[almost SOLVED] Adoptable/Flex storage on an old Android phone (or App2SD?)

[asheenlevrai]

Hey there

 

I've got this cheap and old android phone collecting dust in a drawer. It's an Honor 4X (Che2-L11) running Android 6. It's in pristine condition and it used to work fine although storage is VERY limited, to the point that the device is unusable. Indeed, only a little bit over 3GB are available when the phone is reset to factory settings and cleared of all data. This is not even enough space to run the updates of the core system apps today.

 

I was planing to give this phone to a kid in the family as his 1st phone for him to learn and experiment with until he gets a more recent device. I thus added an SD card in the corresponding slot and hoped for the best.

 

Turns out you can only use the SD card to store photos, videos and documents but not apps (never mind system apps).

A bit of googling later and Adoptable Storage (or Flex Storage), a feature of Android 6, and "move to SD" or similar apps caught my attention. Most of these options require rooting the phone which I'm OK with (even though I don't know how to do it yet).

 

I don't know if there are any custom ROMs available for the CHe2-L11. I need to look into that.

 

What would be the best option to increase the internal storage of this phone? What would you recommend (apart from just getting a newer phone)?

 

Thank you very much in advance for your feedback and advice.

Best,

-a-

[jaslion]

Honestly there are amazing budget phone out right now so do keep that as an option. However the honor 4x only ever got up to android 4.4 never 6;0

 

As for the feature it is there but some phone disabled it. A custom rom usually gets it back BUT you have a huawei phone so that is sadly not posisble since they lock their bootloader.

[SupaKomputa]

even if you can expand the storage, there's hardly any (useful) apps that support android 4 unfortunately.

outdated apps are automatically delisted from google play.

the lowest acceptable apps is for android 5.1 (which will be removed in the near future).

[OhioYJ]

So Huawei used to officially unlock bootloaders. As mentioned they do not now, but you can use unofficial methods to unlock the bootloader. It appears there is Android 9 ROMs available for your device actually. (Custom ROMs that is)  I have two  Honor 5Xs, and they run both Android 9 and 10 ok (Lineage). They aren't flagship phones, but they aren't a slouch either, and battery life is still very good. 

 

I suggest you go over to XDA 4X Section and do some reading. They should have an unlock guide. I would see if you can find the factory software, or a way to go back to stock if something goes wrong. Then figure out which ROM you want to try. As I have a feeling going to a custom ROM is going to be the best way to get this device to a new enough OS to make it still useable. Which is a good reason why we need to be able to install our own software to our own devices.

[Kazooduck]

as already stated, this phone/tablet is woefully out of date. while you may be able to get a newer ROM on it, it will not be able to handle it well, and especially not with apps. I personally would get one of these under $200: https://www.gsmarena.com/results.php3?nYearMin=2020&nPriceMax=150&sOSes=2,3&sOSversions=2930,2920,3960,3950

[OhioYJ]

@asheenlevrailet me know if you decide to mess with the device. You basically have nothing to lose since you already have it.  I have some notes at home on setting up adoptable storage that I used ony Honor 5X for using the SD card space for system apps. However even when doing this some apps still will not work on the SD card, so keep that in mind. I can post them up when I get home if you want.

[asheenlevrai]

Thanks a lot for all the replies.

I'll take the time to address them all and come back to this thread later today.

 

As for now, all I can say is that my 4X runs EMUI 4.0 and that the android version is android 6.0.

Build che2-L11c432b560.

 

I may have unlocked the bootloader years ago. I'm not sure it was on this phone. But afair I just had to send an email to Huawei and they would send me an unlock code or something.

 

I'll be back later.

Thanks

[OhioYJ]

Here are my notes, and I use the term "my" notes loosely, as I believe I copied these from an XDA post some where a very, very long time ago. If I could find it I would very much give credit, as it's been very helpful over the years, as I've used it across many devices, and many times over the years. However I did start using it first on a couple Honor 5Xs in the house:

 

Quote

WARNING: Before you do this, be sure to eject the card from the Settings/Storage & USB menu.

 

I found how to partition my SD card to give 8G as internal storage to which all apps that can be moved will be moved and leave ~20GB as portable storage to hold music, etc.

 

First, you need adb working, and your SD card inserted and formatted as portable.

