[Q]Uh... oops. Semi-bricked Tab - Galaxy Tab 10.1 General

So I recently rooted my GT after a wonderful ordeal. Ended up back on 3.0, and wanted to get back to 3.1. In the process I broke something pretty bad. Any time I try to boot the tab, either by turning it on, rebooting, or a reboot from recovery/fastboot, absolutely nothing happens. Either it will just stay off, or if I try a reboot it powers down and does not come back on.
Thankfully, it responds to nvflash, so I can initiate that, quickly jump into fastboot, then tempflash a recovery. For some reason, doing "fastboot boot [recoveryname].img" will cause it to boot into the OS, which does work just fine. Unfortunately, nvflash is the only way to get into any part of the OS it seems. I've tried reflashing rooted and unrooted 3.0 roms, the 3.1 update, and updating via ODIN, which do all update/change the OS, but the tab still refuses to boot normally.
Any suggestions? Other than to stop breaking the tablet, anyway
(Also, I hope this is the right place for this. We don't have a Q/A forum here yet, and the Dev forum doesn't seem right, since the only development here is me being dumb)

Hm, nothing? Uh oh

Sorry dude, one thing I have noticed is that these tabs are extremely touchy and the slightest thing can set them off. I have used pershoots mod here
http://droidbasement.com/db-blog/?p=2035
and it usually gets me out of a jam enough to get the tab working again then use the rest of pershoots mods to correct something. Hope it helps
might be worth trying odin if you havent already
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1119492
Kitinas said:
Hm, nothing? Uh oh
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Well, thanks for the attempt at least. I've already done both of those, and while they both update properly with no issues, the tablet does still refuse to boot without using nvflash and fastboot. The tablet's fully usable, I just cannot turn it on without a computer.
It seems Android OS and the recovery/bootloader/fastboot are all good, so I wonder if somehow nvflash is the issue here. Unfortunately I don't have a whole lot of experience with it, as this tablet is the first time I've dealt with it.

Related

Soft brick installing GingerbreadlatinIME.zip

I just tried flashing the Gingerbreadime.zip and followed the directions to the letter and I experienced my first soft brick. The phone went into a boot loop at the mytouch screen. Luckily I was able to go into Recovery and restored the backup I had made after rooting and turning s=off. It appears to have restored okay as I still have root etc. Does anyone have any idea how or why this happened ? This zip was posted in Droid-Life and was advertised as good for all android 2.2 devices. I have never used adb but have it set up on my phone so I guess I had better get more familiar with it. I have flashed my Vibrant numerous times using Odin and Rom manager but I don't believe that there is a similar program for the Mt4g (Odin that is) I guess I have been spoiled by my Vibrant as it seems to have more options to recover with and are easier to use from what I can tell. I do love this MT4g though It is probably the best all around phone I have ever owned. Any and all info and help is greatly appreciated.:
to my knowledge there has been no gingerbread port for our device yet. Your lucky you didn't brick your device.
tenbeau said:
I just tried flashing the Gingerbreadime.zip and followed the directions to the letter and I experienced my first soft brick. The phone went into a boot loop at the mytouch screen. Luckily I was able to go into Recovery and restored the backup I had made after rooting and turning s=off. It appears to have restored okay as I still have root etc. Does anyone have any idea how or why this happened ? This zip was posted in Droid-Life and was advertised as good for all android 2.2 devices. I have never used adb but have it set up on my phone so I guess I had better get more familiar with it. I have flashed my Vibrant numerous times using Odin and Rom manager but I don't believe that there is a similar program for the Mt4g (Odin that is) I guess I have been spoiled by my Vibrant as it seems to have more options to recover with and are easier to use from what I can tell. I do love this MT4g though It is probably the best all around phone I have ever owned. Any and all info and help is greatly appreciated.:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are people experiencing the same thing in the Nexus forum. Personally I would stay away from anything that is not specifically built for this phone as its a completely different OS than Vanilla or Moto Droid or etc. etc.
bobsbbq said:
to my knowledge there has been no gingerbread port for our device yet. Your lucky you didn't brick your device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes I a sure am. I trusted the Dorid-Life site and should not have. Thanks for the swift response...
setzer715 said:
There are people experiencing the same thing in the Nexus forum. Personally I would stay away from anything that is not specifically built for this phone as its a completely different OS than Vanilla or Moto Droid or etc. etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I sure intend to and I should have got on this forum before I even attempted to flash it. Right now everything seems fine except I cannot get into recovery only clockworkimode recovery. I am holding down the volume down button and pressing the power button at the same time and the device just reboots. Any ideas and what could be causing that? I am embarassed to say that my ignorance that pushed me to flash that zip is probably at the root of it. Any steps that I can take to enable me to get into stock recovery to check and make sure S=off?
Edit: Just pulled battery and sim card and than put them back in and the device went into stock recovery and s=off so I hope that all is okay and I did not create some ghosts that will show up when I attempt to flash a rom later on.
Please post questions in Q&A section.
I did the same thing. I flashed the .zip file from droid life forum and got a success message when I installed it through recovery and mine never bootlooped. I didn't get the gingerbread keyboard but it didn't bootloop either
Sent from my HTC Glacier using XDA App
tenbeau said:
I sure intend to and I should have got on this forum before I even attempted to flash it. Right now everything seems fine except I cannot get into recovery only clockworkimode recovery. I am holding down the volume down button and pressing the power button at the same time and the device just reboots. Any ideas and what could be causing that? I am embarassed to say that my ignorance that pushed me to flash that zip is probably at the root of it. Any steps that I can take to enable me to get into stock recovery to check and make sure S=off?
Edit: Just pulled battery and sim card and than put them back in and the device went into stock recovery and s=off so I hope that all is okay and I did not create some ghosts that will show up when I attempt to flash a rom later on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think you mean bootloader? You only have 1 recovery. If you flashed clockwork you no longer have stock recovery. Vol Down + Pwr gets you to bootloader or SPL where it shows S=off.
I did not flash the zip (sounds like an overkill to flash a zip for new KB). I ADB pushed both files and got a FC on multi-touch KB... oh well, I like HTC_IME better anyway
tenbeau said:
I sure intend to and I should have got on this forum before I even attempted to flash it. Right now everything seems fine except I cannot get into recovery only clockworkimode recovery. I am holding down the volume down button and pressing the power button at the same time and the device just reboots. Any ideas and what could be causing that? I am embarassed to say that my ignorance that pushed me to flash that zip is probably at the root of it. Any steps that I can take to enable me to get into stock recovery to check and make sure S=off?
Edit: Just pulled battery and sim card and than put them back in and the device went into stock recovery and s=off so I hope that all is okay and I did not create some ghosts that will show up when I attempt to flash a rom later on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
make sure fastboot is checked off otherwise you cant get into the bootloader. to make sure it is off go to: menu, settings, applications and uncheck fastboot. you're good to go then. to get into recovery, you can do it thru bootloader or by opening up rom manager and clicking on the "reboot to recovery" option
setzer715 said:
There are people experiencing the same thing in the Nexus forum. Personally I would stay away from anything that is not specifically built for this phone as its a completely different OS than Vanilla or Moto Droid or etc. etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the website was not specific enough. the port at the current moment is for motorola droid devices. they should have been more specific instead of saying any rooted 2.2 android phone. even if you do get it on your phone, its only going to force close every time you try and type something. thats what happened to me, so after about 24 hours i said **** it and removed it. swype in my opinion is better anyway. im trying to port the g2 swype to our phone so we can have a swype with a mic on the keyboard. oddly, ours didnt come with one.

