[Q] Broken Screen/Digitizer. Need to create an update.zip - Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshoot

I dropped my S4 one time to many and the screen cracked, even in it's case . The crack has also broken the digitizer which means I can only use my hardware buttons. I found [email protected] and know I can use it to see/control the phone. Catch is that the device has to have given the PC ADB permission which I unfortunately didn't after my last reformat. I have a second S4 here and took the adb_keys file from it in an attempt to push it to my cracked phone.
Because there's no previously established permission, ADB Push/Shell cannot be used while the phone is on.
Phone is not detected in Recovery Mode, if doing something here was an option
Phone is detected in "ADB Sideload" but I have no idea how to make an update.zip and have been unsuccessful at finding an automatic update.zip maker.
- I used ZIPme (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=zip.me) to create one using the second S4. Upon attempting to push it back to the same phone, I got E: footer is wrong, E: signature verification failed
I wanted to at least make a backup before I get a replacement. Am I screwed?

That's a tough one....
Terribly unfortunate... sorry.
I was curious if you've paired & used any bluetooth HID (mouse/keyboard/etc) with your phone in the past? Because that would present perhaps the option of providing input that way while viewing the display output via an HDMI connection to external display?
Or if nothing else, use a USB-OTG cable with a keyboard/mouse to maybe attempt to blindly navigate and setup something somehow...?
---------- Post added at 12:56 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:41 PM ----------
Omg, it just occurred to me that you mentioned a SECOND S4...
If they are identical variants I want you to do this:
1) slap yourself in the forehead.
(Steps 2- are easier than might seem, but do carefully)
(Steps 2-3 do for BOTH phones)
2) remove the back cover, battery, and screws from the back
3) disconnect the flex ribbon cable to the display assembly from the main board.
4) now place phones side by side, the broken one face down working one face up.
5) you'll find that the flex ribbon from the working display can easily reach+connect to the board of the broken phone next to it(if not, switch sides). Now, connect the working screen to the broken phone next to it...
6) put battery into phone with broken screen attached (not connected) and power on....
7) the device will display on the screen of the phone next to it and should use the digitizer+capacitive buttons as well...
Now you can see and control the device regardless of boot mode, so you can get info from it or make a nandroid in recovery.
[_8) slap yourself in the face for not figuring this out yourself_]
=P

Related

[Q] Resetting the phone without screen OR making the screen work again?

I've got a Samsung Focus that no longer has a working display. It seems the rest of the phone functions perfectly, but I'm unable to see what is happening. I think the display is recoverable, but I'm not positive (it's almost like there's no power being sent to it).
So when I connect to Zune software, I'm unable to view my phone contents because I have a lock pin. This becomes problematic with a non-working display. So one solution to my problem is how can I remove this code OR factory reset my phone without getting screen conformations.
Secondly, would it be worth an investment to repair the screen by buying a new one? It seems to be about ~$130 online for new displays and I'm very comfortable doing modifications like this with mobile devices
Thanks!
JoelLarson said:
I've got a Samsung Focus that no longer has a working display. It seems the rest of the phone functions perfectly, but I'm unable to see what is happening. I think the display is recoverable, but I'm not positive (it's almost like there's no power being sent to it).
So when I connect to Zune software, I'm unable to view my phone contents because I have a lock pin. This becomes problematic with a non-working display. So one solution to my problem is how can I remove this code OR factory reset my phone without getting screen conformations.
Secondly, would it be worth an investment to repair the screen by buying a new one? It seems to be about ~$130 online for new displays and I'm very comfortable doing modifications like this with mobile devices
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What I suggest is read the diagnisis codes thread and see if you find something useful there (code, advice). Personally, I haven't heard of any code disabling the screen but there might be one. The hard reset combo from the wiki should cover that too, I think.
Now, that being said, I see 3 possibilities, higher probability first:
1. screen is damaged (and/or possibly something else). if it's broken, you can confirm.
2. screen connector/cord is loose (should be easy to fix)
3. software/code issue
1 is hardware repair
2 is easy fix, still hardware
3 is easier fix. here, you need a secondary phone, identical. you can perform the exact steps side-by-side to copy/make sure you got it right.
I know it's not a loose connector issue. I've triple checked that and have rubbed it all down in alcohol to make sure it wasn't a dirt issue. I also cannot do anything that requires the digiplex as none of it seems to be registered.
Things that work for sure:
Sound (internal speaker)
Power Button
Volume Buttons
Touch buttons on the front at the bottom (by windows key)
So the screen doesn't work but it's not broken?

Motherboard not interfacing with display and digitizer

I have what I assume to be a hardware problem here.
I have a i9505 motherboard that won't display any image or accept touch input. I've tried it another phone (where it didn't work either), and tried the motherboard from that phone in both (and that worked in both phones). So far as I can tell the problem is with the motherboard, not the screen.
I'm pretty sure the motherboard's not completely dead, as it makes the startup sound, I can flash an image via Odin, been able to get into ADB both in Philz Touch and Android proper (although can't authorise the connection there), can access files on it when connected to a Windows PC, etc.
