SD card wrong space

[Cree]

Anybody else had the problem where after flashing a distro to your SD card, when latet inserting the card in a windows PC it reflects a much smaller volume, and then upon inspecting the disks it shows several partitions, each with small volume but none with the bulk of the space that should be available? My 64GB was reflecting 121MB

[bitnick]

I'm guessing that what you're seeing is a 128 MB/121 MiB boot partition. It's likely that the main partition is using an ext4 filesystem, and as far as I know (I haven't used Windows for ~10 years) Microsoft has choosen not to support this filesystem (since support would make it easier for Linux-based and Windows-based computers to co-exist, which is of course a threat to MS.)

My Mobian SD card actually use ext4 for both boot and main partitions, so Windows would probably show that card as having no valid partitions at all.

There are apparently 3rd-party tools for accessing linux file systems from Windows, but I'm not familiar with them/don't know how well they work. A better option might be to install and dual-boot linux on your PC and access both your SD card and your Windows NTFS file system from the Linux OS.

[z4v4l]

I'm guessing that what you're seeing is a 128 MB/121 MiB boot partition. It's likely that the main partition is using an ext4 filesystem, and as far as I know (I haven't used Windows for ~10 years) Microsoft has choosen not to support this filesystem (since support would make it easier for Linux-based and Windows-based computers to co-exist, which is of course a threat to MS.)

oh, jeez, I feel like you just solved some insidious plan of the Corporation of the Evil. a prose of the reality, that they don't support it because it's useless for the vast majority of their users. and writing a driver takes resources, wasting of which isn't wise - is not for fantasizers like you, right?

A better option might be to install and dual-boot linux on your PC and access both your SD card and your Windows NTFS file system from the Linux OS.

that would be a "better" option if one wants to destroy his/her NTFS volume and all the data it holds. for others, - just don't do that.

for the OP - after you flashed your SD card with the OS image for running on Pinephone, you should not use it elsewhere. and if you want it get back as a removable storage for your PC, you should reformat it - remember, according to the SDA specification, an SD card should be formatted with just one FAT volume and MBR partitioning scheme. so, having loads of non-FAT partitions with non-MBR partitioning scheme is already a risky thing (the card may not operate properly). but with SBCs and Pinephone, SD card is often a "harddrive", so we have no choice as of using it for flashing images, still better use eMMC for OS, if it's there and SD card a normal way.
In short, your card is fine, it's just "non-standard" formatted and it should not be used outside of the target device (Pinephone), unless you want reformat it.

[bitnick]

that would be a "better" option if one wants to destroy his/her NTFS volume and all the data it holds. for others, - just don't do that.

Installing, say, Ubuntu on a disk that already contains Windows usually works fine. There is a risk of course, any time you move around or resize partitions. Make sure you have a backup.

for the OP - after you flashed your SD card with the OS image for running on Pinephone, you should not use it elsewhere.

There is nothing wrong with using the SD card elsewhere. Just use it with systems that can handle the file system that's on the card.

It's practical to do the same with USB memory sticks - install a live linux image to it, and then use the card for both storage and as a generic boot stick. Both types of devices are just block devices and you can use any partition type and file system type(s) you'd like on them.

[z4v4l]

Installing, say, Ubuntu on a disk that already contains Windows usually works fine. There is a risk of course, any time you move around or resize partitions. Make sure you have a backup.

linux support for NTFS is unreliable and it's not advisable to touch NTFS volumes of your Windows PC, containing the OS and your data from linux.

There is nothing wrong with using the SD card elsewhere. Just use it with systems that can handle the file system that's on the card.

It's practical to do the same with USB memory sticks - install a live linux image to it, and then use the card for both storage and as a generic boot stick. Both types of devices are just block devices and you can use any partition type and file system type(s) you'd like on them.

have you read what I wrote? It's not the same as with USB sticks or even close relatives - eMMC modules, because SD cards internal controllers may expect the one FAT volume with MBR partitioning scheme setup to operate on the card properly. It's because this is a requirement of the SD card specification. the fact, SD cards work with partitioning setups, different from what is required in the spec, is just a happy coincidence. Still, in these scenarios, cards may operate suboptimally and have less wear protection etc. I have faced cards, refusing to work with ext4 and coming back to normal behaving citizens after reformating them to FAT.
Also, since the image flashed on the card is for using as a "boot volume" for Pinephone, even accessing it from a linux PC - meaning modifying something there, without much of understanding, may make it unusable as a boot volume. of course, just putting there some pics or changing what you are really sure about, won't hurt, but generally, it's better to insert it into a target device after flashing and then transfer needed data to that storage by the known means - ftp, ssh etc. think of it as a hard drive of a PC. once you installed an OS there, you won't be putting it into another machine. unless you have some strong reasons or thirst for adventures.

[bitnick]

Although the SDXC standard formatting is exFAT (and SDHC is FAT32 etc), I have never seen a problem with using a different file system - except the issue with portability that the OP has.

Of course, that's just my experience. But you'd think any problems would show up among the myriad of people who use SD cards for Raspberry Pis (and other things - like the PinePhone). Also, any performance issues would show up in tests like these that use hdparm, dd, and iozone. Those tools certainly doesn't use any of the FAT file systems, or even partitions; in fact they do raw reads and writes to the device.

As long as you have a sane operating system that doesn't start to "repair" a disk without you asking for it, there should be no problem moving a boot hard drive from one machine to another for data transfer. (Trying to boot from it in another machine may be another matter, but that's not what we're talking about here. And even this often works just fine with e.g. Ubuntu.)

In short, I think you've been fooled by FUD (and experiences with bad OS:es?), and you are spreading it further. One should always backup one's data. Do that, and then use the hardware you bought to its full potential.

Anyway, I hope the OP has gotten an understanding of the issue with the small capacity by now.