Removing stock apps...benefits? - Desire General

Hi all, hopefully some of the more knowledgeable Android tweakers venture out of the Dev forums for a peek here and render some help. I know they get rather pissy if you post questions in there.
I figured I could free up some space if I removed stock apps I didn't use. I have a full licence for Docs To-Go so having QuickOffice pre-installed is a pain.
I followed a guide to move the .apk and .odex from /system/app to a spare SD card and looking at the files in total they combine to be about 6MB in size.
The funny thing is after a restart of my phone I'm no better off in terms of storage space...in fact I lost a couple of MBs!
So, for those in the know...what really IS the deal with the internal storage space?

Aitese said:
Hi all, hopefully some of the more knowledgeable Android tweakers venture out of the Dev forums for a peek here and render some help. I know they get rather pissy if you post questions in there.
I figured I could free up some space if I removed stock apps I didn't use. I have a full licence for Docs To-Go so having QuickOffice pre-installed is a pain.
I followed a guide to move the .apk and .odex from /system/app to a spare SD card and looking at the files in total they combine to be about 6MB in size.
The funny thing is after a restart of my phone I'm no better off in terms of storage space...in fact I lost a couple of MBs!
So, for those in the know...what really IS the deal with the internal storage space?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
there is few benefits to removing stock apps, stock apps are stored on the /system/ partition as you know, the device dosent use this for anything except the os, stock app and other system related items like, .lib files and the kernel, the portion we have as useable data is on the /data/ partiton, so removing apps from /system/ just free's up space on that partiton.
now here are two possible benifits, i removed most of the stock apps, and media files from system to free up enough space, i then did a nandroid backup, and flashed the alpharev sence hboot, giving my device there new partiton tables, it reduce the size of the system partiton, giving me a much bigger /cache/ and a bit more space on /data/ or if you dont want to remove as menny stock apps as me, you can just remove a few, see how much space is in /system/ then using the tut in development, modify you own partition table, removing the free space from /system/ and adding it to /data/, you need s-off to do all this

^ Is it just me or is that very complicated

Thanks AndroHero, that's cleared it up quite a bit.

