How To Switch to a Different MicroSD Card on Android (When Using Apps2SD)
October 15, 2009 in Android General How To's, Android How To's, Featured, How To's, Video
Got Apps2SD, loaded Hero on your phone, or your using Swap and a partitioned memory card with your custom ROM? But what to do if you buy a new memory card (finally get rid of that 2GB for a much more equipped 4, 8, or 16GB Class 6 card)? Here’s how to swap the old for the new.
I. Find a Memory Card that Suits Your Needs
1. First thing is to get a memory card that will do what you need. No need to go to the largest card just because you can. Get the card with enough memory so you don’t get frustrated when you try to put all that you want and it tells you “not enough available space” (also keep in mind that we’ll need 500Mbs for ext2/ext3 and another up to 96mbs for Swap for most ROMs).
2. Class 6 is best. For most ROMs, we use the SD card as part of the system memory and have it run Apps off of it and sometimes use it for virtual RAM (called Swap). So the speed at which our phone can access and write to that card becomes very important to avoid apps not loading quickly or our phone not being able to use the RAM efficiently.
Class 6 (the highest class commercially available at the moment) allows the card to read and write data at speeds up to 6Mbps (hence Class 6) as opposed to 4Mbps and 2Mbps for Class 4 and 2 cards respectively. So when your budget allows, grab a Class 6 card.
II. Swapping Out the Memory Card
1. Save whatever is on your old memory card to your computer as backup.
2. Turn off the phone and turn it back on by holding down home and power to get to recovery mode.
3. Take out the old memory card and put in a new one (while still on the recovery screen).
4. Click on Format SD Fat32+ext2+swap and wait for it to finish.
5. Click on Convert ext2 to ext3 and wait for it to finish.
6. Now, WITHOUT taking the phone out of recovery mode, put all the stuff you have on the computer (that you saved from the old memory card) back onto the new memory card in the phone (either by taking it out and using an SD adapter and your computer, or by mounting the SD card via usb cord and the phone’s recovery screen. Amon Ras newer recovery screens have an option for Mount SD. Once you click that and the phone is plugged in via USB it should pop up as a folder on your computer like normal).
7. While you are copying the backed up stuff to the new SD card, also put on the ROM that you were using and rename it to update.zip like normal.
8. Once done, unmount the SD card in the recovery screen (if you mounted it) or put the SD card back into the phone (if you used the SD adapter).
9. Click Wipe Data (you can try to skip this step, but if it gets stuck on a boot loop then come back to recovery mode and click it this time then do step 10).
10. Click Apply update to flash the ROM again.
All done!
TexasPriest said on April 20, 2010
Hi, Great info on this site, thank You! I am having a problem with this process. On my MT3G I am switching sd cards. When I try to run “Convert ext2 to ext3″ I get this error “run upgrade_fs via console!”. What does that mean and how do I do this? Thank You
TheUnlockr said on April 20, 2010
TexasPriest,
Try to reformat the SD card (using the menu in recovery mode) then try again.
cnonline said on April 21, 2010
Hey Unlockr,
Cannot see the option Format SD Fat32+ext2+swap on recovery screen.
I have
Sapphire PVT 32A Ship S-On G
HBOOT-1.33.0013 (SAPP31000)
CPLD-13
RADIO-2.22.23.02
OCT 21 2009 22.33.27
Amon Ra Sapphire-v1.6.2G
Custom Fender w/ root access ROM
TheUnlockr said on April 21, 2010
CnOnline,
Look for Partition SD, Part SD, etc (same thing)
Gary Tan said on April 23, 2010
Hi the reason I did a HOW TO ROOT HERO WITH ONE CLICK is because i wanted to upgrate my SD card from 2G to 4G. After copying my backup file from sd to pc to new sd,mount and reboot,the phone become unstable.Music player can reconize music file,manager accessing sd card show empty.how can i increase the memory of my sd card? thanks for your informative web site.
