Need Major Help - Nook Color Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I have been trying for a week now to restore a nook color back to stock with no avail. When I started there was no boot image or stock recovery and it would only boot from a CWR sd card but not mount or read the sd card to install any zip files Now i have it booting with the stock boot image but only to the "n" screen and no further. I have tried the factory recovery and reset but get nothing. I have a PC with a working ADB install but am unable to "push" the system.img to the sd card or anywhere for that matter and then dd it to the correct block on the internal memory. I am also unable to boot CM7 from the sd card because it freezes during the install. So basically what I'm asking for, is help fixing this darn thing cause I'm tired of it kicking my ass. thank you in advance for the info.

Sounds like your emmc partitions are messed up. Go to my partition repair thread linked in my signature. But if you cannot flash any zips, my repairs will not work. Try using my CWM bootable card from my tips thread also linked in my signature. Put the repair zips on the boot card before you boot.
Sent from my Nook Color running ParanoidAndroid and Tapatalk

leapinlar said:
Sounds like your emmc partitions are messed up. Go to my partition repair thread linked in my signature. But if you cannot flash any zips, my repairs will not work. Try using my CWM bootable card from my tips thread also linked in my signature. Put the repair zips on the boot card before you boot.
Sent from my Nook Color running ParanoidAndroid and Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I will try both when i get home from work and let you know how it works. Thanks.

steve_o2291 said:
I will try both when i get home from work and let you know how it works. Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ok so after reading your links i have tried both of those methods already and neither of them works. I am beginning to wonder if i don't just have a group of six bad sd cards. They will boot CWR and begin the install of CM7 but thats as far as they get. I have tried everything I can find on forums and nothing works so far. If i could just get the system.img pushed with adb then i think that would get it but it just won't work.
I have also read about the system not loading if the serial number is not on it but I have done some file searching and found that it is in place so i don't think thats the prob. If you could think of anything different that would be awesome but I think I'm about to the point of having to bring it to B&N for service or just replace it.
Is there a place i could put the system image for the factory reset to take care of the install on its own.

steve_o2291 said:
Is there a place i could put the system image for the factory reset to take care of the install on its own.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Go to my tips thread and I have a new section about 8 failed boots. But you need the stock recovery on /boot for it to work. I know you cannot flash my stock recovery zip, but you could open the zip and extract the uRecImg and uRecRam and push them with adb to /boot (mount /dev/block/mmcblk0p1 as /boot first). Then follow my guide on how to do the 8 failed boots. That should wipe your device (including media) and install the original stock on your system.

leapinlar said:
Go to my tips thread and I have a new section about 8 failed boots. But you need the stock recovery on /boot for it to work. I know you cannot flash my stock recovery zip, but you could open the zip and extract the uRecImg and uRecRam and push them with adb to /boot (mount /dev/block/mmcblk0p1 as /boot first). Then follow my guide on how to do the 8 failed boots. That should wipe your device (including media) and install the original stock on your system.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ive already got the stock recovery on /boot but 8 failed boots still does nothing because i have system.img for it to recover. I have all the partitions formatted the way they are supposed to be with fdisk but i still can't push the system.img to sdcard because it can't find it and if i try to put it on the nook i either get a protocol error or not enough room on the device error.

steve_o2291 said:
Ive already got the stock recovery on /boot but 8 failed boots still does nothing because i have system.img for it to recover.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't understand what you mean, you 'have system.img for it to recover'. The 8 failed boot uses factory.zip in partition 3 and if it enters the process (via stock recovery), it clears data and flashes that.

leapinlar said:
I don't understand what you mean, you 'have system.img for it to recover'. The 8 failed boot uses factory.zip in partition 3 and if it enters the process (via stock recovery), it clears data and flashes that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I didn't realize i had to have facotry.zip on p3. I am going to try to dd it there and see what it does from there
Ok just tried like that and still get the install failed screen.

steve_o2291 said:
I didn't realize i had to have facotry.zip on p3. I am going to try to dd it there and see what it does from there
Ok just tried like that and still get the install failed screen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Where did you get your factory.zip? Did you just rename a stock zip? It looks the same but I'm not sure everything is. When it says install failed, did the recovery start and fail or did it say that right off? Are you sure the recovery you used is the real stock recovery? You cannot just remove kernel-recovery and ramdisk-recovery from the stock zip and push those as uRecImg and uRecRam. Those get patched as the rom installs. Take the ones from my zip and push them. They are the patched versions.
You say you dd it but I hope you mean push to the mounted partition.

leapinlar said:
Where did you get your factory.zip? Did you just rename a stock zip? It looks the same but I'm not sure everything is. When it says install failed, did the recovery start and fail or did it say that right off? Are you sure the recovery you used is the real stock recovery? You cannot just remove kernel-recovery and ramdisk-recovery from the stock zip and push those as uRecImg and uRecRam. Those get patched as the rom installs. Take the ones from my zip and push them. They are the patched versions.
You say you dd it but I hope you mean push to the mounted partition.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am unable to mount /dev/block/mmcblk0p1 in shell with a /boot directory. gives me a "Device or resource busy". so i just pushed the recovery files to /boot with
"adb push XXXX /boot"
and yes the recovery starts to load then fails
If i do
adb mount /boot
I get the help menu for a wrong entry
and i used the files from your download for the factory recovery

steve_o2291 said:
I am unable to mount /dev/block/mmcblk0p1 in shell with a /boot directory. gives me a "Device or resource busy". so i just pushed the recovery files to /boot with
"adb push XXXX /boot"
and yes the recovery starts to load then fails
If i do
adb mount /boot
I get the help menu for a wrong entry
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Boot must already be mounted by CWM.
Just do an 'adb mount' command and it will tell you the things already mounted.
As for dd'ing the system.img to p5, can't you just dd it with adb from your PC?
And the factory.zip? You pushed that to p3?