Related

Deleting Stock WinMo 6.1 ROM Files

Is there any way to Remove some Stock WinMo 6.1 ROM Files ? There are a few Pictures that I don't need in the Windows Folder (Album Sample) and they range between 412k ~ 842k each so there is a couple Megs of Storage Space that could be gained by Removing them any Info is appreciated.
Thanks
LGK1 said:
Is there any way to Remove some Stock WinMo 6.1 ROM Files ? There are a few Pictures that I don't need in the Windows Folder (Album Sample) and they range between 412k ~ 842k each so there is a couple Megs of Storage Space that could be gained by Removing them any Info is appreciated.
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Those pictures are save to remove or relocate (backup/save on your PC or whatever)...when you're looking at them in file explorer in the phone, just press+hold on any of the file names, and a menu will pop up with the option to delete.
sirphunkee said:
Those pictures are save to remove or relocate (backup/save on your PC or whatever)...when you're looking at them in file explorer in the phone, just press+hold on any of the file names, and a menu will pop up with the option to delete.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But that's where I run into the Problem I have Resco Explorer installed and get a Message that says:
File '\Windows\Album Sample_01.jpg'
is in ROM memory!
You cannot delete it.
I tried thru regular File Explorer and the Delete Option is grayed out......
Yeah you know what, I had deleted all those pics right when I first got the phone, via the album view I think...but obviously (now) it retains a copy of them in that odd protected status you discovered. Looking at the pics in the /windows folder now, there's even some of those "album sample" ones that I've never seen before.
Sorry, I thought I'd already removed them from my phone cuz I didn't see them anywhere I'd expect to Some of the chefs around here will probably know if there's a way to trim that fat out of the windows folder, that's the kind of thing they're good at when assembling ROMs.
It's very simple people.
ROM stands for Read ONLY Memory. Think about what that means.
The only way to change what is on your ROM is by flashing, or I suppose you could use a hammer.
That's it.
dik23 said:
It's very simple people.
ROM stands for Read ONLY Memory. Think about what that means.
The only way to change what is on your ROM is by flashing, or I suppose you could use a hammer.
That's it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And besides, removing these files from ROM would not free up space in RAM! Short answer, they're not taking up space that would be useful to you otherwise.
Ok then, I understand if the files in there are just unable to be deleted, but...
-If it's truly "ROM" (read-ONLY memory) on the phone, then how can it be flashed to a different one? In other words...the ROM image may indeed be read-only, but the physical memory it sits on isn't, correct?
-Doesn't the ROM image occupy a set amount of the on-board storage memory, that would otherwise be free for local storage? Therefore, some cooked ROM's eat up more/less space than others, affecting how much room is left for the user to store files etc, n'est pas? I think the OP's purpose was to try to free up storage space if possible, not just RAM overhead.
Again, I get it if the files baked into a ROM image can't be deleted once it's cooked...I'm just thinking that a ROM without unneccessary files in it WILL save usable space on the phone.
Read Only Memory
ROM is "usually" only ever read. In the day to day use of the device you are reading data from it. Kind of like a printed page from a laser printer
When you flash the ROM, you are actually writing to it, like when the laser printer prints the page. To get a new page, you need a laser printer. To get a new rom, you have to have a program to flash it.
After it is done printing, nothing changes on the page and it can only be read.
Same thing with a ROM, the amount of space will not change until it is flashed.
"-If it's truly "ROM" (read-ONLY memory) on the phone, then how can it be flashed to a different one? In other words...the ROM image may indeed be read-only, but the physical memory it sits on isn't, correct?"
Yes and no
A more accurate term would be Read Only Memory That Can Still Be Written To, But Isn't Very Often.
ROM has a better feng shui
"-Doesn't the ROM image occupy a set amount of the on-board storage memory, that would otherwise be free for local storage? Therefore, some cooked ROM's eat up more/less space than others, affecting how much room is left for the user to store files etc, n'est pas? I think the OP's purpose was to try to free up storage space if possible, not just RAM overhead."
No, there is RAM and ROM, these are separate, and have different functions.
"Again, I get it if the files baked into a ROM image can't be deleted once it's cooked...I'm just thinking that a ROM without unneccessary files in it WILL save usable space on the phone."
No, a ROM without unneccessary files in it WILL save usable ROM storage space.
I hate to say it, but hit the wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Read-only_memory
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory
Once you understand the types of ram, and how and more importantly WHY they are used, this will make sense.
Cingularly Twisted said:
A more accurate term would be Read Only Memory That Can Still Be Written To, But Isn't Very Often.
ROM has a better feng shui
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LOL great analogy, thanks
That's what I suspected, but just wanted to be sure!

[Q] Any uses for /system folder? (Rooted Phone)

