Database Users

Verizon SCH-i815 unbricking help / need a kernel w. aroma

Hi,
I had edited my build.prop and it bricked my pad. I was told to look for a kernel with aroma file manager. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find one that's for the Verizon SCH-i815 version. I would chalk it up to my inexperience, so i was hoping someone could help me.
Just to be clear, I'm not looking to have a custom rom on my pad, I just want to get it back operational. I have odin on my pad itself, so i'm just looking to flash a tar, then use CWM to fix my build prop by restoring the original version.

Were you running ICS or Honeycomb? Either way, it seems that if you can get into download mode you can flash recovery with Odin and then a stock ROM. You might check the i815 summary thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1760587
Or the i815 ICS thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1932597

Thanks for the links, i'll read up and see if that solves the problem. I was running the stock honeycomb as verizon hadn't yet updated the tablet yet, though they are supposed to soon.

Kralik said:
Were you running ICS or Honeycomb? Either way, it seems that if you can get into download mode you can flash recovery with Odin and then a stock ROM. You might check the i815 summary thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1760587
Or the i815 ICS thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1932597
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
okay, so i have honey comb on the device, and i'm fine with that honestly, i looked through the first thread, but did not see anything there that mentioned aroma (which I was told to look for since i can't boot beyond Odin). Do you have any recommendations both for a file to download and a method?
Basically, my pad will charge and you get some sort of "response" when you power it on and plug it into a pc. I can enter odin mode by pressing power and volume button, but that's it. I'm just trying to get it back, i don't really care if i have to wipe all the data on there or not, but obviously it would be cool if i did. The way this happened to me was that i edited the model name in the build.prop file after seeing some tutorials on it. There are obviously a ton of tutorials on this, but i've tried several to no avail.

Perhaps someone with more expertise can step up, but I'm pretty sure that if you flash a rom it overrides your build.prop?

All you did was change the build.prop, right? If you can connect with adb, I'm thinking you can probably copy over a build.prop to replace yours.
Sent from my SCH-I815 using xda premium

yes, that's all i did. I don't have any experience with ADB, though i'm not scared of command line ... just have never used it at all. In looking at something like this: http://tabletmods.blogspot.com/2012/06/modifying-buildprop-in-pc.html my concern would be that there's no way for me to put it into debugging mode. Any thoughts on that would be appreciated

helpermonkey said:
yes, that's all i did. I don't have any experience with ADB, though i'm not scared of command line ... just have never used it at all. In looking at something like this: http://tabletmods.blogspot.com/2012/06/modifying-buildprop-in-pc.html my concern would be that there's no way for me to put it into debugging mode. Any thoughts on that would be appreciated
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you try? Maybe it is in debug mode? Would you find your build.prop.backup with ADB commands?
However, if you do things you do, you need to have a backup
So flash another kernel and you will have a cwm. Not sure but I think in cwm you should have an option to activate usb-debugging...
md p9516 - root -waiting for cwm -- thnx2all

Hi there,
I have only had a little bit of time to address this over the past few weeks but i'm hitting brick walls everywhere I turn. At this point, I just want to restore my tablet to stock. I am not entirely sure why this is so incredibly difficult, but I cannot find a method that seems to allow me to replace my backed up build.prop. So meanwhile, I helped a friend out with a bricked nexus 7 using the nexus root toolkit, is there anything like this for the galaxy tab?
To clarify:
I had a rooted galaxy tab running 3.2 from Verizon. I edited the build.prop and it ended up bricking my tablet. The only option is to boot into recovery, at which point I'm presented with volume up (continue) or volume down (cancel). If i hit up, i'm taken to ODIN MOode, where the product name is listed along with binary (samsung official) and custon binary download: no. That's all i can do.
I downloaded CWM recovery from here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1542897 and followed the instructions here: http://theunlockr.com/2012/11/14/how-to-install-clockworkmod-recovery-on-the-samsung-galaxy-tab-7-7/
however, when i subsequently try and boot into recovery mode, i have no luck. It does not seem to "take" the update thus i'm left with odin mode on the tablet.

!
i think - wrong area to ask...

[Q] stuck Iconia a500 bootloader unlock problem

Hello, and thank you everyone for all the helpful posts on my device the a500.
I really like my tablet, I know it is not the newest out but I really like it and the screen size is nice too for the price I think it is great. I do have a problem tho, I want to try out some custom roms, and to do that I need to install a custom recovery like CWM, and I am having a really hard time of it. I was able to get root easy enough using an archive I got from this site (thanks) it used adb and pushed some files, then I installed Superuser, and Titanium Backup, and all was fine, then I installed acer recovery installer to install Thor's CWM 1.7.3 and found out that I have a locked bootloader 0.03.12-ICS, so I figured ok it should be easy enough to install a patched or unlocked bootloader, I was wrong... I have APXflash and afterota and have tried all the methods I can find to try to unlock my bootloader and nothing... with afterota it just hangs on flashing kernel 3/5 and with apxflash the same it just hangs forever the progress bar does not move. I am not the most savvy with these kind of things, but also I am no dolt either. I dont know what the deal is but my device just wont accept a flash at all I dont understand why, I used the stock recovery to flash an update.zip I found for my a500 thinking that after that I would be able to use apxflash, or afterota, but still nothing...
Here is my device info:
A50X/G100W Serial, Cpuid, Sbk, Bootloader & Android Build Info
Generated with Afterota v1.09 by Gersma©
--------------------------------------------------------------
Tablet Serial : 14014609415
Tablet Cpuid : 037C620943003097
Tablet Sbk : 0xB9FD1E00 0xD4D5F501 0x3B9C1103 0x20502103
Android Build : Acer_AV041_A500_1.033.00_PA_CUS1
Bootloader : 0.03.12-ICS
Generated on 07/08/13 at 17:43 hr
Archive this file for future reference
A cut/past from the file created by afterota.
If anyone has any idea why my tablet wont accept a flash I would love and appreciate any help at all here. I was wondering if I could manually flash my bootloader with dd in terminal emulator? like this:
dd if=/sdcard/bootloader.blob of=/dev/block/mmcblk0p4
or is that wrong and I just made a paperweight?? Like I said I am pretty new to tablet mods, and I am just totaly stumped here its like acer has my bootloader on double lockdown... if there is an update.zip out there that would use the stock recovery to unlock my bootloader that would be awesome, then I could install thor's CWM touch and check out some fancy new custom software .
Again thanks to everyone for all the work you have done and shared with us here, and thanks too for any help any one has for me
KaijiKun

