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My system partition was erased via fastboot in order to successfully flash a different one, however I'm getting write errors on one I pulled from somebodies' nandroid backup, and a buffer exceeded error when trying to flash the system.img from the leaked stock images thread.
Is there any way to flash the image from my phone (I read that fastboot doesn't handle files over 300mb?) or an alternate image I can use. Everything else is in tact the phone just stalls at the Google screen due to a missing /system
Alex.xTF said:
My system partition was erased via fastboot in order to successfully flash a different one, however I'm getting write errors on one I pulled from somebodies' nandroid backup, and a buffer exceeded error when trying to flash the system.img from the leaked stock images thread.
Is there any way to flash the image from my phone (I read that fastboot doesn't handle files over 300mb?) or an alternate image I can use. Everything else is in tact the phone just stalls at the Google screen due to a missing /system
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You need a sparse filesystem image. Until the original factory images are made available online (it's in the works, but I don't have an exact date), somebody with a working device could create such an image by running (as root):
# make_ext4fs -l 512m -s /sdcard/system.img /system
This should create a flashable system.img (~145MB) on /sdcard (that you can then grab with adb pull or usb mass storage)
I really appreciate you responding, hopefully I can recover my phone without a return, anybody you can suggest I ask to do this for me?
Anybody with a Nexus S and an adb shell running as root should be able to do this.
Summary: in many cases this allows to revive (not really repair!) your N7000 (and some other samsung devices) after an emmc brick and should be relatively easy to follow. The method uses PIT files.
Note: This thread is rather old now (2012).
Please note that the emmc brick bug should be triggered only by a combination of a few conditions:
an old samsung ics kernel (from Ice Cream Sandwich versions 4.0–4.0.4, see wikipedia)
wiping or formatting by custom software, usually an old cwm of that time (especially an often used file called CWM.ZIP)
most important: an older emmc chip (or firmware).
All affected devices should be covered by the thread, some got patched PIT files, some could not be supported (see below).
Some insights here (as part of this thread)
after the problem had been analyzed by the community and Samsung, all those parts got fixed to prevent the problem for the future.
In case only one of the conditions is not true, the brick should not happen.
So if you have more current hardware (somewhat newer than note1) or current software (newer than ics), the bug will not happen.
So, as an example, S3 or Note 3 should be safe because both hardware and software are fixed.
Especially, all current roms or recoveries should be safe.
If you have a brick nowadays, it's very very unlikely it's an emmc brick. Instead you probably have some other problem.
So in most cases, don't look here, unless you are using rather old devices and rather old software.
Note: this is a living post, it will change while progressing. If you want to refer to it, please make a reference to the whole thread (this link).
Don't directly link to the attached files, as they will go away, when I update the files or their names from time to time.
Note: You should generally post in the correct thread (please look in my signature)
Note: I will answer PMs which are of general interest relating to one of my topics (please look in my signature) publicly in the thread (quoting your interesting paragraphs).
It's sad the following has to be said in such big letters, but there are still people not reading anything and therefore failing seriously:
Please, please, please:
Read this multiple times and try to understand all aspects before using anything of this thread.
If you have questions, read it again!
If you have questions, read it again!
...
If you have questions, read it again!
If you have questions, read it again!
If you don't know exactly what you are doing, you may HARM your device seriously or even DAMAGE it for all times (e.g. meaning motherboard has to be changed with >150EUR).
If you are a noob, then please ask someone with more knowledge to assist you, but ignore those blowhards/bigmouths which will probably do more harm to your phone than you would.
If you have questions, read first post again and again and also read the whole thread!
Most questions are asked several in this thread and are already answered in this first post. Others are answered later in the thread. You should also use the search function before asking something a second time.
Please don't waste my time with superfluous questions already answered in the thread only because you are too lazy to search for it!
It took much much time to write this down and describe most aspects. So, please take a similar amount of YOUR time to read it carefully.
Certainly, my descriptions will not be perfect, so if you are SURE your question is NOT answered HERE, then you are welcome to ask in the thread. But don't expect a quick answer. I am usually very busy with other things and I am doing this only to help other people. I definitely don't generate any profit from this...
Please don't quote this post (in it's entirety), because it's very long and will disturbe all other readers. Instead post without a quote or extract some of the text you are referring to. I think this should be common sense...
You can find the former first post of this thread at post #9...I switched it with this continuously updated post, which I hope is more understandable for the users of this method.
-------------------- manual method and tools for using adb
I think forest1971's thread is better for the description of and questions about the manual method which I used first to revive my own phone. Looks like we developed the same thing at the same time. I started this thread before I read his (I also wasn't an active user of xda before).
Along the way our threads started to be companions to each other.
forest1971's thread has some useful tools for using in adb. Some of these will be useful for procedures described here.
But please read on, because I think the PIT file method is easier for most users with kind of standard emmc bricks.
It's less error prone, because you don't have to calculate the numbers yourself (my pit generator script did it already).
However, the manual method can do more, especially if you have special cases.
-------------------- find begin and end of bricked area
You can do this with my emmc partition scanner, which is flashed via recovery (this doesn't really flash, it only uses the scripting of the updater mechanism of the recovery, also called edify script).
You should write down two numbers:
* where emmc_find_brick_start.zip freezes -> BRICK_START
* where emmc_find_brick_end.zip freezes -> BRICK_END
I have reports, that the stock recovery doesn't show the output of the scanners, so you should probably install a custom recovery first (see forrest1971 's thread).
-------------------- patched pit files
I finally hacked a perl script, which generates a set of PIT files for me.
But because I cannot test the PITs on my phone (because I need it):
==> NO GUARANTY <==
Say you have a situation like this:
Code:
before: ...-|-FAC?OR??S-|??ATAFS-|-UMS------------------------------------|...
^ ^
| |
BRICK_START BRICK_END
(? = bad blocks)
The repartitioning should leave a hole in the partition table around the bricked area.
Therefore the bricked area will lie fallow (i.e. not accessed) after the repartitioning.
Code:
before: ...-|-FAC?OR??S-|??ATAFS-|-UMS------------------------------------|...
after: ...-| ? ?? ??|-FACTORYFS-|-DATAFS-|-UMS---------------------|...
\ /
------+-----
|
HOLE
(? = bad blocks)
The calculation is done like the following (Example: N7000_16GB) with X being the size of the HOLE:
Code:
16GB original (Q1_20110914_16GB.pit)
FACTORYFS 548864 ->Fo 1744896 ->Fs
DATAFS 2293760 ->Do 4194304 ->Ds
UMS 6488064 ->Uo 23232512 ->Us
HIDDEN 29720576 ->Ho 1048576 ->Hs
16GB MMC_CAP_ERASE patched
FACTORYFS FoX = Fo+X unchanged
DATAFS DoX = Do+X unchanged
UMS UoX = Uo+X UsX = Us-X
HIDDEN unchanged unchanged
The PITs are named like that:
N7000_16GB_Q1_20110914--patched--brick-between-281-and-2428-MB--FACTORYFS-moved-by-2048-MiB
This PIT is for the N7000 with 16GB and derived from the file Q1_20110914.pit.
Here, the HOLE is from 281 MB up to 2428 MB (MB = 1000000 bytes) which is 2147 MB or 2048 MiB (MiB = 1024*1024 bytes) in size.
So the following relations have to match: BRICK_START >= 281 MB and BRICK_END <= 2428 MB
Note that these numbers are rounded, so if your brick lies exactly on this border, it is possible that your aprtitions are not brick free after the repartitioning.
So to be sure this would be safer: BRICK_START > 281 MB and BRICK_END < 2428 MB
In the example all partitions from FACTORYFS up to the "big" partition (here UMS) have their beginning moved by 2048 MiB.
The "big" partition is shrinked by the same amount, so it ends at the same block as before the repartitioning.
Therefore the following partitions (only HIDDEN in this case) remain unchanged.
All partitions before the first moved partition (FACTORYFS) remain also unchanged.
I recently added more starting partitions for the brick (XXX-moved-by-...).
As a rule, all partitions from this starting partition up to the "big" partition are moved by the size of the HOLE.
All partitions in front of the starting partition and all partitions after the "big" partitions remain unchanged.
Code:
case FACTORYFS-moved-by-...
before: ...-|-FAC?OR??S-|??ATAFS-|-UMS------------------------------------|...
after: ...-| ? ?? ??|-FACTORYFS-|-DATAFS-|-UMS---------------------|...