 

$ adb shell sm list-disks adoptable
disk:179,64

disk:179,64 is my SD card that can be made adoptable, I want 90% as external SD:

 

$ adb shell sm partition disk:179,64 mixed 90

Note: Your card may be listed with an underscore _ instead of an underscore, e.g. disk:179_64 in which case, that is what you type.

 

This erases the entire SD card, and then gives me 90% as portable storage and the rest as adopted internal storage.

 

The partition table looks like this:
Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 1049kB 57.5GB 57.5GB fat32 shared msftdata
2 57.5GB 57.5GB 16.8MB android_meta
3 57.5GB 63.9GB 6369MB android_expand

 

The fat32 partition is not encrypted and can be mounted on a computer (provided it can handle the new GUID partition table format).

 

I advise a reboot after setting the new music storage location this as Google Music may get the wrong idea about much space is available.

 

Rename the adopted storage. If it had the same name as the portable storage partition then it may prevent one of the partitions from being available over USB MTP."

 

[asheenlevrai]

3 minutes ago, OhioYJ said:

Here are my notes, and I use the term "my" notes loosely, as I believe I copied these from an XDA post some where a very, very long time ago. If I could find it I would very much give credit, as it's been very helpful over the years, as I've used it across many devices, and many times over the years. However I did start using it first on a couple Honor 5Xs in the house:

 

Thanks

 

I'll need to spend time reading that and trying to understand.

In fact, going through my own posts on XDA from 2015 I realize how much I forgot. This all seems so far. I was much smarter then

[asheenlevrai]

After a while on XDA it seems like I can chose among these roms (all of them developed by Ksrt12

 - AEX    -> DL links are dead (Source was Ksrt12's Google drive?)

 - dotOS    -> DL links are dead (Source was Ksrt12's Google drive?)

 - RRos   -> DL links point to a ROM that is not compatible with my device (cherry) but rather designed for Huawei P8lite (cherryplus)

 - Slim7    -> DL links are dead (Source was Ksrt12's Google drive?)

They're all based on Nougat (Android 7) and seem very similar except for cosmetics. But I'm not familiar with any of them so I may have missed something.

 

They all support Adoptable Storage.

 

Any recommendations?

Seems like my options are limited : none

 

Tx

-a-

[asheenlevrai]

In order to flash a custom recovery I apparently need to find the Windows drivers 1st (otherwise, when I try to flash the recovery in ADB it gets stuck at < waiting for any device > although the Che2-L11 is detected by windows as "MTP").

 

I don't know where to find these drivers, yet.

 

I just needed to install drivers (via windows update) for when the phone was into bootloader mode.

[asheenlevrai]

On 5/21/2022 at 2:16 AM, asheenlevrai said:

After a while on XDA it seems like I can chose among these roms (all of them developed by Ksrt12

 - AEX    -> DL links are dead (Source was Ksrt12's Google drive?)

 - dotOS    -> DL links are dead (Source was Ksrt12's Google drive?)

 - RRos   -> DL links point to a ROM that is not compatible with my device (cherry) but rather designed for Huawei P8lite (cherryplus)

 - Slim7    -> DL links are dead (Source was Ksrt12's Google drive?)

 

Seems like my option are limited : none

Do you have any idea where I could DL a rom for this device (Che2-L11)?

 

 

Edit: found this

https://lineageosroms.com/cherry/

based on Android 8.0

will try it now -> failed. This ROM is for the variant based on snapdragon CPU, not kirin (Che1-xx , not Che2-L11)

 

Thanks a lot

-a-

 

[OhioYJ]

On 5/20/2022 at 8:16 PM, asheenlevrai said:

They all support Adoptable Storage.

Are you just looking for one that specifically claims to support it? I know Lineage did on my 5X and several of my other devices. Lineage code is used as a base for many other ROMs. So you may just set it up and see if it works, as you might find that it does. 

 

Many times on XDA if you post in threads and ask if any one has a copy of said ROM someone will post up a link. I know I keep old ROMs for my devices, just in case. I have the last release of every version of Lineage for basically all of my devices. For some of them that means Cyangonmod ROMs. 

[asheenlevrai]

1 minute ago, OhioYJ said:

Are you just looking for one that specifically claims to support it? I know Lineage did on my 5X and several of my other devices. Lineage code is used as a base for many other ROMs. So you may just set it up and see if it works, as you might find that it does. 