[Q] Got me some boot loops after using a specific font with Type Fresh.

Alright, so last night I was fooling around with "Type Fresh," which you guys have probably heard of. It was released here... It's a font changer...
Anyway, things were going good until I tried a font named, "Joystix," which replaced quite a few of my fonts. That caused my phone to go into a crazy bootloop.
So, at this point, I do not have Clockwork Recovery. I actually have the Stock Recovery. For some strange reason, my stock recovery just takes me to a screen with a red triangle, and factory reset just shows this hard drive and a loading bar that never goes anywhere before rebooting my phone into a boot loop.
I've checked to see if ADB will work in my stock recovery, and it does, except for the fact that my phone is, "offline," which is probably not good.
Is there anyway I can get my phone to work again? I remember when I was getting bootloops and I somehow got the phone to reinstall all the correct stuff after going into the stock Volume Down+Power thing a few days ago. I don't know or remember how. Like, it was going into the whole process of giving me the choices and said, "Do you want to update?" I said yes and voila, everything is back to normal. Sadly, this isn't the case atm. :|
halp
wauterboi said:
I've checked to see if ADB will work in my stock recovery, and it does, except for the fact that my phone is, "offline," which is probably not good.
Is there anyway I can get my phone to work again? I remember when I was getting bootloops and I somehow got the phone to reinstall all the correct stuff after going into the stock Volume Down+Power thing a few days ago. I don't know or remember how. Like, it was going into the whole process of giving me the choices and said, "Do you want to update?" I said yes and voila, everything is back to normal. Sadly, this isn't the case atm. :|
halp
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well I've never personally used type fresh to change fonts, I've done it in other ways. Just a thought for ya, but I would recommend that if you can get adb to recognize your device (cmd: adb devices) try booting into hboot(volume down + power), and see if it recognizes it regularly that way, from there I recommend trying a program called Droid. It's a windows program that I used when I messed up re-rooting my replacement mt4g (tip: Don't try rooting when having been awake for 26 hours for no apparent reason ). It has a feature called Debug Console which fixed a bootloop, and constant force close that I somehow managed. I also suggest pulling your sdcard, getting a usb scard reader, and installing the stock recovery zip (Pdimg or something like that, I forget off hand).
That's all I can think of, hope it helps
...I finally looked at my SDCard via my brother's phone.
Every thing in my SD Card pretty much has "Font" in front of it in regards to the name.
I mean... Yahoo became FontsYahoo.
wat
Solved.
For those who were wondering, I found out that I had to rename the recovery file to the PBNASFASodhwhatever it was.

