I've been scouring the interweb looking for a way to take a stock tar file and convert it to a zip file that will flash with twrp. I know it can be done, but thus far I'm not happy with the processes I've found... how do you guys do it?
The stock TAR files contain partitions in IMG format - an all in one file system, and in this case using EXT4 formatting.
In order to create a ZIP, you need to access the files on the partition, which means finding a way to mount those IMG partitions to copy their contents, or find a piece of software to extract from them w/o mounting. Since they are EXT4, you can probably assume a Windows solution isn't available (EXT4 is Linux). Some utilities may exist to handle EXT4 on Windows, but finding one that knows EXT4 and can extract/mount an IMG file is pretty specific.
EDIT : found a utility for you - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2285831
If you can somehow get the files out of the archive, you'll need to find a tutorial on the structure of a flashable ZIP. Generally, its just folders and files but there is also a META-INF folder, scripts to install and set permissions, etc. There are likely threads here on XDA that can detail these steps.
Spitzaf, thanks so much! I was hoping for just such a tool
I have a radio head with a mtk 8227l chipset. I have original firmware and have successfully flashed it. My issue is there system partition it's small and Google play keeps running out of space. It lists external as 12gb free. I have been able to modify the scatter file to try and make the system take more. I can see the effect of this as the external space is reduced by how much I increase system. However there must be something in the system.img file that sets the system partition size as it's still 1.6gb after flashing with edited scatter file.
Is there a way to extract this probably have to change the parameter setting it something and repack it for flashing?
So I've extracted the system.img, repacked as 5GB, changed the scatter to match. Flashed to head unit, but /internal is still 1.6gb. I'm obviosly missing something. Does anyone know MTK images and such that could point me in right direction?
MTK8227L
Hey I know this post is super old but I’ve searched EVERYWHERE endlessly and there’s little to know info on this specific model. But I just had a couple questions
1) what model head unit do you have. Mine is the GA2186K
2) how did you flash it.
3) were you able to root
4) do you know of any custom roms that can be used with it.
Thanks in advanced. I’m desperate for some info on this thing lol. And I’d love to get some sort of custom software on here.
Thanks bro, Skye
I opened up ES File Explorer and found something quite interesting. When I went to look for the firmware updates for my Fire TV device, I noticed two .bin files which are named ROMv2_patch_1_0_hdr.bin and ROMv2_patch_1_1_hdr.bin. I changed these files' .bin to .zip and when I attempted to flash them via recovery, I get a corrupted zip file format after its been flashed. I will provide a link to these two files and hopefully I can investigate the format in the /firmware folder on how rbox makes prerooted Fire TV roms. I'm trying to see how Amazon puts their OTA updates in the /system folder since it's located in that directory. Thank you guys for making these forums as precise as possible! I will get back to you as soon as possible if you guys are interested in seeing how Amazon runs their operating systems!
While trying to modify my KW88 Pro watch to run AsteroidOS I took the advice of the program and clicked "Format All + Download" without fully understanding what it does. It deletes all partitions. The install then failed with some random errors but I had a brick. I managed to recover it with KW88 Pro firmware (KW88Pro_V1.5_NHH_B_20190114) I found on discourse.fullandroidwatch.com (don't know how legit it is but at least it works now).
While this guide is how to fix the "PMT changed for the ROM, it must be downloaded" error, the above is relevant. You must find firmware for your watch that has the default partition layout if you did not take a backup before formatting or if you don't know the partition layout. In a nutshell you get the PMT error when the partition layout of the scatter file does not match the partition layout of the device, and the stock firmware + scatter file is needed as a reference point. My error:
https://imgur.com/aFZKfOo
Let's compare the start addresses of those 3 partitions to the stock firmware:
https://imgur.com/rV3XBt2
Boot and Logo partitions are the same, but User Data starts at a different address.
If we compare the contents of both the scatter files we see the same thing:
https://imgur.com/OYw10d3
https://imgur.com/DNQ1Ztw
In a nutshell what you need to do is clone the partition layout (start address variables + offset variable) into the new scatter file, but maintain all other variables of the scatter file. It should also be mentioned that there are other partitions in the scatter file that I had from AsteroidOS that did not match the physical layout of the firmware I used, and even though I was not flashing them I still had to edit the scatter file.
