How to Resize Android’s Internal Storage Partition in Rockchip Devices

I installed Light Biz OS firmware on GeekBox yesterday, but I’ve quickly realized many applications such as Gimp Inkscape would not install due to the small 1.94GB “internal partition”, so I asked how to increase the partition size in GeekBox forums last evening, and got an answer overnight from “dewet”.

The good news is that it worked so I’ll share the steps I followed in a computer running Ubuntu 14.04. It might also be possible to perform the same tasks within a Windows machine with Rorkchip’s Factory tools

1. First let’s download the utils with relevant scripts and binaries:
   
   git clone https://github.com/geekboxzone/utils cd utils/rockdev

   1 2	git clone https://github.com/geekboxzone/utils cd utils/rockdev

2. Now copy your device or board’s firmware file “update.img” to the working directory, and unpack it:
   
   ./unpack.sh update.img

   1	./unpack.sh update.img

   
   The output should look like:
   
   start to unpack update.img... ********RKImageMaker ver 1.61******** Unpacking image, please wait... Exporting boot.bin Exporting firmware.img Unpacking image success. Android Firmware Package Tool v1.0 Check file... OK ------- UNPACK ------ package-file    0x00000800    0x000002A6 Loader.bin    0x00001000    0x0003594E parameter    0x00037000    0x000003BF Image/trust.img    0x00037800    0x00400000 Image/uboot.img    0x00437800    0x00400000 Image/resource.img    0x00837800    0x00606400 Image/misc.img    0x00E3E000    0x0000C000 Image/kernel.img    0x00E4A000    0x00D08C4C Image/boot.img    0x01B53000    0x001354E8 Image/recovery.img    0x01C88800    0x00FB4000 Image/system.img    0x02C3C800    0x28D29000 update-script    0x2B965800    0x000003A5 recover-script    0x2B966000    0x0000010A Unpack firmware OK! ------ OK ------ Unpacking update.img OK. Press any key to quit:

   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

   start to unpack update.img... ********RKImageMaker ver 1.61******** Unpacking image, please wait... Exporting boot.bin Exporting firmware.img Unpacking image success. Android Firmware Package Tool v1.0 Check file... OK ------- UNPACK ------ package-file    0x00000800    0x000002A6 Loader.bin    0x00001000    0x0003594E parameter    0x00037000    0x000003BF Image/trust.img    0x00037800    0x00400000 Image/uboot.img    0x00437800    0x00400000 Image/resource.img    0x00837800    0x00606400 Image/misc.img    0x00E3E000    0x0000C000 Image/kernel.img    0x00E4A000    0x00D08C4C Image/boot.img    0x01B53000    0x001354E8 Image/recovery.img    0x01C88800    0x00FB4000 Image/system.img    0x02C3C800    0x28D29000 update-script    0x2B965800    0x000003A5 recover-script    0x2B966000    0x0000010A Unpack firmware OK! ------ OK ------ Unpacking update.img OK. Press any key to quit:

   
   The files will be in the “output” directory.
3. For our purpose “parameter” file, and especially the last line (CMDLINE) where we will want to adjust the userdata partition size:
   
   FIRMWARE_VER: 5.1.0 MACHINE_MODEL: Geekbox MACHINE_ID: 007 MANUFACTURER: RK3368 MAGIC: 0x5041524B ATAG: 0x00200800 MACHINE: 3368 CHECK_MASK: 0x80 PWR_HLD: 0,0,A,0,1 #KERNEL_IMG: 0x00280000 #FDT_NAME: rk-kernel.dtb #RECOVER_KEY: 1,1,0,20,0 #in section; per section 512(0x200) bytes CMDLINE: console=ttyS2 androidboot.baseband=N/A androidboot.selinux=permissive androidboot.hardware=rk30board androidboot.console=ttyS2 init=/init mtdparts=rk29xxnand:0x00002000@0x00002000(uboot),0x00002000@0x00004000(trust),0x00002000@0x00006000(misc),0x00008000@0x00008000(resource),0x00008000@0x00010000(kernel),0x00010000@0x00018000(boot),0x00010000@0x00028000(recovery),0x00038000@0x00038000(backup),0x00040000@0x00070000(cache),0x00002000@0x000B0000(kpanic),0x00200000@0x000B2000(system),0x00008000@0x002B2000(metadata),0x00002000@0x002BA000(baseparamer),0x00400000@0x002BC000(userdata),0x00020000@0x006BC000(radical_update),-@0x006DC000(user)

