[Q] 7840 - Recover Bricked Device - Dell Venue

Did my best to avoid having to ask for help, but looks like I've run out of ideas. I've got a 7840 that currently refuses to boot past the recovery screen, thanks (probably) to my own incompetence. Here's what happened along the way to this point:
First, probably important to note: my tablet is a Chinese-released 7840 running 5.0.2 Lollipop. The hardware is identical from what I can tell, but the software was definitely a bit tweaked as there were no Google services installed. (And sideloading any of the Google services always failed no matter how I went about it.) This is basically why I decided to start messing around with things.
Attempted to load the developer firmware. Wound up in the dreaded "Intel Inside" bootloop, but thanks to @xBIGREDDx and his unbrick.zip (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=60663442&postcount=2) I was able to return to normal booting. No matter how many times I attempted to flash the open source firmware, I always got stuck in the bootloop and had to flash the unbrick.zip to be able to do anything. No ability to exit the bootloop in order to reach the bootloader meant this was a big impasse.
I then decided to use the tethered CWM method to root the device for the purposes of giving sideloading the Play Store another try. That worked just fine and I was able to root my 7840 without a hitch. I then created a nandroid backup (which suspiciously didn't generate an MD5 file) in case I managed to really screw things up trying to sideload the Google Services.
That's when I thought wiping and recovering the 4.4.4 Kit Kat nandroid backup might be a good idea. This of course didn't work, so I wiped and restored my own 5.0.2 backup. However, at this point things wouldn't boot no matter what I did. I would see the boot screen with the Dell logo and the Lollipop-style ANDROID text, but after a couple of minutes everything would reboot and after a couple of tries the device would boot to recovery and just sit.
After fiddling around with trying different restore methods, I decided to see if I could flash the developer firmware to no avail. (Unable to write to OSIP, security error, etc.) Then I gave @anggusss's 5.0.1 OTA update.zip a try. (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=60632439&postcount=21) That gave me a different error:
"Can't install this package (Fri Apr 24 13:29:34 CST 2015) over newer build (Fri Apr 24 13:58:18 CST 2015)."
Frustrating to see that a build a half hour newer might be all I need. So, if any of you happen to have captured the 5.0.2 OTA build (or can help me tweak the 5.0.1 build to report itself as newer), would you mind giving me a hand? Would be most appreciative. I've written to Dell open-source support but don't expect to hear back for another week or so. It'd be nice to not be using the Venue as a paperweight for a week.

wirebook said:
No matter how many times I attempted to flash the open source firmware, I always got stuck in the bootloop and had to flash the unbrick.zip to be able to do anything. No ability to exit the bootloop in order to reach the bootloader meant this was a big impasse.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Out of interest, how was the tablet booted when you flashed the unbrick.zip (did you volup + power or just regular boot?) ?

Going back to the open-source firmware won't help, because they 4.x to 5.x transition included a re-partitioning, and the bootloader in the 4.x firmware doesn't understand the new partition scheme.
If you boot with the vol. down key held, do you get into fastboot mode? If you can, then you should be able to flash a system image and boot image. I have those pulled from my device; I can post them for you to try later tonight.

anggusss said:
Out of interest, how was the tablet booted when you flashed the unbrick.zip (did you volup + power or just regular boot?) ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've never gotten vol. up + power to do anything, is that normal? Only vol. down + power, and that'll get me into fastboot mode.
xBIGREDDx said:
Going back to the open-source firmware won't help, because they 4.x to 5.x transition included a re-partitioning, and the bootloader in the 4.x firmware doesn't understand the new partition scheme.
If you boot with the vol. down key held, do you get into fastboot mode? If you can, then you should be able to flash a system image and boot image. I have those pulled from my device; I can post them for you to try later tonight.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah, well this sounds like it's my problem, then. If you can get those images to me to try I'd be most appreciative! Should be able to give it a shot as I'm still able to get into fastboot.

wirebook said:
Ah, well this sounds like it's my problem, then. If you can get those images to me to try I'd be most appreciative! Should be able to give it a shot as I'm still able to get into fastboot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
system.img
This is inside a .zip file because I don't know how to get only the important bits, so I got the whole /system partition. Just unzip then 'fastboot flash system system.img'
boot.img
This is straight from the OTA zip.
You will be pre-rooted. Let me know if this goes well. :good:

xBIGREDDx said:
system.img
This is inside a .zip file because I don't know how to get only the important bits, so I got the whole /system partition. Just unzip then 'fastboot flash system system.img'
boot.img
This is straight from the OTA zip.
You will be pre-rooted. Let me know if this goes well. :good:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks a lot for those! Flashed both boot and system, though the system gave me some sort of error on my machine ("Invalid sparse file format at header magi") and then continued to flash something ("sending sparse 'system'"). I saw the red text of some sort of error on the tablet but wasn't able to read it fast enough. The system flash did seem a bit suspiciously fast, though...
Anyway, now waiting to see if anything boots. Been sitting on the Dell/Powered By Android screen for a couple of minutes, though, so if nothing else it looks like I've at least found myself in a new place. Will try reflashing if no improvement and then get back with results!

Sorry if this is considered spamming my own thread, but didn't seem right to just edit my earlier post.
Couldn't get the system image to flash. First got the error about needing to flash as a sparse system, which seemed to be fine. But when the device tried to write the sparse chunk to the partition, it threw an error. ("remote: flash_cmds error!") Thought this might've been a bug of my particular version of adb/fastboot, but updating or trying a different version didn't work any better. In fact, things got worse as I can't even run fastboot on my machine (Windows) anymore without the program crashing on me.
Jumped over onto my Mac and things seemed to be going better, but no progress was made. Still threw that error whenever it came time to write that first sparse chunk. Might my partition table be totally out of whack? (If so, how do I go about fixing it without easy access to an adb shell?)
In other news, I realized the back of the tab has "Venue 8 784001" engraved on it, so there might be hardware / bootloader changes that I can't beat...

