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Help Help: Recovering Data Partition/Mount?

J

joelshort

Member
I'll try to be brief...
Background: I bought a used Samsung Galaxy Tab knowing full well that there was something wrong with the internal 2GB memory. The previous owner had installed CM10.1 nightlies on the SD card and was booting the tablet from the external SD card, totally bypassing the internal memory.

The goal: to recover the internal memory

Steps I've taken:
1. Removed external SD card so it doesn't boot from SD card
2. Successfully used Heimdall to re-flash to stock (VZW 2.3.5 Stock Root) - after the flash the tablet attempted to reboot. It went to the VerizonWireless screen and I think went into a bootloop.
3. Turned off the tablet and booted into the stock recovery. From the recovery menu I tried to reboot the system, which gave me the following error:
"failed to mount data"
4. Turned off the tablet and booted into stock recovery. I wiped the cache partition. Then I tried to wipe data/factory reset and got the following error:
"E:failed to mount /data (Invalid Argument)
E:install_application_for_customer: Can't mount /data
your storage not prepared yet. please use UI menu for format and reboot actions"

5. Using Heimdall I successfully flashed ClockworkMOD recovery, and booted into CM recovery.
6. I attempted to reboot system now and the tablet just hangs at the Samsung logo, doesn't even go to the Verizon screen.

So obviously there seems to be a problem with the /data partition. I'm not sure exactly what to try at this point. How do I mount /data? Can this be done from within CM recovery?

Any advice or things to try would be greatly appreciated.
 
My only guess would be try and flash the correct .pit file to repartition each partition, though I don't know where that is and flashing a bad one will hard brick the tab. I wish Samsung devices would give access to fastboot. :( What is the exact model number of this Galaxy tab?
 
jhawkkw said:
My only guess would be try and flash the correct .pit file to repartition each partition, though I don't know where that is and flashing a bad one will hard brick the tab. I wish Samsung devices would give access to fastboot. :( What is the exact model number of this Galaxy tab?
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply. This is a SCH-i800 CDMA tab. I am unfamiliar with "flashing the correct .pit" Is there a guide you can point me to?
 
Alright, I've never used Heimdall. If you have the ability to use actual odin, then what you do is you put the pit file in the pit slot, and your stock firmware in the pda sections. Then you want to have Re-Partition, Auto-Reboot, and F. Reset Time checked. Then with the device in download mode hooked, click start. The rest should be fairly automatic.

I don't know if this will fix it, but I'm sure this is the best option available. However, it's quite a gamble because there is a high risk of a hard brick if it doesn't work because the repartition will wipe the bootloader. This would then require a JTAG to reinstall the bootloader.
 
joelshort said:
Wow, thanks!
Just for reference, the errors I'm seeing are exactly like at the top of this thread:
External SD Card only guide - Samsung Galaxy Tab 7 - RootzWiki

Does this look recoverable or am I wasting my (and your) time?
Click to expand...

If it is recoverable, this is the only software method of doing so. This method really is a hail mary pass because it is high risk high reward. What you have to ask yourself is how important it is to have it run on internal rather than external.
 
The risk is too great. I'll just be running off of the external SD card. The only bummer is I would like to be able to flash other ROMs, but CM10.1 nightlies is the only one that supports this without modifying the ROM and I don't know how to do that.

From the rootswiki link above:
Modifing the ROM:

Download your ICS / JB ROM of choice, unzip it and open update.sh
Edit both line 31 and 35 to be as bellow
SD_PART='/dev/block/mmcblk0p3'
Save and zip back.

Is this hard to do?
 
joelshort said:
The risk is too great. I'll just be running off of the external SD card. The only bummer is I would like to be able to flash other ROMs, but CM10.1 nightlies is the only one that supports this without modifying the ROM and I don't know how to do that.

From the rootswiki link above:
Modifing the ROM:

Download your ICS / JB ROM of choice, unzip it and open update.sh
Edit both line 31 and 35 to be as bellow
SD_PART='/dev/block/mmcblk0p3'
Save and zip back.

Is this hard to do?
Click to expand...

It's not too difficult, or lengthy (other than the download of the rom). I assume since you were using Heimidell instead of Odin that you're using a Mac? If so, you would open up the update.sh in a text editor and then find those lines to replace. You would also need to find a program to actually zip files rather than just a drop&drag. Once everything is set up and downloaded, the whole procedure shouldn't take longer than 1 minute to fix.
 
jhawkkw said:
It's not too difficult, or lengthy (other than the download of the rom). I assume since you were using Heimidell instead of Odin that you're using a Mac? If so, you would open up the update.sh in a text editor and then find those lines to replace. You would also need to find a program to actually zip files rather than just a drop&drag. Once everything is set up and downloaded, the whole procedure shouldn't take longer than 1 minute to fix.
Click to expand...

Actually I am using a PC (Win7 64bit). I opened up the update.sh in MS Word and seems easy enough to edit.

I use 7zip for zipping files. Is that satisfactory, or is there something else involved in zipping ROMs?

Thanks!
 
joelshort said:
Actually I am using a PC (Win7 64bit). I opened up the update.sh in MS Word and seems easy enough to edit.

I use 7zip for zipping files. Is that satisfactory, or is there something else involved in zipping ROMs?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Nope, should be fine. Just take the update.sh file out, edit it, then use 7zip to rezip it, then move it back to your device for flashing.
 
Well I tried it and something went wrong. I tried editing cm-9.1.0-plc.zip and when I tried to flash, it almost immediately said "Installation aborted". Any ideas? Could this have anything to do with a file called "cyanogenmod_bml.log" on the root of the SD card?

Also, I was looking at another ROM but it doesn't seem to have an "update.sh" file to edit.
 
Hello , i had the same problems with my first zips .

I use winrar but maybe same prob.

Once you have zipped, open it,and check if the first file you See is "cm 10...".
If yes,then add the unzipped m
 
frofro64546 said:
Hello , i had the same problems with my first zips .

I use winrar but maybe same prob.

Once you have zipped, open it,and check if the first file you See is "cm 10...".
If yes,then add the unzipped m
Click to expand...
 

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