Does anyone know where the problem could lie? I'm assuming I should just throw the motherboard away, but would be great if there's some way to fix this. Throwing it away would leave me with a working case/screen I can't use.
Thanks.

Recovering photos from cracked phone

I have a Galaxy S5 that belongs to my brother which has a cracked screen. It powers on fine and recently factory resetting itself but can't see the screen. I'm trying to recover photos from the device of my brothers son during the first year of his life. The photos are very important to him and I'm trying my best to recover them.
I'm using MobileEdit Forensics and other recovery software but having problems connecting to the device. I'm thinking it's because of USB debugging isn't enabled. Is there a command of the line code I can run to enable it?
Would replacing the screen be any benefit to me? Am I taking the right approach?
Thanks in advance for any help given.
Do you know if touching any part of the screen has any effect (even of you can't see what touching it does)?
Replacing the screen is an option, but it's an expensive option if there are other things that might/could work instead.
The reason I asked about whether the screen is still responsive is because if it is, you can simply get an MHL adapter from somewhere like ebay and use it to connect your device to a TV so that whatever is on the phone screen (even if you can't see it) will be on the TV screen. Then you can perform the retrieval from the phone by looking at the TV screen.
The MHL adapter I got to use with my phone cost me £5.
The galaxy s5 don't have a digitizer so probably if the screen is dead,then the touch function is too(as I know from my brothers note 3 witch has the same mechanism for the screen).
You said you did a factory reset on the phone.. If you did, wouldn't those pictures be deleted?
A good option is to try Samsung back up (I think it backs up pictures too) or other back up software the phone may have..
Another thing to try is if the phone have adb enabled then you could unlock it by:
Powering it on
Let it auto connect of to a wifi you have already given the password for it when the phone was workings (if WiFi was enabled last time the phone worked)
Log it to Samsung website and apply the'unlock my phone' option
Then connect it to the PC and obtain the pictures...
Tryed to see if the pictures are located in the SD card?
If nothing of this works then the only solutions remaining are repairing the screen or get it to a data recovery company..
Hope I helped you and good luck with it
Uh...The S5 *does* have a digitizer....In exactly the same way that *every* other touchscreen device ever produced does.
keithross39 said:
Uh...The S5 *does* have a digitizer....In exactly the same way that *every* other touchscreen device ever produced does.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It doesn't.. It reads touch events directly from the amoled screen.. The digitizer is just a glass for the s5.. It does nothing, the phone can work too if you just remove the glass and it reads touches normally
The digitizer is the part of the screen that tells the device *where* the screen was touched ie the 'grid reference' of the interaction. If the S5 doesn't have a digitizer, what replaces it...without the digitizer how is the S5 going to know what to do when you touch the glass at a specific point...which app/function is being selected at any given location on the display if the device can't tell the location of the touch?
---------- Post added at 09:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:51 PM ----------
The digitizer part of the screen exists...pure and simple. It is usually bonded to the underside of the outer glass panel.
If as you say, the touch works without the glass, then it's built into the amoled display....but it *is* present and a part of the screen, regardless of what part of the screen module it's built into.
That *may* well have implications for the touch functionality.
If it's just the 'backlighting' that has failed, but the touch functionality remains, then connecting the device to a TV via MHL should work.
If the screen is totally dead, an MHL connection will be pointless, and a new screen is probably the only option. But as has already been mentioned, if a factory reset has been performed, the chances are that what you are trying to recover has already been erased.

Removing phone cover?

So I find myself with a bricked R4P, fastboot only, no EDL and locked bootloader. Tried every piece of deep flash cable advice I can find, to no avail.
Opening the phone up for the testpoints it is then, but I have no idea how to get in to detach the back cover from the rest of the phone. I have phone maintenance tools like nylon spudgers, but the gap between the phone and the cover is so tiny they won't go in, no matter the angle or amount of force i use (mostly trying around the USB port). I've managed to (unintentionally!) unstick the screen from the rest of the phone without even trying, but can't get anywhere with the back cover
Anyone here familiar with opening up an R4P and can offer some advice on how to go about it?
Edit: Forgot to mention, the bottom screws and sim tray have been removed.
Look HERE and good luck.
I just did the same thing today. I also did the same thing as you, I was somewhat thinking it was the screen but there was only one way to find out. I had to use quite a bit of force and go over it many times with plastic tools. I started to pry it up slightly and put guitar picks in, that worked alright. I got a metal tool and pryed it up a bit, then used it to work around the outside.
I'd hear sounds when I could get the tools in, not sure if it was the plastic bit bending inwards below the metal cover or if it was breaking the seal. I was going slowly to be careful. It might be noticeable when I put it back together, I'm not sure.
I saw a video where the one guy used his fingernail to pry it apart in like 30 seconds. I feel he has already taken it apart.
I tried hitting the test points and it wasn't coming up under the COM ports for me. Nothing I have done has had it show under COM ports (maybe EDL would have worked, it didn't on a few computers and VMs that I used). I will try again tomorrow.