Well, I'm not 100% sure it's going to be able to flash the system.img correctly, I thought I could just pull it from my device and it would flash fine, but apparently not. It would be interesting to see what your partition table looks like, but I don't know of a way to get that without having a root shell.
If you have a hex editor or know how to use dd, try chopping off like 200 MB from the end of the image (I think it's all zeroes for at least that much) and see if it flashes then.
If you don't know how to do that, I could upload a modified image for you.

xBIGREDDx said:
Well, I'm not 100% sure it's going to be able to flash the system.img correctly, I thought I could just pull it from my device and it would flash fine, but apparently not. It would be interesting to see what your partition table looks like, but I don't know of a way to get that without having a root shell.
If you have a hex editor or know how to use dd, try chopping off like 200 MB from the end of the image (I think it's all zeroes for at least that much) and see if it flashes then.
If you don't know how to do that, I could upload a modified image for you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
wirebook said:
Sorry if this is considered spamming my own thread, but didn't seem right to just edit my earlier post.
Couldn't get the system image to flash. First got the error about needing to flash as a sparse system, which seemed to be fine. But when the device tried to write the sparse chunk to the partition, it threw an error. ("remote: flash_cmds error!") Thought this might've been a bug of my particular version of adb/fastboot, but updating or trying a different version didn't work any better. In fact, things got worse as I can't even run fastboot on my machine (Windows) anymore without the program crashing on me.
Jumped over onto my Mac and things seemed to be going better, but no progress was made. Still threw that error whenever it came time to write that first sparse chunk. Might my partition table be totally out of whack? (If so, how do I go about fixing it without easy access to an adb shell?)
In other news, I realized the back of the tab has "Venue 8 784001" engraved on it, so there might be hardware / bootloader changes that I can't beat...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When you dump an image is raw.ext4 it has to be converted to sparse image format for android 5.0.2

social-design-concepts said:
When you dump an image is raw.ext4 it has to be converted to sparse image format for android 5.0.2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well I found the source for img2simg but it won't do me much good... you wouldn't happen to have a pre-built tool handy would you?

xBIGREDDx said:
Well I found the source for img2simg but it won't do me much good... you wouldn't happen to have a pre-built tool handy would you?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think the image you passed me already employed some kind of compression on it, as I was getting errors about an invalid sparse data header or something like that. (The size on the disk was also less than the reported image size.) Unfortunately I'm unable to mount or convert it on any of my machines so I'm a bit useless.
Thanks everyone for all the help you've been, by the way!

wirebook said:
I think the image you passed me already employed some kind of compression on it, as I was getting errors about an invalid sparse data header or something like that. (The size on the disk was also less than the reported image size.) Unfortunately I'm unable to mount or convert it on any of my machines so I'm a bit useless.
Thanks everyone for all the help you've been, by the way!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's just a dump straight from my system partition. I don't have my tablet with me so I'm not certain on file paths but essentially I did:
dd if=/dev/block/by-name/system of=/storage/sdcard1/system.img
So it's a raw dump of the system partition, whatever happened to be in there.
I think the fastboot command tries to sparse things on its own, but fails?
If you want to try re-partitioning (could be dangerous, could be harmless), try these commands with the partition file from the OTA package:
EDIT: For anyone else coming along, don't do this, it didn't work out well for wirebrook. /EDIT
Code:
fastboot oem start_partitioning
fastboot flash /tmp/partition.tbl kk2lp_partition.tbl
fastboot oem partition /tmp/partition.tbl
fastboot erase system
fastboot erase cache
fastboot oem stop_partitioning
You may also want to erase data while you're in there.

xBIGREDDx said:
It's just a dump straight from my system partition. I don't have my tablet with me so I'm not certain on file paths but essentially I did:
dd if=/dev/block/by-name/system of=/storage/sdcard1/system.img
So it's a raw dump of the system partition, whatever happened to be in there.
I think the fastboot command tries to sparse things on its own, but fails?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That must be what's happening. I'll fiddle with things a bit more later on. It's a bummer there aren't any custom ROMs I could simply flash as an alternative to getting stock up and running...

xBIGREDDx said:
Well I found the source for img2simg but it won't do me much good... you wouldn't happen to have a pre-built tool handy would you?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
xBIGREDDx said:
It's just a dump straight from my system partition. I don't have my tablet with me so I'm not certain on file paths but essentially I did:
dd if=/dev/block/by-name/system of=/storage/sdcard1/system.img
So it's a raw dump of the system partition, whatever happened to be in there.
I think the fastboot command tries to sparse things on its own, but fails?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's looking for the sparse magic header that's not there I can when I get home you could also try to use 7zip to compress it to a .gz but I believe Intel stopped support for that format in 4.4.4.
I'm at work I have it at home if your on Linux and want to convert it.

social-design-concepts said:
It's looking for the sparse magic header that's not there I can when I get home you could also try to use 7zip to compress it to a .gz but I believe Intel stopped support for that format in 4.4.4.
I'm at work I have it at home if your on Linux and want to convert it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not sure this'll be useful for me any more because... (see below)
xBIGREDDx said:
If you want to try re-partitioning (could be dangerous, could be harmless), try these commands with the partition file from the OTA package:
Code:
fastboot oem start_partitioning
fastboot flash /tmp/partition.tbl kk2lp_partition.tbl
fastboot oem partition /tmp/partition.tbl
fastboot erase system
fastboot erase cache
fastboot oem stop_partitioning
You may also want to erase data while you're in there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Gave this a shot and partitioning seemed to work just fine. Flashing the OTA boot.img worked just fine, and attempting to flash your system.img once again threw an error at me. Thought I'd perform a reboot at this point (bad idea!) to see what I was working with and then I found myself with @anggusss' USB screen. (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=60675581&postcount=5) Probably should've tried flashing a something else just to see if that did anything.
Guessing I've now got a brick, because I'm no longer able to get it to register with Fastboot. I can, however, flash the open-source firmware and the unbrick.zip firmware, which reacts exactly like when @anggusss did it. We'll have to see if Dell ever gets back to my original query for help, otherwise might have to look into contacting Dell for a replacement.