Afterwards using these settings I flashed successfully:
https://imgur.com/TdVRDEV
I also want to note that the End Addresses will not match even with the correct partition layout because different firmware has different sizes on disk, despite the space allocated for the partitions. In theory if you want you could reclaim unused space by tweaking the original scatter file and then the custom scatter file, but it may also impact your future updates if the partition is too small.
Hope I made someone's day easier, best of luck
Can you explain the getting the partition start and offset address part?
Because I think im going to brick my phone really soon if I can't make this auto-generated scatter I got from internet work to flash my phone back to stock rom.
The scatter itself already has some bugs with userdata partition (Too large)
kutiz21 said:
Can you explain the getting the partition start and offset address part?
Because I think im going to brick my phone really soon if I can't make this auto-generated scatter I got from internet work to flash my phone back to stock rom.
The scatter itself already has some bugs with userdata partition (Too large)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sure thing. The scatter file which is for stock firmware vs. the file for new firmware will not allocate the space on disk based on what partitions are actually, physically on it. The new scatter file for custom firmware will be for what the devs had on their device, but not what you actually have on yours (different hardware versions, android releases, w.e.). What you need to do is take the existing partitions of your device, the start addresses for them, add the size of that partition to get the end address and using that information supply that data to the new scatter file. You COULD in theory also change the partition sizes but that is more prone to error so I did not recommend that. So what I did would visually look like this, the | are partition start / end markers
Original scatter file:
|xxxxxxxxxxx||xxxxxxxxxxx||xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx||xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx||xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx||xxxxxxxxxxxxx|
vs new scatter file:
|xxxxxxxxxxx||xxxxxxxxxxx||xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx||xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx||xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx||xxxxxxxxxx|
vs the patched scatter file:
|xxxxxxxxxxx||xxxxxxxxxxx||xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx||xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx....................||xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx....................................................||xxxxxxxxxx........|
Tl;Dr An offset is basically a way of saying address + data/space (until next segment at next address).
Intersting
printf() said:
Sure thing. The scatter file which is for stock firmware vs. the file for new firmware will not allocate the space on disk based on what partitions are actually, physically on it. The new scatter file for custom firmware will be for what the devs had on their device, but not what you actually have on yours (different hardware versions, android releases, w.e.). What you need to do is take the existing partitions of your device, the start addresses for them, add the size of that partition to get the end address and using that information supply that data to the new scatter file. You COULD in theory also change the partition sizes but that is more prone to error so I did not recommend that. So what I did would visually look like this, the | are partition start / end markers
Original scatter file:
|xxxxxxxxxxx||xxxxxxxxxxx||xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx||xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx||xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx||xxxxxxxxxxxxx|
vs new scatter file:
|xxxxxxxxxxx||xxxxxxxxxxx||xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx||xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx||xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx||xxxxxxxxxx|
vs the patched scatter file:
|xxxxxxxxxxx||xxxxxxxxxxx||xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx||xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx....................||xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx....................................................||xxxxxxxxxx........|
Tl;Dr An offset is basically a way of saying address + data/space (until next segment at next address).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I used Smartphone flash tool version 3 and 5 and I have managed to use my own image to flash numerous phones, encrypted with a key or with no keys (Auth file).
Usually, I would use Google's method of flashing back rom that is using a zip file contains bunch of flashable system images and let fastboot app itself flash it.
I dumped my images using dd tool and img2simg (Full blown raw ext4 file, not sparsed.)
Because fastboot likes sparse images rather than raw ones and flashable sparse images can be easily flashed with SP tool normally (It can make phones bootable but will more likely making phone unbootable most of the time)
I do aware that I need to adjust the address thing. But normally, using the start address based on the scatter. SP app can automatically calculates how large the image and it can prevents you from flashing because it is too large.
But this particular phone won't flash even if it is the stock rom. Which dumped and got its scatter file generated by some sketchy "miracle box".
My best guess is that the scatter file was tied to specific emmc chip and it is not for my phone's emmc so there might be some difference there.
Because when I use the REAL flash scatter file from actual OEM (In this case, Nokia 1, European Variant). It can make my APAC counterpart can be flashed normally, even with my custom sparsed or raw image (These 2 variants were kinda different, technically.)
