Unpartition SD Card

[Fatman]

parted /dev/mmcblk0 mkpartfs primary fat32 0s -1s

Can the SD card be formatted as ext4 under Froyo or does it only recognise fat32?

[EDIT]

nm, it was quicker to try it. Froyo didn't recognise my 4GB class 6 uSD card when formatted with ext4; it seems ext support has gone in Froyo. :/

[naman919]

Paragon 11 didn't work. Has this been figured out?

I'm in the same situation as the OP.

[Fatman]

Paragon 11 didn't work. Has this been figured out?
I'm in the same situation as the OP.

It's not a problem. You need to have the right mental image of partitions and file systems. Sometimes we get stuck on terminology. Try this: the micro SD card is like a large storage space, the partition is like a sealed-off part of that space, and the file system is like a toolbox that completely fills the partition. Your files are like individual tools in the toolbox.

The problem here is the storage space is small. You must reclaim the sealed-off part that you don't use any more. When you're done with that, you need to see about a bigger toolbox.

There are two ways to do it:
1. remove all the tools to another toolbox somewhere else, completely clean out the entire storage space, create a new sealed-off area and toolbox, and put all the tools back. or
2. merge the sealed-off areas and grow the toolbox.

It's up to you which method to use. The first is simpler and quicker but means you have to move a lot of tools around. The second is complicated and takes longer but leaves all your tools as they were. Whatever you decide, take a backup of both partitions before you start messing, so you can restore and start again if things go wrong.

For method 1, the steps are: delete both partitions, create one partition (primary), format new partition (fat32). For method 2, the steps are: delete one partition (ext4), grow remaining partition. (Don't worry about deleting or growing filesystems, the partitions will take care of that.)

Any of the tools mentioned (gparted, cfdisk, Paragon) can do these tasks and usually they're quite intuitive. If you can't do them all at once, try them one at a time.

Hope this helps.

[Se7enLC]

Paragon 11 didn't work. Has this been figured out?

I'm in the same situation as the OP.

Pretty sure 14.8GB is the correct size. If you reformat the card using the droid, it will repartition back to a single partition as well. Try it out - use ROM Manager to partition for Apps2SD and look at the reported size, then reformat it from Settings | SD Card and see what size is listed.

[naman919]

It's not a problem. You need to have the right mental image of partitions and file systems.

*facepalm*

I know how to use a partition manager/ADB/RM. Thanks for the layman's terms, but i understand completely how to utilize the utilities. What happened, which i should have explained more, was that Paragon only saw one partition of 14.8Gb on the SD Card. Per the post below, it looks like that's the full size of the 16Gb card. (Which is weird)

I didn't look through the ADB and ROM Manager instructions, just the paragon suggestion for simplicity. I only really tried for five minutes last night. thanks.

Pretty sure 14.8GB is the correct size. If you reformat the card using the droid, it will repartition back to a single partition as well. Try it out - use ROM Manager to partition for Apps2SD and look at the reported size, then reformat it from Settings | SD Card and see what size is listed.

Ok. i used Clockword Recovery to delete the ext partition on the SD Card and then reformatted the whole thing. 14.8Gb is really the full size?

This is a second micro SC card I have that i used with a ROM that used apps2sd. Now i'm using it as expanded storage in a Sansa Clip+ mp3 player. Trying to get all the space I can on it.

so 14.8Gb is the max? If so, i've recovered all of it onto one partition.

[Se7enLC]

Ok. i used Clockword Recovery to delete the ext partition on the SD Card and then reformatted the whole thing. 14.8Gb is really the full size?

I meant partition so that you HAVE the ext partition, and then look to see how large it lists (14.3, 13.8, something like that), and then RE-partition back to a single and see that it goes back up to 14.8. I believe that is the case.

Google for "14gb 16gb" to see what I mean. FAT32 is pretty inefficient at using space on large drives, so the actually formatted capacity will be much lower than advertised (extra space taken up by the allocation table, etc)

[naman919]

Ok. i used Clockword Recovery to delete the ext partition on the SD Card and then reformatted the whole thing. 14.8Gb is really the full size?

I meant partition so that you HAVE the ext partition, and then look to see how large it lists (14.3, 13.8, something like that), and then RE-partition back to a single and see that it goes back up to 14.8. I believe that is the case.

Google for "14gb 16gb" to see what I mean. FAT32 is pretty inefficient at using space on large drives, so the actually formatted capacity will be much lower than advertised (extra space taken up by the allocation table, etc)

I did it a while ago, weeks ago, just found it to put it in my Sansa Clip+.

14.8Gb out of 16Gb is 92.5% efficiency. wow. I know fat32 sucks but jebus.

Anywho. Just wanted to know the full (actual) capacity. Thanks!

[Se7enLC]

14.8Gb out of 16Gb is 92.5% efficiency. wow. I know fat32 sucks but jebus.

Actually, now that I look into it more, the problem isn't with the filesystem at all. It's the marketing!

A "16GB" card is actually 16 billion bytes, not 16GB. 16000000000/1024/1024/1024 is approximately 14.9GB
16000000000/1024/1024/1024 - Google Search

[naman919]

yep. i just thought about that. bits/bytes. ha. stupid marketing.

[naman919]

ok. problem.

i deleted the partition on the sd card using paragon, but it won't let me create a new one.

The card has no partitions and therefore cannot be formatted by anything. err.....?