Edit: Other videos made it seem super simple also. Admittedly I don't have tons of experience taking unibody phones apart but it seemed harder than the videos implied. Others may have some technique tips.
I'm not sure if it's mentioned anywhere but I think the three screws to the cage are Phillips 00, it what worked for me at least.
spkprs said:
Look HERE and good luck.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This method is what exactly i have done. and i use a bit force, as in the Video he use an instrument which i have lack.
---------- Post added at 12:37 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:35 PM ----------
thegreatbmn said:
So I find myself with a bricked R4P, fastboot only, no EDL and locked bootloader. Tried every piece of deep flash cable advice I can find, to no avail.
Opening the phone up for the testpoints it is then, but I have no idea how to get in to detach the back cover from the rest of the phone. I have phone maintenance tools like nylon spudgers, but the gap between the phone and the cover is so tiny they won't go in, no matter the angle or amount of force i use (mostly trying around the USB port). I've managed to (unintentionally!) unstick the screen from the rest of the phone without even trying, but can't get anywhere with the back cover
Anyone here familiar with opening up an R4P and can offer some advice on how to go about it?
Edit: Forgot to mention, the bottom screws and sim tray have been removed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you haven't open yet then Use the Chinese Recovery Method as its work fine For me.
Thanks so much guys.
@Pyro00 - I've just gotten 9008, so here's exactly what happened, hopefully it'll help you out:
Have the battery well charged
Boot into fastboot mode (Power+VolDown)
Have the phone connected to the PC
Type "fastboot reboot" into a command window where fastboot is available (e.g. "c:\program files (x86)\minimal adb and fastboot", if you have that installed), but don't submit yet
Short (and hold) the two testpoints (to the left of the left-side battery connector, just above the battery)
Submit the fastboot command - phone will "power on" vibrate briefly, then do nothing - you'll be familiar with it I don't think it matters how long you wait as this point, as long as you give it a few seconds
Release the testpoints - the phone will power on vibrate again
Quickly (I'm not sure of the timing) short the testpoints again. The PC should immediately recognise the phone as 9008.

[Tutorial] AC8227L head units - how to unlock the bootloader

If you have one of these 8227L units that doesn't have any physical buttons, and you've tried to unlock your bootloader, you may have given up in frustration when the on-screen instructions say, press volume down to continue...
If you have one of the units that does have physical buttons, your process will be similar but much simpler, as you won't have to take your unit apart, so you can follow along with this tutorial after that portion is done.
Disclaimer: If you don't have physical buttons on your unit, you're going to have to dismantle it and potentially do some soldering to get through this. The points in question are tiny and if you permanently short them or apply too much heat and lift a pad, you could get stuck with a unit that's permanently muted or just bricked altogether. You have been warned about the risks, and I am not responsible for any damage you may incur!
Here's how it's done.
Prerequisites:
8227L unit with no physical buttons
Phillips screwdriver
Comfort with soldering on fairly small stuff
(You might get by without having to do any soldering, but if you can solder, you'll have an easier time)
PC of some type, probably a laptop if you want to do this inside a vehicle
adb and fastboot installed - there are plenty of tutorials on this elsewhere on these forums
It is possible to root these things without unlocking the bootloader, so if your device happens to be
rooted already, note that you'll be able to skip the adb portion entirely by installing a reboot utility
from the play store that allows you to just reboot the device to bootloader mode, but you'll still need to
use fastboot over USB.
If you need to bring the unit inside to get to a computer, you'll need a 12v power supply of some type
USB A male to male cable - that's just a cable with a "full size" usb plug on both ends - You can just chop up two old USB cables and splice them back together by matching the colors of the inner wires to make your own if need be.
We're going to be disassembling the unit, so obviously you'll want to completely disconnect it first.
On the backside of the unit there is a Phillips head screw at each corner, go ahead and pull those out and put them someplace safe.
Once you remove those screws, the back of the unit is loose, but don't just pull up on it! It's still connected to the board, which is connected to the screen assembly by some fragile ribbon cables, and you don't want to tear those! The cables attach towards the bottom of the screen, so tilt the back of the unit away from the screen top side first, opening it like a book. This will reveal the three ribbon cables we need to disconnect. They connect into three plastic connectors (They're called ZIF or Zero Insertion Force connectors) attached to the board that can also be fragile, so take care with this next step. On the back side of each connector, the side away from the ribbon cable is a little plastic "flap," usually black in color. Take your fingernail or a plastic spudger, or a toothpick or something (non-metallic preferably) and get underneath that and flip it upwards. The flap should stay in the connector and just hinge open. Once this is done, the ribbon cable itself should come out easily. If you have to apply any pressure to get it out, you don't have it unlocked and you will damage something, so make sure you've got it unlocked before you go pulling on the ribbon cables.
