Sunday, February 22, 2015

Tips to Partition Your SD Card for Android Without PC

  Pankaj Pathak       Sunday, February 22, 2015

The Android OS has lot of scope in development and user flexibility. This helps developers and users to modify the architecture of the system. The mobile can be modified in several ways. Thanks the Open source by Google.

Mobiles with low internal memory thrive a lot in terms of performance and usage. You can extend this limit by partitioning your SD card and expanding the ROM of your mobile. So let us know how to partition SD card and why is a partition needed.

What is Partitioning SD card?

In simple terms partitioning sd card is breaking your sd card into two parts and making one part accessible for mobile (making it as internal memory) and other part for user. No matter how large you make the partition, the more the internal space better the performance of the phone.

Why Partitioning SD card is needed?

Primarily to increase the ROM of the mobile. To make the device link to the newly created partition. By this you can link the applications that are installed on phone memory to the created partition thus freeing up more internal space. Your mobile becomes faster and there will be lot of space available for you.

How Partitioning SD card is done?

There are several ways by which you can partition your SD card. You can do it by few softwares available for PC. But in this guide I will show you how to make a partition without any tedious downloads and intense use of technical skills.

Requirements

  • Rooted mobile - Your mobile has to be rooted for super user access. If your mobile isn't rooted this will not work for you. If you want to get your mobile rooted, contact me with your phone name, model, OS version and baseband number. I will be glad to help you.

  • Busy Box - Busy Box must me installed on your mobile. This will install required repositories for your mobile. Download Busy Box from Play Store.

  • Aparted - This is the primary app that does the partitioning process. Download it from here.



NOTE: Aparted should be installed on phone memory only. Do not move this app to SD card.
    • First backup your SD card to PC. The partitioning process will erase all you SD card contents. So be careful before proceeding. 
      • After the backup, install BusyBox described above. Then go to settings -> storage -> unmount the SD card. This process will work only when you unmount the SD card or else you will get error. 
      • Open Aparted and select the tab "create" and tap on green "plus" button. You will be prompted to create the first partition. This partition will be accessible for user as external storage. You can select the amount of space according to your choice. If you are using 4 GB SD card (3.69 will accessible) make a 2 GB first partition. Select the type as FAT 32 and select apply changes by pressing options menu. This will create a primary partition of your desired space by erasing all the SD card contents which is used as external storage. 

      • After finishing the primary partition select tools. You will be shown parts as part 1 and part 2 available for your SD card. You can make several parts of your SD card so. But preferably go for two partitions. Higher amount of partitions need more technical skill.. Now the first part is the primary partition you made and the second part is the remaining space which will be used by mobile as internal memory. Select the check box on the remaining second part and tap on create (or apply changes). Select FAT32 option for this part also. Now the app will create a second partition. 
      • That's it you have successfully created partition on your SD card. Reboot your device and go to settings -> storage, where you can see the external storage available is similar to the space you opted for first partition. 
      • Install Link2SD from Google Play Store and run the app. The app will immediately prompt you that second partition is found and asks you to mount the scripts. Mount the script as FAT 32 and once mounting is done it will again prompt you to reboot the device. Reboot the mobile and open Link2SD, select options and check the option 'Automatically link newly installed apps to SD'. This will enable the app to automatically link your new downloaded apps to the partition you have created. You can also manually link the previously installed apps to SD by clicking on the app in Link2SD and selecting create link. 



      You can also see the partition space by clicking options in Link2SD and select storage info. It will show storage details of your phone, the partition you have created and also the external storage.

      Now enjoy by linking as many apps you can to partition and free up more internal memory. You will see increased performance of your mobile.

      NOTE: This process may damage your SD card if misused. Proceed with caution

      Tip: You can also repair the damaged SD card with Aparted app which will generally happen by faulty connections to PC or any other error during data transfer between SD card and PC.

      Bugs and Issues Fix for People having Problem in Partitioning:

      Please do a complete format after backing up your sd card.
      Don't forget to install BusyBox before starting the procedure. Install BusyBox after formatting your sd card.

      If you are having sd card greater than 4GB, go for ext2 option while creating partitions. If you are having 4GB or less go for FAT32.
      Some unsupported memory cards will show errors after creating partition during mounting scripts in Link2sd. Please use supported sd cards.

      UPDATE: The Aparted app might have been updated and there can be changes in the menu order or variety of options. But the overall procedure is same. Please look into the options carefully..
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      Thanks for reading Tips to Partition Your SD Card for Android Without PC

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