[Q] Rooted Note 3 only boots to System Recovery - Verizon Galaxy Note 3 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I recently attempted to restore a previous rom through safestrap but when it was nearly finished the phone restarted and booted into system recovery. I have ]removed battery and waited for 10 minutes, wiped/restored through system recovery, wiped cache,and attempted to reflash Jellybeans rom. When attempting to flash the rom an E: signature error pops up and it reboots into recovery. I am no expert and have no idea how to fix this. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

I think you should start by clarifying what you mean by "system recovery". Do you mean "stock recovery", or "safestrap recovery"?
If you install Safestrap on a Note 3, it leaves untouched the stock recovery boot (which has a simple (red/blue/yellow) plain-text menu system that you navigate using the volume up/down rocker button & the power button), and also installs the "Safestrap Recovery". The latter appears on every boot and gives an option to either continue the normal boot, or proceed to Safestrap's touch-based UI.
Also you might want to mention whether you are doing these restores to the "Stock ROM" slot or one of the alternate (1-4) slots in Safestrap.
The signature error thing probably results from you accidentally turning on the signature check option in Safestrap (unfortunately the vast majority of ROM devs fail to sign their ROMs, so this option usually doesn't work.) This puts the onus on anyone flashing ROMS to compute a checksum (md5 or sha1) of the ROM zip file after they transfer it to the phone, and cross-check this checksum against the value published by the ROM developer.

bftb0 said:
I think you should start by clarifying what you mean by "system recovery". Do you mean "stock recovery", or "safestrap recovery"?
If you install Safestrap on a Note 3, it leaves untouched the stock recovery boot (which has a simple (red/blue/yellow) plain-text menu system that you navigate using the volume up/down rocker button & the power button), and also installs the "Safestrap Recovery". The latter appears on every boot and gives an option to either continue the normal boot, or proceed to Safestrap's touch-based UI.
Also you might want to mention whether you are doing these restores to the "Stock ROM" slot or one of the alternate (1-4) slots in Safestrap.
The signature error thing probably results from you accidentally turning on the signature check option in Safestrap (unfortunately the vast majority of ROM devs fail to sign their ROMs, so this option usually doesn't work.) This puts the onus on anyone flashing ROMS to compute a checksum (md5 or sha1) of the ROM zip file after they transfer it to the phone, and cross-check this checksum against the value published by the ROM developer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's system recovery, so stock. Blue text, dead android guy all that. Safestrap won't come up at all when it had previously. I haven't tried flashing a stock rom yet because I am unable to put anything on my phone since it only boots into recovery.

Sirrometan said:
It's system recovery, so stock. Blue text, dead android guy all that. Safestrap won't come up at all when it had previously. I haven't tried flashing a stock rom yet because I am unable to put anything on my phone since it only boots into recovery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sounds like you need to odin back to stock.

shiftr182 said:
Sounds like you need to odin back to stock.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
^ Yep.
BTW there is no such thing as "system recovery" in Android. Even the term "factory reset" is highly misleading in the context of rooted phones, or even stock phones that have gone through an OTA update.
Everybody would have been far better off if they had called it what it really is: user data wipe. That is all it has ever done; it absolutely does not "restore the system software back to a factory state"

Odin'd back and had to reroot and flash. All is well. It must have been a bad backup or something.
And I was just calling it what it says at the top of the screen which is; "Android System Recovery.." Sorry if that caused any confusion.

Sirrometan said:
Odin'd back and had to reroot and flash. All is well. It must have been a bad backup or something.
And I was just calling it what it says at the top of the screen which is; "Android System Recovery.." Sorry if that caused any confusion.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Glad to see things going well.

