THL W200 issue?

[deksman2]

Hello everyone.

I'm new here and I'd like to thank some of you who are doing some hard work in helping others.

Have a bit of a problem with my THL W200.
The microSD card (the 4GB one I put into it myself) refuses to mount in CWM - it works fine under actual Android (4.2.1.), but in CWM whenever I try to mount the microSD, it flat out refuses, saying there's an error mounting it.

Namely I was able to install the touch based CWM 6.0.4.4. version (thinking that the 5.xxx version was the issue), but as it turns out, the problem remains.

I'm unsure as to how to proceed because I'd like to replace the ROM with a cleaner and possibly faster version for THL W200 (MTK6589T), but aparently, I'm prohibited from doing so.

Help would be appreciated.

[DirKNirK]

Mounting SD within the mount menu has nothing to do with installing a ROM. Whether from CWM or SP Flash Tool.

Just choose install from SD from the main CWM menu and select the ROM zip.

Or flash with SP Flash Tool if it's a flash tool ROM.

[deksman2]

But my problem is that I also cannot backup to external microSD due to this issue.

I tried using MTK flash tools, but it wouldn't detect my smartphone for some reason.
ADB drivers worked fine and I followed instructions for making a new CWM, but upon opening MTK flash tools it was a dead end.
It said the device is unreadable and that I need to connect the USB cable - it was connected just fine and all.

I know I could probably put the ROM onto the EMMC (internal sd), but I cannot do anything with the external microSD from CWM.

I also installed TWRP, and same issue.
It only reads EMMC (internal sd), but it refuses to read or mount external microSD.
i'm seriously at a loss as to what is happening.

the card works fine in Android but refuses to be read or mounted in CWM or TWRP.
And its been formatted into FAT32.

P.S. I tried installing zip from sd card, and while that can work for doing the installs from the INTERNAL sd, it won't do a thing for the external one (which the one I'm focusing on).
Installing a ROM is not so much of a priority as it is to find out what's blocking the microSD from being mounted or read in both CWM and TWRP

[Sniper47]

What error do you get when you select install zip >> choose zip from SD >> and then select the ROM and attempt to install...

[deksman2]

Oh no.
There was a misunderstanding.
You see, I didn't get to install a different ROM just yet (and I've decided to hold off on it).
At any rate, I'm not getting any error if I try to navigate to the INTERNAL SD card... I was getting an error that the EXTERNAL microSD card cannot be mounted (therefore, I couldn't backup any of my files to the external card or do things with an additional level of security).

Also, I just figured out why the external microSD card wouldn't be mounted in CWM or TWRP.
It was because it wasn't formatted as 'primary' in MiniTool (it was set to 'logical').

Sigh... such a minor thing causing so many issues... and no one figured it out.
I found someone else who had an identical issue on their THL W200.

The guy apparently tried to set his external microSD to 'primary' and voila... mounting suddenly worked in both CWM and TWRP (and it worked for me).

Anyway, now that I can backup the files to external microSD, I can try my hand at some better ROMs for W200.
Its a shame that KitKat is still not available though.

[Sniper47]

There wasn't a misunderstanding. Your original post said you needed to install a ROM from external SD. What is interesting is it seems you never even tried to install a ROM from external SD, or if you did, you haven't been clear about what error you got.

Mounting external SD from mount menu and installing a ROM from external SD and storing a backup via CWM on external SD are 3 different things.

Regardless, thanks for reporting back. It may help someone in the future.

[deksman2]

Actually, I tried my hand at storing ROM's on the external SD and then installing them via CWM (I also tried to backup my ROM at the external SD), but at the time I got an error on both occasions which stated that the external SD cannot be mounted - that was the problem (the inability to mount the external SD card in CWM - otherwise the card worked fine in Android itself).

I decided to postpone new ROM installations just in case because I didn't want to end up bricking the phone without a 'safety net'.

The problem persisted on both CWM and TWRP until yesterday (when I changed the partition on the external microSD in MiniTool to 'Primary' - which is when I was able to mount the card without problems in both CWM and TWRP).

Now that I was able to get the external SD card mounted in CWM and TWRP, I can focus on trying some ROM's, etc.

I was able to install Gravity Box which fixed the Developer Options not displaying all settings (which seems to be a common problem with MTK devices) - but I needed the ability to mount the external SD in CWM so I can backup my ROM to it before installing Xposed Installer (which was reported as being able to break some devices - so I didn't want to risk it).
I didn't want to cram stuff up on my internal storage only to end up deleting something that I wasn't supposed to.