Secure erase on Android? - Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hello,
as the title suggests, is there a way to securely erase an Android device's internal storage (eMMC or NAND flash memory) without wearing it out. As it is known, flash memory has a limited amount of Write/Erase cycles, so I assume that writing zeroes to each page would wear it out pretty quickly.
So is there a way to securely wipe an Android device? For example is there a way to call a native secure erase command from select Android devices? (I think hdparm does this).
Thanks!

Related

Random factory reset

My phone (sk17i ) did a hard reset with a full wipe of the sd card contents. Do not know how this happened. I was at 10 percent battery, i just pressed the button on top and it just restarted and now the sd card is wiped clean but i do have my google account on the phone. This is stock firmware , stock rom , rooted with blocked bootloader, only modifications are systemui and quickpanel ( colored ) . Other root applications are Xperia Cwm Auto Installer and titanium backup. Is there a log i can look into to see what happened ?
kasmq said:
My phone (sk17i ) did a hard reset with a full wipe of the sd card contents. Do not know how this happened. I was at 10 percent battery, i just pressed the button on top and it just restarted and now the sd card is wiped clean but i do have my google account on the phone. This is stock firmware , stock rom , rooted with blocked bootloader, only modifications are systemui and quickpanel ( colored ) . Other root applications are Xperia Cwm Auto Installer and titanium backup. Is there a log i can look into to see what happened ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think there isn't any log for that action.
Are you sure you didn't doing something with your SK17i before it got fully wiped..??
By default, there is no background logging process in order to have better performance and battery life.
I did not do anything . i was just checking the battery life. so i opened the phone looked at the 10% of battery that i had left and closed it. Now- any good sd card data restoring software anybody can help me with. I need a good one , and i tried 4 until now and i can't seem to find anything on that sd card.
If the SDcard was formatted, then there is only a very small chance to restore anything.
From Wikipedia
As in file deletion by the operating system, data on a disk are not fully erased during every[17] high-level format. Instead, the area on the disk containing the data is merely marked as available, and retains the old data until it is overwritten. If the disk is formatted with a different file system than the one which previously existed on the partition, some data may be overwritten that wouldn't be if the same file system had been used. However, under some file systems (e.g., NTFS, but not FAT), the file indexes (such as $MFTs under NTFS, inodes under ext2/3, etc.) may not be written to the same exact locations. And if the partition size is increased, even FAT file systems will overwrite more data at the beginning of that new partition.
From the perspective of preventing the recovery of sensitive data through recovery tools, the data must either be completely overwritten (every sector) with random data before the format, or the format program itself must perform this overwriting, as the DOS FORMAT command did with floppy diskettes, filling every data sector with the byte value F6 in hex.
However there are applications and tools, especially used in forensic information technology, that can recover data that has been conventionally erased. In order to avoid the recovery of sensitive data, governmental organization or big companies use information destruction methods like the Gutmann method or the DoD 5220 of the National Industrial Security Program[18]. For average users there are also special applications that can perform complete data destruction by overwriting previous information. Although there are applications that perform multiple writes a single write is generally all that is needed on modern hard disk drives.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
From my personal experience i restore from my sd card in photocamera (fat32 like here) few 5 years photo even when i using this camera. Its becouse theses jpg files wasnt ovewrited with other. But that program was especialy designed for photo files only.
My point is i thing there is bigger chance just keep away from formating and ofc make restoring to your hard drive
Sent from my ST15i using XDA
So - for photos i used East Imperial Soft Magic Photo Recovery - did a great job, except it changed the names of the photos .
And for the other files i'm using EASUS data recovery wizard -this is the best thing ever. It recognized a ton of files and right now i'm restoring all my files.

[Q] Webtop partition resizing

It appears that the only methods that have been used to expand webtop focus on mounting an alternative webtop on an external SD card and using the alternative webtop instead of (or in addition to) the standard webtop (webtopMod, webtop2SD, simpletop, etc. all do this in one form or another).