Sirrometan said:
Odin'd back and had to reroot and flash. All is well. It must have been a bad backup or something.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good news, Nate!
Your experience is why (for now, anyway) that I just leave a (rooted) stock ROM in the stock slot, and run a tweaked ROM in an alternate slot as my daily driver. Because there really is no independently-bootable custom recovery, if something goes wrong with the stock slot, you have to go all the way back to square 1 with Odin... which also means losing everything since the last backup.
The stock recovery isn't useful for anything except wiping and/or manually installing Samsung official OTAs. And it definitely will only accept Samsung-signed update.zip packages; that's why you got the E: error message (I wasn't sure which recovery you were talking about)

Related

Recovering files off Epic that freezes boot

I installed ADW launcher, and like an idiot, didn't do a backup first, and upon rebooting the phone, it now hangs part way through the boot; It's Syndicate's Shuriken ROM, and it hangs at the "Samsung Epic 4G" screen with the multi-colored X. Is there ANY way to get into the phone's memory and pull phone logs, SMS, MMS and Angry Birds data? When I boot into recovery (although I have clockwork installed, I can only get to the samsung recovery), the SD card shows up on my PC as a drive without media since the SD card is mounted, so the PC sees the phone. ADB shows no devces connected, altough the only adb I have is what came with the andromeda one click flasher. Is there something else that I need?
Is there anything I can flash using the stock recovery that'll get the phone to boot or even only show up in adb? I don't realy care if the modem's there or not, or how stable it is. I've tried flashing a handful of "stock" updates, but all failed with various verification errors. I had CW installed, but apparently it got replaced by the stock one. All I need to do is run "Backup Everything" to get my SMS, MMS & Phone logs, and Root Explorer to get my AB data. After that, I can (probably will) Odin back to what I was running, or maybe one of the newer Froyo's until the official release is out.
If you have cwm you can just reflash a rom without a wipe to get the info you want. The only updste.zip i know of that can be flashed threw recovery is the one for dk28
Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk
The problem there is While I had CWM installed, I've always had trouble getting into it. It seems that at some point, the ROM overwrote it with the stock recovery, so the only way for me to flash anything is with the stock recovery, or to extract the flash data from download mode if that's possible. How do people get ODIN dumps? I assume that's just a complete read of the flash.
Been doing a lot of searching and reading, and came across this thread. Using Odin to flash the clockworkmod.tar (which has recovery.bin inside it) shoudl replace the factory recovery, shouldn't it? I tried flashing it and I still get the Samsung recovery. Is there a newer version than in that thread that I can download and try to flash in the same way?
Ok, I actually managed to get somewhere. I got CWM Recovery to take, but it's v2.5.0.4, and doesn't seem to be working 100% right. I can't mount the SD card to USB, it doesn't want to do a nand backup, and the smiley button moved the selection bar up, "H" is enter.
Edit: I then managed to get 2.5.1.0 installed, so now keys are functioning properly, and it would seem I was able to get a successful backup. Is there a way to get into the img files in the backup, or is it likely that if I odin it back then advanced restore the data back, it'll be accesable?
Well, I got all the data I wanted to get. As my last post says, *somehow* I managed to get CWM Recovery to take via Odin (Is try, try, try again, try some more perseverance or insanity? ), and then was able to update it to 2.5.1.0, at which point CWM started functioning properly. I then was able to use the DI18 > DK28 update zip, which got me into a funcioning device, which allowed me to back up the data I was looking to get. Of course from there, restoring it back to fully functional was easy.

ClockworkMOD now works with 3E recovery?

EDIT: This is not a result of ROM Manager, this is a result of installing Overstock 1.4.3 which also installs CWM recovery.
Not trying to be rude or anything, but I don't remember this ever not working.
I am having issues with 3e. No matter how carefully I follow the instructions (flash->reboot->reinstall packages always fails) when flashing recovery from current Rom Manager and Premium License, it does not work. Additionally, the premium license is persistent in my applications list and no premium ROMs ever show up in my download list. Even when I select Vibrant MTB and either 2.x or 3.x, all I get is a message that states current recovery will be used. I'm still going thru posts for a possible solution.
Try putting this in the root of your internal SD, reboot to recovery and reinstall packages twice.
Yeah, I was misinformed. This is not a result of ROM Manager, this is a result of installing Overstock 1.4.3 which also installs CWM recovery.
If anyone want to do this it is really simple with the SGS kernel flasher app. Download your overstock kernel of choice from here or your choice of kernel that includes CWM from the dev bible, unzip it, move the zimage to the internal phone memory and then choose that file as your kernel with the SGS Flasher.
Note: I have not been successful with going back to stock kernel when I tried to but that may have been because I didn't disable the lag fix.
jneal9 said:
Try putting this in the root of your internal SD, reboot to recovery and reinstall packages twice.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm 100% stock on 2.2Froyo except for root/unlock and am puzzled by this. I know it's not ROM Manager because it worked on my first SGS4G which died and totally bricked after a week (TMO exchanged it happily cause it wouldn't even go into download mode or charge).
What's in this update you linked? Cause I'm smart, but not as smart as most of the posters here and I recognize only a couple things in the file.
It installs CWM.
Are you using a Vibrant or SGS4G?
SGS 4G for TMobile.
BTW... I totally appreciate the help here. I don't know the ins-n-outs of the android phones like I do IOs, not that I'm all that up to date on that either.
Update... Still does not work. I get the failed signatures error and the update is aborted. I tried doing a factory reset and re-rooting the phone in case something didn't work correctly and get the same error. At this point, it's all gravy since the only thing I really needed was the unlock but now I'm in a "I just want to know how this works" mode.
Thanks for the help.
Ok yeah that my be the problem since that zip is for the Vibrant. So just to be straight, you are unable to get CWM on your SGS4G?
That's correct. I can't apply any update.zip nor does flashing CWM recovery work. It says it's flashing but then when I do the 3 button reboot to get to recovery, it's the 3e version still and when I go to reinstall packages, it starts but then fails as it tries to verify signatures.

