Totally Wipe S4 - more than factory

[barrygoddard]

Hi there,

I've got an S4 that I've installed a custom rom on. It's on, but it's still showing as 9GB free (should be 13 ish off 16GB I imagine).

Is there any way to wipe everything off the handset except the TWRP?

If I can get to that point I'd be really happy. Flash a new ROM and away.

Is this possible? If so, how?

 

[Thom]

Welcome to Android Forums. If you identify your carrier we can move your question to the appropriate All-Things-Root area for your phone.

... Thom

 

[barrygoddard]

Ah bugger it, sorry.

I'm with Three in the UK, so it's H3G.

I've got the firmware I need, I just want to wipe every single bit of memory before I start.

 

[barrygoddard]

I've just done another S4 4.3 install to be 100% sure I'm not doing something wrong.

The install went smoothly and it installed Pure Google 4.3 and Gapps.

After first boot I checked the storage and it is showing as 8.5GB available of 9.0GB.

It's a 16GB S4.

Any thoughts?

 

[Slug]

Is there any way to wipe everything off the handset except the TWRP?

My Sammy experience ended with the GS2, so no guarantees.

Boot into TWRP
Wipe data
Wipe dalvik-cache
Wipe cache
Flash firmware
Wipe dalvik-cache (again)
Wipe cache (ditto)
Reboot.... and cross fingers

 

[funkylogik]

Its because the /system partition on the s4 is HUGE to hold all the touchwiz bloat mate so even putting a nice lil rom on it only clears space in the /system partition. If you look at the bottom on Titanium Backup youll see what i mean. You could get around this by moving some of your favourite apps into the /system/app folder.
Otherwise its a case of moving the partition which is dangerous imo :thumbup:

 

[funkylogik]

Look where it says System ROM. i have like over a gig free there. You probably have more View attachment 62073

^thats an s3 btw so less bloat/system partition

 

[barrygoddard]

Thanks for the information, that makes total sense to me.

I just couldn't work out what was going on! I've reverted back to a TouchWiz based Rom now, Omega. At least I am getting some benefit to the loss of storage!

I'll leave that partition alone I think.

Thanks for the reply. Issue resolved!

 

[barrygoddard]

My Sammy experience ended with the GS2, so no guarantees.

Boot into TWRP
Wipe data
Wipe dalvik-cache
Wipe cache
Flash firmware
Wipe dalvik-cache (again)
Wipe cache (ditto)
Reboot.... and cross fingers

Thanks a lot. I did that and the space issue was still there.

Funkylogik has answered this, I'm still not happy about it though!

 

[barrygoddard]

Look where it says System ROM. i have like over a gig free there. You probably have more View attachment 62073

^thats an s3 btw so less bloat/system partition

Hmmm, curious.

I just downloaded and check Titanium.

Mine says;

System ROM: 2.85GB (653MB free)
Internal Media: 9.78GB (4.86GB free)

So that's 12.6GB accounted for.....

 

[funkylogik]

Not really man. The numbers are "used" and (free) so you have to add up all the four numbers :thumbup:

 

[Hadron]

Don't think so - that would come to 18 (and my One would come to well over 32).

How big is the cache partition on an S4?

 

[funkylogik]

Don't think so - that would come to 18 (and my One would come to well over 32).

How big is the cache partition on an S4?

Hmm true mate. On mine it seems to add up ok (havent used a calculator and just rounded numbers out lol)