well I tried flashing with nvflash but still no luck here is the message I get:
Flashing bootloader: bootloader_v8.bin ...
Nvflash started
[resume mode]
Formatting partition 4 please wait.. Command Execution failed cmd 13, error 0x1
0002
FAILED!
command failure: format partition failed (bad command)
bootloader status: unknown operation (code: 1) message: flags: 0
Nvflash started
[resume mode]
Then the program just hangs while the tablet sits in apx mode with the acer logo....
I am still just completely stumped on my I cant seem to find a way to flash the bootloader, I can flash the recovery, which then wont work with the locked version of bootloader I have, so I flash back to the stock recovery until I can get this bootloader flashed...
has any one encountered any thing like this? I would really like to figure this out and flash a patched bootloader to my tablet.
I have not had any problems like this on my phone, its an older one an LG ally, but I didn't have any problem with it at all and have cwm on it and run a very customized version of BioNX on it with the Next launcher, I really like how that all went, and I figured I would be able to customize my tablet as well, but until I can get past the bootloader, all I have is root, which is good for some things but without access to the custom recovery there is a limit to what I can do, and I am not big on being limited, hehehe. any how any help at all will be highly appreciated
Thanks

A500 Bootloader unlocking
Well I sent my A500 in for repairs, no nothing with the software, and I did not brick the tablet either, but a little drop and cracked the plastic shell, so since I bought insurance on it in-case of damages I sent it in to get the plastic shell repaired for free and they gave me a loaner to use while I wait for my A500 to be repaired. They gave me an A200, and so far I like the A200 it is basically the same minus the camera, it did take an extra second to install the right drivers for it to connect properly to my Windows PC ( I had to download adb drivers "Acer.rar" package, and direct device manager to the folder to get all the drivers installed. but once I did, I found a package to unlock the bootloader, root the device, and install thor's CWM all in one The package - "AcerA200 SimpleTool V2" worked perfect and in the archive I found, among other files specifically for the A200 was: adb.exe, AdbWinApi.dll, AdbWinUsbApi.dll, and fastboot.exe (You can find those files in many different archives designed for rooting tablets and phones, or in Android SDK. So with those files, a boot image, and recovery image, the SU binary, and memproid, a simple batch file ran in windows unlocked, rooted, etc... The A200 Yay!! :laugh: So I am thinking that maybe I can use a similar scenario to get things moving on my A500 when I get it back. The commands in the batch file were really basic for the unlocking of the bootloader. I plan to try them out on my A500 as soon as possible, the commands in sequence are as follows, in the folder where the windows executable adb.exe and fastboot.exe, and the dll's are located, open a command prompt windows (cmd.exe) and then:
adb wait-for-device
adb reboot-bootloader
fastboot oem unlock
-
"At this point you have to follow the on screen directions on the tablet and use the volume button to choose the unlock option on the tablet", then back to the PC command prompt for the final command
-
fastboot reboot
Thats it!!
If it works like it did on the A200 the A500 bootloader should be unlocked, nothing like simplicity, and a command prompt :laugh:
If it does work now CWM can be installed, and work, giving rise to custom ROMS, and any other customizations I want to install but need a custom recovery and unlocked bootloader to have .
I really hope it does work the same on the A500 as it did on the A200. As far as I can tell there was no special files or images loaded onto the tablet to unlock the bootloader, just adb and fastboot, and apparently there is a built in option to unlock the stock ICS bootloader. To bad I wont find out until next week Tuesday night after work if it does work on my A500.
As always, I will post the results I get right away, so that anyone else stuck trying to get past the locked bootloader, can, well if it works, and if it does not, well at least I tried. So far I have tried all the step by steps with no luck that I can find, and as I have seen others experience the same thing the tablet just plain refusing to except any flash using APXFlash or AfterOTA in attempt to unlock the bootloader, wish me luck, and if anyone else happens to try this before I can in a week let us know, or if you already have a solution please let us know. Thanks so much
And again thanks everyone for all your time and contributions, the guides, tutorials, and custom software that you have written and shared, and for sharing with us your own trials and results so that we can all enjoy the most of our devices, the way that we want them to be I am fairly new to Android mods and development, but I have always liked the Linux based OS, and infiltrating exploits on gaming consoles, phones, etc.. has always been a sort of pass time hobby of mine, when time, money, and devices to play with are available to me I am definitely glad that I found and joined this forum, by far the most helpful, and extensive concerning Android Devices by far.
- Kaiji

