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Root 3G at last! But one question...

B

blsmitty

Member
Well, you interested folk probably are aware that some of us have been trying to program our Specs for prepaid carriers, in my case, Page Plus. Let me just come right out with it: I FAILED! I got talk & text but data beyond 1x was elusive to say the least. :argh:

Finally giving up, I did some searching for a flashing company that could get it done for me &, come to find, most of them said they could get only 1x also...until I found Fast Flash in the Tacoma, WA area. Anyway, long story short, I have full 3G w/ MMS working along w/ of course talk & text! Got about 1Mb down & up here at home. Good enough for me! :thumbup:

However, I now want to root the phone but I'm not sure if & how it will affect the flash. They said for some phones, it doesn't affect it at all but others require a reflash. If they have to reflash my Spec, I would be charged & I want to avoid any more fees, if possible.

So what's the case for the Spec - will rooting mess up the flash? How about installing Recovery? ROMs, kernels?

Thanks for your help!
 
blsmitty said:
LoL, I wish I could claim more credit than just doing the web search & finding them online. :rolleyes: But thanks! :p

Any thoughts on how rooting might affect the flash, though?
Click to expand...

I have no idea. Me personally. I wouldn't take the chance since it cost you money. Neph81 might know.
 
I got 1x on VM but gave up with 3G. Best thing I ever did was switch to a nitro and use StraightTalk. :D

I must admit I'm kind of miffed that I couldn't get it working. I'm glad you found a solution.

As for what will affect the flash... well, in theory, no flashable baseband, recovery, or ROM should disturb the nvram. But I'm not going to guarantee that of course. I haven't done cab flashes so I don't know about those.
 
tdm said:
I got 1x on VM but gave up with 3G. Best thing I ever did was switch to a nitro and use StraightTalk. :D

I must admit I'm kind of miffed that I couldn't get it working. I'm glad you found a solution.

As for what will affect the flash... well, in theory, no flashable baseband, recovery, or ROM should disturb the nvram. But I'm not going to guarantee that of course. I haven't done cab flashes so I don't know about those.
Click to expand...

Couldn't he in theory just dd the applicable partitions and restore then if need be? Adding you don't need root to access them...

Also op... Are you sure you aren't already rooted? They may have tossed root in for free.

Sent from my VS920 4G using Tapatalk 2
 
Yoinx said:
Couldn't he in theory just dd the applicable partitions and restore then if need be? Adding you don't need root to access them...

Also op... Are you sure you aren't already rooted? They may have tossed root in for free.

Sent from my VS920 4G using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...

No, NVRAM settings are not on the EMMC. They are stored in a different place. This is one reason why you need a special tool to view and change them.
 
It's funny, I've gotten feedback from other flashing companies that they can get the LG Intuition & Spectrum 2 going with 3G but some reason, our Spectrum 1 is different. Maybe that's why it took over a day to get it done. From what I understand, a donor was necessary.

@ Yoinx: Unfortunately, no root. I tried. But like TDM alluded to, I get the feeling that rooting shouldn't affect the flash. When it was working at 1x, I didn't have a problem rooting, installing recovery & switching between ROMs. But still hesitant :confused: *biting nails*
 
tdm said:
No, NVRAM settings are not on the EMMC. They are stored in a different place. This is one reason why you need a special tool to view and change them.
Click to expand...

Ah i missed it being an nvram issue.

There's nothing that flashing.... Well anything really... Should affect nvram. I personally wouldn't sweat it much IMO.

If it's like most nvram chips you should need hardware to specifically tie to the chip to write onto it. Sometimes you can do it with software depending on the chip setup and how it's installed on the board... But even that tends to require shorting pins together to enable writing.

Sent from my VS920 4G using Tapatalk 2
 
Yoinx said:
There's nothing that flashing.... Well anything really... Should affect nvram. I personally wouldn't sweat it much IMO.

If it's like most nvram chips you should need hardware to specifically tie to the chip to write onto it. Sometimes you can do it with software depending on the chip setup and how it's installed on the board... But even that tends to require shorting pins together to enable writing.
Click to expand...

Hmm, I wonder if that's why it took so long. Originally, it was projected to be a few hours but then they had to keep the phone overnight. I felt so naked. :p
 
blsmitty said:
Hmm, I wonder if that's why it took so long. Originally, it was projected to be a few hours but then they had to keep the phone overnight. I felt so naked. :p
Click to expand...

Maybe. I could be thinking of ROM or PROMS though tbh. There are too many acronyms out there.

Sent from my VS920 4G using Tapatalk 2
 
Ok, I may be missing something, but if it's NVRAM settings, can't you do a NV backup and a DD backup of all your partitions and have all your bases covered?
 
Neph81 said:
Ok, I may be missing something, but if it's NVRAM settings, can't you do a NV backup and a DD backup of all your partitions and have all your bases covered?
Click to expand...

This sounds promising!

Ok I found a guide & followed instructions to backup the NV - check. Found that guide here.