\ /
------+-----
|
HOLE
case DATAFS-moved-by-...
before: ...-|-FACTORYFS-|D??T?FS-|-UMS------------------------------------|...
after: ...-|-FACTORYFS-| ?? ?|-DATAFS-|-UMS------------------------------|...
\ /
-+-
|
HOLE
(? = bad blocks)
The PIT file will repartition the phone automatically when flashed using Odin, but the moved partitions will not be formatted after that.
If you flash a partition in Odin, you will also put a valid file system on this partition(because the partition image also contains the file system).
For all other partitions, you have to format those partitions, before you can use them.
At least the data partition should be formatted
The revived phone does in nearly no user noticeable way differ from a stock phone afterwards.
You just have a smaller internal sd (called "big" partition above) and you cannot flash a stock pit file again (this would revert the phone to the bricked state).
ATTENTION: different recoveries and ROMs mount external and internal sdcard on varying directories.
I also had the following problem:
I couldn't format my internal sdcard with the cm9 recovery. I think it's too big for the mkfs.vfat tool of current cm9. So I installed another recovery, formatted the internal sd (I thought).
This erased all my current backups and downloads, because in reality it was my external sd. Fortunately I had a backup of the external sdcard from before rescuing my phone.
So, you may want to create a backup of your external sdcard first.
Then double check which is your internal sdcard (the UMS partition) and which is your external sdcard.
Or you could remove the external sd completely. But think about when to remove it, because you might need it for some files (e.g. to use the emmc partition scanner).
-------------------- backup
before messing with the partition table, everyone should make backups of all partitions that can be accessed.
-------------------- efs backup
The most important backup is the efs partition, which very crucial, it includes your IMEI number, bluetooth MAC etc., and without this individual information, your phone cannot be used as a phone again.
For most supported phones, you can do this via adb:
Code:
dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0p1 of=/mnt/sdcard/efs.img
please look at forrest1971's thread for details about using adb.
If your phone uses another partition number for efs, then use this instead of the "1" in mmcblk0p1.
Perhaps you have to mount your sdcard first, to be able to save it there.
Then you should copy the backup to your PC (the recovery should have the option to mount usb).
-------------------- backup files from internal sd before repartitioning
the repartitioning will clear all data in the affected partitions, so all data in your big partition (internal sd etc.) will be lost.
You can try to backup your data, if the partition is accessible. The different methods below may have different success, depending which parts of your phone are usable.
* you can use aroma file manager, which is a full fledged gui file manager which starts standalone by being flashed in CWM. So it should be completely independent (sorry, I could not test it for this kind of backup myself).
For the following possibilities you should first ensure, you have a working recovery with working adb support.
Mount your external sd in recovery (which might be /emmc or /sdcard, please check), to be able to copy files.
* you can use QtAdb to copy files to your PC:
* you can use adb pull to copy any files or directory tree to your PC, e.g.:
adb pull /emmc/. emmc
* you can use tar from adb to archive files to a file on sdcard:
adb shell tar cvjf /sdcard/emmc.tar.bz2 /emmc/.
* you can use a copy command in adb shell to copy files to a folder in sdcard:
adb shell cp -ra /emmc/. /sdcard/emmc.backup
Note: you will loose file attributes and owner information if emmc is formatted with ext2/ext3/ext4, because vfat cannot handle these.
This may matter for system and some app related files.
-------------------- recommended procedures for "standard" cases
"standard" in this sense are pits that only affect FACTORYFS, DATA, CACHE or internal SD (UMS/USERDATA etc.).
All other partitions need special considerations and are not handled in this section!
Note these are from theory only. My phone is running now and I don't want to brick it again, only for testing the procedure.
Therefore the procedure is *NOT* tested (by me) and may contain problems which I didn't expect!
So be "careful with that axe, Eugene!"
Note, there are always multiple ways to reinstall the phone.
phase "find brick"
* reboot into recovery (hold Vol-Up + Home + Power until you arrive there [20-30 seconds])
* flash emmc_find_brick_start.zip, note where it freezes -> BRICK_START
* flash emmc_find_brick_end.zip, note where it freezes -> BRICK_END
phase "flash pit and ROM"
* (re)boot to download mode (hold Vol-Down + Home + Power until you arrive there [20-30 seconds], then Vol-Up)
* flash a patched PIT in Odin
* flash a known good ROM via Odin (especially not a faulty stock ICS ROMs)
phase "check partitions"
* reboot into recovery (hold Vol-Up + Home + Power until you arrive there [20-30 seconds])
* check the partitions (see section "checking all partitions" below)
phase "restore partitions"
* switch off the phone (something like "power off" in recovery)
* remove external sdcard (to be sure not to format it afterwards)
* boot recovery (hold Vol-Up + Home + Power until you arrive there [20-30 seconds])
* format cache
* format data
* format internal SD (if it fails read below)
phase "start ROM"
...
After formatting or wiping data you can probably also boot into the ROM and format the internal sd from there (again: keep the external sd removed, to not format the external sd instead of the internal sd unintentionally).
You should be able to flash any stock ROM from samfirmware (click on n7000 under "models"), I would recommend the one you had before the brick and and before any stock ICS, else you risk a brick again!.
I would recommend a cyanogen ROM though, if you can live with some features missing from stock ROM.
Note: I think the standard recovery doesn't give you enough format options (a guess, I am running cm9).
It may be easier to take a custom ROM with a better custom recovery, but it has to be flashable via Odin (tar file).
A second method is via recovery using a custom kernel:
phase "find brick" like above
phase "flash pit and kernel"
* (re)boot to download mode (hold Vol-Down + Home + Power until you arrive there [20-30 seconds], then Vol-Up)
* flash a patched PIT in Odin
* flash a custom kernel with a good recovery (e.g. cm9 safe kernel) via Odin (which will increment the flash counter! -> yellow triangle -> warranty lost until you reset the counter)
phase "check partitions" like above
phase "restore partitions"
* switch off the phone (something like "power off" in recovery)
* remove external sdcard (to be sure not to format it afterwards)
* boot into recovery (hold Vol-Up + Home + Power until you arrive there [20-30 seconds])
* format system
* format cache
* format data
* format internal SD
phase "install ROM"
* install the zip of the ROM
phase "start ROM"
...
So you generally install the ROM like usual, the only difference is to restore all the partitions moved by the repartitioning with the patched PIT.
This is neccessary because all changed/moved partitions don't have a valid file system or content after the repartitioning.
For some partitions this can be done by a simple format (cache, data, internal sd).
Others need true contents (e.g. system, kernel, recovery can be restored by installing a rom/kernel/recovery).
In other cases (non-standard situations) you need to restore a backup (efs, if you have one) or some generic contents (param, sbl1/2).
EFS is the most critical one, because it contains information unique to your own phone. Also see the efs section in this post.
I assume SBL1/2 are needed by the boot process (secondary boot loader), but I never tested this. I don't even know where to get these boot loaders (which probably have to be installed with the PIT via odin, because they are involved in the boot process).
You may find other important information in the thread, please read it completely before asking the same things over and over again.
There may also be useful information and experiences from users.
I try to incorporate useful information in the thread starter, but my time is often very limited.
Also, some information may not look valuable enough for me to integrate it, but it may be valuable for you.
...suggestions or corrections welcome!...
-------------------- checking all partitions for bricked blocks
After repartitioning some partitions may still have bricked blocks inside (because of moving brick or choosing a wrong pit etc.).
Bricked blocks in any partition will lead to random freezes when these blocks are accessed in any way.
So you should check all your partitions after repartitioning to be sure.
With both methods below, you can check the partitions even before formatting any of them.
You can do this with my emmc partition scanner, which is flashed via recovery (this doesn't really flash, it only uses the scripting of the updater mechanism of the recovery, also called edify script).
You can also do it manual via dd commands in adb, but this is much slower.
Use commands like this, using the partition block device in the if=... argument:
adb shell dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0p1 of=/dev/null
adb shell dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0p2 of=/dev/null
adb shell dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0p3 of=/dev/null
...
adb shell dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0p9 of=/dev/null
adb shell dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0p10 of=/dev/null
adb shell dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0p11 of=/dev/null
etc.
If any of these freeze the phone (or reboots the phone or doesn't come to an end even after an hour), you probably (still) have bricked blocks inside the according partition.
