Any way to access other NTFS partitions on the computer if I install Remix OS as a standalone OS?

[Atul Kumar]

My hard drive has only two partitions, one for windows and other for my stuff. I was hoping to use Remix OS as a standalone OS for a couple of days but it just came to me that would I be able to access my other partition in Remix OS?

[Gökhan Çokşen]

Sure.
Open menu.lst or grub.cfg file (depending which boot method you use). If you used remixos installer, then find and open menu.lst file. Add SDCARD=sda2 to kernel line (it should be sda3,sda4 or more. Just try)
When you write the true one, you will access that partition you use for your stuffs.

[Andy Barnhart]

So where exactly is this file? Do I edit it from Windows before booting over to Remix or from inside Remix? Being able to access my full disk from Remix would take it to the next level of functionality.

[Gökhan Çokşen]

With the method i mentioned, you can access only 1 partition of your hdd. so you should choose the most important one for yourself.
Yes, you must edit menu.lst file from windows. the file is in where it is installed on (usb or hdd partition) make a file searching if you cant find.

[Francesco Sganga]

Root your Remix OS and install StickMount.

[Andy Barnhart]

I think the beta is root by default, because I did a default install and I added a tool that had some features requiring root and I was able to enable them. I got a confirmation pop up. I think I will try the menu.lst method first later today (machine not with me right now)

EDIT - my notebook has a single large hard drive; if both Windows and Remix can share it that would be perfect. So I am mostly interested in just adding the single drive. It might be nice to see other media sometimes but I thought that I would be able to get to USB without doing anything special. On my old Android tablet, which didn't have root, I just needed the special cable. I shouldn't even need that on a notebook.

[Gökhan Çokşen]

@Andy
It's up to you. But i don't advise a single large partition. At least there should be two partitions. One for windows system, the other one for multimedia, documents and remix os. Because remix os is portable thanks to data.img file. So you can copy-paste it wherever you want and you can boot it smoothly as long as you have a good working menu.lst/grub.cfg file.

[Gökhan Çokşen]

And one more thing.
Yesterday, I had to make 3 or 4 clean installs. And i'm sure as my name, remix is NOT PREROOTED. I can supply some screenshots if there are people not believing.

[drmhus...@gmail.com]

for me it was pre rooted..

phoenix os detects ntfs drives natively

[Andy Barnhart]

I don't know Android and Linux well enough to really understand what state mine is in, but without doing anything special I was able to enable root features in X-plore and can browse the files down in the Linux system area and I can't do that on my phone. But the disk mounting apps that require root get errors trying to access and mount the hard drive so something isn't right. You seem to know the environment better, so I will take your word for it. The way I am using that system, disk sharing is actually a "would be nice" feature and I am so happy with the performance for browsing, RDP and video streaming under Remix that I don't want to destabilize it.

As far as partitions and physical disks, if a system is to be used solely for Windows I always recommend it be formatted as a single NTFS volume. I work for a client that has a nightmare in the field right now as they formatted 2 partitions with what seemed like plenty of extra space for the system but after 2 years of updates and discovering that not all the software is "following the rules" about where to store data, users are having trouble installing new software releases because the system volume is full. They have thousands of machines with the problem. You can back up and restore within folders; you can set quotas on folders. On my work machine (I am a Windows software developer), I have 2 physical drives as the primary is SSD. Each is just one volume and I use the secondary only for large VHDs I don't use often (my most commonly used VMs I keep on the SSD for speed). 

I see no advantages in putting multiple NTFS partitions on a single physical partition on a workstation. A server is another story and so are FAT partitions (but I haven't used FAT on anything but thumb drives and SD cards in over a decade).

[Gary A]

The thinking behind using 2 ntfs partitions (one for system, one for multimedia) is only because you want to additionally access the multimedia within Android/Linux - and ntfs support outside of Windows (its a $MS proprietary fs) is a hack at best. i.e. no real error checking/fsck/chkdsk on Linux/Android - there is ntfsfix, but thats a basic error check/ignorer with a prompt to chkdsk the next time the fs is mounted in Windows. If you are using 2 ntfs partitions you can leave system untouched so it won't get corrupted, if multimedia partition does get corrupted then chances are a reboot to windows and perhaps a forced chkdsk will fix it.

Well that would be if you are intending on using the same files on an ntfs partition with Windows and Linux/Android, as you said if solely for Windows use then a single large partition makes the most sense.

[Andy Barnhart]

Gary,

Your statement - ntfs support outside of Windows (its a $MS proprietary fs) is a hack at best. i.e. no real error checking/fsck/chkdsk on Linux/Android - there is ntfsfix, but thats a basic error check/ignorer with a prompt to chkdsk the next time the fs is mounted in Windows -  gives me pause and makes me wonder if it really is a good idea at all. I do see the logic in making the shared data a partition in that case. Given that integrity issue, I am leaning toward a different approach - making a big IMG file that I can mount under Windows (there are a few tools out there for that).

[Andy Barnhart]

Just as an aside, thumb drive works fine and is really about all I need for moving stuff back and forth. Sure, it would be nice if I could snag another few files I forgot about but there really isn't that much I need to shuttle back and forth from Windows. What I really need to do is increase the image size in Remix (and I have seen those threads and know it isn't that difficult) as I am starting to use it as the primary.

