Root HTC Eris RUU won't run

[erisuser1]

A question though is there any other way to root the eris so that I could flash it to another carrier without using unrEVOked?

I am going to search and see, but if you have another idea let me know! Later.

I've never used any carrier other than Verizon with my Eris, but I have a few leads and hunches:

Leads:

(1) For methods involving Cricket, search either these (Eris) boards on AF for posts by user "pkopalek" with the keyword "Cricket".

(2) Do the same search on HTC Droid Eris - xda-developers

Hunches & WAGs

I saw a report on the XDA Eris Forums where a user mentioned that "flashing the FlashBack2.1 ROM converted my carrier-flashed phone back to Verizon". The implication was that the user had been ROM-hopping successfully with an Eris on some other carrier than Verizon... and one of the two things that are different about the "flashback" ROMs are that the "misc" partition is over-written with Jcase's "flash any RUU" misc partition image.

While I have muddled through some of those (Cricket) posts as a matter of academic curiosity, when folks refer to their phone as having been "carrier flashed", it is still a mystery to me what exact procedure they are talking about when they say "carrier flashed". Having said that, I do know that the carrier "CID" value (Carrier ID) is stored in the misc partition, and the bootloader passes the CID to the Android kernel during booting.

Speculating wildly, I'd be willing to bet that the bootloader reads the CID out of the misc partition (as it is already looking in there for custom booting instructions), and reports that CID value to the Android kernel. Since that partition doesn't get touched during normal ROM flashing, that could account for behaviors which are customized, but not altered by ROM flashing.

Of course, that's not all there is to it (I seem to remember instructions for Proxy and APN setup stuff done in the "ROM" after installation for Cricket in particular); however, it is worthwhile to note that in 99.9% of all ROM flashing operations, the "misc" partition (and hence it's CID value) are never touched.

That might mean that you can use a QPST method with an Eris 2.1/Eclair ROM, and then afterward flash any ROM you want (plus setups like APNs, Proxies, etc). But, since I have no experience with this, it's just a hunch.


If you do carrier-flash the phone with QPST, I would be interested in seeing if the CID value gets modified in the misc partition - it is easy to dump a copy of your misc partition with a fastboot oem command now that you have the S-OFF bootloader on the phone.


But, to put all this in perspective, I will offer the following advice: I have been using GB ROMs (GSB in particular) for quite some time... and while I am unlikely to give up GB anytime because of improved features relative to Froyo/Eclair, I would say that I pay a penalty for that: they are a little bit sluggish on the Eris compared to a stripped-down, bloatware-removed, Eclair custom ROM such as xtrSENSE5.01.

Everything just friggin' works on that ROM, and is about as snappy as an Eris can get (with a moderate amount of OC'ing). If it is a phone you are going to hand off to a friend - you probably don't want them griping "waaaah, this bug, that bug!", or "OMG, my phone is lag-tastic".

Maybe a rooted Eclair (2.1) ROM is the right answer in this specific case.

cheers

eu1

 

[erisuser1]

FYI,

Then after the ROM was successfully installed. I had to accept and have it run.
When those skating guys came on, they didn't want to leave. I put the phone aside for about 5 minutes. then I got angry.
I removed the battery.
Then I started it again it stayed on those droids.
I immediately flashed another Custom Rom and it failed!

It said:

symlink dumpstate SYSTEM:bin/dumpcrash and the error line was I think 15.

I didn't know what the RUU was by then. Then I downloaded one:

RUU_Desire_C_Verizon_WWE_2.36.605.1_release_signed_with_driver

hoping that it was going to fix it, I run it and killed it completely meaning the [110] error. And I didn't know what that was either.

That symlink error has been reported by many users with similar experiences to yours. The error message is a bit of a red herring, though - the underlying problem is that the kernel has run out of room in the /system partition, and this has happened precisely because a massive number of (flash memory) pages got somehow marked as bad during PRIOR operations.

So, don't beat yourself up about aborting the RUU - the damage had already been done before you got to that step.