-------------------- pit.str for DataWorkshop
For those who want to edit their own patched pit file, I made a structure definition file (pit.str) for an open source multi-platform tool (java) called DataWorkshop, which allows looking at binary data in structured form.
The tool is not very comfortable when it comes to copy/paste etc. but you can edit the values (just put the cursor at the correct digit before typing the number).
Please ask (PM), if you are interested in this.
-------------------- PITs for other devices
Because Samsung doesn't fix their kernels (thinking their software doesn't have the problem) there is a growing number of affected devices.
Look at the attached files, which devices are currently available.
If pits for your device aren't available yet, please send me a stock PIT and tell me which partitions are bricked (or BRICK_START and BRICK_END, and if you know, which partitions are usually bricked for your device).
I'll look what I can do...
I will add comments for special cases below.
-------------------- device i9250 - experimental PITs
I added i9250 PITs which are very experimental, because I don't know how some details of it's stock PIT affect the result. May be it breaks everything, so beware.
I added this especially for Shanava, who said to be able to recover even from a hard brick.
His brick is in userdata.
So this will probably revive the internal sd (is it userdata?) and reinstalling a ROM shouldn't be necessary, only formatting userdata.
But I also added system and cache as possible starting partition for the brick, then you have to install a ROM and format cache accordingly.
-------------------- devices not supported/supportable
i9000, i9300 (and similar):
These devices have a different PIT structure.
The structure for each partition entry doesn't include an offset, so I don't know a way to define a gap for skipping the bricked blocks.
Inserting an unused partition changes the partition numbers after it, which shouldn't work.
-------------------- FOR-EXPERTS-ONLY packages
DO NOT USE one of the packages with "FOR-EXPERTS-ONLY" in it's name unless you are REALLY REALLY sure how to handle/restore/initialize all the affected partitions, often meaning you were involved in the discussion leading to these files or you read this VERY carefully.
These packages contain files to be used by those who have special problems and want to take the risk to try them.
They are only documented by the corresponding discussion (somewhere in this thread).
note: this is a living post, it changes while progressing. If you want to refer to it, please make a reference to the whole thread, beginning at the first post.
Don't directly link to the attached files, as they will go away, when I update the files and their names from time to time.
Let's hear it....
ok I wait. ..
Forgive me for being skeptical but, Join date Feb 2011, and this is only your second and very open ended post?...... Hmmmm :S
RavenY2K3 said:
Forgive me for being skeptical but, Join date Feb 2011, and this is only your second and very open ended post?...... Hmmmm :S
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's why I said "Let's hear it....". Like, I am very curious because I noticed the same thing you did. I hate doubting people, but sometimes you have to.
hg42 said:
go straight ahead to the final solution (see next post)...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
andreww88 said:
Let's hear it....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
errr
I very much doubt it. But lets hear your version of "The curious case of Benjamin eMMC bug"
panyan said:
errr
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why did you quote me?
Repartitioning around the bad blocks
This is the former first post of this thread...I switched it with a continuously updated version, which is more understandable for ths users of my pit method.
-----------------------snip -------------------------------------
Hi everyone, especially those with an ICS brick,
last week I jumped straight into a MMC_CAP_ERASE brick.
Sadly, I knew very well what not to do with a LPY kernel on my phone (wiping etc.).
But one weak moment (touching "wipe data/factory reset" in CWM), and then a moment later a flash (pun!) going through my brain, telling me "wow, now the phone will be bricked, right?".
Well I rebooted the phone and thought to be a lucky man, because the system booted correctly.
But after about a minute the SGN started to get FCs in android.*.acore and Google Play etc. I looked with a root file manager and found that the /data partition wasn't mounted.
So I got the BRICK!
After some days of analysing and thinking about the situation, I found a way out of the dilemma. I think, I will not bother you with all the details of these days, but go straight ahead to the final solution...
(this was planned as the second post in the thread, but the dynamic community inserted many post in between, so I added it here sorry, my fault)
---- cut ----
This is a rewrite in english of my report at a german forum:
ICS Brick, Samsung Galaxy Note N7000, Erfahrungsbericht
www.handy-faq.de/.../249283-ics_brick_samsung_galaxy_note_n7000_erfahrungsbericht.html
My brick created bad blocks in the phone's flash memory.
I got I/O-Errors when attempting to read or write those blocks.
My SGN was still able to boot into recovery and all kinds of kernels/recovery.
Odin was able to flash boot loaders, kernels, modems and CSCs.
But flashing a factory_fs stopped at the very beginning.
I found, that any access to some blocks inside /system and also ANY access to /data left an inaccessible phone and I had to restart it.
For all of the following I needed access to some tools (mainly e2fsck and parted).
As I had completely deleted my system partition before (formatting it), I had no single useful tool around, so the recovery had to provide any of those.
The stock recovery e.g. of KL8 engineering kernel doesn't provide such tools, so I had to find a better one first.
I found all this packed in the Thor kernel, but would not recommend it, because it's closed source.
You may use the tools from forrest1971, see below under "manual method".
One of my attempts to get around those bad blocks, was to create a bad blocks list which can be used by the ext4 file system, I tried this command:
e2fsck -c /dev/block/mmcblk0p9 (which is the /system partition)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This failed, because to find out which blocks are bad, e2fsck tries to read them and gets stuck by doing so.
I could have created a list manually, but because the data partition was corrupted starting at it's first block, this bad blocks list wouldn't work here anyway.
At the end, my solution was to recreate the partition scheme, leaving a big hole at the space where /system (893MB) and /data (2147MB) resided before:
Code:
before: - ...-|-FAC?ORYFS-|??ATAFS-|-UMS------------------------------------|...
after: + ...-| ? ?? |-FACTORYFS-|-DATAFS-|-UMS---------------|...
(? = bad blocks, + working, - = not working still bad blocks inside)
In order to not access those bad blocks, I could not move these partitions, but instead I had to delete them first and recreate them at another place afterwards.
So I needed a backup of them first (fortunately I always have 7 Titanium backup levels around).
Here is a log of my steps (but see below in the blue sections for other probably easier procedures):
Code:
I managed to access the device via [I]adb shell[/I]...which is another story for itself...
Then I started [I]parted[/I] with the flash device:
~ # parted /dev/block/mmcblk0
parted /dev/block/mmcblk0
GNU Parted 1.8.8.1.179-aef3
Using /dev/block/mmcblk0
Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands.
(parted) print
print
print
As a greeting I got some error messages about the GPT layout, which parted wanted to fix:
[QUOTE]Error: The backup GPT table is not at the end of the disk, as it should be.
This might mean that another operating system believes the disk is smaller.
Fix, by moving the backup to the end (and removing the old backup)?
Fix/Ignore/Cancel? f
f
f
Warning: Not all of the space available to /dev/block/mmcblk0 appears to be
used, you can fix the GPT to use all of the space (an extra 2048 blocks) or
continue with the current setting?
Fix/Ignore? f
f
f
this was the partition scheme before implementing the workaround:
Model: MMC VYL00M (sd/mmc)
Disk /dev/block/mmcblk0: 15.8GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt
Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 4194kB 25.2MB 21.0MB ext4 EFS
2 25.2MB 26.5MB 1311kB SBL1
3 27.3MB 28.6MB 1311kB SBL2
4 29.4MB 37.7MB 8389kB PARAM
5 37.7MB 46.1MB 8389kB KERNEL
6 46.1MB 54.5MB 8389kB RECOVERY
7 54.5MB 264MB 210MB ext4 CACHE
8 264MB 281MB 16.8MB MODEM
9 281MB 1174MB 893MB FACTORYFS
10 1174MB 3322MB 2147MB ext4 DATAFS
11 3322MB 15.2GB 11.9GB fat32 UMS
12 15.2GB 15.8GB 537MB ext4 HIDDEN
then I deleted the partitions 9=FACTORYFS=/system, 10=DATAFS=/data and 11=UMS=/sdcard(internal) and recreated them starting at the former start of the internal sdcard partition (11) leaving the former space of the /system and /data partitions unused:
(parted) rm 11
(parted) rm 10
(parted) rm 9
(parted) mkpartfs primary ext2 3500 4400
(parted) mkpartfs primary ext2 4400 7000
(parted) mkpartfs primary fat32 7000 15.2G
(parted) name 9 FACTORYFS
(parted) name 10 DATAFS
(parted) name 11 UMS
now I upgraded both new ext2 partitions to ext4:
~ # tune2fs -j /dev/block/mmcblk0p9
tune2fs -j /dev/block/mmcblk0p9
tune2fs 1.41.11 (14-Mar-2010)
Creating journal inode: done
This filesystem will be automatically checked every 30 mounts or
0 days, whichever comes first. Use tune2fs -c or -i to override.
