[Verizon] How impactful is the lack of an SD Card to flashing/rooting?

[Trel]

As someone who likes to root and flash roms, how impactful is the lack of an SD Card? Will I have to back up all my pictures and music every time I wish to wipe my phone prior to doing this, or is that storage separate? How is this handled on the phone itself?

When I plug the phone into my computer, how does it show up, as removable storage?

 

[trophynuts]

it isn't an issue really. There is a partition on the phone that is labeled mnt/sdcard that acts as an sd card

it doesn't show up as removable storage because Android 4.0 supports MTP

Ice Cream Sandwich explained: MTP - what is it, why use it, and how to set it up | Android Central

also if you don't mind can i move this to the All things root section? you'll get more feedback in there. Also would this be for a GSM or LTE model?

 

[Trel]

No, wouldn't be a problem, I had two tabs open, I thought I posted it there to begin with.

With the MTP thing. Will it only show media files, or will it show ALL files, regardless of file type, and how will the drive show up on XP and on Win 7?

EDIT: it's LTE.

 

[trophynuts]

it will not show up as a mass storage device. I use the Android File Transfer and it acts just like i need it to. When i plug it into my mac it hopes the mnt/sdcard partition. I can then drag/drop files

 

[Trel]

it will not show up as a mass storage device. I use the Android File Transfer and it acts just like i need it to. When i plug it into my mac it hopes the mnt/sdcard partition. I can then drag/drop files

Well I'm not very familiar with macs, but how is that different from how USB mass storage works on them?

 

[Yeahha]

There is still some questions regarding how the SD card set up. I don't believe it is partitioned in /sdcard but rather stored in /data/media then symlinked to /sdcard (Thank you SA!)

I suggest backing up your pics/music/sd data often rooted or not. If you ever need to do a factory reset via the OS it will wipe your SD card. However factory resets in CWM recovery do not.

 

[Yeahha]

Well I'm not very familiar with macs, but how is that different from how USB mass storage works on them?

On a windows machine (at least windows 7 but I think XP too) it shows up like a removeable drive and you can use the windows file explorer like a USB mass storage device