But I don't know what "DD" or "DD backup" refers to. Could someone shed some light?
 
blsmitty said:
This sounds promising!

Ok I found a guide & followed instructions to backup the NV - check. Found that guide here.

But I don't know what "DD" or "DD backup" refers to. Could someone shed some light?
Click to expand...

dd is a command that can write an image to a partitions. It's very useful if you know what you're doing but can really mess stuff up if you don't. It doesn't have any checks or safeguards and will, therefore, write any image to any partition. For example, you can replace your boot.img with one placed on your sd card by issuing a command like this:
Code: 
dd if=/sdcard/boot.img of=/dev/block/mmcblk0p8 bs=4096
It would also work reverse. You could switch the if and of paths and it would make a backup of your boot.img on your sd card. However, I wouldn't recommend messing with this unless you're sure of what you're doing.
 
ortrigger said:
dd is a command that can write an image to a partitions. It's very useful if you know what you're doing but can really mess stuff up if you don't. It doesn't have any checks or safeguards and will, therefore, write any image to any partition. For example, you can replace your boot.img with one placed on your sd card by issuing a command like this:
Code: 
dd if=/sdcard/boot.img  of=/dev/block/mmcblk0p8 bs=4096
It would also work reverse. You could switch the if and of paths and it would make a backup of your boot.img on your sd card. However, I wouldn't recommend messing with this unless you're sure of what you're doing.
Click to expand...

So in other words, running

Code: 
dd [B]of[/B]=/sdcard/boot.img [B]if[/B]=/dev/block/mmcblk0p8 bs=4096
would make a backup of my boot.img, correct? And then I could restore it using the same command line but switch the "if" & "of," right?

Besides the NV backup, are those the main things I need in order to restore the flash to Page Plus in the unforeseen event that I lose it?

Yoinx said:
Here's an entire write-up over at xda.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1818321

Though, I think that he's making it a little more complicated than what it would really need to be.

I can say though, that while I was messing around with partitions a little while back... I his some that for whatever reason, I had access denied to until I rooted.
Click to expand...

I looked at that page but the 1st reply (i.e. post #2) was exactly what I was thinking: How do I restore the backup? I read almost the entire thread & couldn't find it, unless I missed it.

But, it seems worthwhile to pursue if there's a way to get the image back on the phone after backing it up.

Another question re: NV backup. So I used NV read & write app found in that XDA post I linked above. I read & saved the NV. Now the file size was about 2.5MB. Does that sound about right?
 
blsmitty said:
So in other words, running

Code: 
dd [B]of[/B]=/sdcard/boot.img [B]if[/B]=/dev/block/mmcblk0p8 bs=4096
would make a backup of my boot.img, correct? And then I could restore it using the same command line but switch the "if" & "of," right?

Besides the NV backup, are those the main things I need in order to restore the flash to Page Plus in the unforeseen event that I lose it? I looked at that page but the 1st reply (i.e. post #2) was exactly what I was thinking: How do I restore the backup? I read almost the entire thread & couldn't find it, unless I missed it.
Click to expand...

That command would probably give you an error. The following would back it up:
Code: 
dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0p8 of=/sdcard/boot.img bs=4096
Then, to restore it you would issue the command I posted earlier. It would work the same way for other partitions but, as I said, I wouldn't do it unless you know exactly what you're doing.

But, it seems worthwhile to pursue if there's a way to get the image back on the phone after backing it up.

Another question re: NV backup. So I used NV read & write app found in that XDA post I linked above. I read & saved the NV. Now the file size was about 2.5MB. Does that sound about right?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure about the file size for the NV partition but I don't imagine it would be terribly large.
 
Personally.
I'd backup the boot and recovery partitions using did. As though are the only ones you modify to get cwm. Then just do a nandroid in cwm. Boom. Everything that a custom room modifies is backed up.

Ultimately though... None of us have or phones flashed to page plus so we've realy given all the help we can. People are only going to keep answering questions in circles for so long before they they get frustrated and give up.

Sent from my VS920 4G using Tapatalk 2
 
Yoinx said:
Ultimately though... None of us have or phones flashed to page plus so we've realy given all the help we can. People are only going to keep answering questions in circles for so long before they they get frustrated and give up.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure where my questions were going in circles. I thought I was looking for clarification but ok, thanks anyway. I appreciate the input throughout this thread.

And also thanks to you, trigger.

Once I feel comfortable enough going ahead with rooting, I'll update this thread, for those interested of course.
 
blsmitty said:
I'm not sure where my questions were going in circles. I thought I was looking for clarification but ok, thanks anyway. I appreciate the input throughout this thread.

And also thanks to you, trigger.

Once I feel comfortable enough going ahead with rooting, I'll update this thread, for those interested of course.
Click to expand...

Yeah sorry. I was reading back through replies with tapatalk. Looked like a lot of the same thing over and over again. Didn't notice the names were all different.

That's my fault.

