Glo Information

[mrspaceman]

I've just seen the "Mini Teardown" where it said about the snap on back.

So I thought, as I can't see any screw holes, I'll see if the Glo has a snap on back.

and it has, so I took it apart and found the internal 2Gb MicroSD card, which is partitioned as below:

partition 1 : ext4 - 268MB - named "rootfs"
partition 2 : ext4 - 268MB - named "recoveryfs"
partition 3 : FAT - 1.4GB - named "KOBOeReader"

partition table is actually as follows:

Number  Start   End     Size    Type     File system  Flags
 1      9961kB  278MB   268MB   primary  ext4
 2      278MB   547MB   268MB   primary  ext4
 3      548MB   1965MB  1417MB  primary  fat32        lba

it looks like the first 9961Kb of the disk contains the u-boot image. Not sure how I'll handle this.

rootfs has a ".macaddress" file which looks like it contains the MAC address (surprise, surprise!)

I've made copies so that I can study them a bit.

any more info and I'll post it here

[staylo]

I'd recommend making an image of the micro SD (On Windows I use win32diskimager.exe) as a backup for peace of mind

[mrspaceman]

What I intend to do is:

1. grab image of factory microSD card (done)
2. put image onto 8Gb microSD card
3. see if kobo boots ?

that way I don't touch the factory microSD card and I can always revert back to it.

I'll let you know what the outcome is.

[mrspaceman]

okay, tried, but it didn't boot.
put the factory microSD back in and it's back (phew!)

I just created two ext4 partitions and a FAT partition.
I didn't make the two ext4 partitions the same size as on the original.

so next is to make the two ext4 partitions the exact same size as the factory card.

[staylo]

Using win32diskimager you can make an image of the entire card, including the partition table. You can also write an image to a card. So if you've got a 2GB or greater microSD you can make an exact duplicate of the factory microSD. (Already done this, no problems with the kobo mini)

[mrspaceman]

My idea was to have larger partitions so that I could add my own programs with now fear of running out of space, but I'll just have to experiment now.

At least I now know that I am safe to 'play' as long as I don't touch the factory card.

(oh, and I don't have access to a windows box at work, only linux, so I'll try win32diskimager at the weekend)

andy.

[Darth_Bane]

Originally Posted by mrspaceman

My idea was to have larger partitions so that I could add my own programs with now fear of running out of space, but I'll just have to experiment now.

At least I now know that I am safe to 'play' as long as I don't touch the factory card.

(oh, and I don't have access to a windows box at work, only linux, so I'll try win32diskimager at the weekend)

Just use dd on linux - it'll do just as well. First step is to clone the 2GB image onto the 8GB. When reading the 2GB, make note of what the number of records (i.e. count) is when the reading is done. Let's say its "698596+1 records" then pop in the 8GB and apply the new image using dd with count=698596. It should boot fine and the 8GB will look like a 2GB (with 6GB wasted). Then you can try resizing the 3rd partition using "parted" to make the usable space larger (untested but should work). Resizing the 1st or 2nd partition will probably not work.

[Ginnder]

On my machine, the mounted sd card was sdb

linux dd worked to copy the 2GB Sandisk SD to my 8GB kingston.
dd if=/dev/sdb of=/tmp/kobo.raw.img
sync
eject /dev/sdb
<Remove and mount new card>
dd if=/tmp/kobo.raw.img of=/dev/sdb
sync
eject /dev/sdb
<Remove drive and replace>
Only work on your second card!

Back up the contents of the 3rd partition (the fat partition)
mount -o shortname=mixed /dev/sdb3 /mnt/sdb3
cd /mnt/sdb1
tar -cvf /tmp/sandisk-8.tar .
cd -
umount /mnt/sdb3

Find the drive's name:
dosfslabel /dev/sdb3
"KOBOeReader"

Then I used fdisk to delete the 3rd partition, and recreate it, larger: (be careful, fdisk wanted to use the area at the front of the partitions)
fdisk /dev/sdb
p
...
/dev/sdb3 1068034 3862527 1397247 b W95 FAT32
d
3
n
3
1068034
<enter>
t
3
c
w
sync

mkfs.vfat -v -F 32 -f 2 -n "KOBOeReader" /dev/sdb3
sync
mount -o shortname=mixed /dev/sdb3 /mnt/sdb3
cd /mnt/sdb3
tar -xf /tmp/sandisk-8.tar
sync
cd -
umount /mnt/sdb3
eject /dev/sdb

Remove and install SD in Kobo
Boot Kobo
Go to settings/device information: "Onboard storage 397MB of 7056MB"

[jlynton]

Originally Posted by Ginnder

On my machine, the mounted sd card was sdb

linux dd worked to copy the 2GB Sandisk SD to my 8GB kingston.
dd if=/dev/sdb of=/tmp/kobo.raw.img
sync
eject /dev/sdb
<Remove and mount new card>
dd if=/tmp/kobo.raw.img of=/dev/sdb
sync
eject /dev/sdb
<Remove drive and replace>
Only work on your second card!