Unresponsive Device

So, I had been using my A500 for the last few days with no problems. Well, yesterday, I got home from work and powered it on. The lockscreen came up, but the screen was unresponsive. I turned it off and then back on, but screen still didn't work. Then I did a hard reset, which still didn't fix the problem. I put it into recovery, then did a wipe that still didn't fix the issue. I flashed the ROM again. Then a different ROM. All it does is is boot up and go to the lock screen, but the screen does not respond.
If I can avoid it, I don't really want to go through the hassle of returning it since I got it online. Hopefully it can be fixed without having to take it back. Thanks in advance for everyone's help.
Boot back into recovery.
Wipe your 3 things,
User Data
Cache
Dalvik
Then go to Mounts
Format the same 3 (user data, cache partition and Dalvak.
And Flexrom
Then flash your rom. Try and flash a basic rooted rom. No kernels, no gapps.zip
See what happens.
If you have a file called update.zip, on your sd, I would delete it. And anything else there except for the rom.
sounds like hardware failure. Has the tablet been dropped or banged around. The connector on the digitizer could have came loose.That would mean void warranty and take it apart ..
Send it back is likely your. Best option
Thanks for the quick responses! I'm gonna try these things, hopefully I don't have to take it back.
Guess it is a massive hardware failure. I formatted everything and reset everything I could. All ROM's will flash and boot, but I since the screen does not work, I cannot get past the first screen.
I'm going to have to return it, dammit. So, with no touchscreen, does anyone know how I can remove Clockworkmod Recovery and get the tablet back to stock? I don't want to get any problems during the return. Thanks everyone.
sikkboy626 said:
Guess it is a massive software failure. I formatted everything and reset everything I could. All ROM's will flash and boot, but I since the screen does not work, I cannot get past the first screen.
I'm going to have to return it, dammit. So, with no touchscreen, does anyone know how I can remove Clockworkmod Recovery and get the tablet back to stock? I don't want to get any problems during the return. Thanks everyone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, with no touchscreen that makes the easy way out of the question.
Vache has a page with stock roms and updates;
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1113878
Now, some people, extracted the update.zip from the update rom, copied it to sd, and booted holding vol+ and PWR. This automatically starts the update flashing.
Others have actually flashed them through CWM and were successful. You can read through the thread and see how they fared.
On a normal basis, we would install AcerRecovery and flash them through there, as that is the preferred method for the full rooms. But this is out of the question for you, as you only have CWM.
With the update.zip, it might work, might not. The update might look for a preinstalled stock rom matching the ComGen numbers. Really don't know.
(I would try the above if the following doesn't work)
Another method, is to use ADB and push a stock image to your device. I've never done this personally, but I know it can be done. Best bet, is to repost the question "how to push a stock image with adb", then explain briefly why. And post it in the Q&A forum. This should hopefully get some folks who use adb to help you out. I rarely use it.
Moscow Desire said:
Well, with no touchscreen that makes the easy way out of the question.
Vache has a page with stock roms and updates;
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1113878
Now, some people, extracted the update.zip from the update rom, copied it to sd, and booted holding vol+ and PWR. This automatically starts the update flashing.
Others have actually flashed them through CWM and were successful. You can read through the thread and see how they fared.
On a normal basis, we would install AcerRecovery and flash them through there, as that is the preferred method for the full rooms. But this is out of the question for you, as you only have CWM.
With the update.zip, it might work, might not. The update might look for a preinstalled stock rom matching the ComGen numbers. Really don't know.
(I would try the above if the following doesn't work)
Another method, is to use ADB and push a stock image to your device. I've never done this personally, but I know it can be done. Best bet, is to repost the question "how to push a stock image with adb", then explain briefly why. And post it in the Q&A forum. This should hopefully get some folks who use adb to help you out. I rarely use it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for all your help. I was able to get it back to stock. The return should go fine. You're awesome and I did not forget to use the thank you button.
have you tried a USB keyboard or mouse to flash it.thou I still think its hardware.
Failure
You can use normal usb mouse with this tablet, you will get mouse pointer on the screen when you connect mouse...
erica_renee said:
have you tried a USB keyboard or mouse to flash it.thou I still think its hardware.
Failure
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was able to flash using the physical buttons. I got it all back to factory specs so I can return it. you were correct I believe, it does seem to be a screen hardware failure. Everything else works but the touch response.
Im very sorry for your luck.. But i do believe this is a very well built device. Someone has to get a bad one sometimes.. Boohooooooooo
erica_renee said:
Im very sorry for your luck.. But i do believe this is a very well built device. Someone has to get a bad one sometimes.. Boohooooooooo
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Guess I had to take one for the team

