HTC One: resetting phone to gain back memory doesn't seem to be working

[airyip77]

I just bought a used HTC One Developers edition 64GB phone. The previous owner put CWM on there and had InsertCoin 3.0-3 on there. Before giving it to me, He said he cleared it and I had to go through the initial setup (choose language, enter accounts, normal stuff when u first get a phone). I put the latest Android Revolution HD 51.0 on there with KitKat 4.4.2 and Sense 5.5 on there. The ROM version is 4.19.401.8.

Anyway, so when I looked at the settings under storage, It says under the "Other" category that 19.59 GB's are used. this is before I install anything so there's nothing on the phone at this point. I've tried multiple times to factory reset through CWM, then through TWRP (both latest versions) to no avail for releasing that 19.56GBs. I cleared the dalvik cache, the normal cache, and factory reset. I tried scouring the internet and this site for answers, but haven't been able to find anything. If this has already been answered, sorry for reasking but can you point me in the right direction? I find it pretty hard to believe that android (ARHD) or any image for that matter would take up ~20GB of data...

Originally the "Other" folder took up even more memory, and as I looked through the phone i found that there were a whole bunch of backups that the previous owner did...so I deleted those through CWM and regained about 4-5GB. There's also a TitaniumBackup folder I found which has about 700MB worth of data. AAAnd, looking through the folders everywhere i found a bunch of old photos and other stuff the person didn't get rid of by doing a factory reset. So I've gotten to the point where I think I've safely done what I can through the bootrom (CWM & TWRP) options, and I've deleted what folders and misc. data that belonged to the previous owner manually through ES File Explorer, but the rest of the files I don't know what is safe to delete seeing that they're probably other system or something files that may affect something else I'm not aware of.

What other options do i have to free up that 19.56GB of "Other" data? If there's other info you would like please let me know. This is my first android phone and i'm switching over from iPhone, so sorry if I'm asking some dumb questions...but again, I tried for a few days by playing with the phone and trying to search for answers but only found the generic "reset from your bootrom, not the system settings if you rooted", etc type of posts. Thanks in advance for reading this and any help!

 

[mcox1124]

Re: resetting phone to gain back memory doesn't seem to be working

Most likely there is a bunch of stuff in the internal storage you can delete. Go to /sdcard and look at the file size. Most likely that's where you'll see most of usage. Scour the folder and delete whatever.

I do believe you can wipe everything in this folder, but make a backup to your computer just in case.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

 

[mcox1124]

Re: resetting phone to gain back memory doesn't seem to be working

To add to that... The reason I'm suggesting this is because all the resets you mentioned don't actually touch the sdcard folder.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

 

[UJ95x]

Re: resetting phone to gain back memory doesn't seem to be working

To add to that... The reason I'm suggesting this is because all the resets you mentioned don't actually touch the sdcard folder.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

The one doesn't have an SD card. Even if the internal storage is emulating and SD card, that would be included in the factory reset

Sent from my Galaxy S4 running SlimKat 4.4.2

 

[mcox1124]

Re: resetting phone to gain back memory doesn't seem to be working

The one doesn't have an SD card. Even if the internal storage is emulating and SD card, that would be included in the factory reset

Sent from my Galaxy S4 running SlimKat 4.4.2

The folder is called "sdcard", and it is internal storage, but treated like a regular sd card. I've done factory resets, and I've even wiped the OS off my device, but the contents of this folder remained intact.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

 

[benny3]

Re: resetting phone to gain back memory doesn't seem to be working

I would RUU so everything gets formatted and the internal sdcard is only emulated

 

[airyip77]

Re: resetting phone to gain back memory doesn't seem to be working

ok yah, i've gone through manually to delete whatever I could, and I freed up about another 3GB's of data, but that was about it. I'd tried different ROM's as well and always did a wipe and clean (either manually or through the provided install options) and it never helped to free the "Other" Space.

If I RUU will I need to re-root my device again and go through the whole process of rooting it, TWRP/CWM, then install custom ROM again? But this will at least put my phone back into factory state where it clears EVERYTHING and let me start from scratch again right? So if I root/rom it again afterwards and still have the "other" folder issue, it will tell me that the issue of a certain ROM taking up all that space cannot be solved?

btw, thanks everyone for your input. It's much appreciated!

