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Posts: 8 | Thanked: 0 times | Joined on Nov 2010
#1
Hi! I'm tired. Tried to do everything I could to figure out but I don't know linux so I can go only so far.

I dropped my N900 and its eMMC is broken. I want to get my phone to work with just microSD. So far I got it half-working with help from here

http://discussions.europe.nokia.com/.../751901#M17953

I have got everything else working except installing applications (I have only used the Application Manager). Camera and other normal stuff works. My pictures go my microSD. For some reason I can't add contacts anymore (now run out of space?). Maybe contacts are saved on the flash or something? There should still be free space on microSD.

I have read that applications install to /usr and /opt right? So do I need to mount those somehow to my microSD. I really don't know how to do that, I have tried the half-day to get this work.

Now what would be really sweet if I could somehow just install cleanly my Maemo to microSD and be done with it. For now I have just tried to mount those two directories to my microSD.

My microSD is 2gb. What I just found was instructions for installing Meego to microSD but it requires atleast 4gt. Not sure if this really means that I could use Meego without eMMC. Here's the link: http://wiki.meego.com/ARM/N900/Install/MMC

I have few times installed Maemo before using flashers and such. Maybe you could somehow choose the device like microSD in the phone as the target for installing? But for now I have just used maemo wiki instructions and they seem to presume you still have your eMMC intact so I can only do firmware but not the other thingie which would propably set up /home and those directories to eMMC.

I didn't find any help installing Maemo to microSD. So i'm asking here
 
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#2
are you sure its broken?did you already tried to flash rootfs and emmc??
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Posts: 8 | Thanked: 0 times | Joined on Nov 2010
#3
Last time I looked in this was somewhere in autumn and for some reason I ended up thinking so.

Atleast it doesn't seem to be found easilly. There is only /dev/mmcblk1 which stands for microSD and there is no /dev/mmcblk0 which I understood that stands for eMMC?

Is there some more profound way to be sure of this? Flasher/thingie also reported error when I tried to install that image ment for eMMC. No problems with firmware though so basic operations work.
 
Posts: 1,425 | Thanked: 983 times | Joined on May 2010 @ Hong Kong
#4
Originally Posted by durain View Post
Hi! I'm tired. Tried to do everything I could to figure out but I don't know linux so I can go only so far.

I dropped my N900 and its eMMC is broken. I want to get my phone to work with just microSD. So far I got it half-working with help from here

http://discussions.europe.nokia.com/.../751901#M17953

I have got everything else working except installing applications (I have only used the Application Manager). Camera and other normal stuff works. My pictures go my microSD. For some reason I can't add contacts anymore (now run out of space?). Maybe contacts are saved on the flash or something? There should still be free space on microSD.

I have read that applications install to /usr and /opt right? So do I need to mount those somehow to my microSD. I really don't know how to do that, I have tried the half-day to get this work.

Now what would be really sweet if I could somehow just install cleanly my Maemo to microSD and be done with it. For now I have just tried to mount those two directories to my microSD.

My microSD is 2gb. What I just found was instructions for installing Meego to microSD but it requires atleast 4gt. Not sure if this really means that I could use Meego without eMMC. Here's the link: http://wiki.meego.com/ARM/N900/Install/MMC

I have few times installed Maemo before using flashers and such. Maybe you could somehow choose the device like microSD in the phone as the target for installing? But for now I have just used maemo wiki instructions and they seem to presume you still have your eMMC intact so I can only do firmware but not the other thingie which would propably set up /home and those directories to eMMC.

I didn't find any help installing Maemo to microSD. So i'm asking here
Have you noticed the instruction from nokia.com is to recreate a swap disk from your microSD but not your storage area? You must create another storage area for your contacts, photos and applications.
 
Posts: 8 | Thanked: 0 times | Joined on Nov 2010
#5
From the help from (link posted on my first post)

http://discussions.europe.nokia.com/.../751901#M17953

I have partitioned my 2gb microSD to two partitions. Partition mmcblk1p1 which is fat-type and for random stuff and mmcblk1p2 for swap and is ex2. I haven't mount them or anything I think. Phone automagically seems to find mmcblk1p1 and put my camera pictures to there. So like in my first post i'm thinking that should I mount my partitions/something to somewhere to maybe get my contacts and applications saved on microSD? But I don't really have a clue how to proceed with this.

New/Added:
This could maybe seen as issue in normal linux. Like is it possible in linux to change your /usr /opt etc other directories made by installation to work from another location/partition? I mean if I could change the locations of /usr and such to be in microSD partition (mmcblk1p1) maybe I could save more contacts without taking space from the flash/rom?

