Data2ext2 with Froyo??

[liquidmass]

Hi all,

I was using data2ext (ext4 version) with a 2GB card for a while now under zeffies CM7 ROM. I installed it just fine following this guide .. Right after enabling and rebooting it showed 1GB of space (half of my 2GB sd was dedicated to /data/) and worked a treat. Well I have decided to go back to froyo for personal reasons and choose to go with the Aphrodite 2.0.1 with Xionia 010 kernel (13apr11) ROM and give data2ext (ext2 version a try). I just picked up a class10 8GB card, brand new and made the 1gb ext partition through the recovery menu (Xionia CWMA v1.2518.4 Virgin Edition) Now, it's my understanding that Gingerbread supports ext4 and froyo does not, froyo seemed to work fine before when I was using link2sd and a ext3 partition so I figured froyo would work fine with a ext2 partition (there is no data2ext that supports a ext3 FS). So I figured it would be easy, flashed the Aphrodite ROM, started fine and looks and works just great, downloaded the "data2ext2-v7.zip" from the official XDA thread and flashed that also just fine (all of this was done via Xionia CWMA v1.2518.4 Virgin Edition) "xionia_cwma_12518.4_virgin_proper.rar". I then connected via ADB shell and ran the commands stated on the XDA thread

mke2fs -m0 -b4096 /dev/block/mmcblk0p2
then
data2ext --enable

but after rebooting it still shows only my normal internal storage space under settings... tried doing this over a few times, data2ext is enabled but not "Activated" when i try to re-enable it. After disabling it, re-flashing zip, re-running code in ADB shell I am still getting same result. Here is a copy from my shell promt results...

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>adb remount
remount succeeded

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>adb shell
# mke2fs -m0 -b4096 /dev/block/mmcblk0p2
mke2fs -m0 -b4096 /dev/block/mmcblk0p2
Filesystem label=
OS type: Linux
Block size=4096 (log=2)
Fragment size=4096 (log=2)
62592 inodes, 250050 blocks
0 blocks (0%) reserved for the super user
First data block=0
Maximum filesystem blocks=4194304
8 block groups
32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group
7824 inodes per group
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
        32768, 98304, 163840, 229376
# data2ext --enable
data2ext --enable
Enabling Data2EXT...
Please reboot your phone for changes to take effect...
# reboot
reboot

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>

so as you can see it seems like it's making the sd-ext into a ext2 FS ok, and enabling data2ext ok, just not "Activating" it and not working. I though it might be from the sd-ext already being mounted before I ran the commands, so I tried "umounting" it with these commands in ADB shell, if you notice, I tried all the possible methods I could find to unmount the sd-ext, I'm guessing it's not even mounted and there is something else going on here...

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>adb shell
# mount|egrep mmcblk0p2
mount|egrep mmcblk0p2
# umount /sd-ext
umount /sd-ext
failed.
# umount /sd-ext/
umount /sd-ext/
failed.
# umount /dev/block/mmcblk0p2
umount /dev/block/mmcblk0p2
failed.
# su
su
# umount /dev/block/mmcblk0p2
umount /dev/block/mmcblk0p2
failed.
# umount /sd-ext
umount /sd-ext
failed.
# mount|egrep mmcblk0p2
mount|egrep mmcblk0p2
# umount /dev/block/mmcblk0p2
umount /dev/block/mmcblk0p2
failed.
# umount /dev/block/mmcblk0p2
umount /dev/block/mmcblk0p2
failed.

It's about 4:20am, so I'm done for tonight. If anyone has a clue as to what's going on here I would love to get it working. Data2ext worked really, really well under CM7. It would be so nice to have that space and performance gain!

update#1: I'm guessing ext2/3/4 support falls upon the Kernel in terms of support and implementation. I know when I was using Rodimus ROM I was able to use Link2SD fine with a ext3 partition, but rather than creating the partition through the recovery menu I did it on my XP machine using MiniTool Partition Wizard. Link2SD allowed me to choose from a few options like "use sdcard's FAT filesystem, use ext3, etc..." perhaps I'll try flashing the 013 Xionia Kernel Mmarz posted recently for the V's.....

thank you!

 

[Delphis]

I never did get data2ext to work with my Froyo phone, which was why I went to the alternative method I outlined in the 'how to use large sd cards ..blah blah' thread; that you put in the wiki.

 

[Kreatur3]

I couldn't get data2ext to work either. I just use link2sd and it works perfect. I believe the kernel is the part that decides which format it supports. I think that the xionia kernels, if it is the kernel, supports only fat32, ext2, ext3 as I have gotten 2 and 3 to work with my rodimus rom. ext4 works with gb. I'm a noob still so it could be the rom that decides what ext to support, I'm not sure. Just figured I'd share my limited experience with it.

 

[mmarz]

Use a 3.X CWM recovery to partition and format the card. You'll also need a 3.x version to make and restore backups. Once you install the rom, you don't need CWMA v1.2518.4 anymore unless you want to flash another zip using amend scripting. You can use you a flake flash of CWM recovery instead of replacing your recovery: [Recovery] Customized CWM 3.0.1.3 fake-flash with ext4 support (03/06/2011) - xda-developers

This has been my experience. For some reason, the partitions that CWMA makes are not usable. And when I manually make ext3 partitions on my desktop, CWMA can't mount them or back them up.

 

[Kreatur3]

Use a 3.X CWM recovery to partition and format the card. You'll also need a 3.x version to make and restore backups. Once you install the rom, you don't need CWMA v1.2518.4 anymore unless you want to flash another zip using amend scripting. You can use you a flake flash of CWM recovery instead of replacing your recovery: [Recovery] Customized CWM 3.0.1.3 fake-flash with ext4 support (03/06/2011) - xda-developers

This has been my experience. For some reason, the partitions that CWMA makes are not usable. And when I manually make ext3 partitions on my desktop, CWMA can't mount them or back them up.

I use CWMA v1.2518.6. You are correct in that .4 wouldn't work properly but .6 does. Using .6 I am able to partition my sd card and use link2sd properly.

 

[Delphis]

I use CWMA v1.2518.6. You are correct in that .4 wouldn't work properly but .6 does. Using .6 I am able to partition my sd card and use link2sd properly.

Same here. I use an ext2 partition. ext3 is just ext2 + journaling, now for flash memory storage you turn off journaling*, so there's not any difference going to ext3. ext4 is newer, supports extents, very large filesystems and is less tested. In my opinion it matters little for the small filesystem you're using on a flash card. I've been using ext2 filesystems for the last 15 years and they work well. One thing I am wanting to do is make a script that sits before the one created by link2sd and run e2fsck to make sure the filesystem is mountable before trying it. I have noticed that sometimes after a nandroid restore it is not cleanly unmounted and I need to eject the microsd card, put it in a usb reader and check it using my laptop (Ubuntu 10.10).


* By flash storage I mean the basic memory cards, SSDs are in another class since they use wear-levelling and support journaling filesystems just great. My laptop uses a 60GB SSD with ext4. My fileservers though (at work and at home) use ext3.