leapinlar said:
Boot must already be mounted by CWM.
Just do an 'adb mount' command and it will tell you the things already mounted.
As for dd'ing the system.img to p5, can't you just dd it with adb from your PC?
And the factory.zip? You pushed that to p3?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes i pushed factory.zip to p3
as for dd'ing system.img to p5 with adb i have to do dd with a shell command and i errors out when i try to push it data so i can't dd it to p5
this would be a lot easier if the damn sd card would work. I have no clue why it isn't because it worked fine until it crashed

Try formatting the SD with an SD formatting program (in a USB card reader, not your PC's internal slot). Sometimes SDs formatted with PCs are not readable in the nook. Search the net for one.

leapinlar said:
Try formatting the SD with an SD formatting program (in a USB card reader, not your PC's internal slot). Sometimes SDs formatted with PCs are not readable in the nook. Search the net for one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Already did that several times with multiple cards on different machines. One with windows the other a mac

One final suggestion. Use my CWM SD (version 5.5.0.4) since it has the option of flashing things from internal memory.
Do an 'adb mount' to verify that p8 is mounted. If it isn't, mount it. Then push the zips that you want to flash there. Then the new CWM can flash from there.

Tried that just now and 5.5.0.4 tells me no zip found. I guess this is something that'll have to be done by a professional. After a week of trying and trying again I don't think Im going to be able to do it because I've tried everything i can find on the net and nothing works except for get the factory boot image back in place and getting the factory recovery to start but won't install anything. The factory reset also starts and erases all data but won't still only boots to the "n" screen. thanks for the help

Related

Stuck at G1 Splash (Help Please)

