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Root Eris half-brick

That's great!

No, don't worry about renaming things--as long as you know where they go, that's the biggest thing :).

Yeah, I'm winding-down for the night, myself... That'll give me a chance to get some things written-up for you and we'll take it one step at a time.

I'll meet you back here tomorrow.

Cheers!
 
Phone is about charged up. Ready whenever you are scary_alien! I'll just be studying, so no rush. I'll just keep checking back here for updates.
 
1. Okay, let's get the files you might need (hope to not have to use all of these); download the trackball-optional recovery from this site:

https://sites.google.com/site/scaryalienware/downloads/recovery-RA-eris-v1.6.2-trackball-optional.img

Here is the MD5 checksum for that file: 3217768b831a3841180699942204762d

2. copy the recovery-RA-eris-v1.6.2-trackball-optional.img to your c:\android-sdk-windows\tools directory

3. download the attached zloe-recovery.zip file: View attachment zloe-recovery.zip

and extract its contents to your c:\android-sdk-windows\tools directory; here are the files and their MD5 checksums included in the above .zip:

Code: 
[COLOR="blue"]bf75a918abfed9b1d6b0383090fb354b [/COLOR]*[B]flash_erase[/B]
[COLOR="blue"]0098a7dd6600b55fac34fc6645be5d7a [/COLOR]*[B]flash_image[/B]
[COLOR="blue"]0ba96497afc6e124e465f3b1c7a99481 [/COLOR]*[B]misc.img[/B]
[COLOR="blue"]e6da41f93cd2146a2c6325a65c744843 [/COLOR]*[B]nanddump[/B]

2. connect-up your phone to your PC via the USB cable

3. let's push the downloaded files to your /cache partition

c:\> cd android-sdk-windows\tools
c:\android-sdk-windows\tools> adb push nanddump /cache
c:\android-sdk-windows\tools> adb push flash_image /cache
c:\android-sdk-windows\tools> adb push flash_erase /cache
c:\android-sdk-windows\tools> adb push misc.img /cache
c:\android-sdk-windows\tools> adb push recovery-RA-eris-v1.6.2-trackball-optional.img /cache

4. let's use a utility to report any bad blocks on your phone's internal memory partitions (note, each command is identical to the others except for the mdt# partition name at the end of the command; you should be able to recall the command with the up-arrow on your keyboard and just change the last character):

c:\android-sdk-windows\tools> adb devices (make sure you still have access)
c:\android-sdk-windows\tools> adb shell
# cd /cache
# chmod 4755 nanddump
# /cache/nanddump -a -o -N --start=0x0 --length=4096 -f /dev/null /dev/mtd/mtd0
# /cache/nanddump -a -o -N --start=0x0 --length=4096 -f /dev/null /dev/mtd/mtd1
# /cache/nanddump -a -o -N --start=0x0 --length=4096 -f /dev/null /dev/mtd/mtd2
# /cache/nanddump -a -o -N --start=0x0 --length=4096 -f /dev/null /dev/mtd/mtd3
# /cache/nanddump -a -o -N --start=0x0 --length=4096 -f /dev/null /dev/mtd/mtd4
# /cache/nanddump -a -o -N --start=0x0 --length=4096 -f /dev/null /dev/mtd/mtd5

By the way, I highly recommend copying and pasting the commands here versus typing them in manually ;) :).

Here's what my output looked like for the mtd1 (recovery) partition:

# /cache/nanddump -a -o -N --start=0x0 --length=4096 -f /dev/null /dev/mtd/mtd1
/cache/nanddump -a -o -N --start=0x0 --length=4096 -f /dev/null /dev/mtd/mtd1
ECC failed: 0
ECC corrected: 0
Number of bad blocks: 0
Number of bbt blocks: 0
Block size 131072, page size 2048, OOB size 0
Dumping data starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x00001000...
#

Let's stop here and see what your phone reports for the above commands.

Let me know if you have any questions.
 
zloetakoe said:
Nice. Mine looks EXACTLY like your report.
Click to expand...

Excellent! That is good news--I think (hope) that does indeed indicate that you don't have any bad blocks (although I do wonder if things are reported differently when running "live" vs. in recovery mode--eu1 would have to weigh-in on this).

Okay, the next part is pretty easy and will be the most telling...let's manually flash custom recovery (pardon my continued numbering scheme ;)).

5. let's try manually re-flashing the trackball-optional custom recovery (you should still be in your adb shell like before):

# chmod 4755 flash_image
# /cache/flash_image recovery /cache/recovery-RA-eris-v1.6.2-trackball-optional.img

6. now, power-off and try rebooting into recovery (or download Quickboot from the Market and boot into recovery)

Let me know what happens! :)
 
hmmmm. I got this message

chmod 4755 flash_image
chmod: flash_image: No such file or directory
=====================

Good thing or bad thing?

