Database Users

[Q] unable to mount /system or /cache ||| no OS installed ||| sideload wont work

hey guys, im back with stupid questions...
I wanted to upgrade my Nexus 7 32gb UMTS to 4.3 and used the Nexus 7 Toolkit (by Mark Skippen).
I was on a custom Rom and wanted to get back to Stock, so i could just use the update process by Google.
Downloading and Installing the ROM (including wipe of user data) by the Toolkit seemed to work and didnt show any error messages.
As is tried to boot my device into Android I got stuck in the bootloader.
When I tried to start it, a small white message "Booting failed" appeared in the top left corner. Nothing else happend.
I did everything again, no changes.
Next step was to google for a few mins, then I tried to install a custom recovery via Toolkit (which worked) and install a zip-file Rom via sideload.
Connection was there, the files got pushed onto the device but then "An Error Occured" popped up and everything stopped.
Installing a zip via usb-otg seemed promising, but this got me errors like "unable to mount /system" and "unable to mount /cache"...
when I tried to reboot from TWRP or ClockwordMod Recovery (tried the earlier described things with both recovieres) I got a message saying
"there is no OS installed, are you sure you want to reboot?"
Please help me, I really dont know how to fix this and I will need my Nexus 7 in 2 days (thats why I tried to reinstall and polish everything )
thanks for your help, I really appreciate it
Edit: tl;dr
Stuck in fastboot, no OS is installed. sideload / installing ROM via ADB / installing ROM via usb-otg doenst work, most certainly because /system and /cache cant be mounted
so AFAIK the real problem is that I cant mount those partitions, otherwise I could install a ROM and get out of fastboot/recovery easily. (just mounting them in custom recoveries didnt work btw)

IchStelleDummeFragen said:
hey guys, im back with stupid questions...
I wanted to upgrade my Nexus 7 32gb UMTS to 4.3 and used the Nexus 7 Toolkit (by Mark Skippen).
I was on a custom Rom and wanted to get back to Stock, so i could just use the update process by Google.
Downloading and Installing the ROM (including wipe of user data) by the Toolkit seemed to work and didnt show any error messages.
As is tried to boot my device into Android I got stuck in the bootloader.
When I tried to start it, a small white message "Booting failed" appeared in the top left corner. Nothing else happend.
I did everything again, no changes.
Next step was to google for a few mins, then I tried to install a custom recovery via Toolkit (which worked) and install a zip-file Rom via sideload.
Connection was there, the files got pushed onto the device but then "An Error Occured" popped up and everything stopped.
Installing a zip via usb-otg seemed promising, but this got me errors like "unable to mount /system" and "unable to mount /cache"...
when I tried to reboot from TWRP or ClockwordMod Recovery (tried the earlier described things with both recovieres) I got a message saying
"there is no OS installed, are you sure you want to reboot?"
Please help me, I really dont know how to fix this and I will need my Nexus 7 in 2 days (thats why I tried to reinstall and polish everything )
thanks for your help, I really appreciate it
Edit: tl;dr
Stuck in fastboot, no OS is installed. sideload / installing ROM via ADB / installing ROM via usb-otg doenst work, most certainly because /system and /cache cant be mounted
so AFAIK the real problem is that I cant mount those partitions, otherwise I could install a ROM and get out of fastboot/recovery easily. (just mounting them in custom recoveries didnt work btw)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well . what you can try for now is download the latest factory images and flash them manually via fastboot .. See how that turns out. You can install any ROM via fastboot .. No issues what so ever.
In the factory images there will be a bootloader IMG.. Flash that first and then flash the remaining images ( I suggest manually or via the .bat or .sh files ) and then see if you can boot up android. Mostly should be possible.
And did you try rebooting inspire of the message " no is installed " appearing on the screen ? Maybe it will boot a ROM ? I remember facing this message after just flashing a rom sometimes. So don't worry.
As long as you have access too fast boot everything can be fixed at least w.r.t software.