You might have better luck, just using one of the tethered TWRP recoveries, If someone with a working system backups up system via TWRP recovery and shares it you could use the TWRP recovery to restore it.
I have Linux version tethered TWRP up and SDC has Windows version of tethered TWRP up.
Linux version
http://forum.xda-developers.com/android/development/linux-version-twrp-2-8-6-0-tethered-t3123075
Windows Version
http://forum.xda-developers.com/android/development/intel-android-devices-root-temp-cwm-t2975096

vampirefo said:
You might have better luck, just using one of the tethered TWRP recoveries, If someone with a working system backups up system via TWRP recovery and shares it you could use the TWRP recovery to restore it.
I have Linux version tethered TWRP up and SDC has Windows version of tethered TWRP up.
Linux version
http://forum.xda-developers.com/android/development/linux-version-twrp-2-8-6-0-tethered-t3123075
Windows Version
http://forum.xda-developers.com/android/development/intel-android-devices-root-temp-cwm-t2975096
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the thought, but if I can't get into Fastboot mode (or get the computer to recognize the device as being in Fastboot mode)... kinda unable to use it.

wirebook said:
Gave this a shot and partitioning seemed to work just fine. Flashing the OTA boot.img worked just fine, and attempting to flash your system.img once again threw an error at me. Thought I'd perform a reboot at this point (bad idea!) to see what I was working with and then I found myself with @anggusss' USB screen. (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=60675581&postcount=5) Probably should've tried flashing a something else just to see if that did anything.
Guessing I've now got a brick, because I'm no longer able to get it to register with Fastboot. I can, however, flash the open-source firmware and the unbrick.zip firmware, which reacts exactly like when @anggusss did it. We'll have to see if Dell ever gets back to my original query for help, otherwise might have to look into contacting Dell for a replacement.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh man, sad to hear, I've done that successfully in the past, they must have changed something in the process. I check just about every day for an update to the dev. firmware. Last time around it took them just over two months from release, so maybe, end of June?

xBIGREDDx said:
Oh man, sad to hear, I've done that successfully in the past, they must have changed something in the process. I check just about every day for an update to the dev. firmware. Last time around it took them just over two months from release, so maybe, end of June?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Fingers shall stay crossed till the end of the month, then! Contacted Dell Support and- just as I predicted- they don't want to help out. Something about being unable to do anything at all for Dell products purchased outside of their support areas (US and Canada). What a joy of a phone call that was...

An internet search landed me on guides for unbricking the Asus Zenfone displaying a similar USB symbol. They used the xFSTK Downloader to flash a set of files which then gave them renewed access to the bootloader (and thus fastboot). Played around with the xFSTK-Downloader and Manufacturing Flash Tool apps and can see the 7840 and even flash the (open-source and unbrick.zip) firmware, however I'm at a loss for what I might use for the Operating System flash files. Anybody have any thoughts?
Feel like I'm so close to getting this thing unbricked. If I could just figure out where to find the .bin "OS Image" that the tool wants...
Edit: Would also need the droidboot binary. FIngers crossed for Dell to release all of this soon...

Related

Dump contents of entire device (partitions), then convert to KDZ/TOT firmware image?