Back up the contents of the 3rd partition (the fat partition)
mount -o shortname=mixed /dev/sdb3 /mnt/sdb3
cd /mnt/sdb1
tar -cvf /tmp/sandisk-8.tar .
cd -
umount /mnt/sdb3

Find the drive's name:
dosfslabel /dev/sdb3
"KOBOeReader"

Then I used fdisk to delete the 3rd partition, and recreate it, larger: (be careful, fdisk wanted to use the area at the front of the partitions)
fdisk /dev/sdb
p
...
/dev/sdb3 1068034 3862527 1397247 b W95 FAT32
d
3
n
3
1068034
<enter>
t
3
c
w
sync

mkfs.vfat -v -F 32 -f 2 -n "KOBOeReader" /dev/sdb3
sync
mount -o shortname=mixed /dev/sdb3 /mnt/sdb3
cd /mnt/sdb3
tar -xf /tmp/sandisk-8.tar
sync
cd -
umount /mnt/sdb3
eject /dev/sdb

Remove and install SD in Kobo
Boot Kobo
Go to settings/device information: "Onboard storage 397MB of 7056MB"

Many thanks for your instructions, I more or less followed them, and all went perfectly.

I did this:

linux dd worked to copy the 2GB Sandisk SD to my 8GB kingston.
dd if=/dev/sdb of=/tmp/kobo.raw.img
sync
eject /dev/sdb
<Remove and mount new card>
dd if=/tmp/kobo.raw.img of=/dev/sdb
sync
eject /dev/sdb
<Remove drive and reinsert

At this point I took the lazy route:
I used gparted to 'grow' the 3rd partition, it took just a few seconds and worked perfectly.

I used a credit card to open the back of the kobo, starting at one corner I ran it all the way around under the edge, there were a series of clicks as the cover came free.

I used a sandisk 8GB, class 4 card, cost about £3 new.

Now I can carry all my documents on the kobo, without having to use an additional sdcard, and still have enough free space to give me a warm, satisfied feeling :-)

[Gergith]

I did this about a week ago going up to a 32 gig card. I plan to post a guide on here by Sunday at latest with pictures and links to free windows gui apps to do it all

All is well so far with my unit No factory reset was needed, didn't even do a factory reset!

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Gergith

All is well so far with my unit No factory reset was needed, didn't even do a factory reset!

But, what happens tomorrow or next week or next month when you do need to do a factory reset? Will this handle the bigger card? I think it will be OK, but I am curious if anyone has done it.

[jackastor]

Originally Posted by Gergith

I did this about a week ago going up to a 32 gig card. I plan to post a guide on here by Sunday at latest with pictures and links to free windows gui apps to do it all

All is well so far with my unit No factory reset was needed, didn't even do a factory reset!

Does that mean you could potentially put in an sd card in the external slot boosting memory to a total of 64 gigs? Also if you do post the guide thank you very much


Jack

[Gergith]

Originally Posted by jackastor

Does that mean you could potentially put in an sd card in the external slot boosting memory to a total of 64 gigs? Also if you do post the guide thank you very much


Jack

Potentially, but I REALLY wouldn't advise this. I'm just doing this specifically to avoid having any sdcard at all in my external slot.

As it is it adds a bit of noticeable lag, so I wouldn't recommend more. Specifically both boot time and going into sleep mode. Coming out of sleep mode is normal speed oddly. I noticed the boot time is different specifically because it used to take a certain amount of blocks scrolling before hanging at the exact same one and loading to the main screen. Now it scrolls for a few seconds more. But very tolerable.

As for the actual maximum, I'm not certain.

Originally Posted by davidfor

But, what happens tomorrow or next week or next month when you do need to do a factory reset? Will this handle the bigger card? I think it will be OK, but I am curious if anyone has done it.

I think it does work, because I've seen other people post that they do a factory reset to resize the partition to 32gigs, instead of doing it manually. So they skip that step and let the factory restore handle it. But resizing the partition manually allows for retaining your data/stats.

Either way, you'll have the 2gig card to pop back in.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Gergith

I think it does work, because I've seen other people post that they do a factory reset to resize the partition to 32gigs, instead of doing it manually. So they skip that step and let the factory restore handle it. But resizing the partition manually allows for retaining your data/stats.

Either way, you'll have the 2gig card to pop back in.

That is the thing. I have seen no mention of doing a factory reset after upgrading the card size. The factory reset restores a firmware image from the recovery partition of the card to the main partition. Then it does something to clear the data partition. I think it simply formats the data partition, but it might delete and recreate the partition. If it does the latter, it means that any time a factory reset was done, you would need to open the device and resize the data partition.

Popping the 2GB card in doesn't solve this at all.

[auspex]

Originally Posted by Gergith

Potentially, but I REALLY wouldn't advise this...As it is it adds a bit of noticeable lag, so I wouldn't recommend more. Specifically both boot time and going into sleep mode. Coming out of sleep mode is normal speed oddly.

Not odd at all - typical linux behaviour. When you start from power-off, it's booting and needs to run fsck (file system check) on the partitions - the bigger they are, the longer it takes, though normally it doesn't have to do a full check.