As a disclaimer, I have already searched and found some people with the same issue. What I haven't found is someone that arrived at this problem in the same way I did. I am scared ****less of bricking my phone (and hope I haven't already). So at this point, I am looking for some help to figure out my best course of action.
I recently updated to JF1.5 using his updater app, and everything worked. Today when I received my new SDcard, I started the process to get apps on my SD following this tutorial: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=512743
I got as far as partitioning my card using the Apps2SD application as described, doing everything the tutorial says. I began the partition on my phone, and let it sit.....and sit, and sit. It sat frozen on the partitioning screen (the one with the slider to select the size) for almost an hour before i pulled the battery. I selected 1444mb for the ext2 after reading that it was not a good idea to go higher than 1500mb.
Now, as stated the phone boots to the G1 splash and goes nowhere. I am however still able to boot in recovery mode using Home+Power. Interestingly, it says at the top:
"Android system recovery utility
Build: JFv1.42"
Not sure if this means that 1.5 didn't install correctly or what, but that's what it says.
I have no idea what to do at this point, and am scared to go on without some candid advice. Sorry for the noobishness of my description - if there is anything else needed to give accurate advice please let me know. Also thanks in advance for any help I can get!
Same thing happened to me, you have to reflash. I tried using that method and it never worked for me, although I already had the partition. So reflash jf 1.51 and you are golden. BTW that text you see in recovery is the recovery image version, until you switch to another it will say that.
meoshe said:
Same thing happened to me, you have to reflash. I tried using that method and it never worked for me, although I already had the partition. So reflash jf 1.51 and you are golden. BTW that text you see in recovery is the recovery image version, until you switch to another it will say that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the response. I'll have to find a way to get that image onto my SD card. I just bought a 16BG card and that was the card I was using when I ran into this problem.....oh wait a sec....
I'm assuming that the JF1.51 update.zip will still be on my old 1GB card from when I updated to JF1.51 via his updater app last week? If so then my life will be a lot easier, and I'll just swap back to that card, boot up in Recovery, flash from update.zip, and that should be it?
Just want to make sure before I put that old card back in and try to flash....
try wiping before you update? Also to mount your SDcard (if you need to) press alt-x in recovery (or in adb shell) and type
Code:
echo /dev/blockl/mmdblk0 > /sys/devices/platform/usb_mass_storage/lun0/file
x2 that's what i had to do since my computer stopped reading sd cards.
Wipe then update.
I'd also recommend using CMv3.4 because the apps2sd is automated. It runs a2sd by itself
And with Cyanogen Recovery v1.2 you can move apps to sd card
First off, just want to thank everyone for the help. I successfully reflashed with jf1.51, but now I can't seem to sign in. I'm on the welcome screen, skipped the tutorial, entered my Gmail account and it sits for awhile trying to contact the server and then says there's a problem with the service or my sim card.
I know my sim card is provisioned for data, so not sure what's happening here...any ideas?
EDIT: Forgot I had to enter the Rogers APN settings, trying that now (Duhhh)
Abolfazl said:
Wipe then update.
I'd also recommend using CMv3.4 because the apps2sd is automated. It runs a2sd by itself
And with Cyanogen Recovery v1.2 you can move apps to sd card
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm interested in this Cyanogen stuff, but no idea where to start. Any good tutorials? I was following this scene for awhile but kinda lost touch a few months ago - turns out there's been lots of developments.
t3mp3st said:
First off, just want to thank everyone for the help. I successfully reflashed with jf1.51, but now I can't seem to sign in. I'm on the welcome screen, skipped the tutorial, entered my Gmail account and it sits for awhile trying to contact the server and then says there's a problem with the service or my sim card.
I know my sim card is provisioned for data, so not sure what's happening here...any ideas?
EDIT: Forgot I had to enter the Rogers APN settings, trying that now (Duhhh)
I'm interested in this Cyanogen stuff, but no idea where to start. Any good tutorials? I was following this scene for awhile but kinda lost touch a few months ago - turns out there's been lots of developments.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is pretty cut and dry. Cyanogen's Mod unleashes the G1 to its max. Apps2sd is automated and is working before you can even turn your phone on.
CMv3.4
CM Recovery v1.2
Abolfazl said:
It is pretty cut and dry. Cyanogen's Mod unleashes the G1 to its max. Apps2sd is automated and is working before you can even turn your phone on.
CMv3.4
CM Recovery v1.2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cool, I guess I'll try it out now before trying to restore everything. I don't see a tutorial for it though, or am I to just follow the previous "How to root" tutorial and just use his image as the update.zip?
t3mp3st said:
Cool, I guess I'll try it out now before trying to restore everything. I don't see a tutorial for it though, or am I to just follow the previous "How to root" tutorial and just use his image as the update.zip?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
no no no! just rename CM3.4 to update.zip, enter recovery (Home+power) wipe (alt+w) and flash (alt+s) after it says installation successful, reboot (Home+back)
you might also want to download his recovery image 1.2 like suggested in the posts above me
place the recovery image on your sdcard, do not rename it and do
Code:
flash_image recovery /sdcard/cm-recovery-1.2.img
alritewhadeva said:
no no no! just rename CM3.4 to update.zip, enter recovery (Home+power) wipe (alt+w) and flash (alt+s) after it says installation successful, reboot (Home+back)
you might also want to download his recovery image 1.2 like suggested in the posts above me
place the recovery image on your sdcard, do not rename it and do
Code:
flash_image recovery /sdcard/cm-recovery-1.2.img
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks a lot, going to try that now with my 16GB card. And just to be clear (last questions in this thread, I PROMISE!), I should flash with CM3.4 and THEN install the recovery image, or vice versa?
Also, with CM3.4, will I have to go through to steps again to try to partition my card (which is where i ran into the problem from post #1), or is there some automatic process built into his super-de-duper ROM?
Thanks again to all for the speedy responses!!
t3mp3st said:
Thanks a lot, going to try that now with my 16GB card. And just to be clear (last questions in this thread, I PROMISE!), I should flash with CM3.4 and THEN install the recovery image, or vice versa?
Also, with CM3.4, will I have to go through to steps again to try to partition my card (which is where i ran into the problem from post #1), or is there some automatic process built into his super-de-duper ROM?
Thanks again to all for the speedy responses!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't worry asking questions is good as long as they are intelligent. You should flash CM3.4 and then the recovery image, as that is what i did. However, i don't think it really matters. To be safe, flash CM3.4 and then the recovery image.
And to your question pertaining to partitioning your SDcard, you can try MarcusMaximus' Apps2SD2 app which formats the card for you here
Unzip it to your sdcard and install it using ASTRO file manager or some other file manager.
If you have adb working,
Code:
adb install AppstoSD2.apk
if you have other questions you can always contact me on AIM- roflzbrianxdd
alritewhadeva said:
Don't worry asking questions is good as long as they are intelligent. You should flash CM3.4 and then the recovery image, as that is what i did. However, i don't think it really matters. To be safe, flash CM3.4 and then the recovery image.
And to your question pertaining to partitioning your SDcard, you can try MarcusMaximus' Apps2SD2 app which formats the card for you here
Unzip it to your sdcard and install it using ASTRO file manager or some other file manager.
If you have adb working,
Code:
adb install AppstoSD2.apk
if you have other questions you can always contact me on AIM- roflzbrianxdd
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks a ton, I'll get to this right after i finish this delicious sub! I'll also add you so I can IM if i have any more questions..
t3mp3st said:
Thanks a ton, I'll get to this right after i finish this delicious sub! I'll also add you so I can IM if i have any more questions..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cool, Best of Luck with the flashing
alritewhadeva said:
no no no! just rename CM3.4 to update.zip, enter recovery (Home+power) wipe (alt+w) and flash (alt+s) after it says installation successful, reboot (Home+back)
you might also want to download his recovery image 1.2 like suggested in the posts above me
place the recovery image on your sdcard, do not rename it and do
Code:
flash_image recovery /sdcard/cm-recovery-1.2.img
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Alright...I successfully partitioned my card, flashed with CM 3.4, but now when I try this instruction to install the new recovery, i get this error msg in Terminal:
error writing recovery: Permission denied
Any ideas?
You have to enter su before the code..
Code:
su
then
Code:
flash_image recovery /sdcard/cm-recovery-1.2.img
meoshe said:
You have to enter su before the code..
Code:
su
then
Code:
flash_image recovery /sdcard/cm-recovery-1.2.img
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did not enter the su, I will try that now thanks. In the mean time I also performed this step:
13. My /system/sd is read only and/or didn't upgrade to ext3!
Your filesystem is probably corrupt. Boot into recovery and open a console. Run "mount /system" then "/system/bin/e2fsck /dev/block/mmcblk0p2" and fix your filesystem. Reboot.
from: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=518851
So I hope that didn't hurt anything...ill try with the su now. Thanks!
edit: out of curiosity, what does the "su" stand for? I feel if I know this it may help me to remember to enter it before any commands.
edit #2: does it stand for "Super User" to allow super user permissions? I gathered this after entering SU prompted me to allow superuser access
New recovery.img successfully installed! Thanks again to everyone that helped me with this.
I know I can transfer apps to SD easily from recovery now, but is there also a similar way to do it from the phone (or do they install to the SDcard by default now?)
Hey T3MP3ST... how did it go with upgrade to cm3.4
I had the same problem as you mentioned start of the post....
(stuck at g1, after partition).
this cm3.4 sounds like the solution for me to have apps2sd..
as it is in the ROM automatically, if i understood correctly.
dynamisoz said:
Hey T3MP3ST... how did it go with upgrade to cm3.4
I had the same problem as you mentioned start of the post....
(stuck at g1, after partition).
this cm3.4 sounds like the solution for me to have apps2sd..
as it is in the ROM automatically, if i understood correctly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey there, with the help from everyone in this thread, along with the partitioning instructions using Ubuntu (if you still need to partition your card) from tubaking182 found here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=523648, It was great.
I just finished flashing with that ROM and then installing CM's recovery image (which is AWESOME...trackball selection, Apps2SD in one click)
I HIGHLY recommend it. If you have any problems, I'm sure you'll find most of the answers in this thread. If not, try PMing one of the helpful respondents, or I may be of SOME help with some minor questions or assurances.

