Root After CWM recovery, won't boot!

[ryandpd]

Hey everyone! This is my first post, so I apologize if I make a faux pas somewhere.

I'll start with what I did last week in case anything is relevant. I had run out of space on my text memory despite deleting all but one thread. I had been getting this message a lot recently, and had even gotten a message that I was totally out of memory before (I deleted a few little-used apps to make this go away).

I decided, mostly from looking at this forum, that link2SD was the key to easing my worries. However, I figured as long as I was going to move almost everything to the SD card (where I had put apps via the phone menu, but it was not enough), I should upgrade the SD card from the 2GB SanDisk that came with the phone. Before I started transferring stuff, in case something went wrong, I wanted to make a backup (using CWM; also a tip from here) on my old SD card. I had to uninstall quite a few apps to make it fit, but the backup was made. From that point, I copied all the files to my new 16GB Lexar SD card and switched it with no problem. I reinstalled the apps, and since the user data was copied over, everything seemed to work fine (although it took a try or two for the SD card to take, as I had to create a partition for link2SD and such.

Cut to today when the trouble started. I have an alarm on the phone that is purposely hard to turn off, but today when it went off I took the easy way out and simply pulled the battery. I have done this many times before to silence the alarm with no problem. Today, however, when I restared the phone, it kept not mounting the SD card (it says it was checking it for errors). It would not stop doing this, despite pulling the card and starting it without it in, then adding it, etc.

After trying for quite a bit I figured my best bet would be to restore to the point I created when I switched SD cards. First, despite the problem, I created another restore point via CWM. I needed this to have the folder to put the old backup in too. So then I put the old backup in the folder and booted in to CWM recovery mode. I tried to restore to the old point and it said it worked. However, when I tried to restart, I couldn't get past the Motorola boot screen! I then tried to restore the newer (today's) backup, and it says the CS5 key (or something like that) doesn't match! I have tried to restore to the old backup many times but it will not get me past the boot screen upon restart. I even tried erasing the user data via CWM and it did not boot still. I'm stuck and can't figure out what to do next! Please help!

And excuse me if I didn't include something necessary. I'd be happy to provide any additional information.

Edit: I forgot to include, I have stock ROM, and rooted only last week to install link2SD using the terminal emulator method.

 

[jose224]

Hey everyone! This is my first post, so I apologize if I make a faux pas somewhere.

I'll start with what I did last week in case anything is relevant. I had run out of space on my text memory despite deleting all but one thread. I had been getting this message a lot recently, and had even gotten a message that I was totally out of memory before (I deleted a few little-used apps to make this go away).

I decided, mostly from looking at this forum, that link2SD was the key to easing my worries. However, I figured as long as I was going to move almost everything to the SD card (where I had put apps via the phone menu, but it was not enough), I should upgrade the SD card from the 2GB SanDisk that came with the phone. Before I started transferring stuff, in case something went wrong, I wanted to make a backup (using CWM; also a tip from here) on my old SD card. I had to uninstall quite a few apps to make it fit, but the backup was made. From that point, I copied all the files to my new 16GB Lexar SD card and switched it with no problem. I reinstalled the apps, and since the user data was copied over, everything seemed to work fine (although it took a try or two for the SD card to take, as I had to create a partition for link2SD and such.

Cut to today when the trouble started. I have an alarm on the phone that is purposely hard to turn off, but today when it went off I took the easy way out and simply pulled the battery. I have done this many times before to silence the alarm with no problem. Today, however, when I restared the phone, it kept not mounting the SD card (it says it was checking it for errors). It would not stop doing this, despite pulling the card and starting it without it in, then adding it, etc.

After trying for quite a bit I figured my best bet would be to restore to the point I created when I switched SD cards. First, despite the problem, I created another restore point via CWM. I needed this to have the folder to put the old backup in too. So then I put the old backup in the folder and booted in to CWM recovery mode. I tried to restore to the old point and it said it worked. However, when I tried to restart, I couldn't get past the Motorola boot screen! I then tried to restore the newer (today's) backup, and it says the CS5 key (or something like that) doesn't match! I have tried to restore to the old backup many times but it will not get me past the boot screen upon restart. I even tried erasing the user data via CWM and it did not boot still. I'm stuck and can't figure out what to do next! Please help!