I have the LG v10 from T-Mobile. I bought the phone a few weeks ago and it had Marshmallow installed. Somehow I managed to install TWRP/SuperSU, but then had issues and flashed the official/stock MM image with LGUP. Afterwards I discovered that MM for this device is not currently rootable, and TWRP cant be flashed via fastboot because MM blocks it. So I returned the device to T-Mo store, lied and said it force-upgrade to MM and had began freezing up. They did an in-store trade for an identical model that had 5.1.1 Lollipop.
The device is currently still in factory condition in every way, with the exceptions that I unlocked the bootloader via fastboot and installed TWRP. Nothing else is modified yet and no custom ROMs have been flashed.
I recently became aware that there is no stock LP image for the T-Mo v10, only MM images are available. After all the issues I've had, I'm now paranoid and want to have a complete dump of the phone's entire contents (partitions, bootloader, system, etc) that is in KDZ or TOT format, and can be reflashed with the standard tools available. Since there is nothing official then I would have to do this myself. This would be useful in the event that I run into lots of issues and need to do a emergency stock restore.
I found a thread by XDA user @tungkick, in which he created a modified dump of the device while it was running LP. However, because it was unofficial and he didn't disclose this upfront, his thread was shut down. His file bricked multiple MM users. I assume it would work if one was still on LP and hadn't upgraded to MM. Not to mention that I cant seem to find his file anywhere. So I figure the safest way is to do this myself. I would be willing to make this file available to the community when finished, with full disclosure that it is unofficial. But the problem is, I don't know how.
I know that the Linux dd command can be used to dump images of various things, and I have read that this can be done on PC by connecting to the device via ADB or fastboot. This would hopefully result in an image file that contained the contents of all the device's partitions.
But another issue would be converting it to KDZ or TOT. And it would have to be done in such a way that it would be flashable with the standard tools.
Can someone please give me a technical understanding of the tools and knowledge I would need to undertake this? Would it be too complicated for someone like myself that has little Android/Linux experience (but is generally competent with computers/technology)?
Thanks for any advice!
Noone can help me with this?
To the mods/admins: I think maybe I posted this in an area where it is unlikely to get any useful answers. Can someone move the thread to the Help& Troubleshooting area of the general LG v10 forum (not here in the T-Mobile subforum)? Thanks!
I think it's just that if that could. have been done someone would have done it already. Even tungkick didn't make one for tmobile for some reason. I think because he made his root injected files from official lg files and lg has not released a kdz or tot for tmobile LP.
Just my observation... I could be wrong.
Sent from my pretty nifty brand new LG V10
@ planetbeen: I don't see why it wouldn't be possible. Linux's dd program can dump almost any connected device that it can see. But then it needs to be converted into a standard TOT/KDZ that can be flashed with any standard software. Which is why I want to create an unofficial backup of the entire phone before modifying it further, so I can do an emergency restore if necessary. I just need the right instructions from people who have the technical expertise.
I had trouble with my old LG v10, I had used LG's LGUP program to flash it to Marshmallow from my PC, only to realize that it couldn't be rooted or have a custom recovery. And I also discovered that I couldn't downgrade to Lollipop. So I returned the phone to the store and exchanged it for an identical model that still had LP. I just told them it had auto-upgraded to MM and started crashing. They exchanged, no questions. Before this I had various issues, like GPS crashing randomly when turning it on, Bluetooth also doing the same thing, and the Settings app also crashed sometimes when accessing the Security menu. I had flashed multiple ROMs, but stock-based and CM/AOSP-based, but kept running into issues, oftentimes the same ones. So I figured that something in the phone had become corrupt and figured that flashing stock MM would fix everything. Big mistake. I'll never let this phone upgrade again until MM is solidly hacked, which from what I've read may be a long time away. I paid enough for this phone and I really value hackability. I'm not the average Joe that just uses my phone for Facebook, etc. To me, if a phone cant be hacked, then buying/owning it is a waste of time/money. Same thing with every computer/electronics device I've ever owned.
Thanks again!
It looks like I'm going to have problems getting answers from knowledgable people, so instead of waiting, I'm going to take a little initiative and at least try to do the dump with dd. I found a post by @tungkick that says to enable USB debugging and make a backup file via dd with the 'adb shell' and 'su' commands. Is the following syntax correct?
dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0 of=/sdcard/H901.bin bs=1024 count=6291456
Do I run these commands from a PC via command line while connected via USB? Or directly on the device in a terminal emulator? Or do I need to run the command while in fastboot/bootloader mode, while Android is powered down?
Thanks again!
Stock use tool extract kdz then choose file dz (use lgup)
remember can not flash if phone update 6.0
Never downgrade because phone brick now.
version 5.1.1
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_Hol5T47S-bQkJVemgzMDV0Nzg/view?usp=sharing
@ tungkick: Thanks for the info. I had used the dd command to dump my phone to external SD before, but the file was 6GB! I was unable to use Tool KDZ Extract to extract the *.dz from the *.kdz file you provided. I was able to flash your KDZ with LGUP, but it boots me into TWRP recovery near the end.
Do you mind if I publicly distribute a mirror copy of your file on my Dropbox, so that it will be available to others that need the stock LP firmware for this device?
Thanks again!
I just wanted to say that flashing your KDZ has possibly screwed up my device permanently. Your image has TWRP, not the stock recovery, and is pre-rooted with SuperSU. Normally this would be good but...............
Near the end of LGUP, the device boots into TWRP. System and MicroSD are mounted, but nothing else (data, cache, dalvik, etc). I was able to obtain a stock recovery *.img, then copied it over to my MicroSD while in recovery. Then I flashed it, booted the phone into stock recovery, and performed a factory reset. Afterwards I booted into system, and all looked good, until it got to the "Checking connection" screen, then a lot of apps started force-closing repeatedly. Because of this I can't get to the Home screen, and no amount of factory reset is working. It just keeps happening over and over again.
How to get out of this mess, anyone?
Help please!!!
Still looking for a solution and would really appreciate any help!
My theory is that the /cache and /data partitions somehow got corrupted during the flash. So I tried booting into FastBoot mode and issueing the commands:
fastboot erase cache
fastboot format cache
fastboot erase userdata
fastboot format userdata
It just says something something along the lines of "remote: cant format/erase in an unlocked state". If I relock the bootloader, it says that it cant erase/format in a locked state.
TWRP still cant read those partitions (they won't mount and cant be mounted), and the apps still start force-closing almost immediately after rebooting into system, before I can complete the setup, preventing me from getting to the home screen.
@ tungkick: Is there any possibility we can arrange a TeamViewer meeting to fix this?
Thanks!

I think I've bricked my tablet, please help!