[COMPUTIAC USA]

  I used these tool's to increase the size of the data.img.

   https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-FFcD-3hX_5Z3FZX3psLXpRMU0/view

  You can watch the video on how to use them here, starting at 1:30 :

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krK_yQqOE7c&feature=youtu.be

  I increased mine to 64GB.


   Warning :The contents of the data.img are removed during the expansion.
 
     It is best to use this for a clean install of Remix.

[Jordan Thompson]

It's not true root. It's root for manually using the Terminal. You still need SuperSU for normal root activities.

[Andy Barnhart]

Comutiac, Thanks for that. I have those tools and a Windows shell that runs them and I used it to pick increase and it failed, but I am not quite sure why. I need to use the command line instead and get better feedback. I have decades of Windows experience (I actually wrote the cover article "Breaking into Windows 3.1" for Windows magazine back in the day) and am very comfortable there in command windows (I finally got used to calling them that after years of people looking at me sideways when I called them DOS prompts). Anyway, I do have one question - does this retain all contents? I got the impression that it would but there toward the end in Remix it was showing 0 items in the folders. But while I am extremely comfortable in Windows...

Jordan, The fact that I don't know the difference between root and true root means that I could easily be a super villian running as super user so until I learn more about it I will leave it alone. I was actually planning to learn while doing thinking this would be a tinkering experience with Remix but it is so insanely fast on this old notebook that it has become my go to environment at home. I don't want to mess it up. Everything works. From reading these forums, I feel like one of the lucky few but I suspect that a lot of people are just running it and not bothering to share that info.

[Andy Barnhart]

[COMPUTIAC USA]

 
  Andy Barnhart,

  The contents of the data.img are removed during the expansion.

   I should have said this in my previous post but if you watch the video, it says the same thing in it.

  I will make the correction.

[Andy Barnhart]

I did watch, but missed that. If I copy current contents to a thumb drive from within Remix before I do it, can I just copy them back after and be back where I was? the biggest pain is apps and settings. I am actually not constrained in 8G yet; most of what I am doing is RDP, browsing and streaming. I am also doing some development in DroidScript which is currently hard to use because of some display issues but the developer is working with me to hopefully fix those. Anyway, it has a fairly small footprint. So I am kind of on the fence about messing with it if I will have to re-install everything.

[COMPUTIAC USA]

  Andy,

  I don't know if it will work or not.

 I removed everything in the partition from the Alpha and saved it  on the desktop.

 Then did a clean install of the Beta in the same partition.  I then expanded the new 8GB data.img to 64GB. I tried to make it 68GB but for some reason it said there was not enough room for it.

  I wanted to make it 68GB because it was the size of the data.img from the Alpha and thinking this would replace all app's I had before.

  I will attempt to do this again to see if I can make it work.


  Your advice on this is welcomed.

[Andy Barnhart]

I booted back over to Windows and revisited the toolset I had downloaded. It is RMXTools:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/remix/remix-os/rmxtools-remix-os-data-img-t3308158

I made a copy of the current data.img which was 8G and ran the tool on it. This time I was a little more attentive to all the steps. ;)

I ran a check first. I was getting something about needing to fix a journal so I clicked the button that said it fixed things and sure enough it said it fixed the journal. I tried the resize again pusing it up around 32G (the slider control without and edit box to allow you to change the value by hand is kind of weird, especially since it does not try to adjust to what I think of as common sizes, but okay). It cranked on that a while. 

When it finished, I ran another check and it said it was okay. I moved my primary data.img to a subfolder and moved the new big one in its place. I booted over to Remix. My heart sank when it stopped at "checking data partition" (or something like that) but it continued after a few seconds (takes 4 times as long; DUH! :) ).

In the Remix environment, all the icons were in the right places (added some, removed some, moved them around) on the desktop and task bar. Opera (my current browser of choice; I can't convince Chrome to behave enough like a desktop to suit me) came right up and had my recent tabs and logged me in for email. X-plore shows me I have over 28G free.

So unless something is wrong that takes me a bit to discover, it looks like a pretty painless path to more space.

[Andy Barnhart]

Well, I changed my tune about rooting after watching a linked video from a thread at xda. I was somewhat comfortable with the RMXTools after the resize and knew how to keep originals and put them back if it didn't work. Went off without a hitch, installed Paragon and I can see my hard drive. Still gun shy about doing anything but looking.

What convinced me to push ahead was talking to an Android developer at work. He said I really had to have a rooted system to get much done, especially if I wanted to do on that box. AIDE has some features you can't enable unless you root, for example. Also, I looked at Airdroid (which may not work at all but I want to try) and for its full remote access (now in beta) root is required. I also like that Android does the UAC like dialog to ask permission for any app that wants root, so it isn't as wide open as I was afraid it might be. So I have a working rooted Android system with ~28G free internally that has access to my HD with over 150G free. I solved my standy=reboot problem and all the apps I really care about are working great. So I think booting to Windows will just be an occasional "if i must for some reason" thing on this machine.

[abhishek...@gmail.com]

How can u get into the core files when windows doesnt allow you to make partitions show up!