Stuck on HC Bootloader, won't update

*** SOLVED ***
Hey all.
So I've had my A500 for about a year now and it's been on several different ROMs and kernels over that time.
Most recently, I was running Flexreaper R12 (I believe) and ICS was running very smoothly.
At some point a few months ago (after a Flexreaper update), I was experiencing the Sleep Of Death and flashed an AntiSOD kernel to stop it (which it did). All this time, for some reason or another, I never updated the bootloader past the Honeycomb bootloader - and that's where I'm stuck right now.
I've tried using AfterOTA in every possible way to get anything else loaded.
I've tried Blackthund3r's A500 APX Flash Utility with at least 7 different APX packages, but no matter what I try, I'm still stuck with Flexreaper and the HC bootloader.
FWIW, both AfterOTA and the A500 APX Flash Util experience a problem with my A500 when it reboots. Most of the time I can get the device to be recognized by my OS (Windows 7 x64), but sometimes it doesn't and fails on driver install, even though I've installed the Google drivers direct from the SDK as well as Acer's drivers (USB_Acer_1.00.0524_A30H_A31H_A32H_A500_A501).
I'm pretty sure this is a driver issue, but I'm unclear on how to fix it. I've uninstalled ALL drivers related to the A500, rebooted and reinstalled them, I've uninstalled them and then pointed the installer directly to the unzipped USB driver folder (from above), but it seems that at some point the device fails to be seen, only rarely - but it's this that I think is the main problem... or I'm missing something.
So, any advice for someone that's STUCK on the old 3.01 bootloader?
Psychlone
Psychlone said:
Hey all.
So I've had my A500 for about a year now and it's been on several different ROMs and kernels over that time.
Most recently, I was running Flexreaper R12 (I believe) and ICS was running very smoothly.
At some point a few months ago (after a Flexreaper update), I was experiencing the Sleep Of Death and flashed an AntiSOD kernel to stop it (which it did). All this time, for some reason or another, I never updated the bootloader past the Honeycomb bootloader - and that's where I'm stuck right now.
I've tried using AfterOTA in every possible way to get anything else loaded.
I've tried Blackthund3r's A500 APX Flash Utility with at least 7 different APX packages, but no matter what I try, I'm still stuck with Flexreaper and the HC bootloader.
FWIW, both AfterOTA and the A500 APX Flash Util experience a problem with my A500 when it reboots. Most of the time I can get the device to be recognized by my OS (Windows 7 x64), but sometimes it doesn't and fails on driver install, even though I've installed the Google drivers direct from the SDK as well as Acer's drivers (USB_Acer_1.00.0524_A30H_A31H_A32H_A500_A501).
I'm pretty sure this is a driver issue, but I'm unclear on how to fix it. I've uninstalled ALL drivers related to the A500, rebooted and reinstalled them, I've uninstalled them and then pointed the installer directly to the unzipped USB driver folder (from above), but it seems that at some point the device fails to be seen, only rarely - but it's this that I think is the main problem... or I'm missing something.
So, any advice for someone that's STUCK on the old 3.01 bootloader?
Psychlone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i was stuck to so i downgraded got the ics bootloader from the ota and then used afterOTA to get the unlocked version and it worked
gears177 said:
i was stuck to so i downgraded got the ics bootloader from the ota and then used afterOTA to get the unlocked version and it worked
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So how did you downgrade? I've done everything I can think of - at least 6 times over...
That was the plan after I figured that downgrading back to stock and then going up from there was the only way, but I can't even go back to Honeycomb 3.2 or even 3.1.
Check this out - I even made sure to make a CWM backup of my original setup before I upgraded to 3.2 back almost a year ago...but I can't get it to restore. In fact, I made several different backups and can't get ANY of them to restore.
So, in short, what did you do to go backwards?
Psychlone
EDIT: when I try to get into APX or Bootloader, it always ends up in Thor 1.7 and my computer doesn't recognize the device with a device driver install fail for MTP USB Device, even though I've installed the Acer Recovery drivers and the Google SDK drivers too... wtH?
Psychlone said:
So how did you downgrade? I've done everything I can think of - at least 6 times over...
That was the plan after I figured that downgrading back to stock and then going up from there was the only way, but I can't even go back to Honeycomb 3.2 or even 3.1.
Check this out - I even made sure to make a CWM backup of my original setup before I upgraded to 3.2 back almost a year ago...but I can't get it to restore. In fact, I made several different backups and can't get ANY of them to restore.
So, in short, what did you do to go backwards?
Psychlone
EDIT: when I try to get into APX or Bootloader, it always ends up in Thor 1.7 and my computer doesn't recognize the device with a device driver install fail for MTP USB Device, even though I've installed the Acer Recovery drivers and the Google SDK drivers too... wtH?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if your on the honeycomb bootloader simply flash a honeycomb rom and kernel no need to use afterOTA or anything else if i remember correctly
Psychlone said:
So how did you downgrade? I've done everything I can think of - at least 6 times over...
That was the plan after I figured that downgrading back to stock and then going up from there was the only way, but I can't even go back to Honeycomb 3.2 or even 3.1.
Check this out - I even made sure to make a CWM backup of my original setup before I upgraded to 3.2 back almost a year ago...but I can't get it to restore. In fact, I made several different backups and can't get ANY of them to restore.
So, in short, what did you do to go backwards?
Psychlone
EDIT: when I try to get into APX or Bootloader, it always ends up in Thor 1.7 and my computer doesn't recognize the device with a device driver install fail for MTP USB Device, even though I've installed the Acer Recovery drivers and the Google SDK drivers too... wtH?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you got a couple of choices....
with the HC Bootloader and ics rom...
full wipe and flash an HC rom or
nandroid restore an HC backup or
flash an update.zip
as a last resort - a complete downgrade/rollback use timmydeansv4 EUU - just be sure to follow the instructions in jazzyjames post on how to roll back - iu dont wanna get it wrong and end up stuck in apx mode. If it doesnt work first time....STOP...disconnect yr data cable and reboot tab and pc, use a different USB port and try it again....
