How to: get bigger data.img

tiger2wander · #1 (**permalink**) 12-20-2010, 02:34 PM

Hi guys,

Since xdandroid growth fast and go much stable which we can use it daily, I decided to write this tutorial to help you whom want to have more applications on android box. Because of default init script has create data.img with only 256MB of size, it is not enough for who want to try out things and keep many good things inside the small box. So let's go to increase its size to get more funky things

Requirement

Linux box, eg: ubuntu, fedora ...

Preparation

Shutdown your android box and boot into WinMo or power off your phone completely.
Download your data.img inside directory: \Storage Card\andboot\ then put it in your "Home" directory

Make it bigger
(*) Open "Terminal emulator", you can find it under menu "Accessories" (Ubuntu/Debian family) or "System" (Fefora/RHEL family)

(*) First thing first, we need to do a file system check to make it clean and fix any issue if exists: (I have added -c option here to make fsck go to verify and fix any badblocks which can be found if your android box go crash sometime cause your phone back to boot screen)

Code:

fsck.ext2 -fyc data.img

(*) Next, we go to make it bigger, here I have add 256MB to data.img, you can specify the size you want to by edit the 'count' parameter eg: count=1024 will add 1GB to data.img

Code:

dd if=/dev/zero of=data.img oflag=append conv=notrunc bs=1M count=256

You can check it's size to see its already get bigger:

Code:

ls -lh data.img

You should get

Code:

-rw-r--r-- 1 uocnb uocnb 512M 2010-12-20 23:34 data.img

(*) Next, we need to resize the partition inside our data.img to fit its new size:

Code:

resize2fs data.img

(*) Finally, we need to verify if our process is going good and data.img can be use or not:

Code:

file data.img

You should get:

Code:

data.img: Linux rev 1.0 ext2 filesystem data, UUID=fe9ad380-0a17-11e0-a0d9-af99d7f11bf2

Yeah, that's it, here is your data.img with new size, now you can put your data.img back to your sdcard and boot into android

Good luck and have funny, fully holiday!

NOTE: (*) indicated the step you must done without any error, the main steps.

**natemcnutty** · #2 (**permalink**) 12-20-2010, 05:04 PM

Great writeup. Another option for those who compile their own rootfs, you can change the line where it creates the data.img from 256 to 1024. I have been thinking about bumping it to 512 MB for the NAND project, but only a couple of people seemed to care.

**InvincibleLiving** · #3 (**permalink**) 12-20-2010, 07:39 PM

Another great way is to use the tool in this thread:

[APP] Windows: Create Your Own Data.img Maker Application, +/- From Existing data.img - xda-developers

I used this last week to expand my data.img from the normal 256 to 1024. What I love is that it does not force you to start with an empty data.img file, it takes your existing one and allows you to expand it up to 2gb in just a few clicks!

I STRONGLY recommend this for those who are not tech savy, or need a WYSIWYG gui to guide them.

Great thread and write-up here btw.

MassStash · #4 (**permalink**) 12-20-2010, 07:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by natemcnutty

Great writeup. Another option for those who compile their own rootfs, you can change the line where it creates the data.img from 256 to 1024. I have been thinking about bumping it to 512 MB for the NAND project, but only a couple of people seemed to care.

I'm up for checkin that out. point me to a rootfs tut also? what are the benefits to larger dataimg, it's makin more room for putting stuff right?

**arrrghhh** · #5 (**permalink**) 12-20-2010, 08:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MassStash

what are the benefits to larger dataimg, it's makin more room for putting stuff right?

Yea, only really necessary if you're running out of space to store apps. It's basically what Android considers the "internal storage" - basically where any customizations happen. Added apps, widgets on your home screens, etc. Again, only necessary if you're short on space. 256mb has been more than enough for me, but I don't have 10,000 apps installed either

**InvincibleLiving** · #6 (**permalink**) 12-20-2010, 08:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arrrghhh

Yea, only really necessary if you're running out of space to store apps. It's basically what Android considers the "internal storage" - basically where any customizations happen. Added apps, widgets on your home screens, etc. Again, only necessary if you're short on space. 256mb has been more than enough for me, but I don't have 10,000 apps installed either

I only recently started to get the low space error which is why I gave this a try a few days ago. One of the best and easiest things I've done in a while.

Sent from my MSM using Tapatalk

tiger2wander · #7 (**permalink**) 12-20-2010, 09:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by natemcnutty

Great writeup. Another option for those who compile their own rootfs, you can change the line where it creates the data.img from 256 to 1024. I have been thinking about bumping it to 512 MB for the NAND project, but only a couple of people seemed to care.

512MB for NAND project seen great, but it will prevent some people which have a 512MB of SDCard to try it out :P

I think it is great if you make a poll to ask people like "How much space we need for data.img"

Thanks!

**natemcnutty** · #8 (**permalink**) 12-20-2010, 10:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tiger2wander

512MB for NAND project seen great, but it will prevent some people which have a 512MB of SDCard to try it out :P

I think it is great if you make a poll to ask people like "How much space we need for data.img"

Thanks!

I'm really excited for some of the new development that is coming down the pipeline. There are three major changes that should be hitting sometime soon. First, real panel power on/off is going to be big (ACL). Second, getting sleep properly working on overclock is going to be great (bzo). Finally, merging system.ext2 and data.img into rootfs and moving it to NAND (maurice.green).

Once the panel power down/up is fully fixed, I'll be making some HUGE changes. I'll be making two full packages like reefer has done where we will have a reference build with better power management enabled. The second package will be overclocked, but it's going to have to wait until after bzo gets the sleep stuff committed. I'll also be creating both customized kernels on each commit so people can update those. I just need to talk to maurice and find out if we should use update.zip method to update the kernel/modules, or if we can flash them without messing with rootfs/initrd.gz

tiger2wander · #9 (**permalink**) 12-20-2010, 10:38 PM

Yeah, I'm hopefully it will done soon also!
Merge all the main stuff then move them to NAND is great, so we will get much speed and stable. I

In my case, I having problem to boot up NAND

still have boot loop, until I have fixed this I'm not able to try it out.

**arrrghhh** · #10 (**permalink**) 12-21-2010, 12:21 PM

I wouldn't depend on the move to NAND speeding up or making anything more stable. Just gets rid of WinMo

It'll be really nice when we have full NAND access, then the data.img thing will be moot.