It is really a strange deal, frankly. The few versions of ClockworkMod that I examined (from UnrEVOked, iirc) used an HTC (Leak V2) kernel. I can imagine all sorts of ungodly evil breaking out when a custom kernel is running, but that doesn't seem to be what is going on - the evil might well be happening in "userland". And the only common denominator when the failure occurs seems to be ClockworkMod recovery.

But making any headway on figuring out what is going on is nearly impossible - Koush doesn't maintain online archives of past recovery releases, either on his own site or via UnrEVOked, and the phone owners who bork their phones are generally newbs, and can't tell you what release versions they used anyhow. And by the time the phone gets back on it's feet, the old recovery has been over-written. It's kind of like the fog of war.

Don't get me wrong though - I use both Amon_RA and ClockworkMod recoveries. I use Amon_RA only for installing new ROMs (or doing Unix-y things in the recovery via adb and the command line), and only use ClockworkMod for making Nandroid backups & restores of the same. (ClockworkMod does a far more complete job of Nandroid backups than Amon_RA).

HTH

eu1

 

[scotty85]

PS doog, scotty, scary: sorry for butting in.

i share the feelings allready expressed... in no way,shape or form were you butting in,and neither of these rescues would have even been possible without your work and patience,and the repair tool

as doogald said,im glad you were here to step in and finish things up,and give this thread a second happy ending. some days i have free time i can type out replys on my phone,but unfortunately today was not one... its hard enuff to drive and pay attention to the stupidity of other drivers(who may be texting to typing replys on forums ),its not a good idea for me to try and type and drive at the same time.

rest assured,tho i was refreshing the forum at each stop and followed along the whole day.

huntdilan and jonsey obviously had good basic knowledge of what they were doing and were able to learn many new things in the process of phone repair.

Congrats!

I am still on my errand - the hell on earth known as "going to Costco with the GF".

whaaaa

i feel you... it drives me nuts to do ANY kind of shopping with my GF... she has the attention span of a 3 year old and is constantly diverting attention away from the agenda

huntdilan im glad it worked out for you. as you have found out,unrevoked is not the best way to root an eris(i did try and flash the forever patch,but thats another story ). the prollem with anything other than the "root for dummies" or jcases once click app,are that they either 1)leave no recovery,and the unknowing user installs clockwork, or 2)the leave clockwork recovery. they also do not give any insite or information on how to flash,backup,etc.

i rooted my eris the other day with z4 to see if it would work. it did. i used rom manager to flash Amon under "alternate recoveries".

just keep that in mind when rooting future erii. if you use an alternate method,just make sure you use Amon for a recovery.

 

[huntdilan]

First of all, I would like to thank

scotty85

erisuser1

doogald

and scary alien

for their relentless effort. You guys are amazing. I thank you for kindly pointing me into the right direction even-though what I asked for was right inside the thread but because of wanting to get to the right results, it seemed like I couldn't see everything.

I still can't believe that I was unable to see the difference between "fastboot flash" and "fastboot boot" but you guys helped a lot and thank you again.

I also wanted to let you know that the phone is now fully working. I installed this rom [ROM][GPL] xtrROM5.0.1 odex,cache2cache,apps2sd,jit,lwp,oc[3/29/2011] - xda-developers as instructed by doogald

Well, looking through that Cricket method and is says that you need to have QPST, so that, I think, precludes any of the Froyo or Gingerbread ROMs. However, both xtrSENSE and xtrROM do support QPST, so I would try flashing one of those and see what happens.

[ROM][GPL][3/15/2011] xtrSENSE5.0.1 [cache2cache,apps2sd,oc,jit]-HTC Sense - xda-developers
[ROM][GPL] xtrROM5.0.1 odex,cache2cache,apps2sd,jit,lwp,oc[3/29/2011] - xda-developers

You've done an excellent job learning things like MD5 hash checking, so you should be all set to flash this. That said, just to say it, I would use this procedure:

- move xtrSENSE or xtrROM to the SD card
- check the MD5, just in case
- restart in Recovery
- Nandroid backup
- Wipe data/factory reset
- Wipe Dalvik cache
- Flash xtrSENSE or xtrROM
- restart the phone

Try then with that Cricket procedure and see if it works.

which is, by the way, the best rom I have ever tried, and flashed the phone to cricket using this method How to flash HTC Droid Eris to Cricket with Talk, Text, Wap and MMS 5/3/2010 - xda-developers. The phone has unlimited Talk and text, web and MMS and is running perfectly as if nothing ever happened on a plan of fifty dollars which is not the one Cricket requires for android phones and it has the 3G icon meaning it does what 3G network exists for.