EDIT: I also tried to do

# /cache/flash_image recovery /cache/recovery-RA-eris-v1.6.2-trackball-optional.img

and it tells me permission was denied?
 
zloetakoe said:
hmmmm. I got this message

chmod 4755 flash_image
chmod: flash_image: No such file or directory
=====================

Good thing or bad thing?
Click to expand...

LOL, probably just a typo thing ;).

You did extract and download all of the files from the zloe-recovery.zip to the android-sdk-windows\tools folder, right?

Check also that you did the adb push flash_image /cache command.

You should still be in the /cache directory in your adb shell, right?

Here's a mini-recap:

c:\> cd android-sdk-windows\tools
c:\android-sdk-windows\tools> adb push flash_image /cache
c:\android-sdk-windows\tools> adb shell
# cd /cache
# chmod 4755 flash_image
# /cache/flash_image recovery /cache/recovery-RA-eris-v1.6.2-trackball-optional.img

Lemme know :).
 
Muuuuaaaahhahahahahahahaha

I'm in. HA HA HA HA.

Scary Alien (and EU!, and everyone else involved with this), you are a freakin genius.




....

Now what? :D
 
zloetakoe said:
Muuuuaaaahhahahahahahahaha

I'm in. HA HA HA HA.

Scary Alien (and EU!, and everyone else involved with this), you are a freakin genius.

....

Now what? :D
Click to expand...

LOL, awesome! I, too, have learned a lot (always do from eu1 :) -- some of it takes a while to stick though ;)).

Well, erisuser1 suggested that if it were he with your phone, he would try to get the S-OFF HBOOT installed (i.e., as mentioned in post #72 above) so as to avoid some of the shenanigans that we put you through...

So, you have a couple of options here that you'll have to decide how deep down the rabbit hole you want to go:

1. I think your first order of business would be to take a Nandroid backup and copy if over to your PC for safekeeping

2. To get the S-OFF HBOOT installed, you'd most likely have to flash jcase's patched misc.img file (this will allow you to be able to successfully flash / install the base root ROM that we messed with early-on in this endeavor). There is the small issue of the other note that eu1 mentioned at the top of post #72 where he said "Also I suppose we should ask zloe if his phone is "flashed" to a different carrier than Verizon, as flashing the misc partition will reset the carrier back to Verizon.".

The decision / call is yours...I'm writing-up the reply / instructions for this in case you decide to do it.

I'll post back here in a few with those optional instructions, but for now, go-ahead and make your Nandroid backup.

Cheers!
 
"1. I think your first order of business would be to take a Nandroid backup and copy if over to your PC for safekeeping"

I've been trying to do this. Just how exactly does one go about making a nandroid backup?
=========================================================
"2. To get the S-OFF HBOOT installed, you'd most likely have to flash jcase's patched misc.img file (this will allow you to be able to successfully flash / install the base root ROM that we messed with early-on in this endeavor). There is the small issue of the other note that eu1 mentioned at the top of post #72 where he said "Also I suppose we should ask zloe if his phone is "flashed" to a different carrier than Verizon, as flashing the misc partition will reset the carrier back to Verizon."."

Let's do it. It was most definitely a Verizon phone when I got it, if it reverts back to VZW (and it's not supposed to for some reason) that's something I can handle.
 
zloetakoe said:
"1. I think your first order of business would be to take a Nandroid backup and copy if over to your PC for safekeeping"

I've been trying to do this. Just how exactly does one go about making a nandroid backup?
Click to expand...

Pretty simple:

1. Make sure you have a good charge (full is preferred) on your phone
2. Make sure you have plenty of space on your /sdcard (300MB at least)
3. Boot back into custom recovery
4. Select "Backup/Restore"
5. Select "Nand backup"
6. Press the trackball (or end/pwr button) to continue
7. Let it do its thing
8. Use the volume-DOWN button to return to a prior menu
9. Reboot when you're done

Also, here's a link to yet another awesome eu1 document (this is post #4 and has screen shots of how to do a Nandroid backup); start at figure 34 and go through figure 37.

http://androidforums.com/eris-all-things-root/127861-universal-eris-root-dummies.html#post1186824

=========================================================
"2. To get the S-OFF HBOOT installed, you'd most likely have to flash jcase's patched misc.img file (this will allow you to be able to successfully flash / install the base root ROM that we messed with early-on in this endeavor). There is the small issue of the other note that eu1 mentioned at the top of post #72 where he said "Also I suppose we should ask zloe if his phone is "flashed" to a different carrier than Verizon, as flashing the misc partition will reset the carrier back to Verizon."."

Let's do it. It was most definitely a Verizon phone when I got it, if it reverts back to VZW (and it's not supposed to for some reason) that's something I can handle.
Click to expand...