KaijiKun said:
well I tried flashing with nvflash but still no luck here is the message I get:
Flashing bootloader: bootloader_v8.bin ...
Nvflash started
[resume mode]
Formatting partition 4 please wait.. Command Execution failed cmd 13, error 0x1
0002
FAILED!
command failure: format partition failed (bad command)
bootloader status: unknown operation (code: 1) message: flags: 0
Nvflash started
[resume mode]
Then the program just hangs while the tablet sits in apx mode with the acer logo....
I am still just completely stumped on my I cant seem to find a way to flash the bootloader, I can flash the recovery, which then wont work with the locked version of bootloader I have, so I flash back to the stock recovery until I can get this bootloader flashed...
has any one encountered any thing like this? I would really like to figure this out and flash a patched bootloader to my tablet.
I have not had any problems like this on my phone, its an older one an LG ally, but I didn't have any problem with it at all and have cwm on it and run a very customized version of BioNX on it with the Next launcher, I really like how that all went, and I figured I would be able to customize my tablet as well, but until I can get past the bootloader, all I have is root, which is good for some things but without access to the custom recovery there is a limit to what I can do, and I am not big on being limited, hehehe. any how any help at all will be highly appreciated
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hey thats the exact same thing that happened to me...nvflash hung and same with blackthund3r's flashing tool thing
so what i did was use babsector
here's the link to Heres the link to babsector.rar
How to use babsector -
Turn your tab off and put it in apx mode manually. Press and hold reset button, hold power for 3 secs after the light comes on and release it, after another second release the reset button. Your screen is black and the power light is on.
Download and extract the .rar to a folder on your PC
Connect your tab to your PC
Navigate to the babsector folder and click on 501 A.bat
Reboot into recovery
Go to Mounts and Storage and Format System twice and Power Off
Go back into apx mode and run 501 B.bat
Reboot into recovery and do the wipes and flash your rom
Reboot!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i got all this from here
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2049778
if u want to take a look
but all u need to do is follow the instructions for babsector and you're done!

Thank You
Thank You so much this was exactly the information I was in need of. Thank you very much again. I should be able to resolve everything and get on with my custom rom. I am thinking of going with this one: CM10 JellyBean 4.1.2 build for Acer Iconia A500 (picasso), build 3. Has anyone been using this one on their A500 have anything to say? As far as I can tell by what I have read on the custom roms out there it seems to be the best there is for the A500. What ios the best Kernel to use with the CM10? I was thinking of going with this one: godmachine81 A500 Kernel, or The Onyx Kernel Kryos Version 1.5 SR. does any one have anything on either of those, which is the best in combination with the CM10 ROM, or is there a better kernel?
Any how I am excited, thanks again.
And even though I am excited I will be taking everything nice and slow to start with, step by step and carefully, I will probably try a few different arrangements until I get what I feel is the best performing / looking set up. I am pretty sure about the CM10 rom though I just don't see the stock based roms performing as well as CyanogenMod I would love to check out some benchmarks of anyone's A500 running either CM10 or CM9 with different kernels, including stock, and maybe even other roms too
Well one final time Thanks for everyone's help , guides, tutorials, and software. All of it is truly appreciated here
I look forward to whatever anyone has to say on the roms/kernel combos, and I will post my experiences too.

KaijiKun said:
Thank You so much this was exactly the information I was in need of. Thank you very much again. I should be able to resolve everything and get on with my custom rom. I am thinking of going with this one: CM10 JellyBean 4.1.2 build for Acer Iconia A500 (picasso), build 3. Has anyone been using this one on their A500 have anything to say? As far as I can tell by what I have read on the custom roms out there it seems to be the best there is for the A500. What ios the best Kernel to use with the CM10? I was thinking of going with this one: godmachine81 A500 Kernel, or The Onyx Kernel Kryos Version 1.5 SR. does any one have anything on either of those, which is the best in combination with the CM10 ROM, or is there a better kernel?
Any how I am excited, thanks again.
And even though I am excited I will be taking everything nice and slow to start with, step by step and carefully, I will probably try a few different arrangements until I get what I feel is the best performing / looking set up. I am pretty sure about the CM10 rom though I just don't see the stock based roms performing as well as CyanogenMod I would love to check out some benchmarks of anyone's A500 running either CM10 or CM9 with different kernels, including stock, and maybe even other roms too
Well one final time Thanks for everyone's help , guides, tutorials, and software. All of it is truly appreciated here
I look forward to whatever anyone has to say on the roms/kernel combos, and I will post my experiences too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
im currently using CM10.1 with the default kernel clocked at 1.6 and everything seems fine to me
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2239476
good luck with everything!

A500 Tweaked out, Rocking!!
ryukiri said:
im currently using CM10.1 with the default kernel clocked at 1.6 and everything seems fine to me
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2239476
good luck with everything!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just thought I would say thanks to all for helping me I have been happily using CM10-Flex V6 Supercharged ROM with the EZTerry A500 latest kernel Overclocked to 1.5 and a few other mods and the tablet is awesome I really Like JB 4.1.2 I did try out CM 10.1 JB 4.2.2 and had to figure out that you need to click about tablet then tap Build in the info 10 times to unlock developer options so you can tick USB debugging but in the end I went back to CM10. My tablet just seems to run faster, better, smoother with the setup I have, I will most likely keep on checking out the latest CM builds until I find one I like better, hehe I Do just love to change things I hear that there may be a CM 10.2 build for A500 soon I hope so . Oh and I ended up going with Skrilaxs V9 patched bootloader with a fancy CM logo I put in with the V9 bootloader image tool.
Any way I just wanted to put in my thanks, and let you all know that all is well and good, and I will keep on testing ROMS on my A500 till I get a new tab and then continue on that one too. I really love the site and all the info, babsector worked great to get things going on the A500 I did modify some of the files to suit my own needs, and install the v9 bootloader and my own choice of CWM (I used thors 1.8)
So thanks tpo all and if anyone has any news they think I would like to hear on the Acer tabs please let me know. I do have an update.zip that will return the tab to full stock, unpatch the bootloader, and stock recovery too incase I ever need to send it in to acer, and an almost stock rom too deodexed rooted, and tweaked, also will install an unpatched bootloader, and stock recovery, I think it would pass for stock "like" and some other nifty roms and tweaks for the a500.
Any how it is late I am ramlbling, lol, long day at work. But as always test tweak, and tune EVERYTHING must be modded, hehehehe
See ya - Kaiji

[Q] Is my tablet beyond hope?