can't change TWRP 2.1.1 settings to stop official recovery from reinstalling

Hi all,
I have a Nexus 7, rooted, running stock 4.1.1 rom, and just installed TWRP 2.1.1
I have been reading this thread, http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1779092 , however I cannot post on the thread due to being a new/low post count member.
I read that, and it does happen, that each time I reboot, the stock recovery reinstalls itself.
I attempted to follow this....
NOTE: The stock ROM may automatically replace TWRP with the stock recovery. To prevent the stock ROM from replacing TWRP, boot TWRP, go to the mount menu and mount system, press the home button, then press Advanced -> File Manager. Browse to /system and select the file named recovery-from-boot.p then choose to rename the file to recovery-from-boot.bak
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
but it doesn't seem to work.
Firstly, when I go to the "Mount" menu, there is only 3 entries.....1 large button which says "Mount USB Storage", and 2 boxes which are selected with a cross in the box, "Unmount Data", and "Unmount Cache". If I do press Mount USB Storage I can only Unmount it to return to menu.
So regardless of that part, if I then go to the file manager, and browse to the system folder, the folder shows up empty, and the only thing showing is a Bin subfolder (also empty)
any ideas whats wrong?
Use the one-click root tool. Install TWRP via GooManager. Profit.
Sent from my Nexus 7
TheBiles said:
Use the one-click root tool. Install TWRP via GooManager. Profit.
Sent from my Nexus 7
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hi,
yeah I did use the tool, all is rooted fine. If you install TWRP from GooManager, and then press to reset to recovery, TWRP loads fine. Once you reboot again however, the stock roms overwriting the TWRP so it no longer works each time. The steps there were supposedly to stop this from happening, from within TWRP, however the options aren't even there. Sadly, I can't post in the TWRP thread due to having less than 10 posts
How r u booting into recovery? Do u power off then use button combo? I use quickboot from market. Its free and boots u into recovery without having to manually turn off the device. I had the same exact issue u drescribe when attempting to follow op instructions. I couldn't do it so I said what the hell, let me see if I boot into recovery using quickboot it overwrites. I was happy to discover that it didn't.
Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2
Hi.
I booted into recovery directly from the GooManager option which restarts it into it for me. After a reboot though choosing the same option gives the official recovery I presume (android robot with chest open and exclamation mark)....until I tell it to install the OpenRecoveryScript again
I'm not familiar with Quickboot - take it its just a button to press to get it into recovery the same way as the GooManager option of "Reboot Recovery"?
I'm looking at this TeamEOS nightly build at the moment, toying with the idea of whether to stick with stock rom or flash their custom rom over it.....hard call as its still early days for the roms I think, but if spend ages again installing my apps, will have to do it again afresh when do eventually change the rom
Midnight Tboy said:
Hi.
I booted into recovery directly from the GooManager option which restarts it into it for me. After a reboot though choosing the same option gives the official recovery I presume (android robot with chest open and exclamation mark)....until I tell it to install the OpenRecoveryScript again
I'm not familiar with Quickboot - take it its just a button to press to get it into recovery the same way as the GooManager option of "Reboot Recovery"?
I'm looking at this TeamEOS nightly build at the moment, toying with the idea of whether to stick with stock rom or flash their custom rom over it.....hard call as its still early days for the roms I think, but if spend ages again installing my apps, will have to do it again afresh when do eventually change the rom
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes quickboot is as u describe. I know what u mean about starting to flash. It's a bit early for me considering conditions of the roms ( early stages). I am getting tempted tho...lol. won't be long I'm sure.
Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2
pathtologos said:
Yes quickboot is as u describe. I know what u mean about starting to flash. It's a bit early for me considering conditions of the roms ( early stages). I am getting tempted tho...lol. won't be long I'm sure.
Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yup....just installed Quick Boot (Reboot),
chose Recovery, and again its rebooting back to the original recovery instead of the TWRP.
Guess I'll have to flash to a custom rom to get around it if want it sorting now....or wait till I have the minimum post count to post on the main TWRP thread
Not end of the world to reinstall apps and games I guess when the custom roms are more mature, so long as I remember to use Titanium Backup to save my games progress
you need to rename the recovery-restore.sh file in /system/etc/ (I forget the name offhand - if you look at the filenames there you'll figure it out). It restores the stock recovery at every reboot unless deleted or renamed. Then flash your 3rd party recovery.
Hi,
thats the trouble.....I use the file manager in TWRP, and I can't see that file anywhere.
The TWRP page says to go to /system......but when I go there its empty, only one subfolder, /system/bin, which also shows up empty