And excuse me if I didn't include something necessary. I'd be happy to provide any additional information.

Edit: I forgot to include, I have stock ROM, and rooted only last week to install link2SD using the terminal emulator method.

Well I say that first you should try to restore the backup because the sums don't match that is an easy way for your phone not to boot so I would say just reinstall the stock from and format the SD card unless you have important information on it and I would suggest that you try to find an program that would do that for you

 

[ryandpd]

Hey Jose! Thanks for the quick response! I tried to restore the original backup. CWM is giving me a success notice but when I try to restart I get stuck in boot. I'm not sure what you are suggesting in the rest of the post- stock is installed and formatting the SD card shouldn't help as it gets locked in boot mode even with the SD card removed.

 

[jose224]

I believe that you should wipe data wipe cache and format system and dalvic cache see if that works

 

[ryandpd]

Thanks again for the help, Jose.

I did all of those things in CWM and am still not getting past the boot screen. I should also mention I am not getting the vibration on boot unless I take the battery out for a long time or am booting into CWM recovery mode.

 

[rcsrich]

Hey everyone! This is my first post, so I apologize if I make a faux pas somewhere.

I'll start with what I did last week in case anything is relevant. I had run out of space on my text memory despite deleting all but one thread. I had been getting this message a lot recently, and had even gotten a message that I was totally out of memory before (I deleted a few little-used apps to make this go away).

I decided, mostly from looking at this forum, that link2SD was the key to easing my worries. However, I figured as long as I was going to move almost everything to the SD card (where I had put apps via the phone menu, but it was not enough), I should upgrade the SD card from the 2GB SanDisk that came with the phone. Before I started transferring stuff, in case something went wrong, I wanted to make a backup (using CWM; also a tip from here) on my old SD card. I had to uninstall quite a few apps to make it fit, but the backup was made. From that point, I copied all the files to my new 16GB Lexar SD card and switched it with no problem. I reinstalled the apps, and since the user data was copied over, everything seemed to work fine (although it took a try or two for the SD card to take, as I had to create a partition for link2SD and such.

Cut to today when the trouble started. I have an alarm on the phone that is purposely hard to turn off, but today when it went off I took the easy way out and simply pulled the battery. I have done this many times before to silence the alarm with no problem. Today, however, when I restared the phone, it kept not mounting the SD card (it says it was checking it for errors). It would not stop doing this, despite pulling the card and starting it without it in, then adding it, etc.

After trying for quite a bit I figured my best bet would be to restore to the point I created when I switched SD cards. First, despite the problem, I created another restore point via CWM. I needed this to have the folder to put the old backup in too. So then I put the old backup in the folder and booted in to CWM recovery mode. I tried to restore to the old point and it said it worked. However, when I tried to restart, I couldn't get past the Motorola boot screen! I then tried to restore the newer (today's) backup, and it says the CS5 key (or something like that) doesn't match! I have tried to restore to the old backup many times but it will not get me past the boot screen upon restart. I even tried erasing the user data via CWM and it did not boot still. I'm stuck and can't figure out what to do next! Please help!

And excuse me if I didn't include something necessary. I'd be happy to provide any additional information.

Edit: I forgot to include, I have stock ROM, and rooted only last week to install link2SD using the terminal emulator method.

Sounds to me like you could have an SD card that is bad/going bad- CWM is writing the backups, but when it goes to read them they are corrupted. The original issue you were having with trouble mounting the SD card also makes me think this could be the issue.

You could try reformatting the SD card in a computer & see if that will help (try pulling any photos/data off onto your computer if it's not too corrupted), but you may just want to get a new one, especially if it is fairly small. After you have a new/reformatted card, grab a fresh copy of whatever ROM you want to use, throw it on the card via a computer & then flash it via CWM. Hopefully that will take care of the issue.

Hope that helps!

 

[jose224]

Sounds to me like you could have an SD card that is bad/going bad- CWM is writing the backups, but when it goes to read them they are corrupted. The original issue you were having with trouble mounting the SD card also makes me think this could be the issue.