Some folks have had issues with win64 so if you are able to then try on a different pc
sometimes a restore wont work unless you restore it with the recovery you used to back up with in the first place which may have been cwm 1.3.4 in your case....maybe???
as far as the MTP driver goes...that can be a pain...i had the same trouble a few days ago on ICS...took ages to get installed....and i still dont know why it did....or why it wouldnt....very frustrating!!!
dibb_nz said:
you got a couple of choices....
with the HC Bootloader and ics rom...
full wipe and flash an HC rom or
nandroid restore an HC backup or
flash an update.zip
as a last resort - a complete downgrade/rollback use timmydeansv4 EUU - just be sure to follow the instructions in jazzyjames post on how to roll back - iu dont wanna get it wrong and end up stuck in apx mode. If it doesnt work first time....STOP...disconnect yr data cable and reboot tab and pc, use a different USB port and try it again....
Some folks have had issues with win64 so if you are able to then try on a different pc
sometimes a restore wont work unless you restore it with the recovery you used to back up with in the first place which may have been cwm 1.3.4 in your case....maybe???
as far as the MTP driver goes...that can be a pain...i had the same trouble a few days ago on ICS...took ages to get installed....and i still dont know why it did....or why it wouldnt....very frustrating!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
he's not on the ics bootloader though so couldn't he just flash the 3.01 unstable and get the OTA? or go back to a stock rom in general?
gears177 said:
he's not on the ics bootloader though so couldn't he just flash the 3.01 unstable and get the OTA? or go back to a stock rom in general?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeh 2nd line of my post hc bootloader ics rom, and u correct use 3.01 buggy update,zip or stock update.zip I shoulda been clearer - thanks gears
Thanks guys, I really do appreciate the help, but I'm still having serious issues reverting back to HC.
I feel like an idiot, but I have to say that even though it seems so, I'm actually the owner of a computer repair business, have 28 years experience in PC/Mac repair, and have rooted and modded every android device I've owned (including some for friends as well) - all the way back to the very beginning with the D1. This, however, has thrown me for a loop. NOTHING with this A500 has been this complicated! Everything up to this point has literally been stupid-proof and I've actually been quite impressed at just how easy modding is on the A500...
Anyway...
Here's what's going on and what I've tried today:
I've tried unsuccessfully several times to get ANYTHING working on my laptop, but to no avail. Same story as last night, no progress whatsoever - however, I did note that with CWM 134, I was able to restore an earlier version of ICS 4.03 (Flexreaper R10 I believe) - but it wasn't easy... I ended up restoring the main image and then using parts and pieces (using Advanced Restore) from other saves to finally even get it to boot.
This clearly wasn't getting me anywhere, so I moved the entire operation to another computer - my main rig (also a Win7 x64 - in fact, I don't own a computer that's not Win7 x64)
Now I've got USB driver issues! I can't even install the standard USB drivers from Acer's website because the installer errors out saying that there's no version of Acer Iconia 3G Driver Install is installed. wtF? That's what I'm TRYING to do!
I did get a different USB driver installed - the USB Driver_Acer_1.06.1500_A30H_A500, but nothing wants to use it and Blackthund3r's APX Flash Util won't see it, AfterOTA won't use it, and it's basically useless anyway. AND I can't install the Acer_1.00.0524_A30H_A31H_A32H_A500_A501 drivers no matter if I've got any others installed or not.
In my device mangler, there is no device with an exclamation, and in fact, sees my Acer Iconia A500 under USB Serial Bus Controllers as "Acer Picasso USB Boot-Recovery Driver", only when it's plugged in. NO other instance shows up at all.
I'm actually at the point of trying to follow through with the EUU (dibb_nz's "last resort"), but vache's website is down and I can't download anything for it. In fact, there's nothing from that guide that has a valid link...
(http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1632392)
So now where do I go? I understand IT really well, so you don't need to talk to me like a complete noob, but dang if I can't figure this one out!
If I can get valid links to all the downloads from the link above, I'd be more than happy to give it a go and see if that works, but I can't piece together all those things from random places. If either of you (or anyone else for that matter) has valid links for everything needed to follow the EUU guide, I'd be very grateful!
Any other advice would certainly be appreciated as well! I don't have to use either of these computers, but as mentioned, ALL of my computers have Windows 7 x64 on them. I suppose I could try one of my customer's computers for all this, but that's not morally right and probably something that I would prefer not to explore.
I feel as if I could get the USB drivers installed properly on EITHER machine, that I'd likely be in good shape. I think that's what my problem actually is on the laptop as well, even though they're all installed and shows as installed until I boot into any recovery - then I get the MTP Device Driver Fail. There's likely other Acer driver issues there though, since Blackthund3r's utils don't follow through for anything... everything just hangs. AfterOTA just hangs.
Advice please?
And thanks again for your knowledge!
Psychlone
Yeh I hear u m8, its taken me all nite and day to revert back to HC and then upgrade again....dam pesky Picasso drivers.....
why not do as gears suggested....boot to cwm do all the wipes and formatsand flash an HC rom, ezterrys has a rooted one...no drivers needed . or am I missing something?
D/l link for timmydeans euu in my cpuid thread
dibb_nz said:
Yeh I hear u m8, its taken me all nite and day to revert back to HC and then upgrade again....dam pesky Picasso drivers.....
why not do as gears suggested....boot to cwm do all the wipes and formatsand flash an HC rom, ezterrys has a rooted one...no drivers needed . or am I missing something?
D/l link for timmydeans euu in my cpuid thread
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, I would but no matter what image I put on my SD or even internal SD, and no matter what recovery I use, there's always some type of fail - usually an MD5 fail, or just a fail without any error code at all (little android on his back with the red exclamation, but no code)