I would like to point out that newer SP flash tool app tends to hate to co-operate with scatter scripts so that could be a reason (I used older build of version 5 and it only gets the userdata bug, but it does lags the app when the bug "PMT changed for the ROM, it must be downloaded" show up. Because it was a bug and it hadn't fixed in that build, which is fixed in the latest build of SP app when I attempt to flash)
And flashing extracted "stock" rom from flash tool and flash it back over fastboot tool tends to break system OTA and make my phone on bootloop (I highly doubted it was the raw image thing, because of the free space it can allocated. I flashed it raw back then I think because i don't know what happened yet, keep in mind that stock rom images shipped for SP flash tool were most likely in raw state, not compressed like sparse images)
And SP flash tool also hates raw dd images too (too big?????)
So like. What do I need to fix the script? What program that can calculate the exact offset for it? I still be able to flash the stock rom with fastboot fine. But for "unforeseen consequences" that makes it unbootable, I still need it.
Say the scatter is not reliable or doesn't exist. How do I use the readback function and then use some aged apps like MTK droid tool to generate actual offsets and possibly generates scatter for me (Most likely will not work because my phone's Android is too new for it). I used to work with Android 4.2.2 so it's really easy back then.
kutiz21 said:
So like. What do I need to fix the script? What program that can calculate the exact offset for it? I still be able to flash the stock rom with fastboot fine. But for "unforeseen consequences" that makes it unbootable, I still need it.
Say the scatter is not reliable or doesn't exist. How do I use the readback function and then use some aged apps like MTK droid tool to generate actual offsets and possibly generates scatter for me (Most likely will not work because my phone's Android is too new for it). I used to work with Android 4.2.2 so it's really easy back then.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not sure how to get the data when no original scatter file exists, I was fortunate enough to find a reference for my stock OS. The other scatter file was for AsteroidOS. I think the easiest way to explain what I did would be to share the scatter files. Effectively start address + partition size should not be larger than the start address of the next partition.
Stock scatter file:
https://pastebin.com/tfFDCPfT
Original AsteroidOS scatter file:
https://pastebin.com/0z7DtL9u
Patched AsteroidOS scatter file:
https://pastebin.com/iiYZTzBt
Take note that in my original post screenshots, AstreroidOS was only flashing 3 partitions (corresponding to the is_download: true/false field of the scatter file). That told me that those were the partitions / boundaries that need to match, the other partitions were irrelevant (for the purpose of flashing anyway). AsteroidOS itself is contained inside the userdata partition, effectively leaving other ~20 partitions as "lower layers" or unused.
printf() said:
I'm not sure how to get the data when no original scatter file exists, I was fortunate enough to find a reference for my stock OS. The other scatter file was for AsteroidOS. I think the easiest way to explain what I did would be to share the scatter files. Effectively start address + partition size should not be larger than the start address of the next partition.
Stock scatter file:
https://pastebin.com/tfFDCPfT
Original AsteroidOS scatter file:
https://pastebin.com/0z7DtL9u
Patched AsteroidOS scatter file:
https://pastebin.com/iiYZTzBt
Take note that in my original post screenshots, AstreroidOS was only flashing 3 partitions (corresponding to the is_download: true/false field of the scatter file). That told me that those were the partitions / boundaries that need to match, the other partitions were irrelevant (for the purpose of flashing anyway). AsteroidOS itself is contained inside the userdata partition, effectively leaving other ~20 partitions as "lower layers" or unused.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So my insights were true. It does automatically calculates the free space of a partition to whether allow you to flash or not. But I tried fiddling with it and it doesn't work. I might try to individually comment out those partitions as unflashable and try it out.
One more thing is that I used to had this error. But it will be gone when I explicitly referencing SP flash tool the preloader partition image (flashing it or not doesn't matter) alongside with all of my custom images but they must be fully loaded in the app.
You will not be able to flash if it can't fully loaded all partitions that has the property "is_download: true". Maybe that should allow me to do the flash.
Any more thoughts on " boundary_check and is_reserved"? Because I used to poke with these and managed to flash my other phone successfully.
I don't have the phone to test right now but more food for thought I guess.
Cheers!
kutiz21 said:
Any more thoughts on " boundary_check and is_reserved"? Because I used to poke with these and managed to flash my other phone successfully.
I don't have the phone to test right now but more food for thought I guess.
Cheers!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not sure what is_reserved does, but boundary_check probably validates the scatter file vs. the layout on the disk. If you don't do the check though you are risking overwriting a partition which might be needed for the lower layer functionality - keystore, firmware, etc.
My unit has 100011866 installed. Can I use 100003652 to flash?
If not, how do I extract the needed file from the unit? I tried adb/shell for the scatter file but there was none there.
There is no scatter file listed on my device in any directory. ie. system/data/ Where might it be?