I was trying to figure out how to install a larger GApps package on my tablet, and I used GNU parted to do repartition. I've resized the system partition to 3GB and still can't install the full package.
Anyway I didn't do anything disastrous except that I accidentally deleted misc partition, I made a new partition and name it as misc and thought it was all good.
I didn't realize what I've done until I tried to reboot, my tablet is now completely a brick, the screen doesn't turn on no matter what I do
What can I do now? Is there any possible solution?
Nathaniel_Wu said:
I was trying to figure out how to install a larger GApps package on my tablet, and I used GNU parted to do repartition. I've resized the system partition to 3GB and still can't install the full package.
Anyway I didn't do anything disastrous except that I accidentally deleted misc partition, I made a new partition and name it as misc and thought it was all good.
I didn't realize what I've done until I tried to reboot, my tablet is now completely a brick, the screen doesn't turn on no matter what I do
What can I do now? Is there any possible solution?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you can't see/access device in fastboot nothing can be done short of board replacement (factory/fastboot cables won't work). Even if it does respond in fastboot only a few have been successful in reviving the device after a repartitioning which is BAD idea on this device. I lack the necessary experience so will not be able to guide you further. Assumes an unlocked bootloader; you're done if device is still locked.
Davey126 said:
If you can't see/access device in fastboot nothing can be done short of board replacement (factory/fastboot cables won't work). Even if it does respond in fastboot only a few have been successful in reviving the device after a repartitioning which is BAD idea on this device. I lack the necessary experience so will not be able to guide you further. Assumes an unlocked bootloader; you're done if device is still locked.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Fastboot device list doesn't show anything… My bootloader is unlocked, but that doesn't matter now I guess…:crying:
hello i think minse one is break or so, was serving in internet it hang over, now it only starts in fastboot mode, wantet to flash twrp there but comes error: fash write failure, what can i do?
brill_e said:
hello i think minse one is break or so, was serving in internet it hang over, now it only starts in fastboot mode, wantet to flash twrp there but comes error: fash write failure, what can i do?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can't flash or boot TWRP on this device. Consult index or other threads for info on reloading FireOS via stock recovery.

Unbrick Assistance Thread

Bricked your M5? Post here. I am one of three posters who have posted threads requesting assistance - we might as well create one thread where we can try and help each other.
My model? SHT-AL09 (C636). My story? I apparently made a bad change to my build.prop file, and had USB debugging disabled. I then probably dug myself a deeper hole trying to recover. I don't even get boot animation anymore. I'd happily pay someone to unbrick me.
The only potential progress I have made, is that I was able to install and successfully boot TWRP - although TWRP detects that I have no operating system installed and I am unable to mount any partitions except for my external SD card. Using TWRP's file manager, I can see that the system partition, for example, has not been entirely wiped, but many files seem to be missing. At the very least, TWRP allows me to turn the screen off without seeking to contantly reboot thereafter.
To install TWRP, I followed these instructions intended for Mate 9 owners:
duraaraa said:
This is TWRP to Mate 9/Android O, brought to you by FunkyHuawei.
It's just a preliminary build so I can't promise anything/everything will work! Keep that in mind. I'm not responsible if you brick your device.
EDIT: Does not work with Mate 10 series.
DOWNLOAD LINK:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B45NCsO2AL_1NEh2aDFLM3JlYkU
It works on the Android O build here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/FunkyHuawei/comments/75uwkd/october_12_first_official_android_o_beta_for/
and the official European beta.
To install:
First, have Android O running. Unlock the bootloader. Download the twrp image.
Then, run in fastboot mode:
fastboot flash recovery_ramdisk twrp_android_o_mate9_a1.img
Then, reboot holding volume up, and you've got TWRP!
Note: With the Android O update, it is no longer possible to flash the recovery2 partition. Furthermore, the names of the partitions have changed. Please keep that in mind, and don't mess around too much with TWRP, to be sure you don't brick your system!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm ... I wanted to ask you whether you have the full OTA package for your device? So you should be able to extract all the partition images from there and to fastboot flash them. But I checked on HFF and I do not see a full OTA package matching your device yet.
AndDiSa said:
Hmm ... I wanted to ask you whether you have the full OTA package for your device? So you should be able to extract all the partition images from there and to fastboot flash them. But I checked on HFF and I do not see a full OTA package matching your device yet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've tried flashing system.img/ramdisk.img from the c00 package. Maybe I have to wait for c636 firmware, or maybe I have to flash additional .imgs. I am pretty sure that the specs and hardware I have are the same as the c00.
I've tried flashing the entire update.zip file in TWRP...but as noted TWRP is unable to mount internal storage. I'm not sure if I need to wipe and reformat first. I also have no clue whether the TWRP build I installed is properly compatible with the device. I had nothing to lose by giving it a shot.
thref23 said:
I've tried flashing system.img/ramdisk.img from the c00 package. Maybe I have to wait for c636 firmware, or maybe I have to flash additional .imgs. I am pretty sure that the specs and hardware I have are the same as the c00.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This will not work as the boot chain will be broken due to mismatching checksums. You need to have the correct images. To flash a OTA image you also need to have the standard recovery image installed ...
So...will someone correct please correct me if this is wrong?
If I were to flash a c00 oeminfo file, I could then install a c00 update.zip via dload folder?
Would c432 work as well (with a flashed oeminfo), even though the Euro hardware has different bands than my hardware?
There is now a full OTA on FF for C635.....still nothing for c636...
Finally, a full OTA is available for c636.
But the 'dload' method (update.app on an sd card) failed at 5%. And flashing ramdisk/recovery/erecovery/system images also failed.
Is this possibly because the OTA is B153, whereas my M5 was shipped B121?
(I hate to be that guy bumping his own thread, sorry)
I'm unbricked!
For those in a similar spot, looking to rebrand, or otherwise interested...
I finally e-mailed Funky Huawei for assistance. Their unbrick tool did not work. However, their e-recovery method worked perfectly (basically, you point your router's DNS to Funky Huawei, enter stock recovery and connect to wi-fi, and Funky Huawei's servers mimic Huawei's servers. If they do not have your firmware on their server, they will add it by request (provided it exists on the internet).
I paid $65 for a 30 day pass - a little steep, but I was impatient. I'm not sure if I could have gotten away with paying less. If you want to try and use my FH account over the next 30 days PM me (although I don't want to get carried away with that).
For those looking to rebrand, if you can flash an OEMinfo file successfully (FH has a rebrand tool and I have no clue how well it works), you should be able to use FH's erecovery method to flash firmware (don't blame me if something goes wrong).
One reason for the trouble I was having, if because I bootlooped after making a change to the vendor/build.prop file. This file was on the vendor partition, not the system partition, and for whatever reason the vendor partition cannot be flashed via fastboot (in theory it can be flashed, in reality it returns an error that doesn't have to do with the size of the partition).
Before reverting to FH, I finally got TWRP installled and functioning, and after all the attempts I made to recover my device, the same build.prop file which initially caused a bootloop was still in the /vendor folder. And TWRP wouldn't mount the system and vendor partitions as read/writeable - that was frustrating.
Now off to experiment with AOSP GSIs while I feel like I have little to lose...
Please help me
hello everyone,
i tried to rebrand my m5pro with help of ministryofsolutions. Something went wrong and my tablet (CMR-AL19) is stucked in the recovery mode. how can i fix it? Someone who ca help me? I will pay
Greeztings
Luigi
thref23 said:
Bricked your M5? Post here. I am one of three posters who have posted threads requesting assistance - we might as well create one thread where we can try and help each other.
My model? SHT-AL09 (C636). My story? I apparently made a bad change to my build.prop file, and had USB debugging disabled. I then probably dug myself a deeper hole trying to recover. I don't even get boot animation anymore. I'd happily pay someone to unbrick me.
The only potential progress I have made, is that I was able to install and successfully boot TWRP - although TWRP detects that I have no operating system installed and I am unable to mount any partitions except for my external SD card. Using TWRP's file manager, I can see that the system partition, for example, has not been entirely wiped, but many files seem to be missing. At the very least, TWRP allows me to turn the screen off without seeking to contantly reboot thereafter.
To install TWRP, I followed these instructions intended for Mate 9 owners:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Question Google Firmware Images = Bootloop?