You could try reformatting the SD card in a computer & see if that will help (try pulling any photos/data off onto your computer if it's not too corrupted), but you may just want to get a new one, especially if it is fairly small. After you have a new/reformatted card, grab a fresh copy of whatever ROM you want to use, throw it on the card via a computer & then flash it via CWM. Hopefully that will take care of the issue.

Hope that helps!

That's what I was saying

 

[ryandpd]

Sounds to me like you could have an SD card that is bad/going bad- CWM is writing the backups, but when it goes to read them they are corrupted. The original issue you were having with trouble mounting the SD card also makes me think this could be the issue.

You could try reformatting the SD card in a computer & see if that will help (try pulling any photos/data off onto your computer if it's not too corrupted), but you may just want to get a new one, especially if it is fairly small. After you have a new/reformatted card, grab a fresh copy of whatever ROM you want to use, throw it on the card via a computer & then flash it via CWM. Hopefully that will take care of the issue.

Hope that helps!

Thanks for the response! It is a fairly new card, so I should have no problem returning it and saying it is not functioning (although it seems to function just fine on the computer). I will update once I have reformatted. I am not using a custom ROM, just stock, so would simply moving the backup and restoring work?

Update: It didn't seem to.

 

[ryandpd]

OKay, it seems to have gotten worse. I tried to flash to the flashable stock recovery in scary alien's all hings root guide. I forgot to clear cache and such before I flashed it. CWM showed it as successful, but would still not get past boot screen on restart (waited 10-15 min). Now, when I tried to restart, still can't get past boot, but I can't get into CWM anymore either!

I tried connecting to computer and go into DL mode, and it stops on Motorola logo and won't let me get into DL mode. CWM shows an android with a warning (triangle with !) symbol.

This seems to be getting worse, fast. I could do without an SD card, but I am losing functionality fast!

Sorry if I am getting desparate sounding, but I am really feeling worried as I keep losing features with each attempted fix.

Edit: I am able to get into DL mode, I just messed up the first time. Reinstalled the recovery.img file for CWM and still getting the error screen.

2nd edit: Reinstalled CWM and recovery. Still stuck on Moto screen while trying to flash stock.

 

[thangfish]

Hey, just for kicks, check the size of that backup you are trying to restore.

Are you SURE you also formatted the System partition before trying to restore your backup?

 

[thangfish]

Ok, to start with, you probably don't need link2sd at all. Your trouble with running out of space was almost surely the ever-growing alog file issue with the stock ROM.
Just guessing, but I bet that Nandroid backup you made is friggin gigantic.

Don't pull the battery anymore. Stuff can get corrupted. You can usually get by with it, but as you have found, not always. It's ok to get out of bootloader mode, but only after you have "ejected" the device from your computer. Battery pulls, without shutdown first should be reserved for emergency (lock up) conditions only.

If it were me I'd get what I wanted off that SD card, and put it back to a single partition and format it (fat 32) just to make sure it's all good... after you're back up and running.

Download

http://androidforums.com/triumph-all-things-root/413093-rom-bone-stock-stock-deodex-roms-triumph-now-resets-splash-img.html
And flash it, after a full factory reset.

You can then pull the apps you want out of the Nandroid backup, using Titanium backup or AppExtractor, or whatever. You can also get you texts and call log out of there if you want.

Then we can address the real issue of running out of internal storage space, after you get booted back up.

Just as an example,
I have never deleted any txt msgs (probably should though). Just looked and seems like over 100 threads containing msgs all the way back to 2011. Around 100 apps and I have only moved around 10 of the larger, rarely used apps to SD.
Still plenty of internal storage space left.

 

[rcsrich]

Ok, to start with, you probably don't need link2sd at all. Your trouble with running out of space was almost surely the ever-growing alog file issue with the stock ROM.
Just guessing, but I bet that Nandroid backup you made is friggin gigantic.

Don't pull the battery anymore. Stuff can get corrupted. You can usually get by with it, but as you have found, not always. It's ok to get out of bootloader mode, but only after you have "ejected" the device from your computer. Battery pulls, without shutdown first should be reserved for emergency (lock up) conditions only.