I've a strange question that might or might belong in the development thread, but figured since it's a question, I'll try here first.
I'm using a Stock DeOxed Rooted Rom on my EVO.
I recently installed a few more apps and saw this pesky little warning about low on space.
When I went into my "SystemPanel" app to see how much space was left exactly and noticed that my /data folder only had around 30megs out of it's 428M available.
Ok.. time to delete some apps I thought, but then I noticed that my /system folder (Where I presume pre-installed apps live) had almost 1/3 of it's space still available (115 out of 350megs available).
So I'm wondering.....
Is there some method that I can use to install Apps directly to this folder instead of the standard /data that apps appear to go to when installed?
Is it as simple as moving the APK file with Root Explorer, or are there some under the hood items in apps that prevent this sort of thing?
I've a few rather large apps that I cannot move to the SD card due to widget problems and the like but would be perfect for the system folder if I can find a way to move them there easily.
Thoughts?
DroidGnome said:
I've a strange question that might or might belong in the development thread, but figured since it's a question, I'll try here first.
I'm using a Stock DeOxed Rooted Rom on my EVO.
I recently installed a few more apps and saw this pesky little warning about low on space.
When I went into my "SystemPanel" app to see how much space was left exactly and noticed that my /data folder only had around 30megs out of it's 428M available.
Ok.. time to delete some apps I thought, but then I noticed that my /system folder (Where I presume pre-installed apps live) had almost 1/3 of it's space still available (115 out of 350megs available).
So I'm wondering.....
Is there some method that I can use to install Apps directly to this folder instead of the standard /data that apps appear to go to when installed?
Is it as simple as moving the APK file with Root Explorer, or are there some under the hood items in apps that prevent this sort of thing?
I've a few rather large apps that I cannot move to the SD card due to widget problems and the like but would be perfect for the system folder if I can find a way to move them there easily.
Thoughts?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
/system/app is where system apps are kept. If I remember correctly, any app can be installed into there, but you have to do through flashing an update.zip if I'm remembering properly. You may be able to take the apk that's in /data/app for the app you want to move and move it to /system/app, but I'm not sure if that will work properly or not. Someone who cooks ROMs might know more.
Also, you can partition your sd card and use true apps2sd with most ROMs. Its a little bit of work and will shorten the life of your card, but that gives you a lot more room if you need it.
I don't know that there's a way to move user apps to system. It's very possible there is a way, I've just never seen any posts about it. Apps 2 SD is usually the way to go.
ps. 30 megs?!?! Geez, how many apps do you have?
Sent from my SUPERSONIC
Easy peasy
First, use a true apk backup tool to backup e apk files you want to move. Titanium backup will NOT work because it compresses and distorts, and we need true apk files. I recommend file manager by adao team. Just go to applications, check what you want, and hit backup. Next, get the apk files on your computer by mounting sd and copying files from backups folder. You will lose all app data, but what can you do? Next, adb push the files to system app folder while in recovery mode (just say so if you don't know how to do this and i will tell you) and reboot. Done. Tell me if it works well.
By the way, 30 megs???
Doesn't froyo install to the sdcard if you tell it to?
I thought a2sd was obsolete
You can put apps there after changing the folder's permissions but I wouldn't recommend it. Just not a good idea to put regular apps there.
Just install them to your SD card instead
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
go into the android app manager and go through all your programs and click on move to sd card...
they will all still occupy some space on your nand, but not nearly as much.
Thanks for the advice, I thought it might not be as easy as moving them, oh well, just seems a shame for there to be over 100 megs I cannot do anything with.
I already had moved all I could to the SD card prior to posting this, but thanks for that advice as well, I'm sure others forget they can do that with Froyo.
As for the 30 megs I had left.. we'll it's back up to about 70 free which should be plenty for a while. (Remember we only have about 420 to start with).
Some of the big ones which could not be moved to the SD card are:
Swype (Deleted, took over 17megs)
TouchDown (12 megs.. must keep for tasks sync sadly)
Google Maps update (7.6 megs)
Documents to go (8megs)
A few various games that cannot yet be moved to the SD card at around 5megs each..
The rest are just lots of little apps.. I'm sort of an app junkie You should have seen my old Palm Centro... it was amazing!
According to Titanium, I currently have 194 'User apps', though I think a few are simply widgets, icon packs and the like.

[Q] Removing stock apps to save space?