   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

   FIRMWARE_VER: 5.1.0 MACHINE_MODEL: Geekbox MACHINE_ID: 007 MANUFACTURER: RK3368 MAGIC: 0x5041524B ATAG: 0x00200800 MACHINE: 3368 CHECK_MASK: 0x80 PWR_HLD: 0,0,A,0,1 #KERNEL_IMG: 0x00280000 #FDT_NAME: rk-kernel.dtb #RECOVER_KEY: 1,1,0,20,0 #in section; per section 512(0x200) bytes CMDLINE: console=ttyS2 androidboot.baseband=N/A androidboot.selinux=permissive androidboot.hardware=rk30board androidboot.console=ttyS2 init=/init mtdparts=rk29xxnand:0x00002000@0x00002000(uboot),0x00002000@0x00004000(trust),0x00002000@0x00006000(misc),0x00008000@0x00008000(resource),0x00008000@0x00010000(kernel),0x00010000@0x00018000(boot),0x00010000@0x00028000(recovery),0x00038000@0x00038000(backup),0x00040000@0x00070000(cache),0x00002000@0x000B0000(kpanic),0x00200000@0x000B2000(system),0x00008000@0x002B2000(metadata),0x00002000@0x002BA000(baseparamer),0x00400000@0x002BC000(userdata),0x00020000@0x006BC000(radical_update),-@0x006DC000(user)

4. The partitions are defined with size@start_address, so we’ll want to change userdata size, and shift the start_address of the remaining partitions with the extra size added to userdata. This can be done manually in a Linux editor, but I played it safe and instead downloaded and installed RK_ParamEd.exe for windows, and change the 2048 MB set for userdata partition to 6144MB (6 GB).Save, and we can see how the end of CMDLINE changed:
   
   0x00C00000@0x002BC000(userdata),0x00020000@0x00EBC000(radical_update),-@0x00EDC000(user)

   1	0x00C00000@0x002BC000(userdata),0x00020000@0x00EBC000(radical_update),-@0x00EDC000(user)

5. Now we can repack the image, after moving the content from the output directory to rockdev directory.
   
   mv output/* . ./mkupdate.sh

   1 2	mv output/* . ./mkupdate.sh

   
   A successful repacking should look as follows:
   
   start to make update.img... Android Firmware Package Tool v1.0 ------ PACKAGE ------ Add file: ./package-file Add file: ./Loader.bin Add file: ./parameter Add file: ./Image/trust.img Add file: ./Image/uboot.img Add file: ./Image/resource.img Add file: ./Image/misc.img Add file: ./Image/kernel.img Add file: ./Image/boot.img Add file: ./Image/recovery.img Add file: ./Image/system.img Add file: ./update-script Add file: ./recover-script Add CRC... Make firmware OK! ------ OK ------ ********RKImageMaker ver 1.61******** Generating new image, please wait... Writing head info... Writing boot file... Writing firmware... Generating MD5 data... MD5 data generated successfully! New image generated successfully! Making update.img OK.

   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

   start to make update.img... Android Firmware Package Tool v1.0 ------ PACKAGE ------ Add file: ./package-file Add file: ./Loader.bin Add file: ./parameter Add file: ./Image/trust.img Add file: ./Image/uboot.img Add file: ./Image/resource.img Add file: ./Image/misc.img Add file: ./Image/kernel.img Add file: ./Image/boot.img Add file: ./Image/recovery.img Add file: ./Image/system.img Add file: ./update-script Add file: ./recover-script Add CRC... Make firmware OK! ------ OK ------ ********RKImageMaker ver 1.61******** Generating new image, please wait... Writing head info... Writing boot file... Writing firmware... Generating MD5 data... MD5 data generated successfully! New image generated successfully! Making update.img OK.

6. Now flash update.img firmware back to your Rockchip device in Linux or Windows.
7. Done! I now have a 6GB internal storage partition in Android 5.1 based Light Biz OS operating system.

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.

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