Last edited by durain; 2011-01-28 at 19:36.
 
Posts: 42 | Thanked: 19 times | Joined on Dec 2007
#6
I'm unfortunately in the same boat. I dropped my phone a couple times last weekend (apparently alcohol gives you butter fingers ;-)) and have experienced all the same symptoms listed here & on that post on the Nokia forums. Reboot loop, and after successfully flashing the latest COMBINED Nokia kernel, I had no eMMC & couldn't flash VANILLA.

I have an 8 GB mSD card repartitioned to 768 MB swap, 2 GB ext3 and the rest as FAT32 to try & mimic the original setup as best as possible. The swap's working fine, but I'm also trying to figure out how I can either flash the whole kernel to the SD card, or at least move some things like /home to the SD either through symlinks or mounting mmcblk1p2 (my ext3 part) as /home. I'm a wicked Linux n00b though, so I haven't been at all succesful thus far. The phone's pretty crippled; I can call/text/go online, but any app installs (in the 14 MB I have avail) have to be done through apt-get or else it complains about no space. Likewise, I can't edit/add contacts, nor can I use instant messaging or answer skype calls.

Originally Posted by atilla View Post
are you sure its broken?did you already tried to flash rootfs and emmc??
I will upload some pics tomorrow of what a Toshiba BGA-mounted eMMC is not supposed to look like ;-)
 
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#7


 

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#8
This is a try and error procedure! Be sure to have both, a backup of your settings and stuff via the Backup application of the phone and a backup of /home/user with all of the hidden folders and files to some external storage other than the inserted memory card!!!
First you need rootsh to be installed to able to gain the rights that are necessary for some of the steps.
For having your custom setup prepared you need to offer some information of the current situation. This with the card, that will be used inserted. Note that a 2G card might not make you a happy bunny in the long run, also the MyDocs folder might be movable to some other location
Code:
mount
df -h
free
sudo gainroot
sfdisk -l

Last edited by michaaa62; 2011-02-01 at 10:15.
 
Posts: 42 | Thanked: 19 times | Joined on Dec 2007
#9
I've attached my outputs from those commands.

sfdisk -l returned nothing for me, so I just chose the mSD card (sfdisk -l mmcblk1).
Attached Files
File Type: txt mount.txt (633 Bytes, 249 views)
File Type: txt df.txt (503 Bytes, 219 views)
File Type: txt free.txt (236 Bytes, 211 views)
File Type: txt sfdisk_mmcblk1.txt (483 Bytes, 242 views)
 
Posts: 2,102 | Thanked: 1,937 times | Joined on Sep 2008 @ Berlin, Germany
#10
Be prepared to reflash the fiasco image, if we by any chance mess up device names.
After making your backups, mount the prepared ext3 partition, then copy the content of /home and /opt to the newly mounted partition, edit the files /etc/fstab, /usr/lib/genfstab.awk, /etc/event.d/rcS-late. This based on the wiki entry http://wiki.maemo.org/Repartitioning_the_flash Solution #7

Code:
sudo gainroot
mount /dev/mmcblk1p2 /mnt
cp -ax /home/* /mnt
mkdir /mnt/opt #there might be a neglectable error here, if the directory exists already
cp -ax /opt /mnt/opt
nano /usr/lib/genfstab.awk
Comment out the last 10 lines
start == 1 && $6 == 83 && !__home {
printf "%s /home ext3 %s 0 0\n", $1, home_opts
printf "/home/opt /opt none bind\n"
__home++
}

start == 1 && $6 == "c" && !__fat {
printf "%s /home/user/MyDocs vfat %s 0 0\n", $1, fat_opts
__fat++
}
This will make sure there will not be an autogenerated fstab anymore.
Now edit /etc/event.d/rcS-late
Code:
nano /etc/event.d/rcS-late
Find the line
-f /usr/lib/genfstab.awk > $tmp_fstab
and add this below it
Code:
echo "/dev/mmcblk1p2 /home ext3 rw,noatime,errors=continue,commit=1,data=writeback 0 0" >> $tmp_fstab
echo "/home/opt /opt none bind" >> $tmp_fstab
echo "/dev/mmcblk1p1 /home/user/MyDocs vfat noauto,nodev,noexec,nosuid,noatime,nodiratime,utf8,uid=29999,shortname=mixed,dmask=000,fmask=0133,rodir 0 0" >> $tmp_fstab
This is the basic setup. The last line of code might work, but might as well be overwritten by some other maemo settings, it is experimental, so don't use the MyDocs folder without further testing, including a ccouple of reboots to be sure.

Well this might be the moment to reboot.
Good luck or time to make the flasher ready
 

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