This is my last post about my bricked htc droid eris which could not run using RUU but from part of what RUU did came something good.

I nick-named or baptized it HTC Droid Lazarus Eris (Lazarus was resurrected from the dead by Jesus Christ)!

It also has Amon_RA Android System Recovery. The one with [trackall-optional]

from here where I downloaded the recovery-RA-eris-v1.6.2-trackball-optional.img

from this link:

Amon_RA 1.6.2 Custom Recovery: trackball not required!

and downloaded the
New ("1.7.1") version:

https://sites.google.com/site/scary...ecovery-RA-eris-v1.6.2-trackball-optional.img

for which I double checked its size and md5 sum shown here below
File size: 3,926,016 bytes
MD5 checksum: 3217768b831a3841180699942204762d

and underneath Build : RA-eris-v1.6.2 there was trackball optional.

Thanks to everyone.

I will stop here at least once a day to see if no one also needs help like I did.

Guys, keep doing what you do best!

 

[huntdilan]

.

 

[scary alien]

huntdilan,

Cheers and thanks to you, too! Glad all is well and its good to see a response like this.

You were exceedingly informative and responsive to everyone's posts to you in trying to help--we wish that all, but understand that not all can be, were as helpful to us in helping you as you were. Kudos to you .

I hope you continue to be an active member of this forum, whether its with the Eris or with some future phone or Android device.

Cheers!

 

[huntdilan]

huntdilan,

Cheers and thanks to you, too! Glad all is well and its good to see a response like this.

You were exceedingly informative and responsive to everyone's posts to you in trying to help--we wish that all, but understand that not all can be, were as helpful to us in helping you as you were. Kudos to you .

I hope you continue to be an active member of this forum, whether its with the Eris or with some future phone or Android device.

Cheers!

Thank you!
I will try and I think a weekly hour browse to learn more about androids will suffice.
Later!

 

[erisuser1]

huntdilan,

There is a small favor you could do me, if you don't mind. (It will add to community knowledge.) Remember how I was curious about whether or not QPST alters the /misc partition when you are doing the Cricket mods?

Finding out isn't too hard - I'll provide instructions below. Since you've already used fastboot once, we'll use fastboot again with a capability of the S-OFF bootloader. (Don't worry, it is harmless)

0) Before you begin, make sure there are no PB00IMG.zip files in the toplevel folder of your SD card.

1) Power the phone off

2) Power the phone on by holding Send+End simultanously.
You should see a screen which looks like the HBOOT screen, but instead it will say "FASTBOOT"

3) Plug the phone in to the computer.
You should see the phone screen change from "FASTBOOT" to "FASTBOOT USB"

4) Try the "fastboot devices" command to see if your device is recognized.

5) run the following fastboot command:

C:\sdk\platform-tools>fastboot oem saveprt2sd misc -n miscpart.img -a

You should see output which looks like this:

                              ... INFOSaveImageToSD partition file name:misc
INFOSaveImageToSD output file name:miscpart.img
INFOCmd5 CMD_TIMEOUT
INFOsdcc_poll_status(): i=12
INFOCmd5 polling status timed out
INFOSD: CMD5 fail, rc=2 ..
INFOSD 2.0
INFOHC card
INFO Searching free data sectors....
INFO [SAVE2SD] 131072 bytes saved.
INFO [SAVE2SD] 262144 bytes saved.
INFO [SAVE2SD] 393216 bytes saved.
INFO [SAVE2SD] 524288 bytes saved.
INFO [SAVE2SD] 655360 bytes saved.
INFO [SAVE2SD] Done.
OKAY [  4.894s]
finished. total time: 4.895s

(6)
After that, you can restart your phone, either by pulling the battery, or by using the bootloader menus to navigate to HBOOT (Vol Down) -> Recovery (Vol Up) -> Reboot system now

The dumped image file will be at /sdcard/miscpart.img


Now, the dumped (misc partition) image file is binary, and in an undocumented format (possibly the HTC kernel sources might have some clues). Normally, a Unix-like tool called "hexdump" can be used to examine the file.