I'm clearly missing SOMETHING.
I'm about to try the EUU right now unless there's some other advice...
EDIT::
OK, so I'm really in bad shape here - now the EUU (PBJ20upgrade) comes back with the error:
Please download the newer image for the upgrade.
Current image version: Acer_AV041_A500_1,054.Acer_AV041_A500
New image version: Acer_A500_1.016.05_Com_GEN1
What now????
Psychlone said:
Well, I would but no matter what image I put on my SD or even internal SD, and no matter what recovery I use, there's always some type of fail - usually an MD5 fail, or just a fail without any error code at all (little android on his back with the red exclamation, but no code)
I'm clearly missing SOMETHING.
I'm about to try the EUU right now unless there's some other advice...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
oh hell now i'm confused, lol.....the little android dude is the acer stock recovery....i thought you had thors 1.7...oh well, nvm
Hopefully the EUU will install the right drivers for you....just be sure NOT to connect your data cable until u see the "cannot detect yr iconia tab" screen and it will give u instructions on how to get into apx mode...oh just before that window the EUU will try and scan your system image it will take a good 5 mins b4 it pops up the window to go into apx don't panic just let it do its thing....good luck m8!!!!
Oh and this will completely wipe yr system and user data.....
dibb_nz said:
oh hell now i'm confused, lol.....the little android dude is the acer stock recovery....i thought you had thors 1.7...oh well, nvm
Hopefully the EUU will install the right drivers for you....just be sure NOT to connect your data cable until u see the "cannot detect yr iconia tab" screen and it will give u instructions on how to get into apx mode...oh just before that window the EUU will try and scan your system image it will take a good 5 mins b4 it pops up the window to go into apx don't panic just let it do its thing....good luck m8!!!!
Oh and this will completely wipe yr system and user data.....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Some of the WEIRDEST stuff I've ever experienced - EVER.
Oh, the little dead android is when I'm using the stock recovery - I get different errors in TWRP and all the CWM Thor's that I've tried...(134, 71 and 712)
OK, so now PBJ20upgrade won't let me advance because apparently my CPUID isn't correct... it's the ICS version that's 13 characters long instead of 15, and my dmesg doesn't even contain the word "androidboot" at all (it does, however, contain a crapload of errors.)
What's going on?
OK, I'm an idiot. I really need help. I'm just glad that I'm 40 and don't lose my cool anymore, otherwise, I'd be freaking out about now.
Psychlone said:
Some of the WEIRDEST stuff I've ever experienced - EVER.
Oh, the little dead android is when I'm using the stock recovery - I get different errors in TWRP and all the CWM Thor's that I've tried...(134, 71 and 712)
OK, so now PBJ20upgrade won't let me advance because apparently my CPUID isn't correct... it's the ICS version that's 13 characters long instead of 15, and my dmesg doesn't even contain the word "androidboot" at all (it does, however, contain a crapload of errors.)
What's going on?
OK, I'm an idiot. I really need help. I'm just glad that I'm 40 and don't lose my cool anymore, otherwise, I'd be freaking out about now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
cpuid = 15/16 chars go to one of yr cwm nandroid backups theres a uid.txt file in the folder all the other methods rely on adb??? if not try usbdeview thats in the thread too
THANK YOU!
dibb_nz said:
cpuid = 15/16 chars go to one of yr cwm nandroid backups theres a uid.txt file in the folder all the other methods rely on adb??? if not try usbdeview thats in the thread too
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks so much dibb_nz... I've currently got PBJ20upgrade doing *something* (says it's going to take 10 minutes)
Thing is, I didn't get to this point by any conventional means - I followed the destructions several times over but ended up having a newer image than PBJ wanted, or the wrong CPUID.
I finally got this far by unplugging the tablet while PBJ was running, waiting for it's long error and instructions on how to get into APX (which I've clearly done at least a couple dozen times by now) and for some reason when I plugged it in, it shot forward.
We'll see how this goes - I'll keep you posted. I do VERY MUCH appreciate the help. I just might still need it, but hopefully not.
EDIT: Just rebooted and saw a "PASS" on the screen, followed by the "android" loading screen.
EDIT 2: It rebooted all the way in, I signed in (did the entire sign in process) and I'm BACK TO STOCK!!!!
Ok, so thank you THANK YOU THANK YOU for all the help - just being a sounding board is all I need sometimes.
Last questions to get me set up for the future:
What recovery should I create a restore with?
Then after creating a restore, should I use Blackthund3r's utility to flash an unlocked ICS bootloader, and if so, which package should I use to be able to test JB but still be able to go backwards to an ICS (preferably CM9)?
Anything else that I might need to know? (keep in mind that I've read on the order of 30 different threads pertaining to this adventure since it began a couple days ago, but I really appreciate the advice you've given and clearly you know what's up with the A500 - AND, it's hard to disseminate info from all the random threads everywhere. Speaking of which, why is it that there can't be a single thread with most everything that an A500 owner would need? Seriously!!)
Thanks again,
Psychlone
With what I went thru use Civs nvflash and rom and I'd stick with third cement until your safely patched and on ics.do all the wipes and follow instructions to the letter ...I'll check back in shortly
EDIT wtf "third cement" dang auto correct ... should read thors recovery
Wow - what a journey.
I'm now running CM10 and loving it.
I really can't believe the process that I went through over the last couple days - I've rooted and modded two dozen devices in the last year alone, and have been playing with root and modded ROMs since the very beginning, and nothing comes close to what I just did.
I actually have to blame not having everything I need in one place. Mis en place means to have everything you need before you even start - and that used to work back in the day, and still does to an extent for some devices, but anymore, the download links and information are found scattered across many different websites and forums and threads - so much so that it's apparent that this is a product of Google's lack of grip on their hardware and OS.