~ # tune2fs -j /dev/block/mmcblk0p10
tune2fs -j /dev/block/mmcblk0p10
tune2fs 1.41.11 (14-Mar-2010)
Creating journal inode: done
This filesystem will be automatically checked every 30 mounts or
0 days, whichever comes first. Use tune2fs -c or -i to override.
~ # e2fsck -fDp /dev/block/mmcblk0p9
e2fsck -fDp /dev/block/mmcblk0p9
/dev/block/mmcblk0p9: 11/439776 files (0.0% non-contiguous), 71701/878907 blocks
~ # e2fsck -fDp /dev/block/mmcblk0p10
e2fsck -fDp /dev/block/mmcblk0p10
/dev/block/mmcblk0p10: 11/317440 files (9.1% non-contiguous), 26386/634765 blocks
and this is the final partition layout:
~ # parted /dev/block/mmcblk0 print
parted /dev/block/mmcblk0 print
Model: MMC VYL00M (sd/mmc)
Disk /dev/block/mmcblk0: 15.8GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt
Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 4194kB 25.2MB 21.0MB ext4 EFS
2 25.2MB 26.5MB 1311kB SBL1
3 27.3MB 28.6MB 1311kB SBL2
4 29.4MB 37.7MB 8389kB PARAM
5 37.7MB 46.1MB 8389kB KERNEL
6 46.1MB 54.5MB 8389kB RECOVERY
7 54.5MB 264MB 210MB ext4 CACHE
8 264MB 281MB 16.8MB MODEM
9 3500MB 4400MB 900MB ext3 FACTORYFS
10 4400MB 7000MB 2600MB ext3 DATAFS
11 7000MB 15.2GB 8217MB fat32 UMS msftres
12 15.2GB 15.8GB 537MB ext4 HIDDEN
This configuration works so far (one complete day now).
I can install firmwares and restore backups via recoveries.
Also flashing via Odin should work (not tried yet).
I currently can only imagine one standard procedure which will not work, that is creating a new partition scheme, e.g. via Odin (PIT file) or may be a CWM script.
I think/hope this will not occur too often...
-- naturally, it's much faster to insert those short messages than rewriting a long german post in english.
Next time I should write the main text prior to posting anything, I think...
sorry...
WoooooooOOOOOOoooooooowwwww!!!!
YeeeeeeEEEEEEaaaaaAAAAAaaaahhhhhh!!!!!!
You are the man, bro.
man has a few posts but are worth a lot. .. thanks for share with us
And... I just wonder it couldn't be possible to recreate the whole partition table with an appropiate tool like GNU/Linux "parted" or so?
Is the damage so serious? Is it physical??
Interesting Read, this should be of a great help to those bricked without warranty.
straycat said:
And... I just wonder it couldn't be possible to recreate the whole partition table with an appropiate tool like GNU/Linux "parted" or so?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you *can* indeed try to recreate the standard partition scheme (I did it very early with a PIT file in Odin and also tried formatting those partions etc.), but this doesn't work because *accessing* those blocks in any way is the *real* problem.
Is the damage so serious? Is it physical??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes, you can't even fix the bad blocks with the usual JTAG equipment.
I was told by a technician from a good repair center that a fix could eventually be possible by directly reprogramming the flash chip in some way (JTAG again), but no one tried yet, because this would cause several hours of work...
usually they swap the whole motherboard instead (which is >250EUR)
Thanks, hg42.
I really apreciate your efforts and to share with us.
I'm not a superbriked note owner but I follow with great interest those posts.
Again, thank you, man.
Wow man, that seemed really simple and straight forward. Next week well learn how to copy a file in Android, now that will be much trickier...
Thanks anyway for your efforts!
Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk 2
Zamboney said:
Wow man, that seemed really simple and straight forward. Next week well learn how to copy a file in Android, now that will be much trickier...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LOL, you're right, at the end I also thought, that's really simple
but, at least...I had several problems to solve before getting adb up and running properly with root permissions and having the necessary tools at hand (inside adb).
I think this was mainly because I wiped my /system before.
But, it's easy to be wise after the event.
hmm, I tried to export this partition scheme to a PIT file (using heimdall-frontend), but I got a file that is exactly equal to the one I flashed last via Odin, which was Q1_20110914_16GB.pit.
So I assume the PIT file is one way only?
A PIT file would probably allow even unexperienced users to unbrick their phones.
This is the same method here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=26285877&postcount=12
Although your post I found easier to read.
Hi everyone, this is my first thread
I recently rooted my 16gb WiFi only nexus 7. After installing 3 different roms (touchwiz, cyanogenmod 10, and xenon HD) I didn't like touch wiz or cyanogenmod, and I'm currently running xenon HD. However, when I opened my storage today, of said I had 3.6gb remaining. I thought it may have been all the apps, so I factory reset it, reset the partition, and deleted all data via recovery mode. That gave me about 1 more gigabyte. I opened ES file explorer and deleted everything there. I still have only 4.6 gigabytes usable. Anyone else have this issue?
Thanks
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app
Well, I deleted some old backups and now I have 7.5 gb of storage, which should do for now. But I still have that 6 GB leftover, anyone know whats wrong?
Thanks
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app
OK. Now I mucked around in the mounting/unmounting stuff, and now it won't boot. It's stuck at the Google screen. Someone help please???
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app[/QUOTE]
You are not the only person who has experienced this.
Bottom line is you need to rebuild the /data filesystem, which necessitates getting everything off of it including any nandroid backups plus anything worth saving in /sdcard
Either the "format data" option in TWRP, or using fastboot.
Code:
fastboot erase userdata
fastboot format userdata
I've had the latter create short file systems - and also not create short file systems.
Whatever causes this it seems to depend on prior state in the filesystem, even though I don't think things should behave this way. I've also had TWRP's "Format data" menu option create new, empty, & corrupted ext4 file systems. Ugh - I hope your luck is better than mine.
Note that you can run "df -k /data" in the recovery (after you have created the new filesystem by either method) to find out how big it is; better to check things are OK right away, rather than after you've put effort into restoring things or flashing ROMs.
Long boring thread, but related.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2184486
good luck
Edit: no point in restoring the wedged /data backup. I hope you have earlier backups.
bftb0 said:
You are not the only person who has experienced this.
Bottom line is you need to rebuild the /data filesystem, which necessitates getting everything off of it including any nandroid backups plus anything worth saving in /sdcard
Either the "format data" option in TWRP, or using fastboot.
Code:
fastboot erase userdata
fastboot format userdata
I've had the latter create short file systems - and also not create short file systems.
Whatever causes this it seems to depend on prior state in the filesystem, even though I don't think things should behave this way. I've also had TWRP's "Format data" menu option create new, empty, & corrupted ext4 file systems. Ugh - I hope your luck is better than mine.
Note that you can run "df -k /data" in the recovery (after you have created the new filesystem by either method) to find out how big it is; better to check things are OK right away, rather than after you've put effort into restoring things or flashing ROMs.
Long boring thread, but related.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2184486
good luck
Edit: no point in restoring the wedged /data backup. I hope you have earlier backups.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I basically have nothing I need on my tablet, so I'm fine deleting everything on it, if that's what you mean. I'll try, but thanks:good:
nicetaco said:
I basically have nothing I need on my tablet, so I'm fine deleting everything on it, if that's what you mean. I'll try, but thanks:good:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wait, is that for getting back the storage or actually letting it boot up? Because right now the storage is the least of my concerns.
What I described is for getting back lost space (by recreating from scratch the ext4 filesystem in the userdata partition).
As it doesn't touch either the boot partition or the system partition, your tablet should certainly be able to boot. If you don't do a restore of /data from a backup, the result will be like a factory reset of whatever rom you had on the tablet.
Just make sure to check the size of the data partition before you start re-customizing or restoring data from backups to make sure that you got the full size of the partition.
bftb0 said:
What I described is for getting back lost space (by recreating from scratch the ext4 filesystem in the userdata partition).