With the ribbon cables disconnected, the screen assembly can be set to the side for the time being. We now have access to the front side of the board, but what we need is on the other side, so we'll have to remove it completely from the housing. There will be 4 or 5 more Phillips screws to remove, depending on your model. Once you get those out, you can pull the board free and flip it over. We're looking for 5 small copper pads exposed on the surface of the mainboard, in the area of the CPU, RAM and NAND/EMMC memory chips. I have attached an image that I borrowed from elsewhere on these forums, because I don't have a unit opened up right now and didn't want to take one apart just to take some pictures.
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In the image I attached, you're looking for the points marked 1 and 2. The caption on the image suggests they connect to Volume Up, but on every unit I've seen these points connect to Volume Down. Your mileage may vary. The layout of these points can vary from model to model, but they're always in this area. On all the models I have seen, two of these points are slightly larger than the rest, and those are the two we're concerned with for now. You may here this referred to as the "test point," but in fact these points simply expose access to Home, Back, Volume Up and Volume Down. Of the two bigger points, one of them will be ground. (If you know your way around a multimeter you can verify which one by checking for continuity to ground elsewhere on the board, but it's really not important for our current purposes which is which.) The next part will be much, much easier if you can handle soldering on stuff this size. We need to have access to momentarily short the two bigger points. The one that isn't ground is volume down, and making a connection between the two sends a Volume Down key press. (If you have identified which is ground you can access Home, Back and Volume Up by shorting it to the three smaller points) At first, I thought I'd just be able to touch the two points with a
screwdriver to accomplish this, but I never ended up getting that to work. If your unit is a bit different than mine, you may have more luck with that. But in my case, I needed to tin both points (that simply means to apply fresh solder to them) and attach a small wire to one of them. (The jumper wires that come with an Arduino work great for this if you have any of those laying around, otherwise just use a really small wire of some kind.) This jumper wire is going to function as our "volume down" button for the next part. These are also the same points you will need to access if you ever manage to brick your unit and need to get access to the "backup" pre-loader.
Now that we have our "button" in place, we're going to need to connect the ribbon cables for the screen back to the board, power the unit up and get connected via adb. There are two different usb cables that come with the unit. One of them has a 6 pin connector and one has a 4 pin connector. You want to use the one with the 4 pins. At this point you've got to handle the unit with the board exposed, power running through it, and those ribbon cables connected. It should go without saying that you need to be very careful. Don't tear any ribbon cables, and don't let your jumper wire accidentally short out against anything as you turn the unit over to use the screen.
If your unit has a physical volume down button, you can follow along from here and just ignore all the horrific parts about running the unit with the guts hanging out and jumper wires and all that scary stuff.
Once the unit powers on, you'll probably notice that it's not detected by the PC right away. That's because these units default to usb host mode, so they can mount your flash drive or whatever you may store music on and plug into them. So we're going to have to go to the "factory" settings menu. This is the one that asks for a password when you try to go into it. For most units it's 8888, but I have seen a few where the password is 1111. Once you're into the factory settings menu, towards the bottom you should see USB options. Open that menu, and click on "Other" towards the bottom left. On the next screen, tap the "usb mode" option, and you should get a popup where you can toggle between "host" and "device" mode. Device mode may be already selected, but go ahead and click it anyway. After this, you should be able to get a connection over adb. Try entering the command "adb devices" from your command line, and you should see your unit identifed by it's serial number. If it says "offline", go back to the factory settings menu, toggle it to host mode once and then back to device. If you're seeing "unauthorized" there are some pre-requisite steps you're missing. They are covered extensively on these forums and elsewhere, so if you need to find them immediately just search these forums or google for "adb tutorial mediatek device" and you'll find about a dozen walkthroughs. All we need from here is to be able to ender the command:
Code:
adb reboot bootloader
Once you get that done, your device should reboot to the boot logo screen, but it will stay on that screen and display the words "FASTBOOT MODE" Back to the command line of your PC, you can enter the command:
Code:
fastboot devices
to verify that you have a connection. If you're still with me at this point and you're able to communicate with the bootloader through fastboot, enter the command:
Code:
fastboot oem unlock
At this point, the instructions on the screen of your unit will warn you about how Santa Claus won't bring you any presents if you unlock your bootloader, and prompt you to press Volume Down if you really want to proceed. At this point you'll need to use that jumper wire to make the connection we prepared previously to execute the Volume Down entry. You may have to hold it in place for a couple of seconds, but eventually you should get a confirmation that your bootloader has been unlocked! Now, power the unit off, disconnect your jumper wire, and reverse the disassembly process to put it back together. One thing to keep in mind, if you're attempting to flash a new firmware and it comes with a locked bootloader, you'll have to repeat this proces, so if you can get away with it, don't flash the LK partition.
threadreaper said:
If you have one of these 8227L units that doesn't have any physical buttons, and you've tried to unlock your bootloader, you may have given up in frustration when the on-screen instructions say, press volume down to continue...
If you have one of the units that does have physical buttons, your process will be similar but much simpler, as you won't have to take your unit apart, so you can follow along with this tutorial after that portion is done.