For the last two weeks, I've tried pretty much everything I can think of to get my TPT booted again. Symptoms of its current illness include:
Lots of error messages when booting into CWM recovery ("E:Can't mount /sdcard" for example)
If I attempt to boot normally, I get stuck on the Lenovo logo screen.
Randomly I'll boot into CWM recovery and get its logo on the screen, and a line of text, but no menus.
Other times I'll attempt to boot into CWM recovery, and just get a blank screen
So last night I used nvflash to put a new CWM recovery into partition 6: after which I was able to boot into CWM with no errors. (Yay) However, when I tried to reinstall CynogenMod (whose zip file was sitting on my external sd card), it hung during the installation. I rebooted anyway; this time it got as far as the CyanogenMod spinning logo and hung there. I went to bed, and seven hours later it was still spinning away.
Then I rebooted into CWM (without errors) and managed to install CM ROM this time also with no errors. However, again I can't boot. I get as far as the Lenovo logo, and if I boot into CWM recovery I have all the mount errors again.
Along the way I've erased the cache; done a factory reset, etc.
So: nvflash, new CWM recovery (but still errors), reinstalled CM ROM, but can't boot into it.
Any suggestions? Has this machine packed it in - is its hardware faulty in some way? Or is there something I could try which I haven't already?
Thanks folks - I think I've reached the limits of my fixing ability, and would be very gratefiul of some advice.
Thanks again,
Al

In CWM check to see if your /System folder is mounted with read-write privileges or only with read-only. If the former, then your bootloader may have locked itself. Also, what is your device model? If you have a have a US device then it cannot be unlocked as it has been encrypted by Lenovo...
Sent from my ThinkPad Tablet using Tapatalk

Thanks - it's not a US model (I bought it in Australia, where I live). I thought the bootloader was unlocked because I could use nvflash. When I boot into CWM recovery, I can't mount /system: if I try I get the error "Error mounting /system", along with other errors about not being able to mount or open /cache/recovery/{command, log, last_log}. And since I can't mount anything, I can't install zip files.
I can't remember the device model, although I suppose I could use nvflash to trawl through the partitions somehow. (Since I can't boot the device I can't do the usual thing of checking out the system settings.)
Anyway, at the moment it won't boot beyond the Lenovo logo, even after putting on a new CWM recovery (with nvflash - but as we see above this new recovery is still not working) and reinstalling a ROM (with CWM recovery, which I managed to do on the one occasion I could boot into CWM without mounting errors). It's a right pain, that's what it is.

amca1960 said:
Thanks - it's not a US model (I bought it in Australia, where I live). I thought the bootloader was unlocked because I could use nvflash. When I boot into CWM recovery, I can't mount /system: if I try I get the error "Error mounting /system", along with other errors about not being able to mount or open /cache/recovery/{command, log, last_log}. And since I can't mount anything, I can't install zip files.
I can't remember the device model, although I suppose I could use nvflash to trawl through the partitions somehow. (Since I can't boot the device I can't do the usual thing of checking out the system settings.)
Anyway, at the moment it won't boot beyond the Lenovo logo, even after putting on a new CWM recovery (with nvflash - but as we see above this new recovery is still not working) and reinstalling a ROM (with CWM recovery, which I managed to do on the one occasion I could boot into CWM without mounting errors). It's a right pain, that's what it is.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well there may be hope yet as I understand (not sure) that only the US models shipped with a locked bootloader. My US model locked itself and after some research I eventually replaced the motherboard with one from eBay. There are threads around here regarding the bootloader that might have a few "options" for you to try. On the other hand I read on the Lenovo forums that Lenovo actually replaced motherboards (during the warranty period) due to failures which caused the nand to lock read-only. If the "options" don't work then the latter may be the case and you might want to consider my approach or just move on to a newer device. Good look...

eKeith said:
Well there may be hope yet as I understand (not sure) that only the US models shipped with a locked bootloader. My US model locked itself and after some research I eventually replaced the motherboard with one from eBay. There are threads around here regarding the bootloader that might have a few "options" for you to try. On the other hand I read on the Lenovo forums that Lenovo actually replaced motherboards (during the warranty period) due to failures which caused the nand to lock read-only. If the "options" don't work then the latter may be the case and you might want to consider my approach or just move on to a newer device. Good look...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I never thought of replacing the motherboard! I'm happy to try it, though, given instructions, and the correct (ROW; ie non-US) motherboard. Is it hard to do - and where can I find out how to do it? And how do I find out exactly what model I have?
Thanks for this - I'd really like to get this beastie working again.

amca1960 said:
I never thought of replacing the motherboard! I'm happy to try it, though, given instructions, and the correct (ROW; ie non-US) motherboard. Is it hard to do - and where can I find out how to do it? And how do I find out exactly what model I have?
Thanks for this - I'd really like to get this beastie working again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No offense intended but you are somewhat peculiar as you are familiar with NVFlash, can determine which partitions to flash with the correct images but you don't have a record of, or can't find your device's model number? Check on your SD Card port flap (or your invoice). Then check out this page for details.
However if you decide to replace the motherboard then search eBay for "thinkpad tablet motherboard" and choose either of the 1838 or 1839 options. Any will fit and work but you probably won't get your (non-US) choice of replacement motherboard so will probably just have to get what's available.
See here for some basic dis-assembly instructions. Then just take you time and the rest will be obvious. Good luck!

