I have been reading around for a while now, and noticed a lot of ppl soft-brick there device and are asking devs for help. I have noticed a lot of issues revolve around people trying to hop form on ROM to another.
A very easy way to recover from any sort of brick(or issue) is to use nvFlash. Its is very easy to setup and use and I highly recommend that everyone should setup nvFlash. You can find the guide on how to set it up from http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=861950
I think after the update last night a lot of people will brick there devices trying to mod it, and nvFlash will help you recover. I think we can really help out the dev if we all learn how to use nvFlash, because then they wont have to ans to alot of the support issues that keep coming up, and it will free up some of there time which they can use to create newer roms that will work with the new update.
If for some reason you follow that guide and are not scussefull in setting up nvFlash, then feel free to leave me a pm and i'll help you set it up.
Good post!!
You absolutely right because most of them (especially new users) won't take time to read stuff about the new update, which will in most cases soft brick the tab when coming from a non stock rom.
So yea they all should have Nvflash setup, just in case
Great advice.
I was messing around with Vegan Ginger the other night and wound up borking my gTab. Followed the instructions in that thread and had no problem using NVFlash to get everything back to normal.
Noob here Hi!
I Actually used the NVFlash yesterday to clear up some issues i was having. it works well and was easy to use.
Some how i screwed up my copy of Clockworkmod. When ever i attempted to flash any Custom ROM it would just sit at the view sonic boot screen...Although TNTLite always flashed with no issue.
I used NVFlash to get back to defaults then updated to 3588 then Reflashed CWM. Now I am able to load Vegan
Thanks for the post i think it will be helpfull for us N00Bz
WildBidoof said:
Noob here Hi!
I Actually used the NVFlash yesterday to clear up some issues i was having. it works well and was easy to use.
Some how i screwed up my copy of Clockworkmod. When ever i attempted to flash any Custom ROM it would just sit at the view sonic boot screen...Although TNTLite always flashed with no issue.
I used NVFlash to get back to defaults then updated to 3588 then Reflashed CWM. Now I am able to load Vegan
Thanks for the post i think it will be helpfull for us N00Bz
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually, you probably didn't screw anything up. Some Gtabs have a partitioning issue (I had it) which is only corrected during nvflash. I was unable to install any ginger roms until I nvflashed. Worked like a dream after nvflash.
Related
Folks...
I've been using ClockworkMod for a while on my HTC Incredible and today I received my Woot table.
I installed ClockworkMod on the tablet and did a backup of my "stock" image (I applied the 3588 update).
From reading these ROM threads, it looks like there's some differences in how I am used to interacting with Clockwork and some of these warnings sound pretty ****ing dire...
If I install a ROM, isn't going back to my previous backup a matter of formatting and restoring? It sounds like some of these ROMs interfere with Clockwork in such a way that could result in a bricked device. I've been wiping and restoring on my Incredible for almost a year now and I've never heard of a ROM dicking with Clockwork before...
What's the difference or am I making a mountain of a molehill here?
There is a very specific version of CW that bekkit put together for the G=Tab. The problem isn't the rom messing with CW, it usually is Rom Manager that will mess with it. Rom Manager usually will want updated, especially with CM installs.
I have had to nvflash the tablet in the past after upgrading CW via rom manager.
The other issue that is common, and I have had happen to my beloved Dinc, is having to repartition the storage. The groundwork for the Dinc was much, much more stable than the default tapNtap that is released with the tablet.
Something some people may also miss is the kernel for GB is much different than the kernel with froyo.
Rest assure, bricking this thing seems to be an accomplishment and almost impossible. Trust me, I have given my best effort to do so. With nvflash or adb almost any tablet can be recovered.
One last thing to look out for, how internal storage is handled. Some roms use internal as emmc (like the Dinc), while others mount as sdcard. CW doesn't handle this switch gracefully. You can mount usb storage in advanced menu and move the recovery files over if needed.
While dharr18 is mostly correct there are a few ROMs floating around out there that will have trouble with clockworkmod. TwoTapsX and TnT Lite 5.0 (both currently held from distribution by the developer) are based on a UAT build (3991) that require using the stock recovery and bootloader from build 3588+ to install correctly. There is some speculation that this may be the standard going forward.