I do, however, see that you and a couple others have done a KILLER job of getting most everything together in one place to make it easier for those that are searching. I really appreciated your threads that I've read - the way you've written your guides is very intuitive and easy to follow, even if they didn't initially work for me.
Anyway, thanks again. I'm not going backwards now, but if I ever need to for some reason, at least I'm a bit familiar with the "worst-case scenario"!!
Take care man,
Psychlone
excellent news glad it worked for ya
Psychlone said:
Thanks so much dibb_nz... I've currently got PBJ20upgrade doing *something* (says it's going to take 10 minutes)
Thing is, I didn't get to this point by any conventional means - I followed the destructions several times over but ended up having a newer image than PBJ wanted, or the wrong CPUID.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if its referring to newer image then the data cable is connected!
and it will spit this error at you....
I finally got this far by unplugging the tablet while PBJ was running, waiting for it's long error and instructions on how to get into APX (which I've clearly done at least a couple dozen times by now) and for some reason when I plugged it in, it shot forward.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yup now you're cookin
We'll see how this goes - I'll keep you posted. I do VERY MUCH appreciate the help. I just might still need it, but hopefully not.
EDIT: Just rebooted and saw a "PASS" on the screen, followed by the "android" loading screen.
EDIT 2: It rebooted all the way in, I signed in (did the entire sign in process) and I'm BACK TO STOCK!!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
oh yeahhhhh!!!!
Ok, so thank you THANK YOU THANK YOU for all the help - just being a sounding board is all I need sometimes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
nps glad to be of assistance -
Last questions to get me set up for the future:
What recovery should I create a restore with?
Then after creating a restore, should I use Blackthund3r's utility to flash an unlocked ICS bootloader, and if so, which package should I use to be able to test JB but still be able to go backwards to an ICS (preferably CM9)?
Anything else that I might need to know? (keep in mind that I've read on the order of 30 different threads pertaining to this adventure since it began a couple days ago, but I really appreciate the advice you've given and clearly you know what's up with the A500 - AND, it's hard to disseminate info from all the random threads everywhere. Speaking of which, why is it that there can't be a single thread with most everything that an A500 owner would need? Seriously!!)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
becoz then you'd have thousands of posts to look thru and no-one would bother reading it all....i try to keep my cpuid thread updated with things 'unbricking' but its too hard to put 'everything' in one post unfortunately
---------- Post added at 07:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:48 PM ----------
Psychlone said:
Wow - what a journey.
I'm now running CM10 and loving it.
I really can't believe the process that I went through over the last couple days - I've rooted and modded two dozen devices in the last year alone, and have been playing with root and modded ROMs since the very beginning, and nothing comes close to what I just did.
I actually have to blame not having everything I need in one place. Mis en place means to have everything you need before you even start - and that used to work back in the day, and still does to an extent for some devices, but anymore, the download links and information are found scattered across many different websites and forums and threads - so much so that it's apparent that this is a product of Google's lack of grip on their hardware and OS.
I do, however, see that you and a couple others have done a KILLER job of getting most everything together in one place to make it easier for those that are searching. I really appreciated your threads that I've read - the way you've written your guides is very intuitive and easy to follow, even if they didn't initially work for me.
Anyway, thanks again. I'm not going backwards now, but if I ever need to for some reason, at least I'm a bit familiar with the "worst-case scenario"!!
Take care man,
Psychlone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hell, i havent got round to cm10 yet!! i'm trying to get there but i have too much fun helpin peeps get to grips with flashing BL's...have to really thank the devs they did an awesome job unlocking ICS so everyone can enjoy the custom ICS/JB/CM roms- they've extended the life of our little iconia an extra half year or so if not longer.....imagine if we had to put up with stock 'anything' lol, i'd have traded it in long ago!!
was about to suggest the apxflash bundles as there are alot more options as far as recovery's go but you're all sussed now so thats fantastic....
can u add "SOLVED" to the title in case someone else is looking for help. thanks m8:good:
dibb_nz said:
excellent news glad it worked for ya
hell, i havent got round to cm10 yet!! i'm trying to get there but i have too much fun helpin peeps get to grips with flashing BL's...have to really thank the devs they did an awesome job unlocking ICS so everyone can enjoy the custom ICS/JB/CM roms- they've extended the life of our little iconia an extra half year or so if not longer.....imagine if we had to put up with stock 'anything' lol, i'd have traded it in long ago!!
was about to suggest the apxflash bundles as there are alot more options as far as recovery's go but you're all sussed now so thats fantastic....
can u add "SOLVED" to the title in case someone else is looking for help. thanks m8:good:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
CM10 is SLICK. Think CM9 on graphics steroids and you're close!
I appreciate your position more than most. I get a lot of enjoyment out of helping others as well - I've written overclocking guides for AMD systems that was written years ago, revised a couple/three years ago and is still used to this day, even though I've long since moved over to Intel's "dark side". I also participate pretty deeply in helping others at a couple PC hardware forums pretty much daily, even though that's my actual job - I own 2 computer repair businesses in my hometown, and with well over 20,000 computers to fix, I'm ALWAYS busy but still always find time to help others in need.
As for adding ***SOLVED*** to the title, I'd love to...but it won't let me. Perhaps it's because I don't have a high enough post count, or because it's reserved for Mods, but I can't do it.
Thanks for everything once again - it's quite refreshing to be on the receiving end!
Psychlone