I noticed some threads for different phones with regard to this but didn't see an answer for the EVO so I'll ask here.
I would like more space on my phone as I'm tired of seeing the little low space hard drive icon. I've already moved all the apps to SD via app2SD. I was thinking of installing the latest rooted stock Sprint ROM (3.70.651.1) and then deleting the stock apps that I do not use but I have read elsewhere that this will, in fact, not free up any more space for applications. Is this true?
If so, can I get a recommendation for the "most stock" ROM that's stripped of the Sprint added apps. If it has some ubiquitous and useful add-ons than that is OK
Thanks!
There's a couple of ROMs in the Dev section that are optimized for speed, and I'd recommend those. A lot of them have them already removed, but you can remove the ones that aren't
Thanks for the response... I apologize if I didn't state my question correctly. I understand that I can remove the apps that I want if I'm rooted, what I'm not sure about is if that space will be made available for other applications when I do remove the programs (in ROM) that I do not want.
Hope that clarifies the question.
Wayno-san said:
Thanks for the response... I apologize if I didn't state my question correctly. I understand that I can remove the apps that I want if I'm rooted, what I'm not sure about is if that space will be made available for other applications when I do remove the programs (in ROM) that I do not want.
Hope that clarifies the question.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A small amount of space will be freed. If you move Dalvik Cache to the Cache partition this will free up a lot more space than removing apps.
leenypost said:
A small amount of space will be freed. If you move Dalvik Cache to the Cache partition this will free up a lot more space than removing apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That sounds intriguing... can you point me to a "how-to" link or someplace where I can learn more about how to do this?
Wayno-san said:
That sounds intriguing... can you point me to a "how-to" link or someplace where I can learn more about how to do this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Search on XDA for "move dalvik to cache". There should be a zip file you can download that will do it for you.
Thanks again for the info. I did as you suggested and now have 266 MB left where before I had less than 50. Using ap2sd with Azrael ROM and do far have not run into any issues. Keeping my fingers crossed.
Note, however, that most of the stock apps are in your system partition. The free space you care about for installing apps is in the data partition. So removing them doesn't free up the space you care about. Even on ROMs that have removed them, I'm not sure if they actually do (or can) resize the partitions to give you the space where it counts (/data).
You can, however, move apps to the system partition if you want. I've done this with some of the updates to stock apps -- GMail, Qik, and Flash, for example. That's freed some space up.
bkrodgers said:
You can, however, move apps to the system partition if you want. I've done this with some of the updates to stock apps -- GMail, Qik, and Flash, for example. That's freed some space up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This sounds like it is worthwhile to learn how to do. Is there a thread or program that you could point me to for some guidance on how to do this?
I've also read that ap2sd can move programs that have not yet been modified to enable the regular android 2.2 "move to SD" function to work; but after flashing that app and using it to move the Dalvik cache I do see any obvious front-end for it.
Wayno-san said:
This sounds like it is worthwhile to learn how to do. Is there a thread or program that you could point me to for some guidance on how to do this?
I've also read that ap2sd can move programs that have not yet been modified to enable the regular android 2.2 "move to SD" function to work; but after flashing that app and using it to move the Dalvik cache I do see any obvious front-end for it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Basically you just move the APK file from /data/app to /system/app using ES File Explorer (need to enable root mode in prefs) or Root Explorer. Or you can do it with adb or even terminal emulator on the phone if you prefer. I think Titanium Backup Pro (the paid version) has an ability to do this too. You also want to look in /system/app and see if there's an older version under some other name that should be deleted. Titanium Pro may handle this part for you automatically as well. I haven't bought it yet, so I'm not sure (though I plan to, the free version is great and the paid version adds some nice things). I think you can still get updates from the market after you've done this, but the update will go to /data/app. You'd need to move it and delete the prior version again after receiving such an update.
I haven't enabled a2sd yet. My understanding is that it's not so much something you need a front end for. Once you set it up, that's just where your apps go. You don't move your apps to the sd card manually. I could be wrong. I used whatever form of a2sd was available for XDAndroid on my old Touch, but that's been a little while and the DarkStar A2SD that people use might be a little different than that method. I haven't done it at all yet on the evo.
Thank you sir, that's very good info and I'll give it a shot.

[Q] System maintainance, SD card decluttering.

From what I've read Android pretty much looks after itself but just wondering if there's any system maintainance that should be done from time to time? (i.e is defraging the SD card OK? Any other things worth doing?)
I've stuck with the stock 2.21 ROM but after installing JIT/Deodexed, debloating, overclocking, and scaleing the phone is running along sweetly. Thing is, about 2 1/2gigs of my 16G card is taken up with various System Recovery backups and I've got .apk files in various places. Can the .apks all be put into the same directory and if so where? I've backed the goaprev folder up to my PC and was going to delete all but the last backup from the phone. Basically, I don't want to do anything stupid now the phones nicely sorted out! Thanks in advance.
Since the seeking time on flash memory is so close to instant that fragmentation does not cause any noticable delays, I see no reason to defragment internal memory or my microSD card.
Furthermore, defragmenting a flash disk/drive, a device with a limited amount of writes, may actually shorten its life-span. In that sense, it may actually be a bad idea.
Backing up is always a good recommendation, when working with any electronic system
Thanks. Any idea if it's ok to move the .apk files? (Could be my OCD but I like things tidy!!) Also, wondering what the situation with ota system updates now I've hacked the phone?...leave well alone or okay? Cheers.
Move apk files - from where to where? Out of /system/app? You could move apks you are certain of you will never need, but the only thing you will gain is - at most - a few megabytes of free space. There's no real performance gain to be had, that I've experienced, just the possibility of losing hair if you remove/rename something you need.
As for OTA updates, you can rename FOTA.apk - that's the package that takes care of those updates.
Got several .apks in the root of my sd card- quite happy to leave them there, I guess and I should avoid ota updates...also is it worth clearing out caches once in a while? Just looking to keep my phone as streamlined and snappy as pos without screwing anything up! I'm new to android so still learning the ropes ! Thanks again
Ah yes, apk files are just installation files. You can move them where-ever you wish, though I would not move them to internal storage.
I do not clear out cache, as I prefer features I use regularly, to be cached already, instead of having to load them from scratch. I have not noticed any performance degradation because of it.
And since I do not share my phone with others, there is no privacy issue to speak of. I do not mind sharing my browsing/twitter/market/auto-complete behaviour with myself.