[Q] Can only boot to CWM

I updated to the 7.2 RC Kang via CWM, but now my Nook will only boot to CWM. I was already on a 7.2 beta and working fine. Flashed the newest release, cleared cache and dalvik, now all it will do is boot to CWM.
I have taken the SD card right out and its doing the same thing. I have the Cyanogen boot loader on there (shows Cy logo instead of "The Future...").
Appreciate any guidance.
bluevolume said:
I updated to the 7.2 RC Kang via CWM, but now my Nook will only boot to CWM. I was already on a 7.2 beta and working fine. Flashed the newest release, cleared cache and dalvik, now all it will do is boot to CWM.
I have taken the SD card right out and its doing the same thing. I have the Cyanogen boot loader on there (shows Cy logo instead of "The Future...").
Appreciate any guidance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If it is booting to CWM recovery and not locking up, that means the 'boot to recovery' flag is set and is not clearing when you leave CWM like it should. Try doing some things in CWM before you exit, like wiping cache or something. And when you exit, exit by the menu, not just powering off.
You can also try using the boot menu to try to force you to emmc. Hold the n button while booting and when the boot menu comes up, pick emmc and normal and reboot.
Edit: You say you take the SD out and it does the same. Why would you expect it to be different? Are you running from SD? If so you should not be flashing things with CWM, that puts things on emmc. Or did you mean you take the bootable CWM SD out? You should always take that out after flashing to emmc. And if your already running CM7 from emmc, you should be flashing with the CWM on emmc, not a bootable CWM SD. I'm confused as to what you were doing and what your configuration was.
Sent from my Nook Color running ICS and Tapatalk
leapinlar said:
If it is booting to CWM recovery and not locking up, that means the 'boot to recovery' flag is set and is not clearing when you leave CWM like it should. Try doing some things in CWM before you exit, like wiping cache or something. And when you exit, exit by the menu, not just powering off.
You can also try using the boot menu to try to force you to emmc. Hold the n button while booting and when the boot menu comes up, pick emmc and normal and reboot.
Edit: You say you take the SD out and it does the same. Why would you expect it to be different? Are you running from SD? If so you should not be flashing things with CWM, that puts things on emmc. Or did you mean you take the bootable CWM SD out? You should always take that out after flashing to emmc. And if your already running CM7 from emmc, you should be flashing with the CWM on emmc, not a bootable CWM SD. I'm confused as to what you were doing and what your configuration was.
Sent from my Nook Color running ICS and Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I took the SD card out as someone had suggested that in the ROM thread. No, it doesn't make sense that if would just start booting from the SD card when it wasn't before, but it eliminated a variable.
I have gone into the boot menu and checked that it is booting from emmc. I've even changed it to SD and back just to make sure it took.
bluevolume said:
I took the SD card out as someone had suggested that in the ROM thread. No, it doesn't make sense that if would just start booting from the SD card when it wasn't before, but it eliminated a variable.
I have gone into the boot menu and checked that it is booting from emmc. I've even changed it to SD and back just to make sure it took.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Then it is the set flag issue I mentioned in the first part of my post. Not sure how to get it cleared. Just exercising CWM? Try flashing something else. Gapps again maybe. It won't hurt to flash them twice.
Edit: btw, what version of CWM are you running?
Sent from my Nook Color running ICS and Tapatalk
CWM v3.2.0.1
I installed gapps again, same problem. Gremlins!
I had this problem, but the only way I found to fix it was to flash a stock recovery zip from CWM recovery SD card, then CM7 again
cmendonc2 said:
I had this problem, but the only way I found to fix it was to flash a stock recovery zip from CWM recovery SD card, then CM7 again
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But in his case it is not locking up. It is cleanly rebooting to CWM. A little different scenario than yours.
leapinlar said:
But in his case it is not locking up. It is cleanly rebooting to CWM. A little different scenario than yours.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How could it reboot into CwM if there is no flashable CwM uSD installed, where those "Rec" files reside?
Did you some how flash CwM into eMMC before, OP?
votinh said:
How could it reboot into CwM if there is no flashable CwM uSD installed, where those "Rec" files reside?
Did you some how flash CwM into eMMC before, OP?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, I've had CWM flashed into the emmc for a while. So I could use the boot menu utility to boot to CWM if needed.
BTW - this is the ROM i'm using: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1344873
votinh said:
How could it reboot into CwM if there is no flashable CwM uSD installed, where those "Rec" files reside?
Did you some how flash CwM into eMMC before, OP?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
He is on emmc. He had a CM version on earlier and used ROM Manager to put CWM on the emmc boot partition. This problem only emerged when he flashed the newest CM to emmc from ROM Manager with the CWM on emmc. He now only boots to CWM and it is loaded from emmc boot. It is a flag set problem. The boot loader is telling it to go to recovery instead of normal ROM. That flag is set by ROM Manager when it wants CWM to perform a task for it. Like flash a ROM. That is how the boot loader knows to boot to recovery rather than the ROM. CWM is supposed to reset that flag when it has finished the task that ROM Manager asked it to do. Somehow it is not being reset.
Edit: @bluevolume - a possible solution is to make a bootable CWM SD and boot to that. That may reset the flag when it exits.
Edit 2: I found where the recovery flag is stored on the nook. There is a separate partition (2) called /rom that stores basic information like your model number, date of manufacture, serial number, etc. Also there is a file named BCB which is usually an empty file. But if the word 'recovery' is written there properly, it will always boot into recovery. Recovery is supposed to write the empty file back when finished so that on next boot it boots normally to emmc. I'm not sure how much good this information is going to do you, but if you are proficient with adb, you can modify the file even if in recovery.