Hey guys, how's it going? I have run into a problem that I have never faced on a previous Pixel device in the past. Usually, you can download the factory images from Google's site, run the flash-all.bat/flash-all.sh, and start fresh with the latest images. However with the Pixel 6, it just results in a bootloop for me regardless if I force a factory reset or not. I have tried on both Windows and Linux Mint with the same result. I have tried:
Formatting before running flash-all.sh = bootloop
Formatting after flash-all.sh by directly booting into recovery = bootloop
Running flash-all.sh, rebooting directly to fastboot, then disabling verity and verification = bootloop.
The only way I have gotten it to work is by using Google's online Android Flash Tool and selecting: wipe, disable verity, and disable verification (which I have done manually with an unsuccessful result).
Has anyone manually flashed firmware (not the OTA) without getting a bootloop?? I'm starting to think they have uploaded courupted files or something. I've downloaded them multiple times to be sure it wasn't bad on my end. It's got me seriously scratching my head. Again, I have been doing the same with each previous Pixel for years now, so I don't know what the deal is.
jal3223 said:
Hey guys, how's it going? I have run into a problem that I have never faced on a previous Pixel device in the past. Usually, you can download the factory images from Google's site, run the flash-all.bat/flash-all.sh, and start fresh with the latest images. However with the Pixel 6, it just results in a bootloop for me regardless if I force a factory reset or not. I have tried on both Windows and Linux Mint with the same result. I have tried:
Formatting before running flash-all.sh = bootloop
Formatting after flash-all.sh by directly booting into recovery = bootloop
Running flash-all.sh, rebooting directly to fastboot, then disabling verity and verification = bootloop.
The only way I have gotten it to work is by using Google's online Android Flash Tool and selecting: wipe, disable verity, and disable verification (which I have done manually with an unsuccessful result).
Has anyone manually flashed firmware (not the OTA) without getting a bootloop?? I'm starting to think they have uploaded courupted files or something. I've downloaded them multiple times to be sure it wasn't bad on my end. It's got me seriously scratching my head. Again, I have been doing the same with each previous Pixel for years now, so I don't know what the deal is.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Might be a problem with your setup. I don't have a Pixel 6 / Pro so I can't confirm this, but I've had zero issues with the factory images on my Pixel 5. Others in this forum have used the factory images with no problems.
Disabling verity/verification is no longer necessary if you're rooting with Magisk.
V0latyle said:
Might be a problem with your setup. I don't have a Pixel 6 / Pro so I can't confirm this, but I've had zero issues with the factory images on my Pixel 5. Others in this forum have used the factory images with no problems.
Disabling verity/verification is no longer necessary if you're rooting with Magisk.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've never had any issues with any other Pixel devices (granted, the latest device I have other than the Pixel 6 is the Pixel 4XL).
Do you have any advice on making sure my setup is correct? I mean, I tried in both Linux and Windows. It should be an all in one package in either environment though I would think.
I may try again in Linux to see what happens after a fresh download.
jal3223 said:
I've never had any issues with any other Pixel devices (granted, the latest device I have other than the Pixel 6 is the Pixel 4XL).
Do you have any advice on making sure my setup is correct? I mean, I tried in both Linux and Windows. It should be an all in one package in either environment though I would think.
I may try again in Linux to see what happens after a fresh download.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried a different USB cable? Are your platform tools and drivers up to date? I assume the bootloader is unlocked, otherwise you wouldn't be able to flash a factory image.
interesting.... i haven't manually flashed the whole image because the web installer is soo easy! I have just recently flashed the radio (had signal issues on december update so i tried the november radio) And it went fine.
Edit: I would maybe see if you have the newest version of ADB
thewraith420 said:
interesting.... i haven't manually flashed the whole image because the web installer is soo easy! I have just recently flashed the radio (had signal issues on december update so i tried the november radio) And it went fine.
Edit: I would maybe see if you have the newest version of ADB
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Doesnt the firmware come with its own platform tools within the firmware zip? I was thinking it was a self contained package. At least on Windows.
jal3223 said:
Doesnt the firmware come with its own platform tools within the firmware zip? I was thinking it was a self contained package. At least on Windows.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, Not at all. whats in the zip is several image files and a flash-all.bat for windows and flash-all.sh for linux. the .sh and .bat files are just scripts that send commands to adb and fastboot to flash the phone. If you open the bat or .sh file in a text editor you can actually see the commands it issues. It is all reliant on ADB and Fastboot being correctly installed.
thewraith420 said:
No, Not at all. whats in the zip is several image files and a flash-all.bat for windows and flash-all.sh for linux. the .sh and .bat files are just scripts that send commands to adb and fastboot to flash the phone. If you open the bat or .sh file you can actually see the commands it issues. It is all reliant on ADB and Fastboot being correctly installed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah, for some reason I was thinking it had platform tools in it. I'll double-check and try to update everything on Windows. On Linux I definitely have everything updated though. Thank you for the advice.
jal3223 said:
Ah, for some reason I was thinking it had platform tools in it. I'll double-check and try to update everything on Windows. On Linux I definitely have everything updated though. Thank you for the advice.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if you continue to have trouble with the flash-all you can open it with a text editor and use it as a guide to flash the firmware manually. It'll at least give you an idea why the flash-all fails. I just took another looks at the script and looks like i forgot that the factory image only uses fastboot not adb. Looks like i have fastboot version 28.0.2.... looks like that means i'm a bit behind lol its up to 31.0.3
thewraith420 said:
if you continue to have trouble with the flash-all you can open it with a text editor and use it as a guide to flash the firmware manually. It'll at least give you an idea why the flash-all fails. I just took another looks at the script and looks like i forgot that the factory image only uses fastboot not adb. Looks like i have fastboot version 28.0.2.... looks like that means i'm a bit behind lol its up to 31.0.3
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I feel stupid now. I updated to the latest fastboot from google platform tools and it is working now. I really appreciate the advice. It seems it's always the simple stuff that gets overlooked. lol
V0latyle said:
Have you tried a different USB cable? Are your platform tools and drivers up to date? I assume the bootloader is unlocked, otherwise you wouldn't be able to flash a factory image.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you as well. I should have made sure things were up to date when you mentioned it earlier.