Sent from my VS920 4G using Tapatalk 2

*edit*

So, here's a step by step for what you should do (imo). Root the phone. Rooting just changes the file permissions and adds the SU binary to system. You can unroot easily enough using the unroot tool instead of the pwnage tool http://androidforums.com/spectrum-all-things-root/525057-simplest-way-root-unroot-lgs.html so there's not much reason to not just go ahead and root the phone, really.

In fact, here's the applicable portion from the root tools for what it's doing to root the phone. (don't copy/paste this.... it's in the batch files when you run the tools). Before you could do this, you need to exploit a delay in the phone's adb functions anyway... which the scripts do before this.

[HIGH]adb remount
adb push su /system/bin/su
adb shell "chmod 6755 /system/bin/su"
adb shell "ln -s /system/bin/su /system/xbin/su"
adb push Superuser.apk /system/app/Superuser.apk
adb push busybox /system/xbin/busybox
adb shell "chmod 755 /system/xbin/busybox"
adb shell "/system/xbin/busybox --install /system/xbin"[/HIGH]

copy su to the phone. Set it's permissions. Create a symlink. Push the superuser apk so that you can actually interact with the su binary through an app. install busybox (there's a busy box app in the market that lets you update/remove busybox)

After rooting but before running the pwnage tool though I would do the following in adb. I believe that the cp commands should all work, if they error I doubt it matters much as long as the dd commands succeed. This should give you a backup of pretty much everything the pwnage tool modifies.

[HIGH]adb shell
su
dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0p2 of=/sdcard/stock_backup/mmcblk0p2.img bs=4096
dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0p3 of=/sdcard/stock_backup/mmcblk0p3.img bs=4096
dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0p5 of=/sdcard/stock_backup/mmcblk0p5.img bs=4096
dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0p6 of=/sdcard/stock_backup/mmcblk0p6.img bs=4096
dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0p7 of=/sdcard/stock_backup/mmcblk0p7.img bs=4096
dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0p8 of=/sdcard/stock_backup/mmcblk0p8.img bs=4096
dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0p9 of=/sdcard/stock_backup/mmcblk0p9.img bs=4096
dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0p13 of=/sdcard/stock_backup/mmcblk0p13.img bs=4096

cp /system/etc/fota_post_boot_up.sh /sdcard/stock_backup/system/etc/fota_post_boot_up.sh
cp /data/gpscfg/* /sdcard/stock_backup/data/gpscfg/
cp /system/etc/install-recovery.sh /sdcard/stock_backup/system/etc/install-recovery.sh
cp /system/etc/recovery-from-boot.p /sdcard/stock_backup/system/etc/recovery-from-boot.p

exit[/HIGH]

then run the pwnage tool, let it do it's thing. I believe that the previous portion will give you copies of everything it's messing with... unless I missed something somewhere.

Once it's complete open adb back up and execute

[HIGH]adb reboot recovery[/HIGH]

Once in CWM goto Backup and Recovery > Choose backup format > Tar
Then create a full backup from that same area. Once it's complete open adb again and execute

[HIGH]adb pull /sdcard/clockworkmod/backup/[/HIGH]

This is going to take a while to complete, but this puts your nandroid into the folder on your PC that adb is running in. Heck, while you're at it... Let's go ahead and get those backup images and files stored on your computer as well.

[HIGH]adb pull /sdcard/stock_backup/[/HIGH]

Now, you have backups that you can restore from your computer to your SDcard if need be.

At this point, you can install whatever you want to the phone. You can take it back to original (within reason...). No ROM should touch anything that you dont have backed up in those images or in your nandroid.

To restore, just do a restore from within CWM. Then once you're booted execute those previous dd commands, just swap the if= and of= portions of each. Just MAKE SURE you match the pX portion to the right one as these correlate to the partitions on the device. If you flash the wrong partitions image on a partition... Bad things will happen. None of the files that you copied with the cp commands should really matter, I don't believe... but you would copy those back by flipping the portions at the space between the two paths.

Hopefully this helps clarify some.
 
@ Yoinx: That is AWESOME!!! :party:
Thanks so much man! So helpful!!!

Well, as noted in the subject line (& as many of you have already alluded to), root wasn't a problem. It is SOOOOOOO nice to have root access, esp. w/ taking care of all the bloat that runs at start up. I'll probably look to following Yoinx's instructions on backing up everything at a later time in order to secure myself for wider modding.

But again, thanks to you all. I love this community! Its smallness has its upside.

@ Blaster: The prl is 53100 & from what I can, the lack of data is NOT a prl issue. But, if you like, I could send you a copy. PM me your email.
 
No problem.

To be honest though what I posted is a bit of overkill. It's just if you REALLY want a backup of your phone as it is now. That and the NVram backup should do that for you.

I'm really kinda curious on exactly what the company that swapped your phone's carrier for you actually did though.
 
So it turns out going from Fusion to AOKP/CM10.1 got me the 1X data. The PRL was a longshot, but ultimately did notchange anything.

However, it seems that the data problem might depend on the software.
 
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