Red Devil said:
Well . what you can try for now is download the latest factory images and flash them manually via fastboot .. See how that turns out. You can install any ROM via fastboot .. No issues what so ever.
In the factory images there will be a bootloader IMG.. Flash that first and then flash the remaining images ( I suggest manually or via the .bat or .sh files ) and then see if you can boot up android. Mostly should be possible.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It worked!!! Thank you so much.
Still wondering why it didnt flash the factory image as a whole while flashing every part step by step worked perfectly fine...
Red Devil said:
And did you try rebooting inspire of the message " no is installed " appearing on the screen ? Maybe it will boot a ROM ? I remember facing this message after just flashing a rom sometimes. So don't worry.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, tried booting, but the device just restarted and returned to fastboot mode.
many thanks again

help plz
this is where I am at as well how do you get out of this. kinda a noob at this so a step by step would be great thanks

Koodo I337M S4 Bricked?

I have a SGH-I337M S4 via Koodo in Canada. I've spent 15 hours on this so far and am now really confused.
History: I installed Cyanogenmod a couple years ago. Recently wanted to change from that so I decided to install stock first via SamMobile for SGH-I337M Koodo. I downloaded 5.0.1 from here sammobile
I had it installed fine and then went to root, so I used Odin, enabled USB debugging - and installed CF Auto Root. That worked.
Then I went to install Clockwork Recovery mod and it errored out and I don't recall exactly what happened but now I'm stuck with the yellow exclamation point saying "Firmware upgrade encountered an issue. Please select recovery mode in Kies & try again.
In the TOP LEFT of screen is says:
ODIN MODE
PRODUCT NAME: SGH-I337M
CURRENT BINARY: CUSTOM
SYSTEM STATUS: CUSTOM
KNOX KERNEL: LOCK: 0X0
KNOX WARRANTY VOID: 0X1
CSB-CONFIG-LSB: 0X30
SECURE DOWNLOAD: ENABLE
WRITE PROTECTION: ENABLE
eMMC BURST MODE: enabled
1) I tried to do emergency recovery through KIES but my phone isn't being recognized in Kies.
2) I uninstalled Samsung USB drivers and tried just KIES alone
3) I tried just USB drivers with flashing stock firmware via Odin in download mode - it errors out and says no partition found or says FAIL in red.
I've read a lot but i'm not that technical when it comes to this.. not sure what to do at this point. I can get into download mode but I can't get anything to work.
Is the phone ruined??

No, the phone is definitely not ruined.
Are you using the original Samsung USB cable that came with phone? Tried different USB ports? Tried different versions of Odin?
With the phone on the "encountered and error screen", connect the phone to Odin and try to flash.
If Odin can't pull the partition information, you'll need to flash stock with a lit file for the phone. Your phone has 16 gb of internal memory?

audit13 said:
No, the phone is definitely not ruined.
Are you using the original Samsung USB cable that came with phone? Tried different USB ports? Tried different versions of Odin?
With the phone on the "encountered and error screen", connect the phone to Odin and try to flash.
If Odin can't pull the partition information, you'll need to flash stock with a lit file for the phone. Your phone has 16 gb of internal memory?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi Audit,
Thank you for the reply. I was able to try the original USB cable now and loaded the stock Koodo firmware through Odin and it worked flawlessly. Once loaded and rebooted, it went right to the homescreen and skipped past all the normal setup stages, so I assume something on the phone was there already but just corrupted on a bad upgrade.
Never again using an older USB cable.
Whew, that was a learning lesson. Now I'd like to:
1) re-root again
2) Install custom recovery (clockwork?)
3) Install the marshmallow OS via Broken I believe.
I will keep the thread posted for others who need help and for my own reference.

Don't use cwm, use twrp and flash supersu via twrp to get toot. This has method has always worked with me. Also, I am sticking with twrp 2.8.7.1 for now as that is what works for me.
Root is not required to install a custom recovery or custom rom.
The data files were still on the phone because flashing with Odin doesn't normally overwrite the data partition.
I suggest using twrp to backup your phones efs partition and keep it safe in case it gets corrupted during a bad flash.
Alternatively, you could have flashed twrp from the error screen with Odin, performed a full wipe in twrp, and flashed the custom rom of your choice.

audit13 said:
Don't use cwm, use twrp and flash supersu via twrp to get toot. This has method has always worked with me. Also, I am sticking with twrp 2.8.7.1 for now as that is what works for me.
Root is not required to install a custom recovery or custom rom.
The data files were still on the phone because flashing with Odin doesn't normally overwrite the data partition.
I suggest using twrp to backup your phones efs partition and keep it safe in case it gets corrupted during a bad flash.
Alternatively, you could have flashed twrp from the error screen with Odin, performed a full wipe in twrp, and flashed the custom rom of your choice.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did not know that. I thought I required root first and then had to install a custom ROM. Interesting.
Ok, so the plan then is to find twrp for my phone model and install that first... I'll search and try to do that now.