Question Flash TWRP 3.5.2......But

I have been through hell and high water today with this Nord N200 5G today. Soft Brick after Soft Brick. iI only flashed TWRP and try to boot into OS after exiting TWRP but i get No OS you sure you want to reboot?. I also can't figure out how to get my internal storage viewed in TWRP. I've read multiple guides and still can't figure it out. I"m pretty new to this so . and they try to flash Magisk for root as well as super su during on adventure fiasco after fiasco today. The Bootloader and OEM unlock was simple straight forward. Most Guides though are not in LAMENS terms and have abbreviations that new people do not understand. i have had to reflash my phone 20+ today with factory due to the NO OS problem with TWRP and can't get it so i can view my internal data from twrp even though i've followed several guides and the ones that says to do the wipe thing i always get the error about it can't mount the data or it has encountered and error 255 and by got try looking things up for those and you you get sent all over the place. So If there is Anyone Out There That would like to help an old geezer out to be able to get a stable TWRP and a Stable root going on please Respond. Sorry Had to Vent......
Oh yea and not to mention Unable to install 3.6.2
TWRP is not officially launched for this phone. In my opinion lineage is the best option for this phone as of now. It has a custom recovery and is easily rooted as well. https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/rom-official-dre-12l-lineageos-19.4473129/
weirdfate said:
TWRP is not officially launched for this phone. In my opinion lineage is the best option for this phone as of now. It has a custom recovery and is easily rooted as well. https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/rom-official-dre-12l-lineageos-19.4473129/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A couple of questions before I jump into that.
How are updates handled? Does the OS do auto-updates?
How is the camera?
I don't know a lot about this phone, but previous phones I've owned had proprietary camera/software, and any custom ROM not based on the stock OS lost camera quality because it couldn't use the proprietary software..
jova33 said:
A couple of questions before I jump into that.
How are updates handled? Does the OS do auto-updates?
How is the camera?
I don't know a lot about this phone, but previous phones I've owned had proprietary camera/software, and any custom ROM not based on the stock OS lost camera quality because it couldn't use the proprietary software..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Obviously not who you were asking but I just updated to Lineage and it was fairly straightforward following the directions, just make sure you're on Android 11. Updates can be done through settings menu, I just actually applied an update and it worked fine. It can check for updates every day, week, month if you choose I don't know if it will automatically update it though. Camera I have not tried as I don't use it as an everyday phone but generally from what I've seen it's common to have quality go down using software other than stock but I could be wrong.
I can't speak on the difference in camera quality because I dont use it much. There is some loss of function between the stock camera app and the aftermarket rom camera app
This phone has no official twrp so it has tons of decrypting issues which explains almost all of your problems.
What worked for me is to avoid touching the phone if at all possible while in TWRP. It's very unstable and if you click something it will try to mount partitions and somehow brick you in the process. While booted into TWRP I did almost everything via ADB command from my computer instead of through the TWRP menus, including reboot.
I Pushed my magisk package to /tmp instead which worked. I'm just going to go the lineage route later though. I don't think it's worth messing with TWRP on this device.
Update: Phone Complete Bricked. Says something like The Image(boot/recovery) has been destroyed please flash the correct image or call customer service to fix it. on top of this....Unable to flash anything. everything no matter what it is, i even tried to follow a guide to get back to factory and it say that no such partition or volume full. Oh and it's an A/B partition phone
swee08315 said:
What worked for me is to avoid touching the phone if at all possible while in TWRP. It's very unstable and if you click something it will try to mount partitions and somehow brick you in the process. While booted into TWRP I did almost everything via ADB command from my computer instead of through the TWRP menus, including reboot.
I Pushed my magisk package to /tmp instead which worked. I'm just going to go the lineage route later though. I don't think it's worth messing with TWRP on this device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
how do you push? ive tried the adb push and to no avail... it just keeps saying it's unable to. oh and when i did have twrp installed it wouldn't boot into the os unless i fastboot boot twrp.img then it would reset and finally boot into regular os
MiniNinja2024 said:
how do you push? ive tried the adb push and to no avail... it just keeps saying it's unable to. oh and when i did have twrp installed it wouldn't boot into the os unless i fastboot boot twrp.img then it would reset and finally boot into regular os
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I believe it was just "adb push boot.img /tmp/boot.img"
And then in TWRP when selecting a file to flash you have to click on the top level option to go up a directory and find /tmp while not clicking anything else. I pushed to tmp to avoid mounting any partitions since the phone bricked everytime that happened.