Okay, notes are coming very soon...brb :).
 
Zloe,

Here's how to get the S-OFF HBOOT installed (if you choose to do so). Note to the casual reader here: erisuser1 has warned on numerous occasions that you should use all due caution and understand that flashing operations, especially ones where the files being flashed have not been vetted (i.e., checksums verified) is asking for trouble.

Note: I really should re-emphasize that you should be verifying your MD5 checksums of the files we've been talking about. This is true for both when they are downloaded and placed on your PC AND when/after you've transferred them to your Android device.

1. Okay first, you'll need to flash the patched misc.img file (I'm assuming that you also/already pushed the misc.img file to /cache in the earlier posts), you would:

c:\> cd android-sdk-windows\tools
c:\android-sdk-windows\tools> adb shell
# cd /cache
# /cache/flash_image misc /cache/misc.img

2. After you have flashed the above misc.img file, you'll want to get the base root ROM installed:

A. Grab that base root ROM that we discussed in post #23 (http://androidforums.com/eris-all-things-root/440288-eris-half-brick.html#post3423263) -- you probably have it still laying-around.

[ 2.19.605.1 ] a.k.a. "Root ROM" - (Eclair/2.1)
RUU: n/a
PB00IMG.ZIP: Eris_RootROM_v2.19.605.1_PB00IMG.zip
107,427,740 bytes; MD5 signature: 63eacc5ede3b179f95dc22d8ef585f94

B. Double-check its MD5 checksum with my AFV app if you haven't already.

C. Place (transfer) the PB00IMG.zip file in the top-level of your SD card.

D. Power-off your phone and reboot back in to FASTBOOT mode (press both front buttons simultaneously, then press volume-DOWN to get into HBOOT mode); from there, HBOOT will scan for the PB00IMG.zip file and will attempt to install the (pretty old, buggy 2.1 version of Android, but awesome S-OFF) base root ROM. Here's a great thread from eu1 (from back in May of 2010!) that shows visually how to install the base root ROM (ignore the stuff about battery pulls--you're not doing this here):

http://androidforums.com/eris-all-things-root/75384-visual-example-pb00img-zip-update-method.html

E. Follow the instructions on the screen and in 10 minutes or so, you should have and old version of Android installed, but will have the S-OFF HBOOT. Double-check this by rebooting back into FASTBOOT mode and verifying that you have the S-OFF setting and the 1.49.2000 version of HBOOT.

F. Note: at some point in time, you'll want to delete, rename, or move that PB00IMG.zip file out of your /sdcard directory--otherwise, it could get accidentally re-installed if you happen to inadvertantly go into HBOOT mode.

--------------------------------------------

So, what is the S-OFF HBOOT good for? Well, it will allow you to re-flash custom recovery directly from the Windows Command Prompt using the fastboot utility (that should already be in your android-sdk-windows\tools folder):

Note: I assume you still have the recovery-RA-eris-v1.6.2-trackball-optional.img file in your c:\android-sdk-windows\tools folder on your PC, you can simply do this:

c:\> cd android-sdk-windows\tools
c:\android-sdk-windows\tools> fastboot flash recovery recovery-RA-eris-v1.6.2-trackball-optional.img

^^^ That's just a taste of the power of the S-OFF engineering bootloader :) ;).

After you've done this, you can simply reboot back into custom recovery and restore your Nandroid backup that you made earlier. You should be back to where you were, but now with a shiny new, S-OFF HBOOT.

Pretty sweet, eh?

Cheers!
 
zloetakoe said:
So it looks like my phone is not recognizing the root PB00IMG.zip file with Hboot. Any ideas?
Click to expand...

Is it just scrolling-by and not attempting the install?

Are you sure its named PB00IMG.zip and in the /sdcard directory?

You can verify this by using your (now trusty :)) adb utility:

c:\android-sdk-windows\tools> adb shell ls -a -l /sdcard/PB00IMG.zip

That should display your filename...

Let me know.
 
scary alien said:
Is it just scrolling-by and not attempting the install?

Are you sure its named PB00IMG.zip and in the /sdcard directory?

You can verify this by using your (now trusty :)) adb utility:

c:\android-sdk-windows\tools> adb shell ls -a -l /sdcard/PB00IMG.zip

That should display your filename...

Let me know.
Click to expand...
Yes, it scrolls through in less than a second and doesn't recognize it. It appears to be on the SD card directory. But when I do the adb shell ls -a -l /sdcard/PB00IMG.zip cmd, I get a "no such file or directory" message. It is in the mnt/sdcard directory though.