In mine (a Verizon phone), the Verizon CID ("VZW__001") appears 5 times within the partition - at the very beginning (byte 0), and then every 128 kB offset thereafter:

$ hexdump -C miscpart.img | grep VZW
00000000  56 5a 57 5f 5f 30 30 31  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |VZW__001........|
00020000  56 5a 57 5f 5f 30 30 31  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |VZW__001........|
00040000  56 5a 57 5f 5f 30 30 31  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |VZW__001........|
00060000  56 5a 57 5f 5f 30 30 31  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |VZW__001........|
00080000  56 5a 57 5f 5f 30 30 31  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |VZW__001........|

I don't know if you are familiar with Unix/Linux tools like "hexdump" or "strings". If you want, we could arrange for you to drop the file someplace - it contains zero private information, so far as I am aware. Either that or you could just look at the first couple of bytes in the file using an editor that tolerates binary files.

Here's what mine looks like - it is almost all null (0) bytes, with string data in it - see the following pastebin: http://pastebin.com/2YfTuhfp

It appears that information is replicated every 128 kB (which makes sense because the Eris' flash memory has "eraseblock" size which is 128 kB - if one eraseblock is marked bad, the others are still available.

Anyway, congrats on the phone rescue. I hope you will consider doing the above (harmless) experiment.

eu1

 

[scotty85]

ok... so i tried this too,for sh*ts and giggles

however,i got an [S2S ERROR] and no output.

i had pasted my platform tools to tools,so i changed to the tools directory and ran the command and heres what i got:

c:\android-sdk-windows\tools>fastboot oem saveprt2sd misc -n miscpart.img -a
...
(bootloader) SaveImageToSD partition file name:misc
(bootloader) SaveImageToSD output file name:miscpart.img
(bootloader) Cmd5 CMD_TIMEOUT
(bootloader) sdcc_poll_status(): i=17
(bootloader) Cmd5 polling status timed out
(bootloader) SD: CMD5 fail, rc=2 ..
(bootloader) SD 2.0
(bootloader) HC card
(bootloader)  Searching free data sectors....
(bootloader) [S2S_ERROR] fat_open_write_file fail.
OKAY [  0.174s]
finished. total time: 0.175s

am i missing somethin? or is my phone about to start bootlooping and die

 

[scary alien]

Scotty,

Is your SD card in the phone? (the errors seem to point to something in the SD card...)

Just checking...

 

[huntdilan]

huntdilan,

There is a small favor you could do me, if you don't mind. (It will add to community knowledge.) Remember how I was curious about whether or not QPST alters the /misc partition when you are doing the Cricket mods?

Finding out isn't too hard - I'll provide instructions below. Since you've already used fastboot once, we'll use fastboot again with a capability of the S-OFF bootloader. (Don't worry, it is harmless)

0) Before you begin, make sure there are no PB00IMG.zip files in the toplevel folder of your SD card.

1) Power the phone off

2) Power the phone on by holding Send+End simultanously.
You should see a screen which looks like the HBOOT screen, but instead it will say "FASTBOOT"

3) Plug the phone in to the computer.
You should see the phone screen change from "FASTBOOT" to "FASTBOOT USB"

4) Try the "fastboot devices" command to see if your device is recognized.