Factory Reset wiped out the internal SD card! I thought it's not meant to happen?!

This is the first time I'm using a device that doesn't have an external SD card, but I've all along understood that the internal SD card does not get wiped when you do a factory reset, and I'm sure I read that again on another thread just the other day.
My N7 is rooted using Wug's toolkit, with CM10.2 and Bulletproof kernel.
Yesterday I decided to do a factory reset (under Settings, Backup & Reset, Factory Data Reset), but after I did it, all the stuff I had on the internal SD was gone, including my backup files, the ROMs I had transferred there, etc.
Surely this is not meant to be the case, is it??
internal sdcard used to be a different partition.
Now it is just a directory in your /data and the "sdcard" is an emulated sdcard.
I know stock ROM and stock recovery wipes /data and everything in it including the virtual sdcard.
TWRP recovery will only remove the /data user stuff, leaving the virtual sdcard alone.
Which recovery are you running?
sfhub said:
internal sdcard used to be a different partition.
Now it is just a directory in your /data and the "sdcard" is an emulated sdcard.
I know stock ROM and stock recovery wipes /data and everything in it including the virtual sdcard.
TWRP recovery will only remove the /data user stuff, leaving the virtual sdcard alone.
Which recovery are you running?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for that! (Thanks coming your way). Well, better to know now than later! The down side is that I lost my CWM backups and my Titanium Backup files, but the good thing is that I think I have a TWRP backup that's on my computer.
I'm using TWRP, but not really liking it, cos I cannot boot into recovery from the phone and have to keep relying on the Wug Toolkit. I've just downloaded CWM and will be switching to that.
So the moral of this story is that if we are to do a factory reset, we should do it via recovery, correct? I'm presuming CWM will also leave the virtual sd card alone, yeah?
Oh one more thing, I think I lost root after the factory reset!!
I checked my All Apps and SuperSu wasn't there anymore. Just rooted it again using Wug kit.
oohyeah said:
I'm using TWRP, but not really liking it, cos I cannot boot into recovery from the phone and have to keep relying on the Wug Toolkit. I've just downloaded CWM and will be switching to that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am not sure what issue you are having with TWRP, but you can flash it to the recovery partition and boot to it automatically. If that's the only reason you don't like it, I'd work on fixing the install rather than jumping to another recovery.
oohyeah said:
So the moral of this story is that if we are to do a factory reset, we should do it via recovery, correct? I'm presuming CWM will also leave the virtual sd card alone, yeah?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would probably do it from recovery. I don't know what CWM does on this platform as I've only used it on other platforms.
What do you mean you can't boot into recovery with twrp? I'm using twrp and have no problem booting into recovery.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app
geckocavemen said:
What do you mean you can't boot into recovery with twrp? I'm using twrp and have no problem booting into recovery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When I try to boot into recovery, it ends up showing a dead android with the red triangle "!" sign. I remember doing some searches and it seemed like this was normal. I remember the reason was that the N7 would always rewrite the recovery or something. From your responses, I'm guessing it's not normal?
The only way I could get into recovery was using the Wug toolkit using USB debugging/ADB, which really sucked, cos if it bootlooped and I can't get into the system to turn on USB debugging, then I'm not sure what I would do (though I read there's some way around it or something). I had never encountered any such thing with all my many other devices which all run CWM.
So what's up with all that?
"su" enter' next line "reboot recovery" in the Android Terminal window should also boot your device into recovery
User_99 said:
"su" enter' next line "reboot recovery" in the Android Terminal window should also boot your device into recovery
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This will work fine. If you have no aversion to installing apps, Rom Toolbox Lite gives you power widgets you can put on your desktop then go to recovery with one touch. I use Quick Boot PRO, although the free version of that all may do recovery also. One might work for you until you want to play with mods.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4