Flash the tar version of twrp in Odin as that is the easiest way in my opinion.

audit13 said:
Flash the tar version of twrp in Odin as that is the easiest way in my opinion.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Done. I used the latest one for the tar and I have v2.8.4.0 right now. I held volume up and power and it went to Teamwin with a bunch of options. Install/wipe/backup/restore/mount/settings/advacned/reboot
On the TWRP website it says: "Note many devices will replace your custom recovery automatically during first boot. To prevent this, use Google to find the proper key combo to enter recovery. After typing fastboot reboot, hold the key combo and boot to TWRP. Once TWRP is booted, TWRP will patch the stock ROM to prevent the stock ROM from replacing TWRP. If you don't follow this step, you will have to repeat the install."
1) I'm not sure what it means by typing that. I'd like to keep TWRP as I install my custom rom. I have the custom rom on an external SD card along with GApps. Should I insert the sd card and then boot to recovery, wipe all data and install from zip on sd card? Is that correct?
2) How do I keep TWRP from not getting overwritten?
Thanks so much for the help. Really appreciate it after a weekend of terror.

I backed up the EFS portion and it wrote it to the internal storage of the phone I believe... data/TWRP something. I did not have my external card in when I did that. Is that the correct way and how would I access that backup if I needed to?
Sorry for the questions. Trying to learn without running in circles.
After I backed up the EFS it also asked me to install SuperSU and I did that - then it rebooted automatically.

If you flash twrp and then just boot the phone to the rom, the boot process will restore stock recovery. If you flash twrp, you need to boot into twrp before booting the stock room for the first time after flashing twrp.
Copy files to internal memory or sd card. If using an sd card, place card into the phone, boot to twrp, and flash.
If twrp doesn't detect root, it will try to root the phone for you. I always choose no so I can flash supersu.
Btw, upgrade to 2.8.7.1 as you may get errors because the recovery is too old.
While in twrp, connect the phone to the computer and use explorer to drag and drop the twrp backup files to your computer.

audit13 said:
If you flash twrp and then just boot the phone to the rom, the boot process will restore stock recovery. If you flash twrp, you need to boot into twrp before booting the stock room for the first time after flashing twrp.
Copy files to internal memory or sd card. If using an sd card, place card into the phone, boot to twrp, and flash.
If twrp doesn't detect root, it will try to root the phone for you. I always choose no so I can flash supersu.
Btw, upgrade to 2.8.7.1 as you may get errors because the recovery is too old.
While in twrp, connect the phone to the computer and use explorer to drag and drop the twrp backup files to your computer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not sure if I can post links due to the new account, but the latest files for me are found on dl.twrp.me/jfltecan/ and the only tar image is twrp-2.8.4.0-jfltecan.tar
I will have to go over your other comments on my own to see the functionality. As of now, this is what I have:
1) Stock firmware
2) TWRP installed
3) TWRP asked if I wanted to root (I said yes, figuring that's what you meant)
4) TWRP installed SuperSu and rebooted
5) I downloaded Root Checker and it verified root.
I did just test it by powering off phone and then booting into recovery. Teamwin came up - so I assume that it's all working correctly and the stock ROM did not overwrite anything?
Questions:
1) Now I can boot into recovery mode and install the custom ROM via a zip file on sdcard?
2) Do I install GApps via recovery mode after I install a custom ROM?
3) Should I wipe/format before installing and if so, which one - "Advanced" or "Format" buttons?

I did a factory reset via TWRP then installed the custom ROM. Seems to be working quite well. Maybe I will try it a couple times in order to get the hang of it.
In order to determine that TWRP is the default recovery - it should load when I go into recovery mode correct?