As it doesn't touch either the boot partition or the system partition, your tablet should certainly be able to boot. If you don't do a restore of /data from a backup, the result will be like a factory reset of whatever rom you had on the tablet.
Just make sure to check the size of the data partition before you start re-customizing or restoring data from backups to make sure that you got the full size of the partition.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ughhh its still not turning on...
nicetaco said:
Ughhh its still not turning on...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Please re-read this quote from your 2nd thread in this fiasco.
Nico_60 said:
How do you want to know what's happening to your device if don't tell us which commands you have done exactly with fastboot and why ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you screwed around with your system partition and it wouldn't boot before, then with a freshly formated and empty /data filesystem, of course it still will not boot. The instructions I provided in this thread only involved the userdata partition!
But you didn't say "I did such and such and it still hangs during the initial boot phase where the X logo is flashing on the screen"; instead you said:
"Ughhh its still not turning on".
WTF? Has your problem now morphed into a dead battery problem, or is the language you are using just incredibly imprecise?
Anyway, Flash a new ROM using the custom recovery. Any ROM - you pick. Maybe not that Xenon ROM or whatever it is called. See if the new ROM boots. And then immediately after it boots, check to see what size the /data partition is.
And if you come back into this thread anymore please be specific about what you are attempting and exactly what symptoms you are observing.
good luck
bftb0 said:
Please re-read this quote from your 2nd thread in this fiasco.
If you screwed around with your system partition and it wouldn't boot before, then with a freshly formated and empty /data filesystem, of course it still will not boot. The instructions I provided in this thread only involved the userdata partition!
But you didn't say "I did such and such and it still hangs during the initial boot phase where the X logo is flashing on the screen"; instead you said:
"Ughhh its still not turning on".
WTF? Has your problem now morphed into a dead battery problem, or is the language you are using just incredibly imprecise?
Anyway, Flash a new ROM using the custom recovery. Any ROM - you pick. Maybe not that Xenon ROM or whatever it is called. See if the new ROM boots. And then immediately after it boots, check to see what size the /data partition is.
And if you come back into this thread anymore please be specific about what you are attempting and exactly what symptoms you are observing.
good luck
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK. I tried to install a new rom, but I can't because I have USB debugging off, which I can't turn on
bftb0 said:
You are not the only person who has experienced this.
Bottom line is you need to rebuild the /data filesystem, which necessitates getting everything off of it including any nandroid backups plus anything worth saving in /sdcard
Either the "format data" option in TWRP, or using fastboot.
Code:
fastboot erase userdata
fastboot format userdata
I've had the latter create short file systems - and also not create short file systems.
Whatever causes this it seems to depend on prior state in the filesystem, even though I don't think things should behave this way. I've also had TWRP's "Format data" menu option create new, empty, & corrupted ext4 file systems. Ugh - I hope your luck is better than mine.
Note that you can run "df -k /data" in the recovery (after you have created the new filesystem by either method) to find out how big it is; better to check things are OK right away, rather than after you've put effort into restoring things or flashing ROMs.
Long boring thread, but related.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2184486
good luck
Edit: no point in restoring the wedged /data backup. I hope you have earlier backups.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you, bftb0!
I was looking around for this after I discovered my lack of space. I read about it before, but couldn't dig up the post. Thanks for informing us! Enjoy the thanks!
nicetaco said:
OK. I tried to install a new rom, but I can't because I have USB debugging off, which I can't turn on
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ADB is available in the custom recovery... so long as you have the right drivers installed on your PC. And that is NOT controlled by some setting in the most recent ROM that you flashed - it is always running in the custom recovery.
One of the quirks about ADB in the recovery with the Nexus7 is that it claims a different USB address than "ADB Composite Interface" that the regular OS does. This might mean that ADB works correctly with the regular OS booted, but not when the custom recovery is booted, depending on what drivers you have installed. Yes, you need yet another driver installed even though they are both "ADB" connections. But that is a Windows driver issue, not a problem with the N7.
You can also use an OTG cable and a USB drive with TWRP if that is easier. Put your ROM on the memory stick and then use TWRP's "external memory". To be most compatible, make sure the USB stick is formatted in a FAT format. (I don't know if TWRP can handle NTFS).
upichie said:
Thank you, bftb0!
I was looking around for this after I discovered my lack of space. I read about it before, but couldn't dig up the post. Thanks for informing us! Enjoy the thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I wonder if I can I trade them in for some coupons or something
@bftb0, I was not able to use adb while in TWRP but i found THIS and it was the solution, what do you think about this "fix"?
bftb0 said:
ADB is available in the custom recovery... so long as you have the right drivers installed on your PC. And that is NOT controlled by some setting in the most recent ROM that you flashed - it is always running in the custom recovery.
One of the quirks about ADB in the recovery with the Nexus7 is that it claims a different USB address than "ADB Composite Interface" that the regular OS does. This might mean that ADB works correctly with the regular OS booted, but not when the custom recovery is booted, depending on what drivers you have installed. Yes, you need yet another driver installed even though they are both "ADB" connections. But that is a Windows driver issue, not a problem with the N7.
You can also use an OTG cable and a USB drive with TWRP if that is easier. Put your ROM on the memory stick and then use TWRP's "external memory". To be most compatible, make sure the USB stick is formatted in a FAT format. (I don't know if TWRP can handle NTFS).
I wonder if I can I trade them in for some coupons or something
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Holy crap I forgot about the OTG cables. Thanks, I'll try it!
nicetaco said:
Holy crap I forgot about the OTG cables. Thanks, I'll try it!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you so much. That did it.
First problem fixed through XDA developers
Enjoy my thanks
Nico_60 said:
@bftb0, I was not able to use adb while in TWRP but i found THIS and it was the solution, what do you think about this "fix"?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The ADB daemon - "adbd" is definitely sitting there running inside the custom recovery. Even if you can't communicate with it because of a lack of a driver, you should nevertheless be able to see it as an unknown device in the PC's device manager.
I have done the same hack - hand editing the .INF file - with both the Google SDK drivers and the Asus drivers, and in both cases it worked fine (one driver for everything: ADB in the OS, ADB in TWRP/CWM, and fastboot with the bootloader).
I have also used the Google SDK driver without modification plus the XDA Universal Naked driver. That means using the Google driver for fastboot and ADB when the OS is booted, and the XUN driver for custom recoveries only.
At the present time the ONLY driver I have installed is a hacked version of the Asus drivers.
Win 7 complains about signing when doing this (for the Asus drivers for sure, I can't remember if the Google driver is signed or not).
As I mentioned, Win 7 Pro x64. I suppose the whole "violated signing" might make life even more difficult with Win 8 though.
bftb0, did you personally experience the problem of losing space on the internal memory? I tried your advice, but it didn't work. I'm on PAC(man) ROM. I booted into TWRP, did the data wipe (not factory reset, the full wipe that wipes the everything) but I still only have 13 gb available (on my 32 gb Nexus 7). I rebooted into TWRP and did a factory reset AND wipe data, but I am still missing half of my internal memory.
Do you need to do this on the stock ROM for it to work? Any other tips would be greatly appreciated.
upichie said:
bftb0, did you personally experience the problem of losing space on the internal memory? I tried your advice, but it didn't work. I'm on PAC(man) ROM. I booted into TWRP, did the data wipe (not factory reset, the full wipe that wipes the everything) but I still only have 13 gb available (on my 32 gb Nexus 7). I rebooted into TWRP and did a factory reset AND wipe data, but I am still missing half of my internal memory.
Do you need to do this on the stock ROM for it to work? Any other tips would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, it really did happen to me.
After it happened I took the trouble to download 4 different versions of TWRP (2.4.1.0-2.4.4.0), and I re-created the ext4 filesystem with:
- each of the different versions of TWRP and
- fastboot format userdata
after each, I did a "e2fsck -f -n <block-device>" on the (unmounted) userdata partition to see that they were clean, and I also dumped the output of "tune2fs -l <block-device>" to a file for comparison. Other than things that I would expect to be different (e.g. partition UUID identifier strings and timestamps), I noticed no differences. And also, I couldn't reproduce the problem for the life of me.
Above you mention full "data wipe". In TWRP (v2.4.1.0), this is presented as a separate button in the "Wipe" sub-menu where it (the last button in the first column) is labeled "Format Data". I suppose this is what you mean, but thought I would be explicit to avoid any confusion. (The "factory reset" procedure in the two custom recoveries - both CWM and TWRP - can not possibly re-create the ext4 filesystem in /data, as the /data/media/0 SD card files are in there. But the "Format Data" button does destroy & recreate the whole filesystem).