oohyeah said:
When I try to boot into recovery, it ends up showing a dead android with the red triangle "!" sign.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is stock recovery.
You need to get rid of /system/etc/install-recovery.sh
You can get rid of it by hand, or just install SuperSU from TWRP. Then flash TWRP to the recovery partition.
Thank you everyone for your input!
I'm happily back on CWM right now. If I revert back to TWRP next time at least I'll know what to do!
oohyeah said:
Thank you everyone for your input!
I'm happily back on CWM right now. If I revert back to TWRP next time at least I'll know what to do!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
None of your blunders has anything to do with TWRP.
khaytsus said:
None of your blunders has anything to do with TWRP.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK let me get something straight.
Obviously, the factory resetting that wiped out all internal storage (the original point of the thread) has nothing to do with TWRP, and I never said it did. On this point though, I'm surprised that it doesn't seem to be more well known that a factory reset would do wipe out all your data (did several searches and only found 'confirmations' that your internal SD data would be left untouched), though I'm glad that I know it now.
The suggestions on different ways to boot into recovery were helpful, though I believe that I would still have encountered the dead android, or would I not have?
What's certainly still not clear to me though is regarding the problem of not being able to boot into recovery and getting the dead android with the exclamation/triangle. After the first few replies, I expected to hear that this was NOT meant to be the case and that I did something wrong in the process or whatever.
However, what I seemed to get was that this is the expected behavior, and what I needed to have done was to "get rid of /system/etc/install-recovery.sh".
So let me ask these questions for clarification:
1. Is the dead android normal, given what I did/didn't do?
2. Is deleting /system/etc/install-recovery.sh part of the process of installing TWRP in order to be able to boot into recovery?
3. Would I also need to get rid of /system/etc/install-recovery.sh if using CWM?
(so far it doesn't seem to. After installing CWM I'm not getting the dead android and I didn't delete the install-recovery.sh).
Thanks. And just to be clear, I hope no one takes it the wrong way that I'm bashing TWRP or anything, because I"m not. Just been a long time user of CWM and this is the first time using TWRP and encountering the dead android.
oohyeah said:
So let me ask these questions for clarification:
1. Is the dead android normal, given what I did/didn't do?
2. Is deleting /system/etc/install-recovery.sh part of the process of installing TWRP in order to be able to boot into recovery?
3. Would I also need to get rid of /system/etc/install-recovery.sh if using CWM?
(so far it doesn't seem to. After installing CWM I'm not getting the dead android and I didn't delete the install-recovery.sh).
Thanks. And just to be clear, I hope no one takes it the wrong way that I'm bashing TWRP or anything, because I"m not. Just been a long time user of CWM and this is the first time using TWRP and encountering the dead android.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dead android = stock recovery, so normal there.
When you flash a custom recovery on a stock ROM, there is a file, /system/etc/install-recovery.sh, or I actually prefer just renaming /system/recovery-from-boot.p, which will automatically verify your recovery image and restore it to stock if it doesn't match. So you must always remove this file, or the ROM will restore the stock recovery on boot.
TWRP makes it easy to remove either file by mounting /system in read-write mode and using its built-in file manager to remove it. You can do the same in CWM using adb.
As for point 3, yes, try to reboot into recovery again. If you didn't remove (either file), you'll find stock recovery again.
Thanks, Khaytsus. I booted into recovery (long press power button, reboot menu, recovery), and it booted straight into CWM, like it always has with my other devices. (And to confirm, I have not even looked for the install-recovery.sh file, let alone removed or renamed it.)
So far it seems to me that TWRP requires removal of install-recovery.sh, whereas CWM does not, but this doesn't seem to be what you guys are telling me is supposed to be the case.
oohyeah said:
Thanks, Khaytsus. I booted into recovery (long press power button, reboot menu, recovery), and it booted straight into CWM, like it always has with my other devices. (And to confirm, I have not even looked for the install-recovery.sh file, let alone removed or renamed it.)
So far it seems to me that TWRP requires removal of install-recovery.sh, whereas CWM does not, but this doesn't seem to be what you guys are telling me is supposed to be the case.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It really depends on what ordering you do your actions in.
/system/etc/install-recovery.sh doesn't exist on a stock factory shipped system.
It only gets put in place after you install an OTA. If you do all your upgrades using the factory images, you'll never encounter it.
What it does is during your boot process, it will check to see if your recovery is different than what it expects (ie stock). If so, it will install stock recovery by taking the stock kernel and patching it.
If any of the following are true, it will not overwrite your recovery:
/system/etc/install-recovery.sh is missing (or modified to not run as the original file)
/system/recovery-from-boot.p is missing
you are not running the stock kernel
The most common way for install-recovery.sh to be missing is you always used factory images.
The most common way for install-recovery.sh to be modified to not do the original function is if you installed SuperSU. It will overwrite install-recovery.sh with its own.
So in all the back and forth, it is quite possible you got rid of install-recovery.sh or had it modified simply by installing root.
If you then subsequently installed custom recovery, it would stay in place.
Previously you were installing TWRP and flashing it onto the tablet, but upon booting into android, install-recovery.sh realized it wasn't stock recovery, and overwrote TWRP with stock recovery.
That is why whenever you rebooted, you got fallen android (which is stock recovery)
If the way you installed cwm is to use "fastboot flash recovery cwm.img" then the only reason it is around is because something else you did got rid of or modified install-recovery.sh. cwm would be no more immune to install-recovery.sh than twrp was.
oohyeah said:
Oh one more thing, I think I lost root after the factory reset!!
I checked my All Apps and SuperSu wasn't there anymore. Just rooted it again using Wug kit.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just to clarify, you didn't lose root. You just lost the supersu app, a root permission manager, because it was installed to your /data partition. The su binary was still in /system, all you would have had to do was install supersu from the market.
I'm not sure what else you were expecting from a "factory reset"
creaturemachine said:
I'm not sure what else you were expecting from a "factory reset"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you read the thread? He explained his reason for expectation quite well.
I just started up on a Nexus 4, and was also surprised to see this. Coming from a Galaxy S2, the "sdcard" being left intact was pretty convenient when flashing from ROM to ROM. Albeit, leading to some messiness. When did Nexus change to this behavior?
Skaziwu said:
I just started up on a Nexus 4, and was also surprised to see this. Coming from a Galaxy S2, the "sdcard" being left intact was pretty convenient when flashing from ROM to ROM. Albeit, leading to some messiness. When did Nexus change to this behavior?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Depending on which level you are looking at, it didn't really change the behavior, but rather how your data is organized.
Factory reset has always wiped out /data.
On older devices, they put the /sdcard in a separate partition and formatted fat32.
These are the ones that were surviving a factory reset.
On newer devices, the internal /sdcard is starting to migrate onto a directory in /data and the "sdard" you see is "virtual". Since it is on /data, when you wipe data, the virtual sdcard is also wiped.
Some recoveries try to simulate the previous behavior by doing a "rm" of every directory except the virtual sdard when you choose to wipe, instead of the erase/format that Android is doing.
The advantage of keeping the sdcard as a directory under /data is you don't need to decide how much space to split between the sdcard and your /data. Also permissions on files are more flexible being in an ext4 filesystem. Finally since everything is emulated and accessed via MTP, you don't need to unmount the filesystem, so your PC can access it.
There are also cons with this approach, but that is what Google is going with.