Has anyone played around with resizing the the sdcard partition (mmcblk0p18) so that it is smaller and then resizing the webtop partition (mmcblk0p13) to a more appropriate size (~4G)?
I see that something similar has been done on the Nook (that is, people have changed the internal memory partition sizes without tragic consequences):
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=22157605&postcount=25​
As for know (I don't know much) the trouble with the partitions it's that everythings works with that layout, recoverys must be rewritten to accept that partition layout, or something.
Besides, why you want WebTop, when you can have Android ICS/JB? .
Contrary to popular belief (and driven by how it works on computers), the partition table is NOT a part of the internal storage. It is most likely defined within the bootloader which, while can be hacked to allow flashing unsigned content (so called BL unlock), is both entirely closed off and extremely sensitive. Hardbricks can happen almost effortlessly if you try to tamper with it. That's why nobody has managed (yet?) to do any kind of alteration of the partition layout on the Atrix.
I would also like to point out when it comes to such low-level stuff trying to compare two completely different devices is often time dangerous and almost always misleading, so I'd avoid that if I were you. The fact this or that is possible on some other device in some certain way will have almost nothing to do with the Atrix (unless the device is really similar enough, like say the Photon).
Ravilov,
I thought that the bootloader would just need to point to the bootable partition. I thought all of the disks/devices would have their own GPT or MBR record that the system would use when it mounts those devices. It looks like just about most everything is mounted from init.rc (even mmcblk0p13, aka OSH).
I am not saying that this idea is without risk, but I guess I am surprised that someone hasn't been brave (foolish?) enough to try it and report back.
tamuin said:
Ravilov,
I thought that the bootloader would just need to point to the bootable partition. I thought all of the disks/devices would have their own GPT or MBR record that the system would use when it mounts those devices. It looks like just about most everything is mounted from init.rc (even mmcblk0p13, aka OSH).
I am not saying that this idea is without risk, but I guess I am surprised that someone hasn't been brave (foolish?) enough to try it and report back.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That would be true if we were talking about NORMAL computer harddrives. But we're not. There is no such thing as MBR or GPT or even an "active" partition - this is a much different world.
BTW the bootloader is about 10 MB in size, it contains MUCH MUCH more than just some code to boot a system. For example, the whole fastboot protocol is implemented there, and I believe the offline charging (when the phone is off) complete with its graphics is also in there.
By the time the system reaches ramdisk (ie. init.rc), the partition table has already been set up and the devices nodes created.
Beware however, I have no 100% solid evidence to this, this is just an educated guess (to me this would make the most sense).
> That would be true if we were talking about NORMAL computer harddrives. But we're not.
That is my concern too.
One thing that might work is to repartition mmcblk0p18 into two partitions, the first being a smaller FAT partition and the second being an ext3 partition (mmcblk0p19). We would not need to move/resize anything else (and it looks like CWM does not normally do anything with mmcblk0p18). A full featured webtop could then be put in mmcblk0p19 and it could be mounted as OSH in init.rc.
Of course this doesn't make any better use of the internal storage space, the only thing it does is that it would put the modified webtop in the internal storage which appears to have faster write speed than class 10 micro SD cards.
The benefits are probably not worth the risk and effort.
tamuin said:
One thing that might work is to repartition mmcblk0p18 into two partitions, the first being a smaller FAT partition and the second being an ext3 partition (mmcblk0p19). We would not need to move/resize anything else (and it looks like CWM does not normally do anything with mmcblk0p18). A full featured webtop could then be put in mmcblk0p19 and it could be mounted as OSH in init.rc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can't do that. Despite it not having a "standard" partition table, some rules still apply - for example, you cannot partition a partition. Even if you could, what would the new partitions be called? mmcblk0p18a and mmcblk0p18b? Not going to work. The whole entire system is hardwired to use mmcblk0p18 and only that. Plus, you cannot have a root partition as you suggest (mmcblk0p19) that's contained within another partition, it just doesn't make any sense.