If the phone boots to twrp once, it should not revert to stock recovery in the future.

Is there a stable ROM for a S4 i337m that is newer? I'm having some trouble finding a solid list that is known to work. I don't want to install a wrong version and mess up. I did try the "broken" ROM but 50% of time when someone phones me, they can't hear me speaking so I'm going to have to go back to stock firmware for now.

You could try ROMs made for the 9505 and i337.

no bootloader(/fastboot) menu, rooted stock rom lolipop. cannot install custom rom

Hello,
I am having some problems since today i flashed the su binaries over my completely new lineageos install. (a14.4, fully wiped before).
it was stuck during boot at the android logo(let it boot for half an hour, multiple times, no progress). so naturally i wanted to boot to recovery, though it would not boot into recovery with any imaginable key combo.
so i went into bootloader mode (which, in my case, is jsut download mode, no fastboot whatsoever, and yes, i checked fastboot devices, (also adb), nothing to be found there)
next, knowing i had no other choide at that moment, i flashed a stock rom, via download mode. worked so far.
stock rom was running (ics), bootloader was still download mode only, and recovery was now stock android rec.
my next step was flashing a custom rom, since this was the most important thing to get to working then.
via adb sideload i fashed lineageos, once again. was working fine, so recovery next. but nothing worked.
included with lineageos is root access, so i enabled all the stuff, incl. adb, on my phone. but adb sideload always spit out errors (code 7 or 255) on rec install (twrp 2.8.something touch.zip) [some error about /tmp/update.zip] trying cwm resulted in the same thing, like did flashing gapps.
pushing the files to the internal memory (/sdcard) did not help, since 'flash from sdcard' resulted in an empty sdcard folder with no files to install (in recovery. in the file explorer while running the os, the files where there)
then i tried rashr (not sure exactly which app it was) to install rec. it said everything worked fine, trying to install cwm. so i rebooted
and nothing worked. the rom would not boot anymore (again, stuck at android logo) since the stock recovery only allows for adb access in form of sideload, no push whatsoever, and sideload did not let me install the os via zip, it was back to flashing a stock rom once again.
so i did that again (this time lolipop)
this is where i am now:
the rom boots perfectly, like does the kinda stock recovery, but again: no files in the sdcard path within the rec menu, though i pushed them there, and they appear there in the file manager.
i installed root, for those neat apps, that maybe one would work, but they need root and the stock rom does not know how to give those rights to apps, no option found for this whatsoever.
also, download mode is gone. (still no fastboot)
when i try to boot the bootloader, i just goes on to usual os boot (key combo and adb reboot bootloader result in the same thing)
recovery is still working, but pretty useless still. when i try to sideload a file, it quits with failed verification of the file. which is no surprise to me, since it shows the message halfway through the send process (observed from the adb terminal on my pc, never gets even close to 100% before the message appears on the phone which also cuts the connection therefore the file send process.)
i have absolutely no idea what the hell will get this working again. i dont really care about the download mode, but what i really need is a custom recovery to finally work, so i can install all of my stuff again.
does anyone have any idea on what i could try next?
hopefully yours,
azyrael

SOLVED
so i noticed for root apps i need to install supersu (or something like this) to give root access to apps if there is no native way within the rom to do this stuff.
install supersu and found out i somehow had no root access at all. tried ioroot etc, did not work
so i installed a stock jb android rom, rooted the device via ioroot, install recovery via autorec, and it finally worked!
this took me only two days.
thx xda for providing all of the tools i needed for this <3

kinda unsolved
so, it got recovery to work. installation of lineageos also worked perfectly., though this bricks my device.
no matter what i wipe, installing a custom rom will stop it from booting. this could only be fixed by installing a stock rom again, which also reverses root and install a stock recovery. since i only need root and the rec for installing a custom rom, which does not work anymore, i wont bother with this anymore. i have abosutely no idea whatsoever, and tried everything even barely coming to my mind.
still open for suggestions, but the stock rom will have to suffice for now.