Thanks KJ, I forgot about those two as I have not loaded them to date.
dharr18 said:
The problem isn't the rom messing with CW, it usually is Rom Manager that will mess with it. Rom Manager usually will want updated, especially with CM installs.
.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I fell into that trap... really FUBAR'ed my tab until i had to nvflash a full recovery.
dharr18 said:
Thanks KJ, I forgot about those two as I have not loaded them to date.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're welcome. I run TTX regularly (well... in between my attempts to find creative new ways to brick this thing...).
Deacon,
The truth is there ARE some dire consequences. Bricking a G-Tablet is extremely hard,
but you can lose data. If something breaks on your tab and your have loaded a ROM
you do not have a warranty. There are risks involved.
And in my opinion a lot of people try to do too much too fast and too often wind up
in dire straights.
There are stickies on most of the recovery/problematic stuff. Good to read them first.
Rev
the problem isn't with the ROM
I follow roebeet and the tnt lite ROM - VS is updating their boot loader from 1.1 to 1.2 in some of their OTA updates. Mostly the 3588 and the 3991. If you are playing with those or it came installed then it can be a bit of a hassle depending on what ROM you are playing with. I updated my gtab to 3991 and was able to nvflash it back to 3588 and install vegan5.1 and tnt lite up to 4.2 without any issues. Just be sure to read up and be able to complete an nvflash if it gets ugly on you. I really recommend learning a little linux - nvflash is a breeze in there.
Woot gTab owner here.
Been lurking here and on a ton of other forums for when I bought the Xoom. Instead the Woot gTab popped up, so...
Anyway, I got it Friday, am about to have at it, when I wondered--those official ViewSonic downloads--will it return the thing to its condition now? With all the apps that came with it?
I have assumed I'll just love VEGAn or TNT Lite, but it seems like none of them are perfect, and at least some people like the stock TNT ROM. So if I don't like them that much...can I go back to OEM stock? I have to admit--I kind of like the stock weather app. I don't know why...
Anyway, thanks in advance.
You will be able to flash back to stock 3389, 3452, or 3588 using update.zip files in these forums. The 3452 and 3588 both also install stock recovery, but I don't remember if 3389 does. I think the woot gtabs all came w 3389, but they were slughtly different from the store bought 3389s (woot ones had Pandora, Angry Birds, etc.).
So, you come "close" to an out-of-box woot tab, but not exactly.
Jim
1. I think it was roebeet who posted the stock roms. I think they may be in the development forum.
2. I think you may be able to pull the update.zip off your stock gtab before doing any moding.
3. You can follow the nvflash procedure in the development forum and then apply the update to get back to a stock rom.
jasco13 said:
1. I think it was roebeet who posted the stock roms. I think they may be in the development forum.
2. I think you may be able to pull the update.zip off your stock gtab before doing any moding.
3. You can follow the nvflash procedure in the development forum and then apply the update to get back to a stock rom.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Assuming norhing based in >3588, I don't think he'll need to nvflash.
If he has CWM installed, he'd just need to use it to flash (e.g.) an 3452 or 3588 update.zip, and CWM will be gone.
If he doesn't gave CWM installed, he needs to fo stock recovery w one if those update.zip files (w recovery/command file).
Jim
jasco13 said:
1. I think it was roebeet who posted the stock roms. I think they may be in the development forum.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did find the stock ROMs somewhere, got them bookmarked.
jasco13 said:
2. I think you may be able to pull the update.zip off your stock gtab before doing any moding.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's what I was looking for, thanks! Um...any help as to how? I am literally following instructions on ROMs and CW from other forums. This is my first Droid device, aside from a month with a D1 a year ago.
Though it looks like I'm going back to a Droid Pro, since I haven't seen yet how to Bluetooth tether and share data and GPS with a Blackberry.
jasco13 said:
3. You can follow the nvflash procedure in the development forum and then apply the update to get back to a stock rom.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh geez. Haven't got that far yet. Mostly I'm just worried if I hate the other ROMs I can get the stock video and music players back, and the stock weather app.
I'd even be willing to try the stock TNT for a while, it just seems harder to get the full Market on stock TNT than it does to flash to TNT Lite or VEGAn and get the Market (or at least the documentation on how to do that is easier to find.)