Trust me, the webtop2sd and similar ideas didn't come out of nowhere. If there was a decently safe way to change the internal repartitioning with the knowledge we have, it would have been done by now. The only way to do this that I know of is to either change the bootloader or the kernel. The bootloader is obviously out of the question, and I suppose nobody's ever felt the need to mess with the kernel just for this seemingly insignificant thing, when there's a perfectly good workaround (webtop2sd).

How to create full sector based Raw image backup of Atrix's 16GB disk? (NOT Nandroid)

I have this Atrix now for a few days and want to examine it. It is one of my favourite devices since it was released years ago.
I will start to tamper with it, and try custom Roms etc. But first of all i want to make a full backup of the device, so i can probably recover it fast and without hassle in the future. I also use Huawei Ideos X5 and i have full Raw backups of its 4GB emmc (2GB part is used as an internal SD originally). I backup and restore these images with the basic free program "Roadkil's Disk Image" in Windows.
As we all know, to use this program or similar disk backup programs, we have to reach the phone's whole disk (called emmc or internal card, i guess). In Ideos X5 the procedure is as follows;
1) Make sure the bootloader is unlocked.
2) Open the phone to reach the "pink screen" by pressing VolUP+VolDOWN+POWER buttons at the same time.
3) When you see the pink screen connect the phone to the PC via USB.
4) The disk is reachable now, use a sector based backup program such as "Roadkil's Disk Image" (sometimes called Forensic Copy).
OK, it's a brief explanation but clear enough, i guess. Now i want to do the same thing in Atrix, since i unlocked the bootloader and installed CM7.2 to it, 6-7 months ago, while my relative was using it.
I connect the phone to the PC in Fastboot and RSD modes, but i can't reach the disk itself. The adb and fastboot commands work, the connection is successful, but neither Windows, nor Linux Mint sees the 16GB disk. So, full Raw backup seems impossible in this manner!
I searched the Atrix forum widely, but couldn't find a solution. There are threads of making Nandroid backups or partition based backups with a different approach which i didn't try yet. For example:
"[INFO] Backup the pds partition of your Atrix!"
Link: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1138220
I can learn and apply this commandline method but 4GB Fat32 file limit will probably be the base problem. Taking the backup directly to the NTFS HDD on PC can be a solution but, has anyone tried it?
It seems that, important partitions are backed up using ADB /shell commands. But i believe that full disk backups may be the best way to recover a phone in some situations. I know that backing up the whole disk including also the 10,7 GB internal SD part is useless, time and space consuming. But recovering the phone totally to a previous state is sometimes fatally important or advantageous. ie:
* Recover the phone when the IMEI is gone somehow,
* Recover the phone when the partitions are resized
* Recover the phone when partition table is corrupted or partitions are lost
* Move between your installed Roms without worrying about all the procedure, wipes, resizes, bla bla...
* ......
Anyway, here comes my main question:
Is it possible to reach the 16GB disk of Atrix from PC? If so, how?
Thanks in advance.
Be-Mine said:
I have this Atrix now for a few days and want to examine it. It is one of my favourite devices since it was released years ago.
I will start to tamper with it, and try custom Roms etc. But first of all i want to make a full backup of the device, so i can probably recover it fast and without hassle in the future. I also use Huawei Ideos X5 and i have full Raw backups of its 4GB emmc (2GB part is used as an internal SD originally). I backup and restore these images with the basic free program "Roadkil's Disk Image" in Windows.
As we all know, to use this program or similar disk backup programs, we have to reach the phone's whole disk (called emmc or internal card, i guess). In Ideos X5 the procedure is as follows;
1) Make sure the bootloader is unlocked.
2) Open the phone to reach the "pink screen" by pressing VolUP+VolDOWN+POWER buttons at the same time.
3) When you see the pink screen connect the phone to the PC via USB.
4) The disk is reachable now, use a sector based backup program such as "Roadkil's Disk Image" (sometimes called Forensic Copy).