TheUnlockr said on April 23, 2010
Gary,
Do this procedure, not the one click root again. Partition the SD card swap + ext2/3 + fat32 then load the rom you were using back on the sd card (the partitioning would have erased everything on the card), then wipe data, then reflash the rom. All done.
(Try to do all of these steps while the phone is in recovery mode).
Gary Tan said on April 23, 2010
And yes i even did the wipe and tried to reinstall some of the app from market a few times.
Gary Tan said on April 24, 2010
Hi and thanks for the reply.i didnt download any ROM,what i am using now is still my own Hero software. Could i just flash the “recovery-backup.img” that i have make earlier?
Thanks a lot.
Eric said on May 11, 2010
I have successfully rooted, loaded a custom rom(modaco), amon ra recovery, gold card, etc. i have been able to do everything except the apps2sd thing. I don’t believe it is working. What is the best way to make that work. Secondly, can you give me some step by step instructions for installing a radio. I have dl’d hero radio 63.18.55.06JU_6.35.09.26-signed. How do i go about putting that on the phone. any guidance will be greatly appreciated. Oh and thanks for the excellent tutorials for the stuff i already achieved.
Mitch said on May 11, 2010
WOW!!!! Worked as it said it would. Rooted my MT3G with a 4G Class 2…. Oops!!! Got a 8G Class 6 and this worked as advertised. Unlockr is the way to go.
Now to see if all these force closes go away.
Eric said on May 18, 2010
can you flash an updated radio just like everything else…by changing it to update.zip and then flash? or is there a more specific way to update the radio?
Thanks again.
Amir said on May 26, 2010
What is the latest class of microSD Cards that I can use on Mytouch 3G?
Is there any kind of limitations?
Can I use the “Class 10″ SD Cards?
Like this one?
>>> http://cgi.ebay.com/KINGMAX-4GB-Micro-SD-SDHC-MicroSD-Class-10-4-GB-3-1-/280511038925?cmd=ViewItem&pt=Digital_Camera_Memory_Cards&hash=item414fc2c5cd#ht_1803wt_930
Appreciated,
Amir.
DoG said on July 19, 2010
why i can’t simply swap a card without doing all those steps? WTF
mat said on July 20, 2010
how do i tell applications to install to the sd card still seem to be installed in main memory ? thanks
Iowaboy0255 said on September 30, 2011
you dont they have it setup to where the memory will go to phone only.
mat said on July 21, 2010
Why does it say applications 141MB i formated a 1G ext2 so shouldnt it say 1141MB ? pls help even with yuor excellent guides this has been a long painful process
Marko said on August 4, 2010
i just unlock my hero and now is not reading my sd card?
kenkwan said on August 20, 2010
hey i got a few questions…
im using HTC Desire… how do you take the MicroSD card out of the phone in recovery mode, when you need to take the battery out first before u can get the MicroSD card out. You mean the phone can stay in recovery mode as long as you are still plugged in on USB, but without the battery?
Another thing is.. the formatting of the new SD card will be done in recovery mode? Does the clockworkmod recovery has that option? Thanks.
44 said on September 13, 2010
does this method work with cm6 stable?
Motopolah said on November 3, 2010
hi,
how to do this on Desire?? thx
Lore Tomasini said on November 29, 2010
I followed these steps exactly but the apps2sd did not take effect. I partitioned my card through Amon Ra like I had done with my old card…any suggestions…I already tried formatting my current memory card.
TheUnlockr said on November 30, 2010
You have to reflash the ROM after doing that. Also make sure the ROM you are going to use says Auto Apps2SD enabled.
Djvibe said on March 14, 2011
do i have to go through rom. and were do you find the rom
jane said on March 14, 2011
ur so cool
Bob Job said on August 28, 2011
Retards. All you have to do is copy the old card to the new one (using a card reader attached to a PC) and then swap the cards.
David Cogen said on August 29, 2011
This is an old procedure for back in the day when Apps2SD wasn’t built in to Android so you DID have to do all of this. But thanks for the feedback…