leapinlar said:
He is on emmc. He had a CM version on earlier and used ROM Manager to put CWM on the emmc boot partition. This problem only emerged when he flashed the newest CM to emmc from ROM Manager with the CWM on emmc. He now only boots to CWM and it is loaded from emmc boot. It is a flag set problem. The boot loader is telling it to go to recovery instead of normal ROM. That flag is set by ROM Manager when it wants CWM to perform a task for it. Like flash a ROM. That is how the boot loader knows to boot to recovery rather than the ROM. CWM is supposed to reset that flag when it has finished the task that ROM Manager asked it to do. Somehow it is not being reset.
Edit: @bluevolume - a possible solution is to make a bootable CWM SD and boot to that. That may reset the flag when it exits.
Edit 2: I found where the recovery flag is stored on the nook. There is a separate partition (2) called /rom that stores basic information like your model number, date of manufacture, serial number, etc. Also there is a file named BCB which is usually an empty file. But if the word 'recovery' is written there properly, it will always boot into recovery. Recovery is supposed to write the empty file back when finished so that on next boot it boots normally to emmc. I'm not sure how much good this information is going to do you, but if you are proficient with adb, you can modify the file even if in recovery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is good info, thank you. I have not been able to get ADB working in the past (i'm on Win 7 64); I think its a driver issue. I'll revisit that later today.
bluevolume said:
That is good info, thank you. I have not been able to get ADB working in the past (i'm on Win 7 64); I think its a driver issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you can get adb working in CWM, this is what you want to do in at the dos prompt, one line at a time:
adb shell mount -t vfat /dev/block/mmcblk0p2 /rom
adb shell dd if=/dev/zero of=/rom/bcb bs=512 count=1
adb shell reboot
Edit: if you want help getting adb working this post may help:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=21665649
Edit2: I've been doing a lot of experimenting. It is not what's in the bcb file. It's what the file size is. If the file size is 512 bytes or larger it will boot to normal emmc. If it is smaller than 512 bytes or MISSING, it will boot to recovery. It could be yours is missing. But recovery is supposed to create a new big one if it is. Could be a permissions problem. If you get adb going you can fix that.
On a side note I was thinking it could be corrupted boot files causing this, but I purposely messed with them and it does not boot into recovery, it just hangs.
leapinlar said:
If you can get adb working in CWM, this is what you want to do in at the dos prompt, one line at a time:
adb shell mount -t vfat /dev/block/mmcblk0p2 /rom
adb shell dd if=/dev/zero of=/rom/bcb bs=512 count=1
adb shell reboot
Edit: if you want help getting adb working this post may help:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=21665649
Edit2: I've been doing a lot of experimenting. It is not what's in the bcb file. It's what the file size is. If the file size is 512 bytes or larger it will boot to normal emmc. If it is smaller than 512 bytes or MISSING, it will boot to recovery. It could be yours is missing. But recovery is supposed to create a new big one if it is. Could be a permissions problem. If you get adb going you can fix that.
On a side note I was thinking it could be corrupted boot files causing this, but I purposely messed with them and it does not boot into recovery, it just hangs.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Let me first thank you for your time and support on this; its people like you that make these forums such a great resource.
I'm not that comfortable with adb commands so I starting looking for other solutions. Since you mentioned that its the actual boot files that are missing/corrupted, I searched around and found this:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=958748
I loaded the RecoveryFix.zip on my SD card and flashed it with CWM. Rebooted, and I was back to the 'Future of reading..." boot logo, but it still went straight to CWM. So I flashed the ROM again (the ROM I listed earlier in the thread), wiped cache, fixed permissions. Rebooted, and the "Cyanogenmod" boot logo was back. And instead of going right to CWM, the screen was blank for quite a while then I saw the little Android guy skate by... And I'm back in business.
I know other people have had this problem and this seems like a pretty simple solution. I'm good at this point, and hopefully some other people will find this thread helpful.
bluevolume said:
Let me first thank you for your time and support on this; its people like you that make these forums such a great resource.
I know other people have had this problem and this seems like a pretty simple solution. I'm good at this point, and hopefully some other people will find this thread helpful.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The next step I was going suggest if you could not fix it was to flash a new CWM to your boot files. Good job finding that.
Glad you got it running. I learned a lot myself and maybe that info will help others.
Sent from my Nook Color running ICS and Tapatalk
leapinlar said:
He is on emmc. He had a CM version on earlier and used ROM Manager to put CWM on the emmc boot partition. This problem only emerged when he flashed the newest CM to emmc from ROM Manager with the CWM on emmc. He now only boots to CWM and it is loaded from emmc boot. It is a flag set problem. The boot loader is telling it to go to recovery instead of normal ROM. That flag is set by ROM Manager when it wants CWM to perform a task for it. Like flash a ROM. That is how the boot loader knows to boot to recovery rather than the ROM. CWM is supposed to reset that flag when it has finished the task that ROM Manager asked it to do. Somehow it is not being reset.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Got it, thanks m8
That clears up my mind.
I had the same problem, followed the thread you found. Did the same thing, now I'm back in business too. Thanks!
Just wanted to say thanks for figuring this out! I was in a similar situation after downgrading from cm9 back to cm7. Installed CWM using recoveryfix_3.0.2.8.zip from the thread above, and was back up and running after a restore of a cwm backup. Headed on vacation tomorrow and the wife would have had my head for being such an FW... you're a lifesaver!