[Q] Acer A500 bricked. Is it fixable?

So, my neighbor bought an Acer A500 a few months back. He ended up not liking it so I bought it off of him. My tablet and I got really close and I fell in love. I started neglecting my girlfriend and all that. We had a beautiful relationship; my tablet and me. But, a couple days ago I was playing N.O.V.A 3 and it froze. I thought nothing of it and just powered it down. To my dismay, it froze at the Acer screen. I restarted it again and got the same thing. My life was over. My heart felt like it was ripped from my chest... I shed a manly tear.
I've tried vol- and power, vol+ and power, the reset button, D/Ling several different update.zip files and copying them to my SD. I've spent the last couple days reading and trying everything. All I get is the Droid guy with the blue thing swirling in his chest and then him laying on the ground with a red triangle and an exclamation point.
I'm told it's most likely not a hardware issue as things things are almost bullet-proof. But, I am pretty good at breaking things
Am I screwed or does someone have a miracle they can share. My gaming life depends on it.
-Dennis.
DennisPimps said:
So, my neighbor bought an Acer A500 a few months back. He ended up not liking it so I bought it off of him. My tablet and I got really close and I fell in love. I started neglecting my girlfriend and all that. We had a beautiful relationship; my tablet and me. But, a couple days ago I was playing N.O.V.A 3 and it froze. I thought nothing of it and just powered it down. To my dismay, it froze at the Acer screen. I restarted it again and got the same thing. My life was over. My heart felt like it was ripped from my chest... I shed a manly tear.
I've tried vol- and power, vol+ and power, the reset button, D/Ling several different update.zip files and copying them to my SD. I've spent the last couple days reading and trying everything. All I get is the Droid guy with the blue thing swirling in his chest and then him laying on the ground with a red triangle and an exclamation point.
I'm told it's most likely not a hardware issue as things things are almost bullet-proof. But, I am pretty good at breaking things
Am I screwed or does someone have a miracle they can share. My gaming life depends on it.
-Dennis.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you know what you were running on this thing? Was it stock Honeycomb, scock ICS, or was it running a custom ROM? (If so which one?)
Was it ever hooked up to your PC? (This would help with retrieving CPUID, if it was.) Do you know your CPUID? (Or SBK?)
You should at the least know the answers to these questions before you attempt any type of repair, as it is almost certainly salvageable, but you will almost certainly need your CPUID.
Danny2 said:
Do you know what you were running on this thing? Was it stock Honeycomb, scock ICS, or was it running a custom ROM? (If so which one?)
Was it ever hooked up to your PC? (This would help with retrieving CPUID, if it was.) Do you know your CPUID? (Or SBK?)
You should at the least know the answers to these questions before you attempt any type of repair, as it is almost certainly salvageable, but you will almost certainly need your CPUID.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was running 4.0.1 ICS. I do have my cpuid and SBK. I tried flashing a new rom using blackthund3rs flash tool but it got to about 25% and stopped. I keep losing sync with my PCs, though.
DennisPimps said:
I was running 4.0.1 ICS. I do have my cpuid and SBK. I tried flashing a new rom using blackthund3rs flash tool but it got to about 25% and stopped. I keep losing sync with my PCs, though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So, do you want to go back to stock, or to a custom ROM? If you wanna go stock, the easiest way would be load a 3.01 EUU, & upgrade on the play market to 4.03. That will prove it isn't a hardware issue. Alternatively, you could root, load a recovery, a bootloader, & flash a new ROM.
Danny2 said:
So, do you want to go back to stock, or to a custom ROM? If you wanna go stock, the easiest way would be load a 3.01 EUU, & upgrade on the play market to 4.03. That will prove it isn't a hardware issue. Alternatively, you could root, load a recovery, a bootloader, & flash a new ROM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To be honest, I really don't care as long as I can getting it working again. But I would rather root it.
I think I can get it to work but neither one of my computers will recognize it. It shows up in APX and says something about recovery driver mode when I plug it into the laptop with Vista automatically downloads a driver and installs it again. I've tried turning off automatic driver install but that doesn't work for some reason. The one with XP Pro just shows up APX device but the APX Flash Tool by blackthund3r says it can't find it. I've downloaded the Acer Iconia 500 drivers and installed them but that doesn't work either. I'm at a loss.
Any tips would be great. I think I have a better chance using my laptop with XP, though. I also need to let you know that I truly do appreciate you trying to help. If you're ever in Columbus Ohio, let me know and I'll buy you a beer. lol
DennisPimps said:
To be honest, I really don't care as long as I can getting it working again. But I would rather root it.
I think I can get it to work but neither one of my computers will recognize it. It shows up in APX and says something about recovery driver mode when I plug it into the laptop with Vista automatically downloads a driver and installs it again. I've tried turning off automatic driver install but that doesn't work for some reason. The one with XP Pro just shows up APX device but the APX Flash Tool by blackthund3r says it can't find it. I've downloaded the Acer Iconia 500 drivers and installed them but that doesn't work either. I'm at a loss.
Any tips would be great. I think I have a better chance using my laptop with XP, though. I also need to let you know that I truly do appreciate you trying to help. If you're ever in Columbus Ohio, let me know and I'll buy you a beer. lol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry,I thought I responded to this yesterday, but just now noticed I didn't.
Fire it up in APX mode, and install the 3.01 EUU from the development section, (Stock ROM listing) then simply follow the upgrade path to 4.03, then root. If you drivers are installed correctly, everything will work fine, if not, nothing will happen. If it does start to load the stock ROM, then fails with a write error after it attempts to write the bootsector, you may need to run Badsector, or babsector, depending where you look. Search the recent posts on this, you will find lots of stuff.
Danny2 said:
Sorry,I thought I responded to this yesterday, but just now noticed I didn't.
Fire it up in APX mode, and install the 3.01 EUU from the development section, (Stock ROM listing) then simply follow the upgrade path to 4.03, then root. If you drivers are installed correctly, everything will work fine, if not, nothing will happen. If it does start to load the stock ROM, then fails with a write error after it attempts to write the bootsector, you may need to run Badsector, or babsector, depending where you look. Search the recent posts on this, you will find lots of stuff.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How would I go about installing the EUU? I have nvflash and blackthund3r's flashing tools. But I can't seem to get my PC and tablet to connect. When I plug it into my PC without being in APX mode, it just says MTP Device. When I plug it in while in APX mode it does say something about Picasso Recovery Driver.
If you could explain things to me like I'm aN idiot, I'd really appreciate it.
Thanks,
Dennis
DennisPimps said:
How would I go about installing the EUU? I have nvflash and blackthund3r's flashing tools. But I can't seem to get my PC and tablet to connect. When I plug it into my PC without being in APX mode, it just says MTP Device. When I plug it in while in APX mode it does say something about Picasso Recovery Driver.
If you could explain things to me like I'm aN idiot, I'd really appreciate it.
Thanks,
Dennis
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry for late response, I watched for reply from yourself, but you didn't answer for 10 days, I lost track. Still need help?
Danny2 said:
Sorry for late response, I watched for reply from yourself, but you didn't answer for 10 days, I lost track. Still need help?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yea, it's still bricked. I did finally get the flash tool to recognize it but it kept hanging up. I also tried Timmy Dean's EUU tool and that hangs up too. I did a little more research and found that I may have a faulty emmc. I ran babsector and got 'fatal error code 9 cannot format partition BCT.' I found a thread here that discusses how to write around the bad sectors using Linux. I'm going to give that a go... I've always wanted to learn Linux. Hey, I can't screw it up anymore than it already is, right? Again, thanks for your time and effort in trying to help.
Cheers,
Dennis
Hey, before you try that, try different USB cables and ports (if u haven't already)
I had a similar problem with my phone not maintaining stable USB link to PC... after 4 days I tried a diff USB cable and boom, snap, working.
Just a thought.....
Sent from my A500 using xda app-developers app
ericpeacock79 said:
Hey, before you try that, try different USB cables and ports (if u haven't already)
I had a similar problem with my phone not maintaining stable USB link to PC... after 4 days I tried a diff USB cable and boom, snap, working.
Just a thought.....
Sent from my A500 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll give that a go, m8.
Thanks!
-Dennis
DennisPimps said:
I'll give that a go, m8.
Thanks!
-Dennis
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just wondering if you ever figured out the errors you were getting during flashing? Currently having the same issues when using babsector.

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