Making a bigger /data partition for apps

I've been wanting to make a larger /data partition on a Droid Incredible. I mean, after all, it comes with a lot of storage. But there is not nearly enough for apps. Sure. I can use my SD card. But unless there is something I'm not aware of, you can only install some apps to the SD and even when you do, pieces of that app still exist in /data. But what's even worse is the fact that I already use my SD card for movies and videos and such and I just don't really use the unclaimed space of which there is plenty, in the phone, for that sort of thing and yet I can't use it to install apps. I haven't found too much on this topic outside of using App2SD. I did find a lot of talk of using parted and even gparted. But this talk is generally about partitioning your SD card. If I were to use parted or gparted to resize the /data partition at the expense of another partition's space and I did it properly, would the Android system not boot because of it? And if this is doable, is there a better, easier way to do it than using parted and adb or gparted? Also, is there a guide for resizing your /data partition? I could probably survive without one if I had to but it would really be helpful just in case there are some big DO NOT DO's that should be avoided that aren't obvious. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
enigmatl said:
I've been wanting to make a larger /data partition on a Droid Incredible. I mean, after all, it comes with a lot of storage. But there is not nearly enough for apps. Sure. I can use my SD card. But unless there is something I'm not aware of, you can only install some apps to the SD and even when you do, pieces of that app still exist in /data. But what's even worse is the fact that I already use my SD card for movies and videos and such and I just don't really use the unclaimed space of which there is plenty, in the phone, for that sort of thing and yet I can't use it to install apps. I haven't found too much on this topic outside of using App2SD. I did find a lot of talk of using parted and even gparted. But this talk is generally about partitioning your SD card. If I were to use parted or gparted to resize the /data partition at the expense of another partition's space and I did it properly, would the Android system not boot because of it? And if this is doable, is there a better, easier way to do it than using parted and adb or gparted? Also, is there a guide for resizing your /data partition? I could probably survive without one if I had to but it would really be helpful just in case there are some big DO NOT DO's that should be avoided that aren't obvious. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
theres around 780mb in there thats not enough?
JoelZ9614 said:
theres around 780mb in there thats not enough?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
He's talking about /data/data/ which is like 150mb, I use the NotEnoughSpace app it lets you store data on cache, emmc, sd card, you should check it out.
Well, I messed with notenoughspace too which was my eason for posting. This was the app that made me say enough is enough, can I just resize /data/data?.
-1- So much space on the incredible is going to waste while programs such as these would have me put apps on the SD where I really do want space for my other stuff like music and movies.
-2- Unless I missed a button or option, NotEnoughSpace came off as annoying to me. I would go into apps and wait for a minute for it to scan every time I do it and then I pick an app, for example Beejive. It makes me move it ONE FILE AT A TIME. And even then, there is stuff you can't move. Can I not just move the app, all of it in one click?
But most importantly, I just want more space on /data/data. I want to resize the partition. The phone has what, 8 gigs on it and allows 150 mb for apps in there which is just crazy.
Can I resize the partition where apps are stored (/data/data) by way of parted or gparted? to avoid the annoyance of using my external storage which I want to use for movies and music? There's probably 6 or so gigs on my phone I'll never use for media that should be meant for apps.
Has anybody resized the data partition? Are there consequences to doing it if it's done properly? Is there a guide? What is the easiest way to do this? Any help would be appreciated.
enigmatl said:
Well, I messed with notenoughspace too which was my eason for posting. This was the app that made me say enough is enough, can I just resize /data/data?.
-1- So much space on the incredible is going to waste while programs such as these would have me put apps on the SD where I really do want space for my other stuff like music and movies.
-2- Unless I missed a button or option, NotEnoughSpace came off as annoying to me. I would go into apps and wait for a minute for it to scan every time I do it and then I pick an app, for example Beejive. It makes me move it ONE FILE AT A TIME. And even then, there is stuff you can't move. Can I not just move the app, all of it in one click?
But most importantly, I just want more space on /data/data. I want to resize the partition. The phone has what, 8 gigs on it and allows 150 mb for apps in there which is just crazy.
Can I resize the partition where apps are stored (/data/data) by way of parted or gparted? to avoid the annoyance of using my external storage which I want to use for movies and music? There's probably 6 or so gigs on my phone I'll never use for media that should be meant for apps.