If it were me I'd get what I wanted off that SD card, and put it back to a single partition and format it (fat 32) just to make sure it's all good... after you're back up and running.

Download

http://androidforums.com/triumph-al...eodex-roms-triumph-now-resets-splash-img.html
And flash it, after a full factory reset.

You can then pull the apps you want out of the Nandroid backup, using Titanium backup or AppExtractor, or whatever. You can also get you texts and call log out of there if you want.

Then we can address the real issue of running out of internal storage space, after you get booted back up.

Just as an example,
I have never deleted any txt msgs (probably should though). Just looked and seems like over 100 threads containing msgs all the way back to 2011. Around 100 apps and I have only moved around 10 of the larger, rarely used apps to SD.
Still plenty of internal storage space left.

Good advice from thangfish- I wouldn't use links2sd unless you really need to (like him, I never ran out of internal memory for apps, just managed my spapce well). link2sd really depends on your SD card running perfectly all the time- it might be okay but it might also get wonky. And I think when combined with doing a battery pull, it could really screw you up (i.e. if an app is trying to read/write to that partition on the SD when you yank the battery.

Hope his instructons get you going in the right direction.

 

[rcsrich]

That's what I was saying

Sorry man- didn't see that line of your post!

 

[ryandpd]

Ok, to start with, you probably don't need link2sd at all. Your trouble with running out of space was almost surely the ever-growing alog file issue with the stock ROM.
Just guessing, but I bet that Nandroid backup you made is friggin gigantic.

Don't pull the battery anymore. Stuff can get corrupted. You can usually get by with it, but as you have found, not always. It's ok to get out of bootloader mode, but only after you have "ejected" the device from your computer. Battery pulls, without shutdown first should be reserved for emergency (lock up) conditions only.

If it were me I'd get what I wanted off that SD card, and put it back to a single partition and format it (fat 32) just to make sure it's all good... after you're back up and running.

Download

http://androidforums.com/triumph-al...eodex-roms-triumph-now-resets-splash-img.html
And flash it, after a full factory reset.

You can then pull the apps you want out of the Nandroid backup, using Titanium backup or AppExtractor, or whatever. You can also get you texts and call log out of there if you want.

Then we can address the real issue of running out of internal storage space, after you get booted back up.

Just as an example,
I have never deleted any txt msgs (probably should though). Just looked and seems like over 100 threads containing msgs all the way back to 2011. Around 100 apps and I have only moved around 10 of the larger, rarely used apps to SD.
Still plenty of internal storage space left.

Thank you so much Thangfish! I am happy to report this flash worked marvelously to get me back up and running. I am working on restoration of my apps now. I tried looking around on here for the best solution to my space problem, but maybe looked in the wrong places- Link2SD was what I found cited mostly. So thanks for getting me started, and of course I'd like your insight on the internal memory issue I had in the first place.

Edit: I installed titanium backup, but I'm not sure how to install apps from my CWM backup. It looks like I need to buy the app to do so. Is there a free app that would do this?

 

[thangfish]

Crap, I didn't think that was a pay only feature. Anyway, to get to that feature, on the opening Ti backup screen, hit your menu button. Scroll down to Special. You'll see extract from Nandroid backup or something similar. If it is not in the free version, try AppExtractor.

Also, download FS File Explorer.
You will need that to fix your disappearing space issue. You will be ok for now, after the wipe and fresh ROM, but it will reoccur.

It's not difficult at all to fix.

Oh, and make sure you are still rooted... If not, you know what to do.

 

[warrior12]

Crap, I didn't think that was a pay only feature. Anyway, to get to that feature, on the opening Ti backup screen, hit your menu button. Scroll down to Special. You'll see extract from Nandroid backup or something similar. If it is not in the free version, try AppExtractor.

Also, download FS File Explorer.
You will need that to fix your disappearing space issue. You will be ok for now, after the wipe and fresh ROM, but it will reoccur.

It's not difficult at all to fix.

Oh, and make sure you are still rooted... If not, you know what to do.

Nah in Ti, its a paid only thing. Kinda sucks.