Broke my Q trying to install CM10

Initially tried to 'fastboot flash' the steelhead CWM, but when trying to enter the bootloader at startup, I'd get nothing.
Moved on to just using 'fastboot boot steelhead.img'. Pushed the latest CM10 and gapps. Think I did a factory reset, and cleared dalvik cache, then installed the CM from sdcard. Seemed to install good, upon reboot, all I got was the Cyanogenmod logo and a fuzzy screen.
This is where I get careless.
Instead of instantly reverting to the nandroid I have, I pushed the Quantum Singularity files to the sdcard, factory reset, wipe cache, installed it from zip. No boot. Back into cwm, tried again, but this time I formatted something that I'm not sure of.
I can fastboot into the recovery, but it can't read the sdcard or mount it. Errors on the bottom are all related to 'Can't mount /cache/recovery/' as well as 'cant mount sdcard'.
If I run shell and then 'ls' it shows the sdcard directory, but won't let me do anything to it, keeps forcing me to /data/media/.
I tried OneClickRestore, but it loads the spinning orb on the screen and just sits there.
I have these files still but not sure what to do with them;
boot.img
cache.ext4.tar
nandroid.md5
recovery.img
system.ext4.tar
Tried to fastboot boot recovery.img, but it says its too large.
I will continue to try and straighten out my situation, but any kind words would be much appreciated to give me a shortcut.
EDIT
Found a way (I think) to scan the partitions. Still trying to understand, but I think I need to repartition the sdcard (block 13?) See attached pic.
HomeR365 said:
Initially tried to 'fastboot flash' the steelhead CWM, but when trying to enter the bootloader at startup, I'd get nothing.
Moved on to just using 'fastboot boot steelhead.img'. Pushed the latest CM10 and gapps. Think I did a factory reset, and cleared dalvik cache, then installed the CM from sdcard. Seemed to install good, upon reboot, all I got was the Cyanogenmod logo and a fuzzy screen.
This is where I get careless.
Instead of instantly reverting to the nandroid I have, I pushed the Quantum Singularity files to the sdcard, factory reset, wipe cache, installed it from zip. No boot. Back into cwm, tried again, but this time I formatted something that I'm not sure of.
I can fastboot into the recovery, but it can't read the sdcard or mount it. Errors on the bottom are all related to 'Can't mount /cache/recovery/' as well as 'cant mount sdcard'.
If I run shell and then 'ls' it shows the sdcard directory, but won't let me do anything to it, keeps forcing me to /data/media/.
I tried OneClickRestore, but it loads the spinning orb on the screen and just sits there.
I have these files still but not sure what to do with them;
boot.img
cache.ext4.tar
nandroid.md5
recovery.img
system.ext4.tar
Tried to fastboot boot recovery.img, but it says its too large.
I will continue to try and straighten out my situation, but any kind words would be much appreciated to give me a shortcut.
EDIT
Found a way (I think) to scan the partitions. Still trying to understand, but I think I need to repartition the sdcard (block 13?) See attached pic.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interestingly that fuzzy thing appears to be the cyanogen logo still, just without horizontal sync. Maybe your tv though it was some form of progressive scan? You have the stuff to flash directly to the processor? omapflash?
animal24 said:
Interestingly that fuzzy thing appears to be the cyanogen logo still, just without horizontal sync. Maybe your tv though it was some form of progressive scan? You have the stuff to flash directly to the processor? omapflash?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your reply. You may be right about the progressive scanning, although I never had any issues before. As for the OMAP thing, I don't think I'm that deep into it yet. I still can access the bootloader, and some what function. I think I can reset the partitions straight from ADB.
I still have these Nandroid backup files that I'm sure could help out, but i think I will need to flash them with Odin, just not sure how.
http://omappedia.org/wiki/Omapboot
Found this when searching for how to create a partition on an omap
animal24 said:
http://omappedia.org/wiki/Omapboot
Found this when searching for how to create a partition on an omap
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if you use ./flash-all.sh it will recreate your partitions from scratch, I just did that to my Q. I think the latest CM10.1 nightlies are not booting properly, I've already tried 3 nightlies and none works. flash-all will return your Q to working order as long as you have access to fastboot.
https://developers.google.com/android/nexus/images#tungsten
trschober said:
if you use ./flash-all.sh it will recreate your partitions from scratch, I just did that to my Q. I think the latest CM10.1 nightlies are not booting properly, I've already tried 3 nightlies and none works. flash-all will return your Q to working order as long as you have access to fastboot.
https://developers.google.com/android/nexus/images#tungsten
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok thanks, I seem to have somewhat recovered back to stock. Manually flashed all those files through fastboot one at a time worked the best.
The battle continues, when I try to do a backup in CWM, I get 'SD Card Space Free 15MB' to which it tries to backup then fails.
The battle continues!
updated adb incase anyone needs it

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.