Thanks for that! I tried responding earlier, but my post was blocked by the system. Anyway, I'll check for a new motherboard and have a go installing it. Do you know how I might prevent this from happening again?

amca1960 said:
Thanks for that! I tried responding earlier, but my post was blocked by the system. Anyway, I'll check for a new motherboard and have a go installing it. Do you know how I might prevent this from happening again?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No problem at all.
"I'm in the same boat": I replaced my motherboard with another US version about 6 weeks ago, rooted, installed CWM recovery and steady so far... "with fingers crossed"...
Let us know how it goes...

[Q]how can I change the bootloader image not the boot animation

Hello,
I was wondering how I could change the bootloader static image (the very first image you see when you turn it on says stuff like seandroid enforcing and stuff).
I searched and saw that it was done for the epic 4g but from the thread it looked like it was specific to that device.

cm0002 said:
Hello,
I was wondering how I could change the bootloader static image (the very first image you see when you turn it on says stuff like seandroid enforcing and stuff).
I searched and saw that it was done for the epic 4g but from the thread it looked like it was specific to that device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's built into the kernel and would need to be changed in the kernel. I don't think it is even possible with stock.
Sent from my SM-G900T using Tapatalk

tp2215 said:
It's built into the kernel and would need to be changed in the kernel. I don't think it is even possible with stock.
Sent from my SM-G900T using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok so what your saying is that in theory anyways I would have to get the source of a kernel change the image and compile it from scratch? You also said it most likely would not be possible with stock, stock kernel you mean,? Because I thought custom kernels were already out.

Yea, you would need to decompile the kernel and replace the image.
Sent from my SM-G900T using Tapatalk

tp2215 said:
Yea, you would need to decompile the kernel and replace the image.
Sent from my SM-G900T using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok I got an idea now, but I am surprised that it is in the kernel because the android boot sequence goes bootloader then kernel then android and I thought the picture of anything would be in the bootloader, but I will defently get a hold of a custom kernel and poke around thanks for the info

Ok I'm at a loss at the moment after digging around in the blaze kernel source I failed to find any logo picture at all and after further research expanding to previous galaxy s models and other Samsung lines I determined one common denominator, param.lfs.
Now I ran a command to determine the partitions along with their familiars (I don't remember the command at the moment) and it came back with mmcblk0p11 with familiar "param" so I am guessing this is the one.
I then ran command
Dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0p11 of=/storage/extSdCard/wkinglfs/param.lfs which outputted a 10mb file however when I open it in a hex editor it's all 0's
At this point I try to mount it in the file system by first creating folder ".lfs" in /mnt/ and then running mount -o remount,rw /dev/block/mmcblk0p11 /mnt/.lfs which outputs the error "mount: invalid argument.
I am stuck here, I am not really sure where to go from here

Oh I almost forgot I was going to attach a screenshot and some reference links.
A guide for the Samsung fascinate
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1279289
A guide for the Samsung galaxy s2
http://forum.gsmhosting.com/vbb/8591568-post36.html
A guide for Samsung galaxy tab 2
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1898377
And finally some instructions for HTC sensation
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1442872

Still stuck...
No matter how I dump or where I dump param partition the file I dump always comes out full of zeros in the hex editor and I am confident that this is the area I need to modify to obtain my goal, any help is greatly appreciated.

Partial success, after going through the aboot dump with a hex editor and copying out from FFD8 to FFD9 into a new jpeg file I was able to get many images out of it, most importantly the boot splash images, and then reinserting my custom images I flashed using dd if=/storage/extSdCard/abootnew.mbn of=/dev/block/mmcblk0p6 however upon reboot I still see Samsung logos, any help would appreciated

Ok so I redumped aboot to see why itwas still displaying Samsung logos and come to find out the new one never got flashed in the first place so the dd command referenced earlier did not work so I tried flashing using heimdall but apparently heimdall does not work yet for the galaxy s5.
How do I package aboot for use with odin or is there another way to flash aboot?

[Noob friendly] Basics about the G2 (bootloader, rom, etc.)