If you press on this button and at the same time capture the output of the "ps" command, you will see that TWRP recovery invokes the /sbin/make_ext4fs in the following way
Code:
make_ext4fs -l -32768 /dev/block/mmcblk0p<PARTNUM>
(CWM probably uses a different external command as it does not seem to have a "make_ext4fs" command in it's ramdisk. Probably mke2fs with ext4 options on the command line)
Anyways, I can't say I have my finger on exactly how to resolve the problem as I can not re-created it. But it did happen to me.
One thing you can try rather than using TWRP's "make_ext4fs" command (underneath that button "Format Data") is to reboot into the bootloader from TWRP, and do the file system formatting in fastboot instead of TWRP, as in:
Code:
fastboot format userdata
(noobs: caution, this is a full userdata wipe)
and then bop back into the recovery and check things with "tune2fs" report
Code:
tune2fs -l /dev/block/mmcblk0p<PARTNUM>
My 32G N7 shows a total block count of 7503608 (x 4k/block = 29.3 GiB) doing this.
As I mentioned before, it's a good idea to check to see you have the right size before you start restoring stuff to avoid wasting time. You can do it above with "tune2fs -l", or because TWRP seems to want to mount /data and /sdcard when it boots, just run
adb shell df -k /data
to get a report of total and used size.
Sorry this isn't more definiitve. I would have spent more time looking at this, but it is tedious as you need to unload the whole d*mn SD card in order to experiment. Thank goodness my 30GB partition only has about 10Gigs of stuff on it.
good luck
bftb0 said:
Yes, it really did happen to me.
After it happened I took the trouble to download 4 different versions of TWRP (2.4.1.0-2.4.4.0), and I re-created the ext4 filesystem with:
- each of the different versions of TWRP and
- fastboot format userdata
after each, I did a "e2fsck -f -n <block-device>" on the (unmounted) userdata partition to see that they were clean, and I also dumped the output of "tune2fs -l <block-device>" to a file for comparison. Other than things that I would expect to be different (e.g. partition UUID identifier strings and timestamps), I noticed no differences. And also, I couldn't reproduce the problem for the life of me.
Above you mention full "data wipe". In TWRP (v2.4.1.0), this is presented as a separate button in the "Wipe" sub-menu where it (the last button in the first column) is labeled "Format Data". I suppose this is what you mean, but thought I would be explicit to avoid any confusion. (The "factory reset" procedure in the two custom recoveries - both CWM and TWRP - can not possibly re-create the ext4 filesystem in /data, as the /data/media/0 SD card files are in there. But the "Format Data" button does destroy & recreate the whole filesystem).
If you press on this button and at the same time capture the output of the "ps" command, you will see that TWRP recovery invokes the /sbin/make_ext4fs in the following way
Code:
make_ext4fs -l -32768 /dev/block/mmcblk0p<PARTNUM>
(CWM probably uses a different external command as it does not seem to have a "make_ext4fs" command in it's ramdisk. Probably mke2fs with ext4 options on the command line)
Anyways, I can't say I have my finger on exactly how to resolve the problem as I can not re-created it. But it did happen to me.
One thing you can try rather than using TWRP's "make_ext4fs" command (underneath that button "Format Data") is to reboot into the bootloader from TWRP, and do the file system formatting in fastboot instead of TWRP, as in:
Code:
fastboot format userdata
(noobs: caution, this is a full userdata wipe)
and then bop back into the recovery and check things with "tune2fs" report
Code:
tune2fs -l /dev/block/mmcblk0p<PARTNUM>
My 32G N7 shows a total block count of 7503608 (x 4k/block = 29.3 GiB) doing this.
As I mentioned before, it's a good idea to check to see you have the right size before you start restoring stuff to avoid wasting time. You can do it above with "tune2fs -l", or because TWRP seems to want to mount /data and /sdcard when it boots, just run
adb shell df -k /data
to get a report of total and used size.
Sorry this isn't more definiitve. I would have spent more time looking at this, but it is tedious as you need to unload the whole d*mn SD card in order to experiment. Thank goodness my 30GB partition only has about 10Gigs of stuff on it.
good luck
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
.
I'm a total command prompt beginner here, so could you explain where I'm doing the fastboot format command? In a terminal on the device? Using adb on my windows machine? I tried all that I could think of, but none of it worked. No form of wiping the device (yes, via "format data" in TWRP) seems to work. I'm still missing half of my storage.
EDIT: Okay, so I ran the command--I had to have the device in the bootloader, duh. Unfortunately, it still did not work. When recreating the file system, it said there was a total of ~3.5 million blocks--half what I saw reported in the other thread. Not surprising, since I'm missing half of my storage. How come this is working for other people but not me? I tried doing both at the same time, but to no avail. This is getting stupid.
upichie said:
EDIT: Okay, so I ran the command--I had to have the device in the bootloader, duh. Unfortunately, it still did not work. When recreating the file system, it said there was a total of ~3.5 million blocks--half what I saw reported in the other thread. Not surprising, since I'm missing half of my storage. How come this is working for other people but not me? I tried doing both at the same time, but to no avail. This is getting stupid.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Arrgh. Did you do the "fastboot erase userdata" first?
Here's what the fastboot format looked like on my device when I did this last (3/13):
Code:
$ fastboot erase userdata
******** Did you mean to fastboot format this partition?
erasing 'userdata'...
OKAY [ 4.974s]
finished. total time: 4.979s
$ fastboot format userdata
erasing 'userdata'...
OKAY [ 4.454s]
formatting 'userdata' partition...
Creating filesystem with parameters:
Size: 30734811136
Block size: 4096
Blocks per group: 32768
Inodes per group: 8192
Inode size: 256
Journal blocks: 32768
Label:
Blocks: 7503616
Block groups: 229
Reserved block group size: 1024
Created filesystem with 11/1875968 inodes and 161774/7503616 blocks
sending 'userdata' (139197 KB)...
writing 'userdata'...
OKAY [ 33.733s]
finished. total time: 38.194s
As I said, I was unable to reproduce the problem even though I tried. But it almost seems like the creation of the new filesystem is inferring something from somewhere (but where?) about the userdata partition size which is incorrect. Almost like it happens because of something it sees in the prior filesystem (which is being destroyed). So it becomes irreproducible unless you can recreate the same starting condition.
There's other mysterious crap going on here too. See the output above? The part where it says "sending 'userdata' (139197 KB)" ? It will say this no matter where you run the command from, and there is no 139 MB "userdata.img" file in the folder it runs from!!! 139 MB? For a filesystem which is empty when you mount it?
I don't know. Here's one more thing to try, though. In addition to doing the "erase" & "format" commands, perhaps you could actually flash the userdata image from the stock ROM
Code:
fastboot erase userdata
fastboot format userdata
fastboot flash userdata userdata.img
and then when you boot to the custom recovery, perform a "factory reset" - or try doing the "Format Data" thing in TWRP after (or before?) the above steps.
If none of this works, I suppose you could try the equivalent sorts of things with CWM and see if you get a different result.
You don't need to permanently install CWM with a hard flash - you can just soft-boot it for a single session:
Code:
fastboot boot recovery-clockwork-touch-6.0.2.3-grouper.img
Sorry this is so vague, but you know how it goes - you stumble into a problem, start fooling around until it gets fixed - and because you weren't really expecting the problem in the first place, you haven't written down the exact conditions and steps. Like I said, I tried to re-create the problem a variety of ways - but failed at that effort.
good luck
Hi,
I urgently need help for my nexus 7 that has stopped charging or recognising even the original ASUS usb cable (have tried many others as well, same result). I'm currently charging it via the method of powering it of and plugging it in without the android os running. I have even tried to connect it to my PC in bootloader mode. I have the custom trinity kernel install and want to return my device to stock kernel and os state. However I do have TWRP and need help from there to install the stock image. I have previously tried many thing such as completely wiping the system and clearing any caches in TWRP. Also I have seen that in TWRP it recognises my usb (connected via OTG cable).
So could anyone please help me with returning my nexus 7 back to stck state using TWRP.
And is there also a way of unrooting my device without using PC (using TWRP instead)?
-- Update -- I have no OS installed (tried to delete custom kernel) --
Thanks in advance.