Trouble Permanently Flashing TWRP

Hi,
I'm currently using the Skipsoft Android Toolkit to unlock flash TWRP onto my device. I've followed to first steps (install drivers, backup device and unlock bootloader) to the letter and everything went smooth.
Now the final part of installing TWRP is not going so well. Flashing the custom recovery works as expected and I end up in the TWRP menu. However, as soon as I reboot my phone and try to go back to the recovery via Advanced Reboot --> recovery, I end up in the default One Plus Recovery Menu. Now the tool mentioneds when this process fails, renaming the Recovery Restore Files is recommend to prevent the system from flashing the stock recovery on boot (what happens to my device). I follow this option in which I end up back in TWRP, flash a zip named 'permanent-recovery.zip' (while read only mode is turned off in TWRP) and reboot my device. Still when I use Advanced Reboot to open recovery, I end up once again in the Stock Recovery.
Is there anyone who could tell me where I am going wrong and how to solve this issue?
Thanks in advance
Rawrden said:
Hi,
I'm currently using the Skipsoft Android Toolkit to unlock flash TWRP onto my device. I've followed to first steps (install drivers, backup device and unlock bootloader) to the letter and everything went smooth.
Now the final part of installing TWRP is not going so well. Flashing the custom recovery works as expected and I end up in the TWRP menu. However, as soon as I reboot my phone and try to go back to the recovery via Advanced Reboot --> recovery, I end up in the default One Plus Recovery Menu. Now the tool mentioneds when this process fails, renaming the Recovery Restore Files is recommend to prevent the system from flashing the stock recovery on boot (what happens to my device). I follow this option in which I end up back in TWRP, flash a zip named 'permanent-recovery.zip' (while read only mode is turned off in TWRP) and reboot my device. Still when I use Advanced Reboot to open recovery, I end up once again in the Stock Recovery.
Is there anyone who could tell me where I am going wrong and how to solve this issue?
Thanks in advance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The basic "mechanics" of what happens seems to still be as follows:
As your phone is delivered with Stock OS, it has these two files installed:
Code:
/system/recovery-from-boot.p
/system/etc/install-recovery.sh
I know from looking at mine when I got it that it had /system/recovery-from-boot.p installed. If it's there, it is run when it runs at boot.
To stop that behavior you have to get rid of those files before you reboot the first time from recovery or else recovery will be replaced with the stock image. I'm aware that supposedly the custom recovery supposedly renames either one or the other or both of these but am not convinced it does this or whether installing root (either Magisk or SuperSU) does it. Either way, since you're stuck with the problem, either from file-manager in TWRP if that's all you can boot to, you need to rename /system/recovery-from-boot.p to something like /system/recovery-from-boot.p.orig and maybe the other one /system/etc/install-recovery.sh to /system/etc/install-recovery.sh.orig as well.
Once even the .p file is gone, it's not going to rewrite recovery. You must, of course, be rooted before you can touch those files although if you can sideboot TWRP, it seems like you are rooted while it is booted and "should" have access to system files if you can mount system rw.
I've fixed it this way on other phones. On this one, installing the "official" TWRP and Magisk did it. When I booted into /system after installing Magisk, I looked for the .p file and found it renamed to /system/recovery-from-boot.bak.
I found a link for a Samsung s8 for the same purpose. It's probably identical. http://www.teamandroid.com/2017/04/25/install-galaxy-s8-twrp-310-recovery/3/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I looked into those two files while in TWRP and noticed I only had the recovery-from-boot.p file. This was already in fact renamed to recovery-from-boot.p.bak. I renamed it once again (just to be sure) and after flashing the .zip I mentioned earlier, the TWRP did not last another reboot...
Can I after flashing TWRP again, immediately flash Magsik? I intended to hold off rooting because the rom I was going to install has Magisk build into it. I don't want to create a conflict when flashing later on. Is this going to be an issue?
@hachamacha I've reread your post and wondering if rooting my device is even going to make a difference right now? Since I'm already able to rename files in the system directory, would it even make a difference?
Rawrden said:
I looked into those two files while in TWRP and noticed and only had the recovery-from-boot.p file. This was already in fact renamed to record-from-boot.p.bak. I renamed it once again (just to be sure) and after flashing the .zip I mentioned earlier, the TWRP did not last another reboot...
Can I after flashing TWRP again, immediately flash Magsik? I intended to hold off rooting because the rom I was going to install has Magisk build into it. I don't want to create a conflict when flashing later on. Is this going to be an issue?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To me, it doesn't sound like a conflict to re-install Magisk over itself in FOS and see if that helps. The real "action" that counts is all about whether you've already booted into the OS after installing TWRP and then how you go about getting rid of the .p file without doing a regular reboot via the OS. Even installing the FOS ROM should get rid of the .p file (rename it), so something else is going on. I'll look around some more and update this if I can.
By the way: Depending upon how exactly you got from TWRP to the OS the first time, it could already have rewritten the stock recovery by the time you noticed *.p file renamed to *.bak.
OK: I recalled how I did this without a problem: I wrote instructions somewhere but have no idea where. This is what I think I did:
1) fastboot flash recovery recovery.img (custom/TWRP)
2) fastboot boot recovery.img (so force it to load recovery without a traditional reboot).
3) install ROM from that point and after done just hit the reboot button (or install Magisk from that point and hit reboot).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