Some basics - About bootloader, kernel, recovery, rom, /system and some other partitions.
There are many noobs out there and sometimes even I am one. Two days ago @Closed Force asked me, where I know my stuff from and why things are like they are... So I finally decided to write this little guide about how Android devices basically work and what are the special things about our G2.
If you find wrong facts or any other mistakes (grammatical, language, contentwise), please bear with me. That's how I read it in the forums. And of course not everything written on XDA is correct. So please tell me by PM, or by posting in this thread if you have additions, corrections or any other concerns about this OP.
Where I got to know all this stuff? Reading, reading, reading. I first started modding my old HTC desire like 4 years ago. Since then and even before I'm reading. Mainly here on XDA but also on some german forums and wikis. It might have taken me easily 200 hours or more. So the only way to learn for a newbie (and everyone else too) is reading.
Personally I own a D802 variant. I know about some things that were different in details for the US variants, but things should be right as they are.
Finally thanks to
@d00lz for some extra research/additions and a quick read through.
@Art Vanderlay for some additions.
So let's get started:
When you press the power button, your device will load the Bootloader. The Bootloader afterwards wil load either the Recovery Image (recovery.img), the Kernel (boot.img) or the Download Mode Bootloader (laf.img), depending on the keys you press. At the moment there are three different bootloaders; The Jellybean one, the KitKat one, and the new Lollipop one. Not one of these Bootloaders can be unlocked yet, so there are workarounds which allow us to boot custom ROMs (specifically Kernels, but more about that later) and custom Recoverys. At the beginning there was the Jellybean Bootloader. The Developers (sorry, I don't know which ones) found out how to get around the locked Bootloader pretty early. They called this workaround Loki. It's intergrated into nearly every ROM except the ones which require the KitKat Bootloader (but that's usually not the reason they don't support the JellyBean one). Anyways, soon the KitKat update came and so did the new KitKat Bootloader. Sadly, LG patched the Loki exploit with this new update. However, the Developers found a new way to get the Bootloader booting files which weren't signed by LG. They called this workaround Bump. Bump basically imitates the LG signature so the bootloader thinks this file was really signed by LG. Obviously this workaround works with the JellyBean Bootloader too. In the Lollipop Bootloader this exploit has been closed and no one knows how to get around the new Bootloader, yet. In conclusion to Bootloaders, as long you have a working Bootloader, your device is not dead. You can usually recover it in some way.
The G2 has about 30 partitions (for a more detailed explanation, look here, thanks @d00lz). Each partition has its own purpose. One of them is the Recovery partition. Imagine: A Recovery partiton and a working Bootloader are everything you need to keep your phone working. It's kind of an Operating System in itself, completely independent from Android or anything else stored on your Mobile. The great thing about the Recovery partition is that it's so small that it can be run directly in the RAM. This means it's capable of modifing EVERY goddamn partition on your Mobile, including the Bootloader and the Recovery partition itself (means you can flash a new recovery.zip in your current recovery). Attention: if you are using the Recovery with a 4.4 KitKat Bootloader, it needs to be a Bumped Recovery. If it isn't bumped the Bootloader realizes that the Recovery is not genuine and generates a "Secure Boot Error".
Same thing goes for the Kernel. The Kernel is located in your /boot partition (found gzipped inside your boot.img) and is loaded by the Bootloader when you only press the Power Button and you let your Mobile boot normally. This is the reason why your Kernel also needs to be Bumped if you want to get your system booting on a KitKat Bootloader. When 4.4 KitKat came out, most Developers switched over to using LG's 4.4 KitKat sources for their projects. After a while it was realized that 4.2 JellyBean sources were a lot more reliable for AOSP baed ROMs. This is why most AOSP ROMs use the 4.2 JellyBean Bootloader and the 4.2 JellyBean Kernel sources while Stock based ROMs use the 4.4 KiKat Bootloader and 4.4 KitKat Kernel. There are different Kernels for AOSP ROMs and for Stock based ROMs. This is because Stock Kernels support some ROM functionalities that AOSP ROMs don't have, for example; Knock Code. (Note: Knock Code isn't open source, which is also another big reason why it isn't available for AOSP ROMs.) So there are huge differences between Stock and AOSP based ROMs/Kernels. The Kernel (without factoring in the AOSP and Stock issue) can be switch at anytime you want.
Now about the /data partition... All your personal stuff, including Apps, System Settings, App Data and so on will be stored there. The reason why you should clear it every time you change the ROM is that there are many variables set by the ROM you are coming from. Your current ROM may have some tweaks the new one doesn't have which means the new ROM doesn't know how to handle them which leads to crashes and instability.
Now let's get to the ROM... Having a 4.2 JellyBean Bootloader and a 4.2 JellyBean Kernel doesn't mean the top layer has to be 4.2 too. Most of the AOSP based ROMs are based on Googles KitKat or Lollipop sources. And this is true KitKat or Lollipop, with all its functionalities. Those huge version differences cause some problems in development. No wonder some things do not work properly today, but it's still the best working combination at the moment. It's kind of a wonder how it works as it is, but let's be happy with it. I'm very curious how AOSP ROMs with Lollipop Kernel sources will work. Your ROM and your entire existing Operating System is found in the /system partition. This is why it's the main partition which is modified while flashing. Which partitions will be modified and (how) is written in the updater-script file of the file you're going to flash. Theoretically, running a updater-script of a ROM which changes the Bootloader (/aboot partition) can brick your device. That's also the reason why you should only flash stuff made for your device only!
As already said an updaterscript can modify every partition through the recovery. All ROMs bring their own kernel, so you basically don't have to care about it, except you want to use a non-bumped ROM (with kernel) together with the KitKat bootloader.
Finally something about the baseband/modem (these terms are interchangeable). I noticed that the Developers or rather the Original Posters sometimes don't know which baseband the user should use with the ROM. In earlier days the wrong baseband could make the ROM bootloop. Today most ROMs work with most basebands. It's obviously best if you stay on the one you currently are on and just flash another one if something doesn't work (auto-rotation for example). The baseband can be flashed at any time and is on it's own partition.
Okay Download Mode time. It's part of the laf partition (laf.img). This partition is used by LG and it's PC software to recover the phone and bring it back to Stock. It's a partition in itself, but not completely independent of the Bootloader. It's because of this that you can of course have a fully working Bootloader, but a dead Download Mode. This means you will not be able to flash a .KDZ/.TOT file the next time you are in big trouble! ^^
Okay to wrap up I should mention the EFS partition. The EFS partition stores your device's IMEI (and the serial number as far as I know) of your device. NEVER wipe it. With a empty EFS partition you can use your mobile as a brick, ok maybe you can use it as a media tablet, but that's it (WiFi still works, @Art Vanderlay tested; see below).
Again: if you got questions/additions/correction or see a mistake, post below, or PM me, I'll edit this post...