OK, it's a brief explanation but clear enough, i guess. Now i want to do the same thing in Atrix, since i unlocked the bootloader and installed CM7.2 to it, 6-7 months ago, while my relative was using it.
I connect the phone to the PC in Fastboot and RSD modes, but i can't reach the disk itself. The adb and fastboot commands work, the connection is successful, but neither Windows, nor Linux Mint sees the 16GB disk. So, full Raw backup seems impossible in this manner!
I searched the Atrix forum widely, but couldn't find a solution. There are threads of making Nandroid backups or partition based backups with a different approach which i didn't try yet. For example:
"[INFO] Backup the pds partition of your Atrix!"
Link: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1138220
I can learn and apply this commandline method but 4GB Fat32 file limit will probably be the base problem. Taking the backup directly to the NTFS HDD on PC can be a solution but, has anyone tried it?
It seems that, important partitions are backed up using ADB /shell commands. But i believe that full disk backups may be the best way to recover a phone in some situations. I know that backing up the whole disk including also the 10,7 GB internal SD part is useless, time and space consuming. But recovering the phone totally to a previous state is sometimes fatally important or advantageous. ie:
* Recover the phone when the IMEI is gone somehow,
* Recover the phone when the partitions are resized
* Recover the phone when partition table is corrupted or partitions are lost
* Move between your installed Roms without worrying about all the procedure, wipes, resizes, bla bla...
* ......
Anyway, here comes my main question:
Is it possible to reach the 16GB disk of Atrix from PC? If so, how?
Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
System + data (internal storage) is your 16GB. You'll backup system and your internal storage to get what you're looking for. And to the best of my knoledge, sbf'ing will do the rest. IMEI may be somewhere else, not sure. Afaik we don't have a tool to edit some advanced stuff like the latest qualcomm devices do.
Sent from my ATRIX HD using XDA Free mobile app
Sector by sector Raw image backup and restore options in Android devices!
I guess i couldn't explain the issue clearly.
The 16GB Atrix disk that i meant, is the main memory block which is exactly 15.914.762.240 bytes in total. This memory consists of 3 primary and 14 logical partitions. Some of these can be considered as the /recovery, /boot, /pds, /cdrom, /osh, /system, /cache, /data, /emmc(~11GB internal SD).... etc. partitions:
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From what i've learned from the below links;
[DEV][REF] El Grande Partition Table Reference
[GUIDE] Making Dump Files Out of Android Device Partitions
[GUIDE] How to make a nandroid backup directly to your computer without using sdcard
these partitions can be backed-up and restored within terminal emulator or ADB, with the help of the so-called "dd method" (which i will research more)!
Backup of the whole 16GB memory block is also possible regarding to these links, but restore of this whole block image seems impossible, which is the main problem!
Now, let me explain the weird situation on my ancient Huawei Ideos X5 phone. If i connect the Ideos X5 to the PC with the "pink screen" (by pressing VolUP+VolDOWN+POWER buttons), the phone's whole 4GB memory block is reachable. Eventually i can do whatever i want with the phone, because the memory block is seen as a USB disk to the Windows,Linux,etc:
Here are the possibilities that i can do (and already did) with the Huawei Ideos X5:
1) Intelligent sector copy of the recognized partitions.
Only data blocks are backed up and restored on ext2/ext3/ext4,Fat32 partitions, so the backup files are small. But the other unknown partitions can't be backed up with this method.
2) Forensic copy of the partitions.
Sector by sector Raw copy is made, so the backup file is exactly the same as the partition size. All known and unknown partitions can be backed up and restored with this method.
3) Forensic copy of the whole disk (full memory block)
The whole memory block is copied (raw backup) and restored. The image file size is exactly the same as the disk size (But can be zipped afterwards to reduce the size.)
I checked the forum widely, now i understand that the "pink screen" property is unique to the Ideos X5! Most of the devices (if not all) seem to NOT support this option. The whole memory block is NOT reachable within the Windows, Linux, etc. It's only available with ADB or within the device from the terminal emulator.