---------- Post added at 09:26 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:59 AM ----------
Rawrden said:
@hachamacha I've reread your post and wondering if rooting my device is even going to make a difference right now? Since I'm already able to rename files in the system directory, would it even make a difference?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just saw this note:
Anytime you're in TWRP, you're automatically "rooted" for the time you're there. It's integral to TWRP having permissions to do anything like install etc. If you just "loaded" TWRP (as in fastboot boot twrprecovery.img) then you'd be rooted, but when you rebooted to the system, you'd be unrooted. While you were in TWRP, in theory you could make file system changes to the /system partition (a) if TWRP lets you mount it rw which I think that first swipe does and b) if you can see the correct files in it's file manager.
So it "seems" like those file changes should be actual file changes to the correct place. Keep in mind that while booted in TWRP, TWRP may have it's own ./system/ that has nothing to do with the OS's ./system folder, so you've got to be able to mount the OS's ./system. TWRP's ./system is already fine and of no importance for this. I can boot mine into TWRP and look around to try to clear this up, but it might not be crystal clear to me either.
The output of a TWRP terminal emulator "mount" command might be of use but it will be messy. Maybe if you can do this in emulator from TWRP:
# mount | grep system, and look at that output, perhaps put it in this post, it'd be of help. The mounted rw ./system we need is going to be the same one you'd see from adb shell or terminal emulator while booted from the OS. My guess is that the one we don't want from TWRP's perspective will be mounted as /system (params...) and that the the OS's system either will not yet be mounted and you'll have to go to mounts and mount it and then look at the output of the mount cmd again to figure out what it was mounted as. Sorry about how complicated this explanation has become. Anyway: The ./system that corresponds to the OS is the only one we care about.
There's no easy way to explain it so I'll leave it hidden to spare anyone having to look at it:
I just booted into TWRP and used terminal emulator and file manager to explore:
findings: While in TWRP, using terminal emulator to do a
$ df and then a $ mount command shows no ./system mounted specifically. // maybe not a surprise.
// TWRP just mounts it's root / file system and there is a /system folder, just not a specific mount point for it.
// TWRP does not auto mount the OS's ./system partition by default. It depends what you're going to do there.
Without going into "mounts" and clicking on /system, it won't even try to mount /system for the OS.
If you can get that mount to work in read/write mode, then you should be able to see the ./system mount using terminal emulator as such.
$ mount | grep -i system (and look specifically for ./system on the right side of whatever appears).
In theory you should be able to make changes to the OS's /system partition now. When you're done, unmount it. (I'm assuming all this works from TWRP, a dodgy assumption)
At this point: I'm just trying to figure out how TWRP does things like installs OS zips to the /system & /data partitions which it is clearly successfully able to do. It could do it without mounting anything because it could use the linux dd command, which just writes to the /dev name. OR: It could mount /system and use it. I'm not sure which.
hachamacha said:
OK: I recalled how I did this without a problem: I wrote instructions somewhere but have no idea where. This is what I think I did:
Quote:
Code:
1) fastboot flash recovery recovery.img (custom/TWRP)
2) fastboot boot recovery.img (so force it to load recovery without a traditional reboot).
3) install ROM from that point and after done just hit the reboot button (or install Magisk from that point and hit reboot).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I followed these steps and I managed to install FreedomOS without any issues. My phone booted normally and after a few complimentary steps I booted back into recovery and... TWRP! No more stock recovery. Thanks a lot!
Just one more question: TWRP currently asks whether it is allowed to install itself as a system app. Now I assume it is already a system app, but I'm not expert at this so I can't say for sure. Would you recommend me to install TWRP as a system app?
Rawrden said:
I followed these steps and I managed to install FreedomOS without any issues. My phone booted normally and after a few complimentary steps I booted back into recovery and... TWRP! No more stock recovery. Thanks a lot!
Just one more question: TWRP currently asks whether it is allowed to install itself as a system app. Now I assume it is already a system app, but I'm not expert at this so I can't say for sure. Would you recommend me to install TWRP as a system app?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great! Glad that worked. I guess it's all about how that first boot to the OS occurs.
Anyway: Your question, I'm assuming is about TWRP "Manager" the app? If so, yes, it should be a system app. The thing is that "Official TWRP Manager" doesn't really do much of use that you wouldn't just as soon do from fastboot, so it's not critical and nothing other than TWRP manager will "not work" regardless of what you designate it. All saying it's a system app does is puts a slot for it in Magisks "root table".
Cheers.
hachamacha said:
Great! Glad that worked. I guess it's all about how that first boot to the OS occurs.
Anyway: Your question, I'm assuming is about TWRP "Manager" the app? If so, yes, it should be a system app. The thing is that "Official TWRP Manager" doesn't really do much of use that you wouldn't just as soon do from fastboot, so it's not critical and nothing other than TWRP manager will "not work" regardless of what you designate it. All saying it's a system app does is puts a slot for it in Magisks "root table".
Cheers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Done! Can I just say how grateful I am to you for helping me out with this? Your answers have been extremely detailed and I've learned quite a few things. Unfortunately I can only thank your posts once, because you've earned more than that. Thanks again and keep being awesome!

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