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Root Flashing .ZIP archives - Recovery?

K

king_roach

Newbie
Hi, I've exhausted google, but the keywords are too general that the search results are taking me anywhere except what I want.

This is NOT about Adobe Flash.
This is NOT about flashing an entire FW ROM using Odin.
This is NOT about either of the above.

Basically I've pulled a couple files from "/system/", edited them and I need to push them back but the memeory is read-only. My other option is to "FLASH" a particular .zip that was generated in the process, and I guess that will put al the new files in place.

The question is... WHAT THE!
I couldn't tell what it means to FLASH files. And searching for recovery only returned complete system recovery and booting up in recovery mode.

The question is:

How do I FLASH a .ZIP file into a ROOTED Samsung Galaxy Ace running FroYo 2.2.1.
Do I need any particular software or tools? Or is it done through adb and/or the phone's own recovery mode.

OR

How do I push the files back into the system's partition which is read-only?
 
Ok, to help people out, what this seems to refer to (FLASHing ZIP's) is basically this:

Specific ZIP archives that have all the necessary META data and stuff to PUSH system files into the right place, as a procudures to update particular files.

RECOVERY is simply the safe update-mode booted into via a key combination (HOME + POWER for example). Maybe we need a thread for terminology? :D

Now in this RECOVERY mode there is an option that will recovery an UPDATE.ZIP file. It's clear, you'll find it easy enough.

Because this is done in RECOVERY mode, pushing files takes place even though the system is read-only. (I guess?)

And the simple trick that got me confused all this time is basically that you have to RENAME the file you're updating into UPDATE.ZIP before moving it to your SDCARD's root directory. Now the Update.zip command in recovery will automatically find the file.
 
Hello Dear,

Generally ZIP files are created to store the data safely and in a compressed form. By doing this, the transmission of ZIP files can be easily done over the internet. It also works as a backup file for those data which is stored inside the ZIP file such as images, pictures, music files, email mailbox files, documents files etc. Therefore it is widely used and due to this it gets corrupted. As more as a file is used, its corruption issues increase. Some factors which could be the reason behind the corruption of ZIP files:

• Unfinished or unwanted interruption in downloading;
• Virus or spy attacks;
• Abruptly system shut down;
• Unwanted system power failure;
• CRC failed, etc.

If you can’t open or access your ZIP files, it means your files are dead and they need a recovery. A corrupt ZIP file always indicates some onscreen error messages. Some of them:
• “The file or directory is corrupt and non-readable”,
• "Unexpected end of archive",
• “Invalid data into a Zip file”,
• “Zip file is corrupt”,
• “The archive is corrupt”,
• “CRC failed” error”,
• “Cannot open file: it does not appear to be a valid archive”,
• “Expected Zip file header not found”.

SysInfoTools Archive Recovery tool securely recovers corrupted or damaged ZIP files as it works as a read only program. It never modifies the data and structure of the files in fact it keeps maintained the integrity of files while recovery process.

Try this zip recovery tool to get your maximum data back from corrupt zip files.
 
Use any filemanager that gives you root access, example root explorer.
Open system/app/ from there, now there is a button in your filemanager that says r/w, tap and it'll change your system to read and write mode, just paste your edited app there and change its permisions to rw-r-r-.
Reboot and you are done!

Using zip archives is easy, the only difficult part is the updater script in it, it defines what all actions to take place to push the file at the target, like mounting the system, pushing the file, changing permissions, dismounting system, etc. All that you do through root explorer is done via this script.

Seeing as your still quite new to this, i'd suggest you leave .zip archives for now, try manually getting used to the android file system first.
 
i read in one video on youtube that froyo only accepts .zip files with name update.zip.
and if you want to flash a zip file then it should be renamed as update.zip ...

this is more of a hunch so not sure if it will work... but do let me know how it goes
 
Well it depends on the recovery menu, if it has an option for flashing update.zip, you need to have the archive with name 'update.zip', if theres an option to flash zip from sd card, any name would do.

CWM has both options, so its no problem there.

Now as you are saying that froyo has only update.zip option, that might be true for stock recovery, i don't remember if stock recovery had the other option or not, it has been too long since i last saw stock recovery.

Pushing an app into the system is a very easy job, i do it all the time and i am no developer.
 
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