As a result, i won't be able to make full Raw image backups and restores of the whole disk of Atrix, which also seems impossible on the other devices.
If we find a method to reach the memory blocks of the devices as a USB HDD within OSes (just like in Ideos X5), then we will be able to do full backup and restores which is important in some situations as i described before. (But we may brick the devices easier also )
But i believe that full disk backups may be the best way to recover a phone in some situations. I know that backing up the whole disk including also the 10,7 GB internal SD part is useless, time and space consuming. But recovering the phone totally to a previous state is sometimes fatally important or advantageous. ie:
* Recover the phone when the IMEI is gone somehow,
* Recover the phone when the partitions are resized
* Recover the phone when partition table is corrupted or partitions are lost
* Move between your (previously) installed Roms without worrying about all the procedures, wipes, resizes, bla bla...
* ......
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Please share your opinions.
Be-Mine said:
I guess i couldn't explain the issue clearly.
The 16GB Atrix disk that i meant, is the main memory block which is exactly 15.914.762.240 bytes in total. This memory consists of 3 primary and 14 logical partitions. Some of these can be considered as the /recovery, /boot, /pds, /cdrom, /osh, /system, /cache, /data, /emmc(~11GB internal SD).... etc. partitions:
From what i've learned from the below links;
[DEV][REF] El Grande Partition Table Reference
[GUIDE] Making Dump Files Out of Android Device Partitions
[GUIDE] How to make a nandroid backup directly to your computer without using sdcard
these partitions can be backed-up and restored within terminal emulator or ADB, with the help of the so-called "dd method" (which i will research more)!
Backup of the whole 16GB memory block is also possible regarding to these links, but restore of this whole block image seems impossible, which is the main problem!
Now, let me explain the weird situation on my ancient Huawei Ideos X5 phone. If i connect the Ideos X5 to the PC with the "pink screen" (by pressing VolUP+VolDOWN+POWER buttons), the phone's whole 4GB memory block is reachable. Eventually i can do whatever i want with the phone, because the memory block is seen as a USB disk to the Windows,Linux,etc:
Here are the possibilities that i can do (and already did) with the Huawei Ideos X5:
1) Intelligent sector copy of the recognized partitions.
Only data blocks are backed up and restored on ext2/ext3/ext4,Fat32 partitions, so the backup files are small. But the other unknown partitions can't be backed up with this method.
2) Forensic copy of the partitions.
Sector by sector Raw copy is made, so the backup file is exactly the same as the partition size. All known and unknown partitions can be backed up and restored with this method.
3) Forensic copy of the whole disk (full memory block)
The whole memory block is copied (raw backup) and restored. The image file size is exactly the same as the disk size (But can be zipped afterwards to reduce the size.)
I checked the forum widely, now i understand that the "pink screen" property is unique to the Ideos X5! Most of the devices (if not all) seem to NOT support this option. The whole memory block is NOT reachable within the Windows, Linux, etc. It's only available with ADB or within the device from the terminal emulator.
As a result, i won't be able to make full Raw image backups and restores of the whole disk of Atrix, which also seems impossible on the other devices.
If we find a method to reach the memory blocks of the devices as a USB HDD within OSes (just like in Ideos X5), then we will be able to do full backup and restores which is important in some situations as i described before. (But we may brick the devices easier also )
Please share your opinions.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, i'm getting the drift of what you are trying to do now. For that, there is a thread regarding dual booting. I'll dig that up and give you the link. For that, we dd'd via adb in recovery. I'll need to dig into my files for a bit more specifics, but hang tight and i'll get you the info i know
Sent from my ATRIX HD using XDA Free mobile app
palmbeach05 said:
Ok, i'm getting the drift of what you are trying to do now. For that, there is a thread regarding dual booting. I'll dig that up and give you the link. For that, we dd'd via adb in recovery. I'll need to dig into my files for a bit more specifics, but hang tight and i'll get you the info i know
Sent from my ATRIX HD using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually, my ultimate goal is not a multi-boot. I triple-boot in my PC but i was never eager of this in Android devices. If i had very large memory blocks (32GB,64GB) in my devices, i would try it already. But i think multi-booting may negatively effect the storage partitions on Ideos X5 and Atrix (especially the /system, /cache, /data partitions ?)