I don't need to extract anything do I? Shouldn't matter that I have the phone mounted to the computer, should it?
 
zloetakoe said:
It appears to be on the SD card directory. But when I do the adb shell ls -a -l /sdcard/PB00IMG.zip cmd, I get a "no such file or directory" message. It is in the mnt/sdcard directory though.

I don't need to extract anything do I?
Click to expand...

edit: No, don't extract anything...

The phone needs to be in "Charge only" mode and not mounted so that you can transfer files (i.e., it should be in the same mode what we've been using adb in all this evening).

How about if you just do: adb shell ls -a -l /sdcard

...that should list all of the files on your /sdcard folder.

You should also be able to view the file from Astro File Manager or something similar...not sure what might be going on...?

Make sure it is mounted as "Charge only" and not as "Disk drive".
 
figured it out. Sorry, I'm just an idiot.

I had to manually rename the file. When I downloaded it, it was called eris_rootrom********PB00IMG.zip. I thought that the search that hboot did would just find the PB00IMG.zip and left all the front of the file named the same. No wonder adb shell couldn't find PB00IMG.zip, eh? I just changed the name in the sdcard and it's doing its thing now.
 
zloetakoe said:
figured it out. Sorry, I'm just an idiot.

I had to manually rename the file. When I downloaded it, it was called eris_rootrom********PB00IMG.zip. I thought that the search that hboot did would just find the PB00IMG.zip and left all the front of the file named the same. I just changed the name in the sdcard and it's doing its thing now.
Click to expand...

Cool ;) :)...don't worry, I should have realized a bunch of stuff eu1 pointed-out, too, LOL (I don't play with my Eris every day anymore, so I'm not too hard on myself ;)).

You did the flash of misc.img already, right? (I'm guessing so, since you've been doing great following instructions).

I'm hanging with you...keep me posted...I'll need to hit the sack pretty soon, but I've got a little time, though.
 
scary alien said:
Cool ;) :)...don't worry, I should have realized a bunch of stuff eu1 pointed-out, too, LOL (I don't play with my Eris every day anymore, so I'm not too hard on myself ;)).

You did the flash of misc.img already, right? (I'm guessing so, since you've been doing great following instructions).

I'm hanging with you...keep me posted...I'll need to hit the sack pretty soon, but I've got a little time, though.
Click to expand...
If using flash_image/misc.img flashes it, then yes. :cool:
I think the phone is ready to rock. Just got back to the homescreen. Now I'll just reboot it in recovery (using adb of course) and get my old setting back. Tomorrow I'll have to try getting CM7. Thanks a TON for the help, what a lifesaver, now go and hit the sack. I think I've got it from here. I'll definitely be getting the "not free" edition of AFV, nice little tool.

OH BOY, here comes all the text messages I've missed the last 14 days!!! (I guess this means I'm still on the Verizon network, kinda sad I wasn't even sure about that.)
 
scary alien said:
So, what is the S-OFF HBOOT good for? Well, it will allow you to re-flash custom recovery directly from the Windows Command Prompt using the fastboot utility (that should already be in your android-sdk-windows\tools folder):

Note: I assume you still have the recovery-RA-eris-v1.6.2-trackball-optional.img file in your c:\android-sdk-windows\tools folder on your PC, you can simply do this:

c:\> cd android-sdk-windows\tools
c:\android-sdk-windows\tools> fastboot flash recovery recovery-RA-eris-v1.6.2-trackball-optional.img

^^^ That's just a taste of the power of the S-OFF engineering bootloader :) ;).

After you've done this, you can simply reboot back into custom recovery and restore your Nandroid backup that you made earlier. You should be back to where you were, but now with a shiny new, S-OFF HBOOT.

Pretty sweet, eh?

Cheers!
Click to expand...
Stunning.
 
zloetakoe said:
Stunning.
Click to expand...

LOL, did you verify the S-OFF 1.49.2000 HBOOT?

(although if you've successfully re-flashed my trackball-optional recovery and booted back into it, you already know that its there ;))

You've done a great job all along here, Zloe...kudos to you!

I'm hitting the sack...I'll check back in the morning in case there's any loose-ends or questions.

I know eu1 is often a night-owl and might be peeking-in on us (at least I like to think he does from time-to-time :)).

Cheers!
 
scary alien said:
LOL, did you verify the S-OFF 1.49.2000 HBOOT?

(although if you've successfully re-flashed my trackball-optional recovery and booted back into it, you already know that its there ;))

You've done a great job all along here, Zloe...kudos to you!

I'm hitting the sack...I'll check back in the morning in case there's any loose-ends or questions.

I know eu1 is often a night-owl and might be peeking-in on us (at least I like to think he does from time-to-time :)).

Cheers!
Click to expand...
S-Off and 1.49 it is!

Get some rest, you deserve it. I feel like I just got a new phone!

Thanks for all the great to follow instructions. They couldn't have been better.
 
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