Has anybody resized the data partition? Are there consequences to doing it if it's done properly? Is there a guide? What is the easiest way to do this? Any help would be appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ask conap hes good with this type of thing
Making progress but still need help.
There's some talk on the net that you can modify the size of the .img files that nandroid makes and simply flash them back to your phone.
Problem is, I can't find a windows way to do it on the net. The closest that I've come is a program called toporesize. This program will let you open files such as data.img from your nandroid backup. But you can't resize them because you get an error box that says this appears to not be an ext* filesystem. Check size file only to resize the file or use other tools. I'm assuming that means it wants you to check a button that says resize file only no resize2fs. In the one guide I found that talks about this app, it says do not check this box. So I'm assuming if you did, it would work and then when you flashed the file back to your phone, it would either not boot or the size would not be changed properly.
I also noted that there's a thread or two that has posted some custom sized data.img files for download. I would do this as a last resort but would prefer to resize my own data.img for a more precise choice of how large I want it.
The error mentions other tools. Are there other tools or programs for Windows users?
Does anybody have any insight on resizing the /data/data partition either by this method, by using parted/gparted, or any other method that works effectively?
I would avoid trying to alter the size of the partitions on your phone. That is how you end up with a brick. There are other ways including finding out which apps are taking up all of your space. 150 MB does not sound like a lot, but it is considering what is stored there.
Go into Manage Applications and click on the All tab. Then press the menu key and sort by size. Click on the apps near the top with anything higher than 3 or 4 MB. Look at the details in the storage section for each app. You will see a Data line item. If it is really high in proportion of the size of the Application, you should clear it. That will save you a lot of space.
In the case of the Mail app or other social networking apps like Facebook or Twitter, you can go into the settings and restrict how much data is stored on the phone. They can really eat up space by downloading a month of emails, etc ...
ihtfp69 said:
I would avoid trying to alter the size of the partitions on your phone. That is how you end up with a brick. There are other ways including finding out which apps are taking up all of your space. 150 MB does not sound like a lot, but it is considering what is stored there.
Go into Manage Applications and click on the All tab. Then press the menu key and sort by size. Click on the apps near the top with anything higher than 3 or 4 MB. Look at the details in the storage section for each app. You will see a Data line item. If it is really high in proportion of the size of the Application, you should clear it. That will save you a lot of space.
In the case of the Mail app or other social networking apps like Facebook or Twitter, you can go into the settings and restrict how much data is stored on the phone. They can really eat up space by downloading a month of emails, etc ...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This request is meant with respect and NOT as a flame but I have to make this request so others don't follow and potentially change the thread into a debate on whether to resize or not resize the partition.
Please let's not start talking about whether this is a good idea or not nor if doing this can make our phone into a brick. Now that it's been said, those lurking and considering this for themselves can make up their own minds. But there are a lot of things talked about throughout XDA that can make your phone into a brick yet things are done in the name of making our devices better.
And yes. We can take action to reduce the amount of data that apps are taking up. To tell you the truth, I would do that even if I had a 1GB partition. I think always saving space when space can be saved is a good idea.
But just in principle, I and probably others want to reclaim that space on our phones that will never be used by anything. Maybe HTC allocated the space as it's allocated because some users won't use an SD card and will then use that space for their media and other miscellaneous stuff.
But once you have an SD card that's way bigger than the extra space on your phone, it becomes pointless to use that space on your phone for media. So I want it available for data.
So both sides of whether to do this or not have now been posed. I ask can we please get back to the topic of how to though I do thank you for your input.
That said, again, does anybody know how to resize your data partition whether by doing it live with parted or gparted or by editing the data.img file that nandroid via clockwork mod puts out? I would really appreciate it.