Nexus 7 state:
- custom trinity kernel
- TWRP
- USB connection to PC not working
There should be help for you here in this sticky in this Q&A forum:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1907796
Note 2 - Nexus 7 - Charge - Player 5.0 - Fascinate
<><><><><><><><><><>
Read twice, flash once
USB doesn't work > can't use adb
ezas said:
There should be help for you here in this sticky in this Q&A forum:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1907796
Note 2 - Nexus 7 - Charge - Player 5.0 - Fascinate
<><><><><><><><><><>
Read twice, flash once
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for replying, but the problem is that I can't use adb (can't connect with PC), the only thing I can do is access TWRP and usb storage (via OTG in TWRP). So I need the stock rom in a "rom" like format so I can flash it using TWRP. Could anyone please tell me another way or give the stock rom in a format that TWRP can flash (ASAP plz). Thanks in advance
The easiest thing (of course) would be if somebody put together a flashable return-to-stock ROM. I've done it before for other devices, but haven't gotten around to doing it for the N7.
You didn't really say whether you were talking about (a) "exactly stock", or whether you wanted (b) a stock recovery put back in place, or whether you were (c) also trying to get the bootloader re-locked.
Case (c) can not be done using anything except fastboot (unless you previously recorded your bootloader while it was in a locked state), so I'll just assume that you are talking about (a) and (b), and that you are going to leave the bootloader unlocked - or you had already locked your bootloader after rooting and installing a custom recovery.
I see that you are trying (in another thread) to get somebody to make you a Nandroid backup of /system from a pure stock ROM. That would be one way of doing things (making sure that you get a grouper image if you have a grouper (WiFi) or a tilapia image if you have a tilapia N7 (3G) device). And while we are on the subject, I'll throw out another way you can do just that:
- The Google "factory" system.img files are in a sparse ext4 format that can not be directly mounted (e.g. using a loopback mount) in Linux. But, the Android toolkit includes a utility (for Linux) called "simg2img" (aka Sparse IMaGe to IMaGe) which can convert the sparse ext4 "system.img" image file to a regular ext4 format image file. This could be created, mounted via a loopback (using Linux, of course), and then a "tar" backup of the whole shebang is made. The TWRP and CWM nandroid backup images are just TAR archives. So If you grok what I am telling you, you have the power to create your own "Nandroid" /system backup file directly from the factory images. (Windoze-only doods need not apply.)
If you take this route, then you only need the recovery image plus the hacked "Nandroid" backup to "restore" directly to a pure stock device using only a custom recovery. (The recovery partition can be overwritten while the recovery is running because the partition is not "in use" after the boot completes - the recovery kernel and ramdisk live entirely in memory while they are running.)
But as I noted above, this will not re-lock the bootloader. It will put stock software back on the device, though.
If you intend to save anything off the device, do it before you begin this. The stock recovery "factory reset" procedure clears the ENTIRE /data partition including the pseudo-SD card area.
good luck
how would you do the procedure
bftb0 said:
The easiest thing (of course) would be if somebody put together a flashable return-to-stock ROM. I've done it before for other devices, but haven't gotten around to doing it for the N7.
You didn't really say whether you were talking about (a) "exactly stock", or whether you wanted (b) a stock recovery put back in place, or whether you were (c) also trying to get the bootloader re-locked.
Case (c) can not be done using anything except fastboot (unless you previously recorded your bootloader while it was in a locked state), so I'll just assume that you are talking about (a) and (b), and that you are going to leave the bootloader unlocked - or you had already locked your bootloader after rooting and installing a custom recovery.
I see that you are trying (in another thread) to get somebody to make you a Nandroid backup of /system from a pure stock ROM. That would be one way of doing things (making sure that you get a grouper image if you have a grouper (WiFi) or a tilapia image if you have a tilapia N7 (3G) device). And while we are on the subject, I'll throw out another way you can do just that:
- The Google "factory" system.img files are in a sparse ext4 format that can not be directly mounted (e.g. using a loopback mount) in Linux. But, the Android toolkit includes a utility (for Linux) called "simg2img" (aka Sparse IMaGe to IMaGe) which can convert the sparse ext4 "system.img" image file to a regular ext4 format image file. This could be created, mounted via a loopback (using Linux, of course), and then a "tar" backup of the whole shebang is made. The TWRP and CWM nandroid backup images are just TAR archives. So If you grok what I am telling you, you have the power to create your own "Nandroid" /system backup file directly from the factory images. (Windoze-only doods need not apply.)
If you take this route, then you only need the recovery image plus the hacked "Nandroid" backup to "restore" directly to a pure stock device using only a custom recovery. (The recovery partition can be overwritten while the recovery is running because the partition is not "in use" after the boot completes - the recovery kernel and ramdisk live entirely in memory while they are running.)
But as I noted above, this will not re-lock the bootloader. It will put stock software back on the device, though.
If you intend to save anything off the device, do it before you begin this. The stock recovery "factory reset" procedure clears the ENTIRE /data partition including the pseudo-SD card area.
good luck
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the information. I do want my device (grouper WiFi) to go back to factory state (c - get rid of superSU and busybox). However I do have some questions regarding the creating nandroid backup by your method. As I have Ubuntu 12.10 installed, how would I do the procedure? And what do you mean by "mounted via a loopback"? Also is it only "system.img", what about "boot.img", "recovery.img" and "userdata.img"?
Is it possible that you could maybe give me the nandroid backup.tar as I am not much experienced, I would really appreciate it.
Thanks in advance.
Well if a (stock) factory reset erases the /data partition, userdata.img sorta doesn't matter, right?
boot.img and recovery.img are just binary blobs, so they could be taken from the factory image and used "as is" as part of your hand-assembled "Nandroid Backup"
That only leaves system.img - previously discussed.
$ sim2img google-factory-sparse-system.img ext4.system.img
$ sudo /bin/bash
# losetup /dev/loop0 ./ext4.system.img
# mkdir /mnt/Foo
# mount -t ext4 -o ro /dev/loop0 /mnt/Foo
# cd /mnt/Foo
# tar cf /home/newb/fakenandroidsystem.tar .
# cd /home/newb
# chown newb.newb fakenandroidsystem.tar
# umount /mnt/Foo
# rmdir /mnt/Foo
# losetup -d /dev/loop0
# exit
$
You will need to either find the sim2img utility as a prebuilt or download it and build it. You might need to fool with tar command-line options during the archive creation - I notice that the TWRP nandroid tar archives (system.emmc.ext4.win) seem to have absolute pathnames rooted at "/" rather than "/system". Don't know if this is significant or not.
good luck
PS it goes without saying that you need to be extremely careful about giving up root when doing this: imagine that you restore a bad /system image along with a stock recovery - you will have an unbootable device that can not be rooted without hardware repair of the USB. You might want to initially do a test restore or two without overwriting the custom recovery
with the stock version. And keep a flashable ROM on the SDcard, too. Once you have everything working correctly, only then should you restore the recovery back to stock.
Do I load the nandroid direct to my USB device (connect via OTG and then flash in TWRP) after converting the .img and from what path in ubuntu shell am I writing those commands?
Sounds like you don't have adb set up there is a ppa to set it up for you Google for it. Then try to run adb devices and it should show up
Sent from my PG86100 using Tapatalk 2
There is no problem with adb as it did work before (when USB port did work), it doesn't even show up in device manager(windows) anymore. I cannot connect with my device to my PC via USB as the port is faulty nor does it charge with the oem wall charger when system is one. I can only charge it when the system is completely turned off and then when I plug it in PC/wall charger via USB. However I can access my USB drive via OTG only in TWRP and this is only way I can flash/restore to stock system. I want to return it to stock to send it back to google (exchange).
Hello, I think I have did a big mistake.
I was trying to install CWM via Terminal Emulator with this command:
dd if=/sdcard/cwm.img of=/dev/block/mmcblk0p7
Then I know what mmcblk0p7 was not the recovery partition, but it is a PER partition.
Until now, my device is still on because I didn't reboot/turn-off it. I'm afraid if I reboot it, then it will die because mmcblk0p7 was flashed with wrong image.
Does anybody know how to fix it, or is it safe if I reboot my device? It has been 4 days of no reboot until I'm sure it's ok for reboot.
Thanks in advance!
What exactly lies in the mmcblk0p7 partition?
MOVZX said:
Hello, I think I have did a big mistake.