5) run the following fastboot command:

C:\sdk\platform-tools>fastboot oem saveprt2sd misc -n miscpart.img -a

You should see output which looks like this:

                              ... INFOSaveImageToSD partition file name:misc
INFOSaveImageToSD output file name:miscpart.img
INFOCmd5 CMD_TIMEOUT
INFOsdcc_poll_status(): i=12
INFOCmd5 polling status timed out
INFOSD: CMD5 fail, rc=2 ..
INFOSD 2.0
INFOHC card
INFO Searching free data sectors....
INFO [SAVE2SD] 131072 bytes saved.
INFO [SAVE2SD] 262144 bytes saved.
INFO [SAVE2SD] 393216 bytes saved.
INFO [SAVE2SD] 524288 bytes saved.
INFO [SAVE2SD] 655360 bytes saved.
INFO [SAVE2SD] Done.
OKAY [  4.894s]
finished. total time: 4.895s

(6)
After that, you can restart your phone, either by pulling the battery, or by using the bootloader menus to navigate to HBOOT (Vol Down) -> Recovery (Vol Up) -> Reboot system now

The dumped image file will be at /sdcard/miscpart.img


Now, the dumped (misc partition) image file is binary, and in an undocumented format (possibly the HTC kernel sources might have some clues). Normally, a Unix-like tool called "hexdump" can be used to examine the file.

In mine (a Verizon phone), the Verizon CID ("VZW__001") appears 5 times within the partition - at the very beginning (byte 0), and then every 128 kB offset thereafter:

$ hexdump -C miscpart.img | grep VZW
00000000  56 5a 57 5f 5f 30 30 31  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |VZW__001........|
00020000  56 5a 57 5f 5f 30 30 31  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |VZW__001........|
00040000  56 5a 57 5f 5f 30 30 31  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |VZW__001........|
00060000  56 5a 57 5f 5f 30 30 31  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |VZW__001........|
00080000  56 5a 57 5f 5f 30 30 31  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |VZW__001........|

I don't know if you are familiar with Unix/Linux tools like "hexdump" or "strings". If you want, we could arrange for you to drop the file someplace - it contains zero private information, so far as I am aware. Either that or you could just look at the first couple of bytes in the file using an editor that tolerates binary files.

Here's what mine looks like - it is almost all null (0) bytes, with string data in it - see the following pastebin: HTC Droid Eris (Verizon) /misc hexdump - Pastebin.com

It appears that information is replicated every 128 kB (which makes sense because the Eris' flash memory has "eraseblock" size which is 128 kB - if one eraseblock is marked bad, the others are still available.

Anyway, congrats on the phone rescue. I hope you will consider doing the above (harmless) experiment.

eu1

I don't mind at all! Yes, I remember post #176 (permalink) http://androidforums.com/eris-all-things-root/350856-htc-eris-ruu-wont-run-4.html#post2882657

Alright I got the steps. Unfortunately, I just gave away the phone to my friend who "REALLY" needed it. But wait, I have some good news. I have a third Eris coming in the mail tomorrow at the end of the day by UPS

Scheduled Delivery:Wednesday, 06/29/2011, By End of Day Last Location: Arrived - Buffalo, NY, United States, Tuesday, 06/28/2011 http://androidforums.com/2882657-post176.html

When, it gets here I will start playing around with it (rooting it with Amon_RA, flashing it with xtrROM5.0.1, etc.) and I will give you the results at precisely 10PM EST. If I run into trouble you will get an instant email notification post from me between 7 and before 10pm EST for which I'm sure you are subscribed to.

I am not familiar with either Unix/Linux OS or its tools but I love learning new stuff. When it comes to give you the results I will come up with something or if you have an idea on how to do it for a "dummy" like me let me know before the phone comes. I'll look at it.

Huh, those data are very interesting! But to be honest I don't know what they do or mean. That is new to me. It's my first time seeing such a thing.

Thank you. Oh, absolutely. I'll do it and I will let you know! This time I don't have anyone in mind to give this Eris to. So, it going to be with me for sometime.

See you tomorrow then.

 

[scotty85]

Scotty,

Is your SD card in the phone?