Anyway, i will check that link and informations based on dual booting Atrix, comparing CM7 vs CM10 easily on Atrix can be very interesting.
But my main concern is reaching the whole memory blocks of the devices within windows/linux directly as a USB-HDD, probably with the help of a hack or a patch.
Thanks for all :good:
Be-Mine said:
Actually, my ultimate goal is not a multi-boot. I triple-boot in my PC but i was never eager of this in Android devices. If i had very large memory blocks (32GB,64GB) in my devices, i would try it already. But i think multi-booting may negatively effect the storage partitions on Ideos X5 and Atrix (especially the /system, /cache, /data partitions ?)
Anyway, i will check that link and informations based on dual booting Atrix, comparing CM7 vs CM10 easily on Atrix can be very interesting.
But my main concern is reaching the whole memory blocks of the devices within windows/linux directly as a USB-HDD, probably with the help of a hack or a patch.
Thanks for all :good:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well the dual boot mentioning ties into the dd method.
This might be more up the alley of your main concern http://www.paragon-drivers.com/extfs-windows/
On a side note, dual booting on this device can be done on a 16GB sd card, but for space reasons (compensation for space lost to do dual boot), a 32GB is a bit more recommended for this, plus it adds a bit more memory in the process.
palmbeach05 said:
Well the dual boot mentioning ties into the dd method.
This might be more up the alley of your main concern http://www.paragon-drivers.com/extfs-windows/
On a side note, dual booting on this device can be done on a 16GB sd card, but for space reasons (compensation for space lost to do dual boot), a 32GB is a bit more recommended for this, plus it adds a bit more memory in the process.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If only my issue was that simple, but unfortunately not.
The link you gave is of a basic software to work with linux file systems from Windows. I can already achieve this when needed, using similar software like Explore2fs, Ext2explore, etc.
But the case is very different. The whole memory block (disk) of the devices are not accessible as a USB disk within OSes (both Linux and windows, and also MacOS most probably) natively. The full disk is only accessible from ADB, or the phone itself. So native disk softwares can't be used, especially for full backup and restore purposes.
From what i understood from my researchs, "dd method" seems the Linux alternative to make sector based backups and restores. But even dd can't be used to restore the memory block. Because, to restore, we have to access the disk when the phone is not used , AFAIK.
That's why Huawei Ideos X5 "pink screen" option seems very rare, extreme and useful. Please take a look at the links i gave in my previous posts, you'll get what i mean.
Anyway, dual-booting Atrix is still another interesting issue to research for me.
AFAIK you can't directly map the raw Atrix eMMC to a block device on Atrix, at least not via USB, using standard tools. And you definitely wouldn't want to do this in write mode (The tegra2 on Atrix has a strict boot protocol. It's so strict that IIRC it even requires an encrypted/digitally signed boot loader which resides on the beginning of the drive. AFAIK you can't even mess with partition table).
I guess you could use a custom recovery mod for doing that if all you want is to read the eMMC as a block. The linux kernel has a mass storage gadget which can expose a block device as an usb drive. You'd need to point /dev/block/mmcblk0 to it and voila (see for instance http://www.linux-usb.org/gadget/file_storage.html). Old android uses it for mounting your storage areas when you plug it to a host usb. Newer uses other methods as you need exclusive device access for safely writing to the storage partitions.
And as you can't have read-write partitions mounted while you're playing with the same block device, and AFAIK a recovery is fine with read only mounts, contrary to a normal android boot, you could go with it. But check that e.g. /data is mounted ro, some recoveries mount it rw by default.
I think there's a way to use adb in recovery, if you can get a root console via adb then you may be able to use a standard recovery to command the usb mass storage gadget without need to customize a recovery.