I tried making a nandroid backup of the phone through clockworkmod, sending the data.img file to my computer, using toporesize to resize it. And by the way, I was forced to check the resize file only no resize2fs button as not doing this generated an error. I then used md5sum to get an md5sum for the new data.img. I then inserted the md5sum in clockwork/nandroid's nandroid.md5 file (with a linux file compatable text editor). I then sent the entire backup back to the phone in a different clockworkmod/backup folder, used rom manager to restore, selected the new resized backup.
After the flashing was complete, I went into my phone only to find that the data partition still had the same amount free (give or take a few K). I wondered if that's because I had to shrink the system file? I was thinking before I started that it's probable that I would have to shrink another partition that had free space so I chose system. I attempted to repeat the above steps from the beginning this time with the plan of shrinking system.img.
No go. toporesize will not shrink it properly. Errors are reported in the process though when I reload it into toporesize, it looks like it has the size I want. Knowing it would probably fail, I tried to continue anyway. Even with the correct md5sum, nandroid won't even start the recovery of that set. You get a status bar for a second and then, the phone just reboots.
So for now, I'm at a loss but I know this can be done.
Whether using this method or another, does anybody know how to properly change the size of the data partition using WINDOWS?
Don't come crying when you brick it.
ihtfp69 said:
Don't come crying when you brick it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have no intentions of such. -1- I will quite likely never brick it as nandroid pretty much has me covered. But if I do, -2- I don't plan on having this phone forever. It's not new any more. There are already several models that are better than the droid incredible that I'm looking at. If I were to brick this phone, yay. Good excuse to buy a new phone. But, odds are, i'll never brick it and come November or December, I'll buy something else anyhow.
So please, this isn't about the risks, of course you can brick your phone trying this or many other things on XDA.
Does anyone know how to resize the data partition using any method that can be done with the help of a Windows machine?
This is a fundamental change to a very sensitive area you have
276 mb for the system rom and 748mb for user apps.Many rom devs seem to be straining to keep the rom below 200mb and it is amazingly easy to fill up 748 mb with little apps.
I would think if it were possible to do this it would have been done by the rom devs first thing. I would love to see a rom dev bump this to 500mb and 1024mb.
Chances are to re partition the partitions on the phones memory is not possible with out a hboot flash or something of a custom bootloader...
I find removing these help... Also i use handcent and gmail.app instead of the stock apps...
friendstream
peep
twitter
flicker
stocks app
facebook
748 mb? I only have 150 available in /data/data. How do you get 748?
enigmatl said:
748 mb? I only have 150 available in /data/data. How do you get 748?
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Click to collapse
748mb is the size of the entire /data partition what us devs are doing with the new roms is symlinking things to the /system from /data i've managed to do it without symlinking but it bring the /system to its limits and thats usually not good to do
enigmatl said:
748 mb? I only have 150 available in /data/data. How do you get 748?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In my /data/data i have 95.96 MB free
rom 35MB free
app space 212 MB free
internal 6.44GB free
Also /data/data is a different partition than /data so the 150 is not included as part of the 748.
Resize /data/data partition - Update?
Did you ever find a solution to resizing the HTC Incredible's partitions?
I too am fed up with having to constantly clear caches and uninstalled apps, just because the tiny 150MB partition fills up. It's been a problem since my wife and I bought our phones.
I expect it would have to be done by a custom bootloader, but thought I would check and see if you had any success.
If nandroid recreates the partition tables based on the sizes of the .img partition backups, then they could probably be resized by mounting the .IMG files directly under Linux and using Linux tools to resize each one - or - creating a new .img partition of the new size(s), mount the backups and copy everything over to the new one, unmount it and go from there?
Steve
Have you used the Ext4 mod created by Tiny and Jermaine151?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1623038
...and the following is the original thread which has the details of what exactly the mod does:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1315372
If I'm reading this (outdated) thread correctly, this mod is what you're looking for in regards to partitioning /data/data. The second link is provided in the OP of my first link.
SlimSnoopOS said:
Have you used the Ext4 mod created by Tiny and Jermaine151?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1623038
...and the following is the original thread which has the details of what exactly the mod does:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1315372
If I'm reading this (outdated) thread correctly, this mod is what you're looking for in regards to partitioning /data/data. The second link is provided in the OP of my first link.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What he said ^^^^
Just do it.

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