Just checking...

whaaa



yes sir,it is there and with the phone booted i can look at the SD card with astro. i had used adb reboot bootloader instead of end/send,wich i didn think would matter,but to be sure,i unplugged it,powered off,then into fastboot via power/send and then plugged it in.

same thing,pretty much

c:\android-sdk-windows\tools>fastboot oem saveprt2sd misc -n miscpart.img -a
...
(bootloader) SaveImageToSD partition file name:misc
(bootloader) SaveImageToSD output file name:miscpart.img
(bootloader) Cmd5 CMD_TIMEOUT
(bootloader) sdcc_poll_status(): i=11
(bootloader) Cmd5 polling status timed out
(bootloader) SD: CMD5 fail, rc=2 ..
(bootloader) SD 2.0
(bootloader) HC card
(bootloader)  Searching free data sectors....
(bootloader) [S2S_ERROR] fat_open_write_file fail.
OKAY [  0.276s]
finished. total time: 0.277s

so if im understanding,its failing the write,not the read,correct?

 

[scary alien]

whaaa



yes sir,it is there and with the phone booted i can look at the SD card with astro. i had used adb reboot bootloader instead of end/send,wich i didn think would matter,but to be sure,i unplugged it,powered off,then into fastboot via power/send and then plugged it in.

same thing,pretty much

<snip>

so if im understanding,its failing the write,not the read,correct?

Sure looks like it to me...??? Dunno...

You sure you have space on the card? Do you have another card to try or one that is freshly formatted?

I'll grab my phone and try this too...gimme a few...

 

[huntdilan]

I've never used any carrier other than Verizon with my Eris, but I have a few leads and hunches:

Leads:

(1) For methods involving Cricket, search either these (Eris) boards on AF for posts by user "pkopalek" with the keyword "Cricket".

(2) Do the same search on HTC Droid Eris - xda-developers

Hunches & WAGs

I saw a report on the XDA Eris Forums where a user mentioned that "flashing the FlashBack2.1 ROM converted my carrier-flashed phone back to Verizon". The implication was that the user had been ROM-hopping successfully with an Eris on some other carrier than Verizon... and one of the two things that are different about the "flashback" ROMs are that the "misc" partition is over-written with Jcase's "flash any RUU" misc partition image.

While I have muddled through some of those (Cricket) posts as a matter of academic curiosity, when folks refer to their phone as having been "carrier flashed", it is still a mystery to me what exact procedure they are talking about when they say "carrier flashed". Having said that, I do know that the carrier "CID" value (Carrier ID) is stored in the misc partition, and the bootloader passes the CID to the Android kernel during booting.

Speculating wildly, I'd be willing to bet that the bootloader reads the CID out of the misc partition (as it is already looking in there for custom booting instructions), and reports that CID value to the Android kernel. Since that partition doesn't get touched during normal ROM flashing, that could account for behaviors which are customized, but not altered by ROM flashing.

Of course, that's not all there is to it (I seem to remember instructions for Proxy and APN setup stuff done in the "ROM" after installation for Cricket in particular); however, it is worthwhile to note that in 99.9% of all ROM flashing operations, the "misc" partition (and hence it's CID value) are never touched.

That might mean that you can use a QPST method with an Eris 2.1/Eclair ROM, and then afterward flash any ROM you want (plus setups like APNs, Proxies, etc). But, since I have no experience with this, it's just a hunch.


If you do carrier-flash the phone with QPST, I would be interested in seeing if the CID value gets modified in the misc partition - it is easy to dump a copy of your misc partition with a fastboot oem command now that you have the S-OFF bootloader on the phone.


But, to put all this in perspective, I will offer the following advice: I have been using GB ROMs (GSB in particular) for quite some time... and while I am unlikely to give up GB anytime because of improved features relative to Froyo/Eclair, I would say that I pay a penalty for that: they are a little bit sluggish on the Eris compared to a stripped-down, bloatware-removed, Eclair custom ROM such as xtrSENSE5.01.

Everything just friggin' works on that ROM, and is about as snappy as an Eris can get (with a moderate amount of OC'ing). If it is a phone you are going to hand off to a friend - you probably don't want them griping "waaaah, this bug, that bug!", or "OMG, my phone is lag-tastic".