reserved

Great post. A thread like this should be the first thread you read as soon as you enter the LGG2 sub forum.
Expect a private message soon.
Also, reserved for possible future additions .

d00lz said:
Great post. A thread like this should be the first thread you read as soon as you enter the LGG2 sub forum.
Expect a private message soon.
Also, reserved for possible future additions .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And you could modify your signature now^^

Sunandroid said:
And you could modify your signature now^^
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nice write up Sunny. You can credit Dan Rosenburg for creating loki. I can also confirm that wifi still works without modemst1 and modemst2 aka efs. My phone suffers for this thread.

@Sunandroid
Perfect! This was all I was looking for. Now I finnaly understand how my G2 works and I'll most likely not need to ask more "noob questions" in this matter.
But I would like to ask some questions because I've left with doubts after reading the OP.
As long as I have /recovery/ and /aboot/ working, I can recover my device exclusively with software. Is this right?
I've concluded that you need /aboot/ to be able to enter in /recovery/ and with recovery you can mess up with any other partition.´
How can I tell if /modem/ found here is compatible with my device? Are all /modem/ partitions the same in the same models? For example, I'm from Portugal so I have a Portuguese D802 LG G2 (if I type its IMEI in a site, it recognizes it as portuguese). If I flash a German D802 modem or English or even American, considering that they are all from D802 would they work flawlessly with my device?
Why does /modem/ cause auto-rotation to work? What exactly is /modem/?
I have a backup of all the partitions in my laptop (made via TWRP). But what happens if I accidentaly lose my /efs/ partition? Can I flash another phone's /efs/?

Rayaxe said:
@Sunandroid
Perfect! This was all I was looking for. Now I finnaly understand how my G2 works and I'll most likely not need to ask more "noob questions" in this matter.
But I would like to ask some questions because I've left with doubts after reading the OP.
As long as I have /recovery/ and /aboot/ working, I can recover my device exclusively with software. Is this right?
I've concluded that you need /aboot/ to be able to enter in /recovery/ and with recovery you can mess up with any other partition.´
How can I tell if /modem/ found here is compatible with my device? Are all /modem/ partitions the same in the same models? For example, I'm from Portugal so I have a Portuguese D802 LG G2 (if I type its IMEI in a site, it recognizes it as portuguese). If I flash a German D802 modem or English or even American, considering that they are all from D802 would they work flawlessly with my device?
Why does /modem/ cause auto-rotation to work? What exactly is /modem/?
I have a backup of all the partitions in my laptop (made via TWRP). But what happens if I accidentaly lose my /efs/ partition? Can I flash another phone's /efs/?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Glad I could help you this way...
about /aboot and /recovery: yes you are right. It is even better, if you have an intact laf too. That's the download mode. But as long the other two work, you can fix the laf partition easily. But if you get into the situation, that only those two are working, better don't flash a bootloader (=/aboot). If it's the wrong one your device is bricked.
Aboot is the key to your device. Everything else is fixable. At least with a little bit of knowledge and time. But better don't try it out.
No, the modems are not all the same. There are (sometimes depending on the branding) extremely small differences between the basebands/modems. I personally never had the problem, that I couldn't get any connection at all. But that's not fatal. Just flash another one and try again if it works. Btw: I once made a test in some german forums with different KK basebands. I'm not sure anymore, but the differences were minimal and I think killed my connection totally.
If you loose your efs stuff, your device is a brick with extended functionalities. The IMEI and some other data stored in the efs partition is worldwide unique. So you can't just pick the one of another phone (except the other G2 is bricked or whatever). You need the IMEI for general network connection. So it will still boot up, but you won't be able to text or call anyone with this phone.

Okay ^^
So this is a full backup of all the needed partitions right? http://prntscr.com/76edu4
Should I convert these files to something like .img to be able to flash in the phone just in case I get something that disables my TWRP access?

Rayaxe said:
Okay ^^
So this is a full backup of all the needed partitions right? http://prntscr.com/76edu4
Should I convert these files to something like .img to be able to flash in the phone just in case I get something that disables my TWRP access?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I guess so. As long as you ticked everything when you backed up (with blastagators TWRP!; the official one doesn't allow to backup the efs stuff), this should be fine.
Well you could. But tbh I have no idea how to convert those files into .img files. But it isn't necessary anyways: It's unlikely that you loose the efs data on your phone unless you brick it somehow. If the phone stays recoverable, The first thing you are going to do is: flashing bootloader, laf and boot.img. Then you will go back to stock through the download mode. Once you've done this it's an easy one to install twrp again and restore the efs backup. No one is gonna flash ~32 partitions by hand. There are "easier" and more usefull ways to recover the device.
Oh and btw: no backup contains the bootloader, laf and boot (recovery developer don't implement this for some reasons). But this doesn't matter. The only thing you really need is the efs backup (which partitions exactly you can see here). Everything else isn't unique and can be extracted out of kdz files and restored this way.
Edit: the two partitions mentioned here are

Sunandroid said:
Okay Download Mode time. It's part of the laf partition (laf.img). This partition is used by LG and it's PC software to recover the phone and bring it back to Stock. It's a partition in itself, but not completely independent of the Bootloader. It's because of this that you can of course have a fully working Bootloader, but a dead Download Mode. This means you will not be able to flash a .KDZ/.TOT file the next time you are in big trouble! ^^
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My PC doesn't install any driver when my phone is on download mode,
On recovery mode (twrp) i have MTP access but on download mode i'm not having any access,
does that mean my download mode is dead?