Btw, I think the usb gadget only exposes the device in read-write mode, so there's nothing preventing you or some application of attempting to write to the device, and this would probably be a bad idea. So watch out if you want to do that, people got hurt for doing less hacking :silly:
@PolesApart
Thanks, you encourage me to research deeper.
But, as you already mentioned, this kind of backup/restore seems very tricky. I would check other sources and try to find a way to achieve, but i lost my ambition regarding that i have no backup phones. And i don't have time and experience to struggle with such dangerous issues.
I'm still using this Atrix as a main phone. I hope to get a Z5 Compact soon. Maybe i can go on seeking info and tests when this Atrix becomes totally idle afterwards. :laugh:
Thanks for your interest and the informations. :good:

Using MicroSD card Storage

I have a Moto G6 with Android 9. My phone only has 32GB of internal storage which is basically full which is affecting the operation of the phone. I have installed a 128GB microSD of which only 14 GB is used, and have moved over the apps allowed to the card (will only let me move select apps). What else can I move the microSD to open storage on the internal memory and allow the phone to function better. Internal storage is so full many apps will not work and tell me I must update them to use but I do not have enough internal memory to update them. Help me take advantage of the ample available storage on my microSD! Thank you.
Use the SD card for critical data not apps.
All apps should be on internal memory only except for their backup files.
You may have outgrown your phone. Reduce the number of apps or files on the internal memory.
There's a limit to what you can do on a stock device.
How are you at unlocking the bootloader and flashing replacement firmware?
When you download and install apps on an Android device, they are installed in a specific slice of the internal file system. The size of that slice is is set by the device vendor in the Android image they place on the device. The size of tht slice is the amount of space you have to install apps, period. It is not user modifiable. If you run out of space your choices are normally "remove some less used apps to make room for new ones" or "Buy a new device with greater app storage and migrate everything to it."
What you probably have to do iis flash replacement firmware. This requires you to be able to unlock the boot loader, and that there be replacement firmware that does what you want. Make a complete backup of your phone before doing this sort of fiddling, so that you can reset the phone to factory defaults andr estore your backup to have a working phone if something goes wrong. (XDA Developers has lots of "please help" threads form folks who bricked their devices trying to do this sort of fiddling. Have a fallback plan.)
There should be threads here on the Moto G6 and what your options might be.
>Dennis

Android 12 and adoptable storage...

Greetings!
I have an LG V60 which is carrier unlocked, though it is the T-mobile variant and it just so happens that T-mobile is my service provider.
When I purchased my V60, Android 10 came installed and within a few weeks the Android 11 push had started. I have a ton of apps on my phone and a bunch of data, so I bought the largest SD card available at the time, which was a SanDisk 1 TB SD card. I immediately configured adoptable storage without any issues whatsoever. I enabled the option under developer options to allow apps to be installed on external storage even if the manifest file says otherwise. My upgrade to Android 11 was a piece of cake, and life was pretty good.
Fast forward to two days ago. T-Mobile started putting pressure on me to in install Android 12, so I cleaned up my V60 and let it rip.
My phone booted up with Android 12 and the only glitch I noticed was a warning about my SD card being ejected and that I should insert it again if I wanted to use it. It was still installed, so I physically ejected the card and reinserted it. The system remounted the 600GB partition I use for general storage, but I noticed some very important apos seemed missing.
After hunting around a bit, I realized that the mount point for the adoptable storage partition was not shown. I then used Termix to get to a shell and tried to run sm to figure out what was going on. Much to my disappointment, I can't locate the sm utility after issuing a find command from Termix. Note that my device is not rooted.
I ask pretty much at a loss about what to do. I don't know enough about how all this stuff works internally, so I'm reluctant to copy sm from an earlier version of Android and just see if it works.
Aside from reverting back to Android 11, which I'm pretty sure is doable, but by using the firehose driver, an engineering bootloader, and QPST, I am at a loss about what to do.