Maybe a rooted Eclair (2.1) ROM is the right answer in this specific case.

cheers

eu1

Wow, you understand these stuff. I can't find anything to quote but, your language is amazing.

Anyway, I installed GSBv3.5-ODEX-cm-7.1.0-RC0-Eris-signed on my last Eris but removed it today for xtrROM5.0.1 to go to cricket. I gues I will use that GSB again in the new eris.

 

[scotty85]

i think i have enuff space... how much does it take up? its an 8gb card and i have 1.79gb free

nope,no other cards i can try...

 

[scary alien]

Huh, mine looks like it worked part-way:

C:\android-sdk-windows\platform-tools>fastboot oem saveprt2sd misc -n miscpart.img -a
... INFOSaveImageToSD partition file name:misc
INFOSaveImageToSD output file name:miscpart.img
INFOCmd5 CMD_TIMEOUT
INFOsdcc_poll_status(): i=11
INFOCmd5 polling status timed out
INFOSD: CMD5 fail, rc=2 ..
INFOSD 2.0
INFOHC card
INFO Searching free data sectors....
INFO [SAVE2SD] 131072 bytes saved.
INFO [SAVE2SD] 262144 bytes saved.
INFO [SAVE2SD] 393216 bytes saved.
INFO[S2S_ERROR] write_data_to_cluster fail.
OKAY

C:\android-sdk-windows\platform-tools>

I booted into recovery and toggled USB-MS and looked for the miscpart.img file...wasn't there...

Huh...I'll try one more time, but I'll try crossing my fingers this time, LOL.

BRB.

 

[scotty85]

hmm yours and eu1s outputs say INFO... mine says (bootloader)

 

[scary alien]

Meh.

Subsequent attempts look pretty-much like your attempts:

C:\android-sdk-windows\platform-tools>fastboot oem saveprt2sd misc -n miscpart.img -a
... INFOSaveImageToSD partition file name:misc
INFOSaveImageToSD output file name:miscpart.img
INFOCmd5 CMD_TIMEOUT
INFOsdcc_poll_status(): i=11
INFOCmd5 polling status timed out
INFOSD: CMD5 fail, rc=2 ..
INFOSD 2.0
INFOHC card
INFO Searching free data sectors....
INFO[S2S_ERROR] write_data_to_cluster fail.
OKAY

I'm going to look for a chicken to swing around my head, LOL.

Dunno... <waits for he-who-shall-be-named (eu1)> . . .

 

[scotty85]

Meh.

Subsequent attempts look pretty-much like your attempts:

I'm going to look for a chicken to swing around my head, LOL.

Dunno... <waits for he-who-shall-be-named (eu1)> . . .

those sound like a good plan lol

 

[scary alien]

Scotty,

I deleted about 7 Nandroid backups, powered-off, and tried again:

C:\android-sdk-windows\platform-tools>fastboot oem saveprt2sd misc -n miscpart.img -a
... INFOSaveImageToSD partition file name:misc
INFOSaveImageToSD output file name:miscpart.img
INFOCmd5 CMD_TIMEOUT
INFOsdcc_poll_status(): i=11
INFOCmd5 polling status timed out
INFOSD: CMD5 fail, rc=2 ..
INFOSD 2.0
INFOHC card
INFO Searching free data sectors....
INFO [SAVE2SD] 131072 bytes saved.
INFO [SAVE2SD] 262144 bytes saved.
INFO [SAVE2SD] 393216 bytes saved.
INFO [SAVE2SD] 524288 bytes saved.
INFO [SAVE2SD] 655360 bytes saved.
INFO [SAVE2SD] Done.
OKAY

C:\android-sdk-windows\platform-tools>

(nanny-nanny, boo, boo!)

and I now have a 655,360 byte (640KB) MISCPART.IMG file on the root of my SD card .