Disclaimer: If you don't have physical buttons on your unit, you're going to have to dismantle it and potentially do some soldering to get through this. The points in question are tiny and if you permanently short them or apply too much heat and lift a pad, you could get stuck with a unit that's permanently muted or just bricked altogether. You have been warned about the risks, and I am not responsible for any damage you may incur!
Here's how it's done.
Prerequisites:
8227L unit with no physical buttons
Phillips screwdriver
Comfort with soldering on fairly small stuff
(You might get by without having to do any soldering, but if you can solder, you'll have an easier time)
PC of some type, probably a laptop if you want to do this inside a vehicle
adb and fastboot installed - there are plenty of tutorials on this elsewhere on these forums
It is possible to root these things without unlocking the bootloader, so if your device happens to be
rooted already, note that you'll be able to skip the adb portion entirely by installing a reboot utility
from the play store that allows you to just reboot the device to bootloader mode, but you'll still need to
use fastboot over USB.
If you need to bring the unit inside to get to a computer, you'll need a 12v power supply of some type
USB A male to male cable - that's just a cable with a "full size" usb plug on both ends - You can just chop up two old USB cables and splice them back together by matching the colors of the inner wires to make your own if need be.
We're going to be disassembling the unit, so obviously you'll want to completely disconnect it first.
On the backside of the unit there is a Phillips head screw at each corner, go ahead and pull those out and put them someplace safe.
Once you remove those screws, the back of the unit is loose, but don't just pull up on it! It's still connected to the board, which is connected to the screen assembly by some fragile ribbon cables, and you don't want to tear those! The cables attach towards the bottom of the screen, so tilt the back of the unit away from the screen top side first, opening it like a book. This will reveal the three ribbon cables we need to disconnect. They connect into three plastic connectors (They're called ZIF or Zero Insertion Force connectors) attached to the board that can also be fragile, so take care with this next step. On the back side of each connector, the side away from the ribbon cable is a little plastic "flap," usually black in color. Take your fingernail or a plastic spudger, or a toothpick or something (non-metallic preferably) and get underneath that and flip it upwards. The flap should stay in the connector and just hinge open. Once this is done, the ribbon cable itself should come out easily. If you have to apply any pressure to get it out, you don't have it unlocked and you will damage something, so make sure you've got it unlocked before you go pulling on the ribbon cables.
With the ribbon cables disconnected, the screen assembly can be set to the side for the time being. We now have access to the front side of the board, but what we need is on the other side, so we'll have to remove it completely from the housing. There will be 4 or 5 more Phillips screws to remove, depending on your model. Once you get those out, you can pull the board free and flip it over. We're looking for 5 small copper pads exposed on the surface of the mainboard, in the area of the CPU, RAM and NAND/EMMC memory chips. I have attached an image that I borrowed from elsewhere on these forums, because I don't have a unit opened up right now and didn't want to take one apart just to take some pictures.
In the image I attached, you're looking for the points marked 1 and 2. The caption on the image suggests they connect to Volume Up, but on every unit I've seen these points connect to Volume Down. Your mileage may vary. The layout of these points can vary from model to model, but they're always in this area. On all the models I have seen, two of these points are slightly larger than the rest, and those are the two we're concerned with for now. You may here this referred to as the "test point," but in fact these points simply expose access to Home, Back, Volume Up and Volume Down. Of the two bigger points, one of them will be ground. (If you know your way around a multimeter you can verify which one by checking for continuity to ground elsewhere on the board, but it's really not important for our current purposes which is which.) The next part will be much, much easier if you can handle soldering on stuff this size. We need to have access to momentarily short the two bigger points. The one that isn't ground is volume down, and making a connection between the two sends a Volume Down key press. (If you have identified which is ground you can access Home, Back and Volume Up by shorting it to the three smaller points) At first, I thought I'd just be able to touch the two points with a
screwdriver to accomplish this, but I never ended up getting that to work. If your unit is a bit different than mine, you may have more luck with that. But in my case, I needed to tin both points (that simply means to apply fresh solder to them) and attach a small wire to one of them. (The jumper wires that come with an Arduino work great for this if you have any of those laying around, otherwise just use a really small wire of some kind.) This jumper wire is going to function as our "volume down" button for the next part. These are also the same points you will need to access if you ever manage to brick your unit and need to get access to the "backup" pre-loader.
Now that we have our "button" in place, we're going to need to connect the ribbon cables for the screen back to the board, power the unit up and get connected via adb. There are two different usb cables that come with the unit. One of them has a 6 pin connector and one has a 4 pin connector. You want to use the one with the 4 pins. At this point you've got to handle the unit with the board exposed, power running through it, and those ribbon cables connected. It should go without saying that you need to be very careful. Don't tear any ribbon cables, and don't let your jumper wire accidentally short out against anything as you turn the unit over to use the screen.
If your unit has a physical volume down button, you can follow along from here and just ignore all the horrific parts about running the unit with the guts hanging out and jumper wires and all that scary stuff.