I just can't believe that LG/T-mobile could be so inconsiderate as to not identify adoptable storage configurations before proceeding with the installation of Android 12. I am locked out of many of my most important apps, the most noticeable loss is AquaMail, which I rely on heavily to manage several email accounts.
Any thoughts on how to proceed? I really hope there's a silver bullet that will get me out of this logjam.
I would be grateful if anyone out there who understands this stuff better than I do (which isn't saying much because I know just enough to be dangerous, it seems) can help me out of this bind.
Thank you!
Here's some additional information that I learned since I posted my issue yesterday.
Adoptable storage, or at least the "sm" utility used to manage it, *IS* actually present on my device. I forgot how tightly the file systems have been locked down, so the 'sm' until is only accessible from a shell started by adb. So, the fact that I couldn't manipulate adoptable storage from Termux is not really an issue at all; it's expected.
That said, I am still having trouble with adoptable storage. Here's what I know:
sm list-disks shows disk:179,0. This is consistent with other installations.
sm list-volumes shows, among other things, private:179,3 unmountable. Previously it showed private:179,3 mounted 8hex-4hex-4hex-4hex-12hex, and that gnarly file name corresponded to the mountpoint /mnt/expand/8hex-4hex-4hex-4hex-12hex. The filesysyem was ext4 and it was /dev/block/dm-3. That is where my adopted storage was located. Now the device can't seem to access that filesystem at all.
Any thoughts? I really hope there's a stupid-easy fix to this, or I'm going to lose a ton of data.
Thanks!
Just thinking out loud, but have you tried the card in a PC so see if you can backup the data before you do anything.
I would go so far as to say, you DEFINETLY CAN back up the data. Use dd to make an image of the card. If you are tight on space you can pipe it into gzip but I would recomend just leaving it uncompressed as its easier to access the files in the image if you need to later. I run zfs with compression so it doesnt save much space anyway. Allways make two copies. I dont mean make one image and copy it. I mean, image it twice. If your REALLY paranoid or its really really important to you (like it contains all the blackmail pictures on your boss, your bitcoin and those videos you made with your really hot ex-gf), you image it twice on different computers.
You can find the procedure on google. If you dont have a pc with linux you can find a recovery disk or live cd distribution.
Greetings,
Sorry for taking so long to respond. I can mount the SD card on my PC, but what's visible is my 800GB encrypted exFAT partition which normally mounts on my V60 as /storage/abcd-wxzy. What's not visible is the ext4 partition that normally mounts on my V60 as /mnt/expand/8hex-4hex-... My PC has software on it to automatically mount ext4 partitions (Linux Filesystems for Windows by Paragaon Software) and it works fine. When I examined the partition in a sector editor, it shares nothing in common with other ext4 filesystems, which leads me to believe that it is encrypted.
So basically the upgrade from Android 11 to Android 12 seems to have made my adopted storage volume completely inaccessible. I have tried unsuccessfully to downgrade from Android 12 to Android 11, but that was a complete disaster. I am not sure if there is a proper method to downgrade from Android 12 to Android 11. I'm sure LG tries to prevent downgrades, but I have seen examples of operating system downgrades previously, just not from Android 12 to Android 11 on the LG V60, specifically.
I am at a loss. I fear my data on the adopted partition is lost, which would be horrible.
By the way, I can and have imaged the physical partition on my SD card that contains the ext4 partition that is used as adoptable storage, but I can't do anything with it because it is completely unrecognizable. I'm still going with the theory that it's encrypted.
I beg anyone who has any insight on how to get past this to please share what they know. I'm getting desperate. I can't possibly believe an upgrade from Android 11 to Android 12 would kill my adoptable storage volume. That just doesn't make any sense :-(
Thanks!
pqcracker2 said:
so I cleaned up my V60 and let it rip.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
do you mean factory reset? if yes your data is 100% gone
the encryption keys are all stored in the userdata partition so if that partition got formatted somehow (be it bootloader unlock or sth else) they are lost, and even if they are not lost itll be hard/impossible to get to them as android 11/12 locks down read access to the userdata partition extremely

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