Well right now it seems like I cannot find a single rom for this device (all DL links are dead).

 

There are roms for the variant with the snapdragon SOC (Che1-XXX) but I need help for my Che2-L11

[OhioYJ]

Just now, asheenlevrai said:

Well right now it seems like I cannot find a single rom for this device (all DL links are dead).

 

There are roms for the variant with the snapdragon SOC (Che1-XXX) but I need help for my Che2-L11

I editted my post above.

[asheenlevrai]

Also, several roms  state they are compatible with the Che2-L11 while they are not.

They're compatible with Cherryplus while the Che2-L11 is Cherry.

I guess this is a misunderstanding resulting from the fact that there was a Cherryplus-L11 variant of the Honor 4X at some point. They really put everything and the kitchen's sink under this model name...

[Kazooduck]

12 hours ago, asheenlevrai said:

Also, several roms  state they are compatible with the Che2-L11 while they are not.

They're compatible with Cherryplus while the Che2-L11 is Cherry.

I guess this is a misunderstanding resulting from the fact that there was a Cherryplus-L11 variant of the Honor 4X at some point. They really put everything and the kitchen's sink under this model name...

Wonder if there’s a cherry stem 

[asheenlevrai]

Actually the misunderstanding was on my side!!!

 

Bob1900 from XDA forum helped me out realizing the following:

 - Che1-XX based on snapdragon 410 are "cherry" devices

 - Che2-XX based on Kirin 620 (my device) are "cherryplus" devices

 - I flashed a version of twrp that is designed for cherry devices and thus it won't let me flash the custom roms deigned for cherryplus devices while these are the ones I actually need.

 

Bob1900 pointed to this post which contain a link (not broken, yeah!) to a version of twrp designed for cherryplus devices.

 

Now I will try to flash this version of twrp and then flash a custom rom designed for cherryplus devices.

 

Fingers crossed

[asheenlevrai]

It's all good now.

I installed RR and from there I could even DL updates for the ROM and for TWRP (now v. 3.2.2 from Ksrt12).

I enabled Adoptable Storage and now I'm testing...

[Kazooduck]

20 hours ago, asheenlevrai said:

It's all good now.

I installed RR and from there I could even DL updates for the ROM and for TWRP (now v. 3.2.2 from Ksrt12).

I enabled Adoptable Storage and now I'm testing...

How did it go?

[asheenlevrai]

On 5/24/2022 at 9:20 PM, kamonanban said:

How did it go?

IT seems fine at first glance. (android 7.1.2)

I haven't done much deeper testing yet since it's not my daily driver.

 

 - I believe I need to make sure BT works as expected.

 

 - Stock camera cannot record video as described on the ROM's page. However Footej Camera 2 can (limited to 2 minutes in the free version but that's OK for me). I wonder if any other 3rd party cam would be better.

 

 - Double-tap to wake doesn't work (as reported). I'm not sure I'd use it anyways.

 

 - YouTube works at all resolutions. It's mentioned YT 720p60 is not working so I guess it means YT at 720p and 60Hz/fps but I don't even know how to check the refresh rate on YT vidz.

 

[OhioYJ]

1 hour ago, asheenlevrai said:

- Stock camera cannot record video as described on the ROM's page. However Footej Camera 2 can (limited to 2 minutes in the free version but that's OK for me). I wonder if any other 3rd party cam would be better.

Does Open Camera work? It's in the play store, Open source, and free. It works for many devices. You may also want to see if a Google camera port exsists for your device (less likely) but possible.

[Kazooduck]

6 hours ago, OhioYJ said:

Does Open Camera work? It's in the play store, Open source, and free. It works for many devices. You may also want to see if a Google camera port exsists for your device (less likely) but possible.

Gcam is definitely the best option if you can.

[asheenlevrai]

12 hours ago, OhioYJ said:

Does Open Camera work? It's in the play store, Open source, and free. It works for many devices. You may also want to see if a Google camera port exsists for your device (less likely) but possible.

Thanks

Google camera doesn't show up in the playstore.

Open camera fails to record video.

[asheenlevrai]

I tried m'y bt headset and I could listen to YT vidz alright but the microphone doesn't seem to work, though (this was reported as a bug afair). Now just once I said "play"to the Google assistant and it actually picked up something ("hey"instead of "play",but this means audio input is actually possible although not functional)