I was trying to install CWM via Terminal Emulator with this command:
dd if=/sdcard/cwm.img of=/dev/block/mmcblk0p7
Then I know what mmcblk0p7 was not the recovery partition, but it is a PER partition.
Until now, my device is still on because I didn't reboot/turn-off it. I'm afraid if I reboot it, then it will die because mmcblk0p7 was flashed with wrong image.
Does anybody know how to fix it, or is it safe if I reboot my device? It has been 4 days of no reboot until I'm sure it's ok for reboot.
Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
PER - Per device provisioned data or per device calibration.
A cursory scout around XDA suggests this contains sensor calibration and such like.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1739119
(edit: checkout the last posts by osm0sis - this guy knows his stuff when it comes to partitions).
I'm pretty sure it isn't the BOOTLOADER partition...
I would tentatively suggest you're OK for a reboot. I can't think of what else you can do, to be honest.
-----------
If you must flash a recovery using the dd command use the by-name syntax...
su
dd if=/sdcard/recovery.img of=/dev/block/platform/sdhci-tegra.3/by-name/SOS
Rgrds,
Ged.
@GedBlake
Thanks for the info. I was asking, because if it didn't vary from device to device I could probably dd up a backup of the partition and upload it here for the user to dd into his partition in his tablet.
That being said, I'll keep an eye on this thread for further consequences or the like.
@MOVZX
Please state whether you have a Grouper or Tilapia device, and the approximate manufacturing date, if known.
The PER partition is formatted as a FAT filesystem**. It seems to contain measurement data created during factory testing procedures. See here.
Note that there seem to be differences from device to device (compare the two posts in the above link). Here are the two critical questions:
1) What is the exact FAT format? (There are a couple of different FAT variants)
2) Does the bootloader read this partition during hardware initialization?
I seem to remember a thread here in the Nexus 7 forums where someone was claiming to adjust the ambient light sensor by altering a file in the PER partition. If that is correct, then indeed this partition *could* be critical to correct operation of the device.
I think you are being prudent about not rebooting. I also think that you should find someone to volunteer to give you a raw image dump (dd) from a device that is as close to yours as possible. Note that like many other devices, the N7 has hardware variants, and the PER partition seems to reflect that.
The calibration data for your device is now permanently lost, and you are the unfortunate experimenter who will find out the consequences of that.
**If you can not get someone to help you, the issue of the filesystem formatting can be solved by one of us by:
- raw dumping our PER partition, loopback mounting it, removing all files, unmounting it, and then giving that to you.
At least you would then have the correct filesystem formatting, but empty.
Also, please do a
dd bs=1024 of=/dev/null if=/dev/block/platform/sdhci-tegra.3/by-name/PER
to let us know what size your partition is.
@MOVZX
I did a little more poking around. What I had recalled about the lightsensor thing was users reporting mods to a setting in
/data/lightsensor/AL3010_Config.ini
not the file of the same name in the PER partition.
The file in PER (of this same name) appears to have the same value (1382) on my tablet in both the above location as well as the file in PER. I don't know if that really means anything though.
I looked through the ASCII strings in the bootloader image (v 4.18) to see if there was any evidence of the bootloader using the file names in the (intact) PER partition. There was no evidence of this happening whatsoever. Does that mean that the bootloader does not read the PER partition? No, but at least there is no direct evidence of that nature that it does. That is certainly hopeful for you.
I dumped my own PER partition to have a look at it. It is definitely FAT32, but probably was not created with a variant of 'mkdosfs' - more likely a BSD tool, as it has a "BSD 4.4" OEM name. I tried to erase/remove files from a copy of my PER image; unfortunately the linux "shred" utility doesn't really do it's job correctly. I failed trying to create an identical (blank) image using 'mkfs.vfat' - I couldn't get the FAT header data identical to the FAT32 headers in the from-the-factory image in the PER partition on my device.
None of this might be important, though. It is possible that the only reason that there is manufacturing data on the tablet is if Asus wanted to look at aging effects for units returned for RMA (or subjected to shake-n-bake testing).
good luck with your tablet - let us know how everything turns out.
bftb0 said:
@MOVZX
I did a little more poking around. What I had recalled about the lightsensor thing was users reporting mods to a setting in
/data/lightsensor/AL3010_Config.ini
not the file of the same name in the PER partition.
The file in PER (of this same name) appears to have the same value (1382) on my tablet in both the above location as well as the file in PER. I don't know if that really means anything though.
I looked through the ASCII strings in the bootloader image (v 4.18) to see if there was any evidence of the bootloader using the file names in the (intact) PER partition. There was no evidence of this happening whatsoever. Does that mean that the bootloader does not read the PER partition? No, but at least there is no direct evidence of that nature that it does. That is certainly hopeful for you.
I dumped my own PER partition to have a look at it. It is definitely FAT32, but probably was not created with a variant of 'mkdosfs' - more likely a BSD tool, as it has a "BSD 4.4" OEM name. I tried to erase/remove files from a copy of my PER image; unfortunately the linux "shred" utility doesn't really do it's job correctly. I failed trying to create an identical (blank) image using 'mkfs.vfat' - I couldn't get the FAT header data identical to the FAT32 headers in the from-the-factory image in the PER partition on my device.
None of this might be important, though. It is possible that the only reason that there is manufacturing data on the tablet is if Asus wanted to look at aging effects for units returned for RMA (or subjected to shake-n-bake testing).
good luck with your tablet - let us know how everything turns out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interesting stuff, bftb0, as always...
So what, in your opinion, is the worst case scenario?
If the bootloader is still accessible, couldn't the OP just fastboot flash back to stock?
(Assuming a simple reboot doesn't fix it).
Or does this not touch the PER partition? I would have thought that running the flash-all.* script would reset all partitions back to their default values.
I'm probably missing something here, so apologies - just a suggestion.
Rgrds,
Ged.
@GedBlake
The factory install procedure doesn't touch anything but the "usual suspects".
We sort of already know what the worst case is. As to whether to bootloader "needs" the PER partition or not, I don't really know. At this point my bet is that it does not, but that is purely an educated guess.
@MOVZX
I am attaching a "PER-empty.zip" file to this post. It is tiny because it is an almost empty FAT32 filesystem image (PER.img), so it compressed by nearly 100%. (When you unzip it, the "PER.img" image file should be 5,242,880 bytes, or 5120 kB) If you want to, feel free to un-zip it, and then flash the extracted "PER.img" file to the PER partition on your device.
Assuming you are using adb from your PC with the custom recovery still running:
Unzip PER-empty.zip, then
Code:
adb push PER.img /sdcard/PER.img
adb shell dd if=/sdcard/PER.img bs=1024 of=/dev/block/platform/sdhci-tegra.3/by-name/PER
What this will do is install an almost empty FAT32 filesystem which was created with the exact parameters used on my device. (I assume that your device also has a 5120 kB PER partition, but you have not replied.) The almost part is that I truncated every file in my image to zero length.
That's not much, but at least you will have a valid filesystem and most files of the correct name, even if they are zero length.
Note that once you have a filesystem in the PER partition, you are free to mount it using the custom recovery, and do whatever you please, e.g.:
Code:
adb shell mkdir /data/local/tmp/permount
adb shell mount -t vfat /dev/block/mmcblk0p7 /data/local/tmp/permount
adb shell
$ cd /data/local/tmp/permount
... do whatever you want in here...
$ sync
$ exit
adb shell umount /data/local/tmp/permount
adb shell rmdir /data/local/tmp/permount
good luck with your tablet - let us know how everything turns out.
.
I'm using Nexus 7 WiFi 16GB.
I almost have all the required files. The sensors and lightsensor directories were found mounted at /data/sensors and /data/lightsensor, so I copied it.
Here is the content of my sensors & lightsensore files:
lightsensor/AL3010_Config.ini
1476
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
sensors/AMI304_Config.ini
921368
2048 2048 2048
0 0 0
600 600 600
210 42 -256
0 0 0
0 0 0
103 100 101
0
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
sensors/KXTF9_Calibration.ini
1071 -1035 1034 -1030 -1097 1213
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The FAT partitions is now Ok.
Now, I'm missing these files:
adc-rawdata.csv
ISN
KXTF9_Calibration.ini
prom-filter-rawdata.txt
rawdata.csv
rek-prom-rawdata.txt
SSN
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm having no confidence to reboot this device yet