[Q] Do everything with stock recovery? - G Tablet Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I have been reading all the threads for several days. It may be a dumb question. But I am really curious if we can do everything only with stock 1.1 recovery since CWM .8 does not update bootloader and bring potential danger to soft-brick your gTab when future 3991 based builds include the new bootloader from VS. As far as I have found, flashing a ROM or kernel does not necessarily need CWM to do it. But with CWM we can do data wiping, which stock recovery is not able to. Calkulin posted a Format_All.zip file in his thread. It can do a wipe. I guess it works with CWM just like flashing any ROM or update. But I am not sure if I can use stock recovery to flash it to do a data wipe. Or does anyone know a good way to wipe/format data with only stock recovery?
Of course, one can use stock recovery to flash safely while use CWM to wipe the data. It is just because I am lazy and want to stick with stock recovery.

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This came up in the Woot! forums as well, and it's my doing (I'll take the hit for it).
This is my suggestion: Use clockworkmod for all your day-to-day stuff (like backups and restores, SD partitioning and data wipes etc.). However, when you flash a firmware, you should look at that firmware, and the dev's post if that exists, to see if a bootloader update is required. In most cases here, that is NOT the case. However, if Viewsonic sticks to their guns and releases a new firmware with a new required bootloader, then the userbase needs to tread lightly as you might get a soft-brick if you're not careful.
I'm concerned about this because their UAT (build 3991) was like this, AND because the Notion Ink Adam (a sister device) is having these issues at this exact moment - their last update had a bootloader update and clockworkmod users were soft-bricking their devices because of it.
In TNT Lite 4.3.x and gADAM 1.3.x+. I added something called a "Recovery Pack". This allows the user to toggle between standard recovery and clockworkmod, as needed. I also create a standalone package if you wanted to add it to a 1.1-based rooted mod. This way, I (and everyone else) can use clockworkmod for day-to-day, but have the ability to toggle back to standard recovery as needed. I think this is a good balance, but users just need to be aware of the issues and when to use each.

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roebeet said:
This came up in the Woot! forums as well, and it's my doing (I'll take the hit for it).
This is my suggestion: Use clockworkmod for all your day-to-day stuff (like backups and restores, SD partitioning and data wipes etc.). However, when you flash a firmware, you should look at that firmware, and the dev's post if that exists, to see if a bootloader update is required. In most cases here, that is NOT the case. However, if Viewsonic sticks to their guns and releases a new firmware with a new required bootloader, then the userbase needs to tread lightly as you might get a soft-brick if you're not careful.
I'm concerned about this because their UAT (build 3991) was like this, AND because the Notion Ink Adam (a sister device) is having these issues at this exact moment - their last update had a bootloader update and clockworkmod users were soft-bricking their devices because of it.
In TNT Lite 4.3.x and gADAM 1.3.x+. I added something called a "Recovery Pack". This allows the user to toggle between standard recovery and clockworkmod, as needed. I also create a standalone package if you wanted to add it to a 1.1-based rooted mod. This way, I (and everyone else) can use clockworkmod for day-to-day, but have the ability to toggle back to standard recovery as needed. I think this is a good balance, but users just need to be aware of the issues and when to use each.
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Thanks a lot, Roebeet! for everything you have done for this community. I have saved your "recovery pack".

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Can Standard Recovery update kernels as well?

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vegeetz said:
Can Standard Recovery update kernels as well?
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I think so,TMK. Just rename the whatever kernal.zip to "update.zip" and add recovery folder with command file in it and flash .....

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Seems standard recovery is my best bet if I want to mod a little and keep things as close to original as possible.
Looking to do TNT 4.3.2 with Clemsen v7 tomorrow.

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vegeetz said:
Can Standard Recovery update kernels as well?
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Check with the developer - if they say "clockworkmod only" then you should follow their instructions, imo. My guess is that they only test with cwm, but that's only a guess.

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vegeetz said:
Seems standard recovery is my best bet if I want to mod a little and keep things as close to original as possible.
Looking to do TNT 4.3.2 with Clemsen v7 tomorrow.
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I will probably go with Calkulin's 1.1 and clemsen v6. It looks Calkulin's one is the fastesd so far.

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roebeet said:
I also create a standalone package if you wanted to add it to a 1.1-based rooted mod.
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Roebeet
Did a search and found everything but link to the "standalone Recovery Pack). Please provide again.

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Rumbleweed said:
Roebeet
Did a search and found everything but link to the "standalone Recovery Pack). Please provide again.
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http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1005080