Bricked but still have twrp

Hey guys,
so I tried flashing Omni 8.0 rom and I was stuck at the boot screen. so I went back into twrp tried to reflash still nothing. I flashed a new version of twrp the one that can use multirom and it erased all my data. I flashed back the twrp I started with and now I can not sideload the full OTA zip to get back to stock. It says "cannot load one.zip" which is what I have it labeled as. I tried to download the recovery tool and I can't seem to figure out how to get the driver to work so it will see me on my comm port. Does anyone have any ideas on what to do or what happened? I'm stuck in twrp.

almost looks like it can't mount the system

IDK, maybe a broken download. I'd try to restore a backup if you have one, if not Wipe > Factory Reset. If it still doesn't boot after 20 minutes, refer to this thread: https://forums.oneplus.net/threads/i-have-to-go-back-to-oxygen-os.649947/#post-16907420. Basically, download the OOS ROM onto your computer and use an ADB/USB Sideload in TWRP recovery (you can flash Oxygen Recovery from TWRP if TWRP doesn't work) to install it. May take a while to boot.

I have no idea how it happened but I got my system mounted again that was my problem. I'm back.
thread can be closed

keeganjk said:
IDK, maybe a broken download. I'd try to restore a backup if you have one, if not Wipe > Factory Reset. If it still doesn't boot after 20 minutes, refer to this thread: https://forums.oneplus.net/threads/i-have-to-go-back-to-oxygen-os.649947/#post-16907420. Basically, download the OOS ROM onto your computer and use an ADB/USB Sideload in TWRP recovery (you can flash Oxygen Recovery from TWRP if TWRP doesn't work) to install it. May take a while to boot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks for the reply mate

snipeez1987 said:
thanks for the reply mate
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yw

snipeez1987 said:
Hey guys,
so I tried flashing Omni 8.0 rom and I was stuck at the boot screen. so I went back into twrp tried to reflash still nothing. I flashed a new version of twrp the one that can use multirom and it erased all my data. I flashed back the twrp I started with and now I can not sideload the full OTA zip to get back to stock. It says "cannot load one.zip" which is what I have it labeled as. I tried to download the recovery tool and I can't seem to figure out how to get the driver to work so it will see me on my comm port. Does anyone have any ideas on what to do or what happened? I'm stuck in twrp.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Easy fix for "Cannot load xxx.rom": you have to patch the adb.exe with a large address awareness program. Google it, I found one in another XDA thread.
Reason: the ROM filesize is too large. For small ROMs (like custom ROMs) adb would recognise it without any problems.

ipredatorv said:
Easy fix for "Cannot load xxx.rom": you have to patch the adb.exe with a large address awareness program. Google it, I found one in another XDA thread.
Reason: the ROM filesize is too large. For small ROMs (like custom ROMs) adb would recognise it without any problems.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Awesome. I'll keep that in mind. I'm sure I'll mess it up again lol. Hopefully not though.

Tried doing a clean flash of latest OOS from official post, big issues happened.

I need help.
So I tried doing a clean flash, didn't work.
I was stuck at the loading screen when booting the phone.
I was previously on latest OOS 4.X.X with Magisk and TWRP.
Somehow, my OP5 was now back on stock recovery.
I just installed TWRP back again (blu's).
Everything is encrypted (in /sdcard/). I can't seem to transfer files to my cellphone, either through
HTML:
adb push
or manually dragging and dropping files from Windows 10.
TWRP doesn't ask me for my previous PIN, and I can't seem to tranfer files... any way I can gain access/install a rom again ?
At worst if I could find a way to push my TWRP backup and recover everything....
Can I flash a ROM that's on my PC without pushing it on the cellphone ?
Any help is greatly welcome and appreciated. Thanks for your help in advance guys.
EDIT: I've wiped everything and was able to tranfer and flash the latest ROM, then flashed TWRP again without rebooting.
Upon system boot, the welcome screen showed up, but android.com.phone kept crashing and after a while a factory reset happened.
I just pushed TWRP back again and I'm kind of wondering what to do now...
EDIT2: Flashed OOS 5.0.0, then realized 5.0.1 was out. I relocked the bootloader and did the OTA update since it was a clean, not rooted install. Working good... now I need to root it again.