Once the unit powers on, you'll probably notice that it's not detected by the PC right away. That's because these units default to usb host mode, so they can mount your flash drive or whatever you may store music on and plug into them. So we're going to have to go to the "factory" settings menu. This is the one that asks for a password when you try to go into it. For most units it's 8888, but I have seen a few where the password is 1111. Once you're into the factory settings menu, towards the bottom you should see USB options. Open that menu, and click on "Other" towards the bottom left. On the next screen, tap the "usb mode" option, and you should get a popup where you can toggle between "host" and "device" mode. Device mode may be already selected, but go ahead and click it anyway. After this, you should be able to get a connection over adb. Try entering the command "adb devices" from your command line, and you should see your unit identifed by it's serial number. If it says "offline", go back to the factory settings menu, toggle it to host mode once and then back to device. If you're seeing "unauthorized" there are some pre-requisite steps you're missing. They are covered extensively on these forums and elsewhere, so if you need to find them immediately just search these forums or google for "adb tutorial mediatek device" and you'll find about a dozen walkthroughs. All we need from here is to be able to ender the command:
Code:
adb reboot bootloader
Once you get that done, your device should reboot to the boot logo screen, but it will stay on that screen and display the words "FASTBOOT MODE" Back to the command line of your PC, you can enter the command:
Code:
fastboot devices
to verify that you have a connection. If you're still with me at this point and you're able to communicate with the bootloader through fastboot, enter the command:
Code:
fastboot oem unlock
At this point, the instructions on the screen of your unit will warn you about how Santa Claus won't bring you any presents if you unlock your bootloader, and prompt you to press Volume Down if you really want to proceed. At this point you'll need to use that jumper wire to make the connection we prepared previously to execute the Volume Down entry. You may have to hold it in place for a couple of seconds, but eventually you should get a confirmation that your bootloader has been unlocked! Now, power the unit off, disconnect your jumper wire, and reverse the disassembly process to put it back together. One thing to keep in mind, if you're attempting to flash a new firmware and it comes with a locked bootloader, you'll have to repeat this proces, so if you can get away with it, don't flash the LK partition.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is very useful, thanks! However it doesn't cover bricked devices, which I think many people would be interested in fixing. For example, what can be done with these techniques on a damaged unit? Can it be restored from say an accidental wipe from SP Flash tools?
Thanks for the feedback, and to answer your question, yes, there is a way to recover a bricked device utilizing these internal points, even if the memory has been completely wiped.
It's actually something I'm planning to do a tutorial on. Ironically, it was one of the first things I had to learn. Having never owned any device with a MediaTek chipset in it before, I wasn't familiar with how they worked. So before attempting to do any sort of modification to my brand new unit, I hit up these very forums looking for information on how to do a full system backup. The post I ended up stumbling across actually led to me "bricking" my own unit. In hindsight, and having learned a lot about these units since that day, I now realize that I was misunderstanding the instructions, but I feel like it was perhaps poorly worded. One thing that has always existed in the Android modding community (and to be fair, most others like it) is a real lack of comprehensive, completely newbie friendly tutorials/documentation. The fact is, by the time most of us have gained enough knowledge to actually write a tutorial, the basic operations seem so trivial that they hardly warrant the effort of writing a tutorial. It's easy to forget that most of us once needed those tutorials ourselves. So, as long as my ambition keeps up, my goal is to do a whole series of tutorials, as detailed as I can think to make them.
I have another one that I'm working on right now that has ended up taking longer to put together than I anticipated, but once it's finished and I've worked the bugs out of the software I'm releasing to go along with it, I will move the brick recovery tutorial to the top of the list! If you're in need of assistance right now, feel free to ask questions via PM. I'd rather not take this thread off topic.
threadreaper said:
Thanks for the feedback, and to answer your question, yes, there is a way to recover a bricked device utilizing these internal points, even if the memory has been completely wiped.
It's actually something I'm planning to do a tutorial on. Ironically, it was one of the first things I had to learn. Having never owned any device with a MediaTek chipset in it before, I wasn't familiar with how they worked. So before attempting to do any sort of modification to my brand new unit, I hit up these very forums looking for information on how to do a full system backup. The post I ended up stumbling across actually led to me "bricking" my own unit. In hindsight, and having learned a lot about these units since that day, I now realize that I was misunderstanding the instructions, but I feel like it was perhaps poorly worded. One thing that has always existed in the Android modding community (and to be fair, most others like it) is a real lack of comprehensive, completely newbie friendly tutorials/documentation. The fact is, by the time most of us have gained enough knowledge to actually write a tutorial, the basic operations seem so trivial that they hardly warrant the effort of writing a tutorial. It's easy to forget that most of us once needed those tutorials ourselves. So, as long as my ambition keeps up, my goal is to do a whole series of tutorials, as detailed as I can think to make them.