GoPogoOreo! said:
My PC doesn't install any driver when my phone is on download mode,
On recovery mode (twrp) i have MTP access but on download mode i'm not having any access,
does that mean my download mode is dead?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This has nothing to do with this thread here. The issue is different. But I have no clue what it might be... If I can elaborate a maybe working answer I'm gonna answer you in the noob thread.

Sunandroid said:
This has nothing to do with this thread here. The issue is different. But I have no clue what it might be... If I can elaborate a maybe working answer I'm gonna answer you in the noob thread.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh btw i tried your (noob friendly) no download mode, no recovery mode ..... using slax,
when i typed ls /dev/sd* it's only showed my PC (only one sda) and there is no sdb, not even one
Weirdly i can access TWRP, but i can't make any custom rom boot,
Man this is frustating

I have a phone, G2 D802 Int., which probably has a corrupt EFS partition. I guess the owner broke it flashing incompatible things into it. As a result of the corruption, ESN/IMEI is lost. It shows null. But very interestingly, the EFS partition mustn't have been wiped because by chance of a boot among a hundred, it shows up the ESN. If by chance you come across to ESN, everything operates normally. And if you reboot the phone, ESN is gone again..
I managed to make recovery work again, by upgrading the phone to lollipop. (It was another time I came across ESN.) But no download mode, USB is never identified (unkonwn usb device), USB modes cannot be changed, unless by chance you come across, USB debugging is no more either.
I was thinking to backup some necessary partitions from a working phone of the same variant, but since it's "unknown device", I cannot query it as a disk. Neither it works in Ubuntu. ls /dev/sd* doesn't show the phone. It even doesn't show the working phone.
Any idea about how I can fix the corrupted EFS partition?

pisisler said:
I have a phone, G2 D802 Int., which probably has a corrupt EFS partition. I guess the owner broke it flashing incompatible things into it. As a result of the corruption, ESN/IMEI is lost. It shows null. But very interestingly, the EFS partition mustn't have been wiped because by chance of a boot among a hundred, it shows up the ESN. If by chance you come across to ESN, everything operates normally. And if you reboot the phone, ESN is gone again..
I managed to make recovery work again, by upgrading the phone to lollipop. (It was another time I came across ESN.) But no download mode, USB is never identified (unkonwn usb device), USB modes cannot be changed, unless by chance you come across, USB debugging is no more either.
I was thinking to backup some necessary partitions from a working phone of the same variant, but since it's "unknown device", I cannot query it as a disk. Neither it works in Ubuntu. ls /dev/sd* doesn't show the phone. It even doesn't show the working phone.
Any idea about how I can fix the corrupted EFS partition?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I luckily never had to try it, but scroll down a bit over here: http://www.droidviews.com/how-to-backup-and-restore-lost-imei-on-lg-g2/
I wish you luck!

Sunandroid said:
I luckily never had to try it, but scroll down a bit over here: http://www.droidviews.com/how-to-backup-and-restore-lost-imei-on-lg-g2/
I wish you luck!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes I know that, but since I cannot take the device to USB debugging mode, it's not the first step I could take. "USB device descriptor is failed", this is what I get when I plug the phone.

pisisler said:
Yes I know that, but since I cannot take the device to USB debugging mode, it's not the first step I could take. "USB device descriptor is failed", this is what I get when I plug the phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So what is the current state of your phone? You have twrp installed. Can you push stuff through adb when you are in the recovery (this is pretty important, since we maybe can fix the download mode this way)? Does it boot into android?

@Sunandroid, device operates normally except the voice call & data, since these depend on IMEI. The phone boots normally, and everything is working, only the IMEI shows as "null". Additionaly, cannot enter to download mode, no recovery installed, original recovery is working, which is used to do a factory reset only. No USB debugging, it says "USB device descriptor failed". Thus no adb.

pisisler said:
@Sunandroid, device operates normally except the voice call & data, since these depend on IMEI. The phone boots normally, and everything is working, only the IMEI shows as "null". Additionaly, cannot enter to download mode, no recovery installed, original recovery is working, which is used to do a factory reset only. No USB debugging, it says "USB device descriptor failed". Thus no adb.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
From what I've read about this issue (device descriptor...) just now, it is not software but hardware related.

I've heard of people solving that issue but I couldn't manage to do. Gave the phone to my customer back after 4 days. Importer service put the phone out of warranty and offered him a motherboard replacement for 75 $ and it's pretty fair I think. After all it comes funny when he says he's gonna file a case about returning the phone and take his money back. Well, it's up to him to end up with nothing in hands after months of waiting for a case.
Shortly, this file has been closed without a reasonable solution.
Thanks for your effort @Sunandroid.

pisisler said:
I've heard of people solving that issue but I couldn't manage to do. Gave the phone to my customer back after 4 days. Importer service put the phone out of warranty and offered him a motherboard replacement for 75 $ and it's pretty fair I think. After all it comes funny when he says he's gonna file a case about returning the phone and take his money back. Well, it's up to him to end up with nothing in hands after months of waiting for a case.
Shortly, this file has been closed without a reasonable solution.
Thanks for your effort @Sunandroid.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Glad to hear that. Hitting the thanks button doesn't hurt.