select
24. Arrow down to Unmount /Cache and hit the camera button to select
25. Arrow up to Mount /System and hit the camera button to select
26. Make sure the phone says Mounted Partitions: /system only
    
27. In your command prompt on your pc that should still be open type adb shell and hit enter
28. Type /system/xbin/mk16sdpart.sh and hit enter
29. The system will now create a new partition on your SD Card. The process show three errors but return all of this when complete.
    
30. Type exit and hit enter
31. Type exit and hit enter
32. On your phone hit the power button to return to the main menu
33. Arrow to Reboot System Now and hit the camera button to select
34. Allow your system to reboot.
    
35. You now have a new partition needed for swap space.

Section 5:
Installing DroidSwap -

1. Download the file from above
2. Unzip the file and put the APK on your desktop of your PC
3. Mount your phone to your PC
4. Copy the APK file on your desktop to your SD Card
5. Unmount your SD Card
6. Open a file manager such as Astro
   
7. Navigate to the APK file and click on it.
   
8. Click on install
   
9. Close installer after the process has been completed.

Section 6:
Running DroidSwap -

1. From your App Drawer select DroidSwap
2. Allow it Root Permissions.
   
3. Click your menu button at the bottom of your screen.
   
4. Click configuration.
   
5. Click Advanced Preferences
   
6. Click on Use Swap Partition
   
7. Hit the back button on your phone until you are at the main screen of DroidSwap.
8. At the top left hand side click On
9. You should see similar results
   
10. Congratulations you are now using 256 Megs more memory.

Section 6 Verification Guide:

   
Open DroidSwap on your phone

Click on your menu button at the bottom of your screen and click Configuration.

Click on Info on the pop-up screen.

Information should look similar.

Section 6 Troubleshooting Guide:
**It appears that the fix for DroidSwap failing to start the swap partition resolves itself if you perform these steps in Ultimate Droid 10**

If after setting up DroidSwap and turning it on and you receive the following screen:


Please check the following to make sure it all verifies:
         
Open DroidSwap

Click your menu button and click on Configuration

Click on Settings

Verify your options match these.

Click on Swap Place and verify it matches this.

Click on Advanced Preferences and verify your options match these.

Click on Swap Partition and verify your option matches this.

Section 7:
Reversing The Changes (Optional) -

1. Open DroidSwap on your phone
2. Click off at the top right hand side.
3. Wait for DroidSwap to stop the Swap Partition.
4. Exit DroidSwap.
5. Mount your SD Card to your computer.
6. Copy your files off of your SD Card to your computer to back them up *This is important you will be formatting your card!*
7. Un-mount your SD Card from your computer.
8. Format your SD Card
9. Uninstall DroidSwap

Finishing Notes:
After you have completed your partitioning and copying your files back to your SD Card you will need to check all of your apps that had custom notification tones referencing a tone you had on your SD Card. When you formatted your card the reference for them was deleted.

Good luck and I will try and help the best I can

Download the entire guide as a PDF:

http://rapidshare.com/files/37549631...w_To_Guide.pdf

[tonyr0802]

Can you tell me what is gained by doing this?

[wylie]

According to Blackdroid, it will be very beneficial in UD v10

[supr2nr]

Yah this guide is written in preparation for UD10. Although there would be no disadvantage to not having a larger swap space.

[tonyr0802]

And the post made about it not being good for our stock sd cards, reducing life span? Anyone know more about this?

[JhankG]

How big should the swap partition be? I understand that the commands above take care of that for you, but I am trying something different.

[Slipstream]

Yah this guide is written in preparation for UD10. Although there would be no disadvantage to not having a larger swap space.

...And for us rooting noobs, what does that mean exactly?

[the blackdroid]

AWESOME JOB MAN!!!! Thread has been stickied

[hypura]

I have the following error when I run "SDK Setup.exe":

Failed to fetch URL https://dl-ssl.google.com/android/re...repository.xml, reason: HTTPS SSL error. You might want to force download through HTTP in the settings.

I don't see any packages to install, so I cant do step 6 of Installing SDK USB Drivers.

Can somebody help me?

I'm running Windows Seven, 64-bit using my university's internet connection.

[supr2nr]

In all my years of using Linux I have always setup the swap space to be 1 1/2 times larger than the RAM. So if you had 128 MB of RAM installed you would build your swap space to be 192 MB. In this case the Droid comes with 256 MB of RAM so in my experience you would set the swap space to be 384 MB.

However, others may have different opinions on that matter.