I have another one that I'm working on right now that has ended up taking longer to put together than I anticipated, but once it's finished and I've worked the bugs out of the software I'm releasing to go along with it, I will move the brick recovery tutorial to the top of the list! If you're in need of assistance right now, feel free to ask questions via PM. I'd rather not take this thread off topic.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is excellent news and I look forward to those tutorials! my current MediaTek unit is still in the car (currently looking to buy a proper MTCD/MTCE unit to run Malaysk) so I will be able to play around with my old one and hopefully learn more about how these things work. I bought soldering kit and built an appropriate power source (12V 5A AC/DC adapter), so now I'm good to go
iceblue1980 said:
This is excellent news and I look forward to those tutorials! my current MediaTek unit is still in the car (currently looking to buy a proper MTCD/MTCE unit to run Malaysk) so I will be able to play around with my old one and hopefully learn more about how these things work. I bought soldering kit and built an appropriate power source (12V 5A AC/DC adapter), so now I'm good to go
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tutorial has been posted, you can follow the link in my signature.
Hey, just got mtk device with 2gb ram and 16gb storage, I wonder if I can use all the files from this forum or 4pda with my device?
Second, how can I create a full backup of this device ?
Sent from my MI 9 using Tapatalk
zetlaw01 said:
Hey, just got mtk device with 2gb ram and 16gb storage, I wonder if I can use all the files from this forum or 4pda with my device?
Second, how can I create a full backup of this device ?
Sent from my MI 9 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm planning to do a comprehensive backup tutorial very soon, probably in the next day or two. The answer to your first question is no! Not every rom dump you find is going to be compatible with your device. In general I have found that if a rom dump comes with a scatter file and that scatter file is identical to the scatter file from your stock backup, then you're usually safe to flash it, but there may be exceptions to that rule, so always have a backup before you flash anything. While all of these units are based on the same SoC, they can have different amplifiers, radio chips, etc, and you could find yourself with a ROM that boots, but has no audio for example.
Thanks, I managed to take the backup and also use wwr to create my own Scatter file
Using that I flash twrp and rooted my device.
Sent from my MI 9 using Tapatalk
I´m trying to install twrp. I successfully unlock the bootloader and finally flash twrp, but now can´t access to recovery. System says: " Orange state your device has been unlocked and can't be trusted Your device will boot in 5 secods" when reboot recovery mode.
Any ideas?
Thank you very much.
Hi @threadreaper,
I have memory dump of my radio 9218c_0005_v004, 8227l. I do have the scatter file too. It was working perfectly fine and I rooted it too.
But while I was modified the build.prop to get the multiwindow feature as mentioned in one of threads related to 8227l and rebooted my system. It went into bootloop.
I tried to flash a rooted another firmware for my device which I had never flashed earlier. I used to scatter file mentioned in the same rooted firmware zip. Everything finished well in the SP tools with success and I rebooted the radio but It still didn't come up. Just a black screen. Is it because I flashed preloader with the wrong scatter file?
Now problem is, when I try to connect radio with PC, PC is not able to detect it. It's not even appearing for 2 seconds in the Device manager.
I have the backup and everything. and can restore it back. but it should be detected. What can be gone wrong here?
1. Did that rooted firmware contain wrong preloader/scatter file? Should I have skipped preloader and used my scatter file?
what are the solutions so that PC detects it back as a preloader?
amit_coolcampus said:
Thank you very much for the tutorial. My android unit is not detected in SP tools. When I reboot the radio, It appears in Device manage as MTK USB for 2 seconds and disappears. Is it because bootloader is locked? Will the problem resolve after unlocking the bootloader.
Just wanted to check if you have prepared to recover the bricked devices using this method.
My unit is working but I would love to have a Plan B ready.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yup! Check the link in my signature for a tutorial on recovering from a brick!
For your device to be used with SP-flashtool you need to connect the device (fully powered down) via usb AFTER you start an operation in SP-flashtool. The preloader will shut down after 2 seconds if it doesn't receive a signal indicating it's connected to a flash device, so that's the behavior you're seeing. Basically you need to have SP-flashtools prepared to send this signal to the preloader before your connect your device.
dickinson said:
I´m trying to install twrp. I successfully unlock the bootloader and finally flash twrp, but now can´t access to recovery. System says: " Orange state your device has been unlocked and can't be trusted Your device will boot in 5 secods" when reboot recovery mode.
Any ideas?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I haven't come across anything like this before... What brand/model is your device?
threadreaper said:
Yup! Check the link in my signature for a tutorial on recovering from a brick!
For your device to be used with SP-flashtool you need to connect the device (fully powered down) via usb AFTER you start an operation in SP-flashtool. The preloader will shut down after 2 seconds if it doesn't receive a signal indicating it's connected to a flash device, so that's the behavior you're seeing. Basically you need to have SP-flashtools prepared to send this signal to the preloader before your connect your device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Aaah. ... I see. Now I get it. I'll give one more try and will get back to you. Thank you very much
threadreaper said:
I haven't come across anything like this before... What brand/model is your device?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Finally I´ve solved this problem. My model is 9213 with a 9260 board , firm 8.1 (Oreo real) YT9213AJ_00011_V001_20200718_0 . Orange´s state happens when bootloader is unlocked . I only need flash a new twrp version for Oreo system. Twrp3.4.0 ( previous versions don´t work) and locked my unit again. It´s working now and can access to recovery
Note: in this version I only can connect to spflahTool with a male-male usb without ground pin (only 3 wires) and external 12v supply
Woohooo!