[Q] Custom Recovery & Flashing issues

I'm new to the Moto Droid world coming from Samsung, and trying to learn about it. I've googled and read a lot about all of the topics below, and I'm looking to learn more. Here are some observations/issues that I'd appreciate any insight on - It would also be helpful to know if these are known, open/unresolved issues:
My device is rooted and unlocked, running sys. ver. 183.46.10.xt907.Verizon.en.US, build KDA20.62.10.1. (I think that's stock Verizon). I have CWM ver. 6.0.4.8 installed. When I try a nandroid backup to my external sd card (/storage/sdcard1), boot-image, recovery image, and system complete normally. When it tries to backup data, I get the error "Can't mount /data!". When I look at my external SD card, I see 4 non-empty files (boot.img, recovery.img, system.ext4.tar.a, system.ext4.tar.b) and 1 empty file (system.ext4.tar). Is there anything I can do to get CWM to backup data also? Do I need to resort to backing up with ADB to get everything?
When I reboot from CWM, I get "rom may flash stock recovery on boot - can't be undone" with "no" or "yes - disable recovery flash" as my choices. I think either choice keeps my CWM recovery. I then get "root access possibly lost - fix? with "no" or "yes fix root (/system/xbin/su)". If I select "yes fix root (/system/xbin/su)", it keeps root, and if I select "no", it loses root. Shall I consider these as minor annoyances that I shall forever live with?
I've tried to flash TWRP, and the only version that I've been able to boot up is the latest one, version 2.8.1.0. The problem is that the font is too big, or our screen size is too small for that version. Is there a version of TWRP that works on our device? I tried ver 2.5, and it doesn't boot.
To flash, I boot the phone into AP Fastboot and use mfastboot on my Windows PC.. Flashing seems to work, but I always get the "<bootloader> variable not supported" message at the start. Is this anything to worry about or indicating some other problem?
Thanks in advance for any and all responses.
beeewell said:
I'm new to the Moto Droid world
coming from Samsung, and trying to learn about it. I've googled and read a lot about all of the topics below, and I'm looking to learn more. Here are some observations/issues that I'd appreciate any insight on - It would also be helpful to know if these are known, open/unresolved issues:
My device is rooted and unlocked, running sys. ver. 183.46.10.xt907.Verizon.en.US, build KDA20.62.10.1. (I think that's stock Verizon). I have CWM ver. 6.0.4.8 installed. When I try a nandroid backup to my external sd card (/storage/sdcard1), boot-image, recovery image, and system complete normally. When it tries to backup data, I get the error "Can't mount /data!". When I look at my external SD card, I see 4 non-empty files (boot.img, recovery.img, system.ext4.tar.a, system.ext4.tar.b) and 1 empty file (system.ext4.tar). Is there anything I can do to get CWM to backup data also? Do I need to resort to backing up with ADB to get everything?
When I reboot from CWM, I get "rom may flash stock recovery on boot - can't be undone" with "no" or "yes - disable recovery flash" as my choices. I think either choice keeps my CWM recovery. I then get "root access possibly lost - fix? with "no" or "yes fix root (/system/xbin/su)". If I select "yes fix root (/system/xbin/su)", it keeps root, and if I select "no", it loses root. Shall I consider these as minor annoyances that I shall forever live with?
I've tried to flash TWRP, and the only version that I've been able to boot up is the latest one, version 2.8.1.0. The problem is that the font is too big, or our screen size is too small for that version. Is there a version of TWRP that works on our device? I tried ver 2.5, and it doesn't boot.
To flash, I boot the phone into AP Fastboot and use mfastboot on my Windows PC.. Flashing seems to work, but I always get the "<bootloader> variable not supported" message at the start. Is this anything to worry about or indicating some other problem?
Thanks in advance for any and all responses.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're using the wrong TWRP. Use TWRP281KK.img > http://d-h.st/511
All the info you need is here > http://forum.xda-developers.com/dro...oot-unlock-t2869432/post55282645#post55282645
Thank You !!
ATTACK said:
You're using the wrong TWRP. Use TWRP281KK.img > http://d-h.st/511
All the info you need is here > http://forum.xda-developers.com/dro...oot-unlock-t2869432/post55282645#post55282645
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you so much for your reply, and for pointing me to the correct TWRP for my device. It worked like a charm !! :good:

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