 

[scotty85]

i deleted a few roms,and a bunch of backups. still no go

*scotty goes off to find suitable chicken for swinging*

 

[erisuser1]

Sorry guys, the GF had dinner ready. (New York steaks au Poivre, roasted potatoes, wilted spinach... and there is a home-made apricot tart waiting for later. Nom nom nom. Good thing for you fellas I didn't have any wine ).

Sort of weird about the free space issues on scary's SD card - after all, the file is only 5 x 128 kB in size. Surely he had that much

Dunno what to tell you, except that the bootloader code is really primitive (for instance, it barfs on file names that don't conform to DOS 8.3 standards). Maybe there is something it doesn't like about the SD card, or the number of files in the root folder, or something like that. Fragmentation? (scotty85, I presume your card isn't partitioned, right?). You could try dropping the "-a" switch from the command - mebbe scotty has a bad eraseblock in his /misc

My SD card is a 8 GB, non-partitioned, almost full (300 MB free) card; 53 folders and 57 files in the root folder.

FWIW, a list of all of the OEM commands that the bootloader can accept are given by

fastboot oem ?

Some of them look downright dangerous, and I've never used them, but it should give scotty85 new ways to destroy his phone Others commands with more innocuous names, I've tried them without any arguments. (That's how I found out how "saveprt2sd" works - if you use the command

fastboot oem saveprt2sd

with no arguments, it will produce a bunch of INFO strings with mini-help for the command.


But, you guys are old hands - you already know that if you want a copy of your /misc partition, you can just boot up your recovery, and then in an ADB shell with your recovery running, do something like

[ Edited - Corrected 6/29/2011 ]

adb shell mount /sdcard
adb shell dump_image misc /sdcard/miscpart.img
adb pull /sdcard/miscpart.img
adb shell umount /sdcard

I think your /misc dumps will look much like my pastebin example, although your "Main Version" string could be different, depending on the flashing history of your phone.


eu1

 

[huntdilan]

I can't wait to get my phone! I am dying to try that and see the results!

 

[erisuser1]

I am not familiar with either Unix/Linux OS or its tools but I love learning new stuff. When it comes to give you the results I will come up with something or if you have an idea on how to do it for a "dummy" like me let me know before the phone comes. I'll look at it.

Without wrecking your Windows (?) environment, or learning the ins and outs of dual-booting, or virtual machines, or any of that crap, a vast quantity of Unix command-line utilities are available by installing Cygwin on a Windows machine. It certainly gives you the flavor of old-fashioned Unix/Linux command line behaviors, and the installer does not force you to understand dependencies - if you can find the utility you want, it will pull in all dependencies. The only "tricks" you need to learn to use are:

1) All Windows drives are found underneath /cygdrive

For instance, C: => /cygdrive/c, D: => /cygdrive/d, et cetera.

Or and even better example might be "cd /cygdrive/c/sdk/platform-tools"

2) If you invoke any of the Cygwin utilities, use forward slash "/" as a directory separator when specifying file name paths - but if you are invoking a native windows program, use Windows (backwards slash "\") notation.

(As a matter of fact, the "hexdump" output I showed you in a previous post was generated under Windows - using a Cygwin shell)

eu1

 

[scary alien]

LOL...my little Eris actually has pretty few "miles" on it compared to probably most of the Erii population out there since I got my DX on 7/15/2010. I've actually never formatted the SD card or even actually physically pulled it out.

I figured that the simple-by-necessity nature of the tool might require a few attempts at the given fastboot command (plus I'm pretty persistent ).

I think I had 700MB free before I deleted the Nandroids. I suspect that freeing-up additional space was a little bit of a red-herring, or the saveprt2sd command is sensitive to bad blocks on the SD card and I freed-up enough "clean" space that he did not encounter any issues the last time (you'll notice that my first attempt "almost" worked). Might be interesting to re-do the command to see if the free-space issue is actually relevant and/or my success is repeatable (lemme know if you care and I'll do it).

I'm pretty sure I've read a post of yours (probably over on XDA) where you listed all of the "scary" (TM ) fastboot commands before... Scotty is surely salivating over this new-found knowledge.

Let me know if you want some comparison tests or anything.

Cheers!