I was able to detect my radio in sp flash tools.
1. Created a preloader backup.
2. Created a rom_0 backup. Just one clarification required. Can you please tell me what should be the last address(length) so that it includes everything. I have put start address of BMTpool as the total length of backup so that includes whole userdata partition.
So start address- 0x0
Total length - 0x738A80000
Can you confirm if this should have everything to restore in case of any mishappening?
Thank you so much @threadreaper,
I was able to get it detected and take a full backup, but something wrong happened after I rooted and tried to update the build.prop file in the system folder. Can you please help. Here is the brief:
I have memory dump of my radio 9218c_0005_v004, 8227l. I do have the scatter file too. It was working perfectly fine and I rooted it too.
But when I modified the build.prop to get the multiwindow feature as mentioned in one of threads related to 8227l and rebooted my system. It went into bootloop.
I tried to flash a rooted another firmware for my device which I had never flashed earlier. I used to scatter file mentioned in the same rooted firmware zip. Everything finished well in the SP tools with success and I rebooted the radio but It still didn't come up. Just a black screen. Is it because I flashed wrong preloader with the wrong scatter file?
Now problem is, when I try to connect radio with PC, PC is not able to detect it. It's not even appearing for 2 seconds in the Device manager.
I have the backup and everything. and can restore it back. but it should be detected in the first place. What can be gone wrong here?
1. Did that rooted firmware contain wrong preloader/scatter file? Should I have skipped preloader and used my scatter file?
Is the only solution left to read memory in Flash tool by using test point?
threadreaper said:
Yup! Check the link in my signature for a tutorial on recovering from a brick!
For your device to be used with SP-flashtool you need to connect the device (fully powered down) via usb AFTER you start an operation in SP-flashtool. The preloader will shut down after 2 seconds if it doesn't receive a signal indicating it's connected to a flash device, so that's the behavior you're seeing. Basically you need to have SP-flashtools prepared to send this signal to the preloader before your connect your device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
iceblue1980 said:
This is excellent news and I look forward to those tutorials! my current MediaTek unit is still in the car (currently looking to buy a proper MTCD/MTCE unit to run Malaysk) so I will be able to play around with my old one and hopefully learn more about how these things work. I bought soldering kit and built an appropriate power source (12V 5A AC/DC adapter), so now I'm good to go
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How did you create that 12v adapter. I am interested to make one, it's really painful to sit in the vehicle and do everything.
I am also looking to buy 4 Pin connector for USB.
amit_coolcampus said:
Thank you so much @threadreaper,
I was able to get it detected and take a full backup, but something wrong happened after I rooted and tried to update the build.prop file in the system folder. Can you please help. Here is the brief:
I have memory dump of my radio 9218c_0005_v004, 8227l. I do have the scatter file too. It was working perfectly fine and I rooted it too.
But when I modified the build.prop to get the multiwindow feature as mentioned in one of threads related to 8227l and rebooted my system. It went into bootloop.
I tried to flash a rooted another firmware for my device which I had never flashed earlier. I used to scatter file mentioned in the same rooted firmware zip. Everything finished well in the SP tools with success and I rebooted the radio but It still didn't come up. Just a black screen. Is it because I flashed wrong preloader with the wrong scatter file?
Now problem is, when I try to connect radio with PC, PC is not able to detect it. It's not even appearing for 2 seconds in the Device manager.
I have the backup and everything. and can restore it back. but it should be detected in the first place. What can be gone wrong here?
1. Did that rooted firmware contain wrong preloader/scatter file? Should I have skipped preloader and used my scatter file?
Is the only solution left to read memory in Flash tool by using test point?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes. If you have flashed the wrong preloader to your device, you will have to recover from test-point. Never flash a backup with a scatter file that doesn't exactly match your existing scatter file.
amit_coolcampus said:
How did you create that 12v adapter. I am interested to make one, it's really painful to sit in the vehicle and do everything.
I am also looking to buy 4 Pin connector for USB.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It really doesn't take much. I have run a few different versions of these head units just fine off of a 12V/2A "wall wart" type power supply. Just cut the end off, check polarity (carefully!) with a multimeter while it's plugged in and then wire it up just like you would with 12V in a vehicle.
threadreaper said:
Yes. If you have flashed the wrong preloader to your device, you will have to recover from test-point. Never flash a backup with a scatter file that doesn't exactly match your existing scatter file.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Two confirmations sir:
Got it. So the scatter file which I created from the stock backup has to be used always, no matter if I flash back any other ROM?
One more question. When I flashed TWRP recommend for my radio. It got flashed and I was I able to install supersu by flashing and boot up the system. But when I tried to take backup of system, data and cache via recovery, after half of the backup process, twrp started turning into different colors like a distorted screen and touch stopped working (screenshot attached) and system rebooted normally without finishing the backup. It happened the same second time also. So is it something like - we can't take backup of radio from the twrp. Can it only be backed up & restore back from sp flash tools?

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