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### Root a Samsung Galaxy ACE & extend internal mem with an SD card ###
// Rooting the phone //
First thing, the phone needs to get rooted. Rooting a Samsung Galaxy Ace phone is pretty simple, if you have the right rooting kit. I tested on two Galaxy Ace models: GT-S5830 and GT-S5839i, as well as on a Galaxy Y model GT-S5360. Every one of the phones I tested the rooting procedure required a different rooting kit. You should find rooting kits for all models attached to this article.
Then, follow these steps:
- Copy the rooting zip file for your phone model to the SD card (don't uncompress it!);
- Shut down the phone;
- Start the phone while keeping the HOME + VOLUME UP + POWER buttons pressed. The phone should reboot after a second or two, and present you with a system recovery menu;
- Select a position named "apply update from sdcard" (to move up/down, use the volume keys). Select the rooting file you previously copied on the SD card, and apply it - the flashing procedure should take somewhere between a few seconds up to a minute;
- Reboot the phone.
After this, your phone should be rooted. This will allow you to extend the internal memory of your phone using some part of the SD card, as presented below. You are also able now to remove apps that weren't uninstallable otherwise, using for eg. the "Root App Delete" removal tool.
// Extending the internal memory //
The Galaxy phone have a somewhat limited amount of internal memory, and can get filled pretty quickly. The solution is to use a part of the SD card to simulate additionnal memory space were you will be able to move apps (even these apps that usually don't accept going on a SD card).
You will need to resize the FAT32 partition of the SD card, and add a new one, using the EXT2 filesystem. To do so, I used the GParted tool (available under most unices):
- shut down your phone
- take out the SD card, and connect it to your PC (do NOT try to use the phone as a card reader!)
- run GParted on your SD card,
- select the FAT32 partition that is on it, and downsize it to make some room at the end of the SD card (I made it 1G smaller, should be well enough)
- on the free space that got created, create a new partition. Make sure the partition is of EXT2 type, and that it is a "Primary" partition
- apply your changes.
Put the SD card back into your phone, and turn it on. The new partition won't be useable right away. You need to use a special app that will be able to move your apps to your new 'pseudo-system' partition. I used the 'Link2SD' app available from the google market. There, you have a function allowing to 'link' application, which actually moves them to the system (EXT2) partition of the SD card.
*** Warning Note ***
Since some of the applications are on the SD card now, thinking they run from 'internal' memory, I'd highly advise to *never* remove your SD card from your phone while it's running.
=== Attachments ==========================================
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