swee08315 said:
I believe it was just "adb push boot.img /tmp/boot.img"
And then in TWRP when selecting a file to flash you have to click on the top level option to go up a directory and find /tmp while not clicking anything else. I pushed to tmp to avoid mounting any partitions since the phone bricked everytime that happened.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
how do i get the phone completely unbricked cause it's saying something like The Image[boot,recovery] has been destroyed please flash correct image or contact customer service to fix it
I forgot to mention that I can no long get into recovery it won't even flash a recovery anymore. it will say it completed successfully but i got to boot recovery and it just boot right back into bootloadre/fastboot mode. i even tried to do fastboot --set-active=a and fastboot --set-active=b tried booting into each of them and nothing. when i do fastboot getvar all it says that boot_a and boot_b are unbootable. any idea how to fix this?
Will be trying again in a week when i get my new unlock token. just took the phone to the store, said that the bricking of the phone happend during an update. They didn't have any Nord N200's in stock so they ordered one and said they would have it in the store in a day or two. onto the next phone til then. any ideas on a TCL A509DL Trac Phone?
MiniNinja2024 said:
I forgot to mention that I can no long get into recovery it won't even flash a recovery anymore. it will say it completed successfully but i got to boot recovery and it just boot right back into bootloadre/fastboot mode. i even tried to do fastboot --set-active=a and fastboot --set-active=b tried booting into each of them and nothing. when i do fastboot getvar all it says that boot_a and boot_b are unbootable. any idea how to fix this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You need to use MSM tools to unbrick. It'll restore your device to stock and relock your bootloader.
swee08315 said:
You need to use MSM tools to unbrick. It'll restore your device to stock and relock your bootloader.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Having problems getting msm running on deb linux. Have the firmware and files needed but can't get msm to run on MX linux And can't get VMware to run either to try it through that on windows 10
MiniNinja2024 said:
Having problems getting msm running on deb linux. Have the firmware and files needed but can't get msm to run on MX linux And can't get VMware to run either to try it through that on windows 10
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i'm not sure if you can even get the devices to connect to the unbrick tools in a virtual machine. to save some time, use a physical computer running windows 10+ and use a virtual machine as a last resort or if you don't have another computer.
by the way, make sure you have the drivers.
justauserthatusesaphone said:
i'm not sure if you can even get the devices to connect to the unbrick tools in a virtual machine. to save some time, use a physical computer running windows 10+ and use a virtual machine as a last resort or if you don't have another computer.
by the way, make sure you have the drivers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i don't have another machine only the one i'm using running MX linux. and with all the Distro's of linux i have installed and used there is no need to install drivers for phones for every phone, 3 that i have connected to my computer it' has recognized all 3 phones and runs adb and fastboot commands fine on them. Lol, Took me a minute to read your name but Love the Name.
Haha, don't flash it. Boot it. I ended up stop using it and am now using the Lineage OS Recovery. SUPER stable. I am in the works making a new TWRP as well... This unofficial variant just isn't working for me either. So, I figured since im making it doe myself, might as well release it
justauserthatusesaphone said:
i'm not sure if you can even get the devices to connect to the unbrick tools in a virtual machine. to save some time, use a physical computer running windows 10+ and use a virtual machine as a last resort or if you don't have another computer.
by the way, make sure you have the drivers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can. Use virtualbox. I wouldn't bother with qemu.
swee08315 said:
You need to use MSM tools to unbrick. It'll restore your device to stock and relock your bootloader.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is a command line alternative for Linux. It is originally made for flashing android boards, but works with phones as well.
Springles2 said:
You can. Use virtualbox. I wouldn't bother with qemu.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interesting, that's actually useful to know. Thanks.
MiniNinja2024 said:
Update: Phone Complete Bricked. Says something like The Image(boot/recovery) has been destroyed please flash the correct image or call customer service to fix it. on top of this....Unable to flash anything. everything no matter what it is, i even tried to follow a guide to get back to factory and it say that no such partition or volume full. Oh and it's an A/B partition phone
how do you push? ive tried the adb push and to no avail... it just keeps saying it's unable to. oh and when i did have twrp installed it wouldn't boot into the os unless i fastboot boot twrp.img then it would reset and finally boot into regular os
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do adb push (File) partition

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