 

[ryandpd]

Crap, I didn't think that was a pay only feature. Anyway, to get to that feature, on the opening Ti backup screen, hit your menu button. Scroll down to Special. You'll see extract from Nandroid backup or something similar. If it is not in the free version, try AppExtractor.

Also, download FS File Explorer.
You will need that to fix your disappearing space issue. You will be ok for now, after the wipe and fresh ROM, but it will reoccur.

It's not difficult at all to fix.

Oh, and make sure you are still rooted... If not, you know what to do.

Thanks again, Thangfish! AppExtractor worked a little weird... it didn't actually install the apps from my backups (when I told it to), but when I redownloaded the apps all my user data was present. Not sure if that was AppExtractor or if Play stored it somewhere.

I was away from my computer when I downloaded a file manager program so I installed "File Manager". If FS File Explorer is better, though, or necessary for the fix, I'll download that. So how do I keep the space from piling up again? I still have 390MB phone space with 78 apps installed, where before they almost all had to be on my SD card. So the wipe did take care of it for now.

 

[thangfish]

File manager has a root explorer so it should work, but I haven't used it in a long time, so I won't be able to give you step by step for it.

In ES file explorer, you have to go into settings and "enable root access" and "mount /system as writable", first.

Basically, you navigate to the /Data directory and find the big alog files and delete them (root access required).

They will be remade. Maybe wait awhile, and maybe even reboot if they don't show back up right away.

While they are still small, you need to change permissions (long press file name and select "properties", then click "Change" for permissions). You will be revoking Write access.
Current permissions are rw... remove the w.

Now the system can no longer write to the files, keeping them from growing.

Alternatively, you could install a custom ROM that doesn't have this problem. Your call.

Let me know if you need more explanation of how to do this procedure.

 

[ryandpd]

File manager has a root explorer so it should work, but I haven't used it in a long time, so I won't be able to give you step by step for it.

In ES file explorer, you have to go into settings and "enable root access" and "mount /system as writable", first.

Basically, you navigate to the /Data directory and find the big alog files and delete them (root access required).

They will be remade. Maybe wait awhile, and maybe even reboot if they don't show back up right away.

While they are still small, you need to change permissions (long press file name and select "properties", then click "Change" for permissions). You will be revoking Write access.
Current permissions are rw... remove the w.

Now the system can no longer write to the files, keeping them from growing.

Alternatively, you could install a custom ROM that doesn't have this problem. Your call.

Let me know if you need more explanation of how to do this procedure.

Thanks again, Thangfish! Your instructions worked wonderfully! In case anyone comes to this thread later, I'll post specifics for File Manager. Menu->More->Settings. Check "Root Explorer", then check "Mount System Folders" right beneath it. Navigate to /data (by default, File Manager had me in the SD card, so make sure you navigate out of that). I had about 12 alog files to delete, long press on the name and select delete. I rebooted and had 4 that were recreated for about 1MB total in size. Long press on these, click "permissions", and uncheck the "write" box for owner.

I am unsure if any of the others will return (such as alog.2), I will check and update here if they do.

As perhaps a last question, what might some of the advantages of installing a different ROM be? I hear people extolling faster speeds, but that seems dubious to me. Besides a different look, what's to be gained over running stock with root permissions and having alog files disabled?

 

[thangfish]

Advantages are mostly that you get support from the great dev community here.

Otherwise consider the advantages of more control of things like CPU speed, via overclocking, under volting, back light control, hot spot, and many other things that your can't access with stock ROM.

It's just that VM/Motorola kind of left us hanging with this phone and there are better options.

If the stock froyo ROM is good for you, by all means... Stay with it.
I just like the added control of cm7.

 

[ryandpd]

Thanks again, Thangfish, I'll definitely consider if getting a new ROM is for me. I do give credit to all the great developers for their work on creating so many alternate ROMs.

As an update, I checked today (although I probably should have checked sooner). 3 extra alog files and 5 extra alog_radio files were created at 8MB each. Even more troubling, the alog files I had already taken write permissions off of somehow grew in size. I may try deleting them and taking even read permissions off, although I know it shouldn't (theoretically) help.

 

[thangfish]

Revoking write privileges only takes effect after a reboot.