 

[benny3]

Re: resetting phone to gain back memory doesn't seem to be working

ok yah, i've gone through manually to delete whatever I could, and I freed up about another 3GB's of data, but that was about it. I'd tried different ROM's as well and always did a wipe and clean (either manually or through the provided install options) and it never helped to free the "Other" Space.

If I RUU will I need to re-root my device again and go through the whole process of rooting it, TWRP/CWM, then install custom ROM again? But this will at least put my phone back into factory state where it clears EVERYTHING and let me start from scratch again right? So if I root/rom it again afterwards and still have the "other" folder issue, it will tell me that the issue of a certain ROM taking up all that space cannot be solved?

btw, thanks everyone for your input. It's much appreciated!

Yes a RUU will wipe your phone clean. If it were i would and start from scratch as you you dont know what the previous owner really did

 

[xceeder]

Re: resetting phone to gain back memory doesn't seem to be working

ok yah, i've gone through manually to delete whatever I could, and I freed up about another 3GB's of data, but that was about it. I'd tried different ROM's as well and always did a wipe and clean (either manually or through the provided install options) and it never helped to free the "Other" Space.

If I RUU will I need to re-root my device again and go through the whole process of rooting it, TWRP/CWM, then install custom ROM again? But this will at least put my phone back into factory state where it clears EVERYTHING and let me start from scratch again right? So if I root/rom it again afterwards and still have the "other" folder issue, it will tell me that the issue of a certain ROM taking up all that space cannot be solved?

btw, thanks everyone for your input. It's much appreciated!

The files in 'other' might be nandroid backups go into your your files and look for the folder twrp or cm and delete the contents I'm sure you've already tried this but it's worth a shot..

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

 

[airyip77]

Re: resetting phone to gain back memory doesn't seem to be working

The files in 'other' might be nandroid backups go into your your files and look for the folder twrp or cm and delete the contents I'm sure you've already tried this but it's worth a shot..

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

I went back to look one more time, but i think i got it all, thx tho.

- - - Updated - - -

Another question for doing the RUU: I went to the HTC dev bootloader section and found that for the HTC One Developers edition, there's 2 versions of RUU Regions that I think may apply to me...There's US, and WWE. What's the difference between these two? http://www.htcdev.com/devcenter/downloads

I use AT&T, but there wasn't one specific for the Dev edition, so when i searched online i found that people looked under a carrier with "Brightstar US". not sure what that is, any idea? Also, the one with Region=USA (I'm in the USA if u didn't already come to that conclusion) is for Android Version 4.1, but the WWE (whatever that stands for) is for Android version 4.3. Do you guys know which one I should be using or what the difference is between these two RUU besides the WWE one being more up to date?

 

[benny3]

Re: resetting phone to gain back memory doesn't seem to be working

I went back to look one more time, but i think i got it all, thx tho.

- - - Updated - - -

Another question for doing the RUU: I went to the HTC dev bootloader section and found that for the HTC One Developers edition, there's 2 versions of RUU Regions that I think may apply to me...There's US, and WWE. What's the difference between these two? HTCdev - HTC Kernel Source Code and Binaries

I use AT&T, but there wasn't one specific for the Dev edition, so when i searched online i found that people looked under a carrier with "Brightstar US". not sure what that is, any idea? Also, the one with Region=USA (I'm in the USA if u didn't already come to that conclusion) is for Android Version 4.1, but the WWE (whatever that stands for) is for Android version 4.3. Do you guys know which one I should be using or what the difference is between these two RUU besides the WWE one being more up to date?

Use Brightstar Us for AT&T the WWE is for Sprint

 

[airyip77]

Re: resetting phone to gain back memory doesn't seem to be working

Ok, I had a bit of trouble resetting it, but finally got it. I had to revert back to 4.2.2 (for revone S-OFF), change the S-ON to S-OFF, and then I could RUU it. Immediately after it completed, I checked the "Other" storage size, and it was surprisingly 10GB! I'm was pretty shocked Android took up that much room after a factory reset / RUU. I checked the system through ES File Explorer and most of the previous contents seemed like they had been cleared (at least in the "sd card" area, even though it was just internal memory). I guess I'll just have to deal with Android being a memory hog at this point.

Thanks for all the help guys, definitely appreciated all your input!