Anyhow, thanks a ton. These forums make this a much better experience.
fre1102,
Read the stickies. I have written several stickies and a couple of other posts in
both General and Q&A where I have tried to spell out the basics of Memory, Storage, Recovery, etc.
Most of the procedures are mentioned in those threads.
You can do a lot using stock recovery as long as your G-Tablet doesn't have any problems.
Rev
The quick answer is that you can get your tablet back to a stock condition, but not the condition in which it was shipped from woot.com, using the ROM's you list above.
It is doable to get it fully back to the way you got it, but the process has several steps.
Have a gander at http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1017148, especially near the end of the thread.
You can get very, very close by doing a restore from a clockworkmod backup posted in the thread above. This will, however, leave the tablet with clockworkmod recovery instead of standard recovery if you stop there.
Why on earth would you want to?
Once you try ANY other ROM, I imagine you will be laughing at your own naivete about wanting to go back to (cough) stock.
Night and day dude. Night and day.
mstevens said:
The quick answer is that you can get your tablet back to a stock condition, but not the condition in which it was shipped from woot.com, using the ROM's you list above.
It is doable to get it fully back to the way you got it, but the process has several steps.
Have a gander at http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1017148, especially near the end of the thread.
You can get very, very close by doing a restore from a clockworkmod backup posted in the thread above. This will, however, leave the tablet with clockworkmod recovery instead of standard recovery if you stop there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You could finish up by nvflashing the original recovery partition back to it. In fact... tried it yesterday and it would be very difficult to tell that it hadn't been started as long as you get an nvflash backup and nandroid backup before doing anything else with the tablet.
argh. been trying for a couple days to install the new Vegan RC1. can't get it to work. i get through everything seemingly fine. then we go to the final reboot to bring up the new rom, and it hangs at those adorable viewsonic birds for eternity. Eternity being defined in this case as: 25 minutes was the longest I let it go before trying again.
trying to use using this version:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1031250
with these directions:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=865245
I tried the cm7 ROM too and it did the same thing. I have seen other folks have this problem, but one thing that seems unique to my situation is that if I follow the same steps using the 4349_downgrade ROM... it works like a charm.
what up with that?
On a positive note, I have not bricked it yet!
I have searched this forum a bunch before posting, so hopefully I am not being too much of a noobie dorko.
you need to use the nvflash files in the development section
I started looking at NVFlash to use that, but it didn't seem like it worked with the ClockWork Mod. SO I tried to figure out how to remove the Clockwork Mod and revert to original, but no luck there. If you do not have to remove CWM, are there directions to use NVFlash with CWM?
Thanks!
AHA! Progress! Got NVFlash to work. Noob mistake maybe, but I think it would help to make the guide clear. But to get into the APX mode to run the NVFlash, you hold power and volume DOWN. Not volume up for the CWM. That was my mistake. Argh! Now trying to put the ROM on....
SUCCESS!! NVFlash is what I needed! Thanks to the XDA Devs!
Hey, fellas. As you may or may not be aware, I am in dire straits. Recently I had been browsing the XDA forums for the first time in a long time, and lo and behold there was a magnificence I had thought to never see in our own development forum... a Honeycomb alpha! In my haste I tried to follow every instruction to the tee and discovered that I need the stock bootloader/ROM to do this.
Well, coming from cyanogenmod7 and a first time nvFlasher, I followed the instructions from one thread to flash back to stock 3588(I think it was)? So after fiddling with the drivers for about 5-10 minutes, I start flashing and everything is going great, no errors whatsoever. Then the tablet starts to boot up and what happens? A bootloop at the TapNTap screen. So, I tried to boot into recovery thinking it might be fixable with a factory/data reset...and recovery no longer works, it just reboots back int pthe TnT bootloop. And then I came to the this forum, particularly the Q&A, to ask one question...
Is my G-Tablet well and truly forked?
Sincerely, this guy.
[edit]P.S I am also currently trying a bunch of stuff atm to see if I can fix it myself, but just reply if anything I do is futile and I should consider recycling my new hunk of silicone and plastic.
Load cwm .8 via update.zip and repartition your tab. Then try nvflash again.
"Select the advanced option at the bottom of the ClockworkMod menu, then go to “partition SD card”, for the first option select 2048, and for the second option select 0. This erases data on your tablet. Be prepared. "
Or try loading it by nvflash with instructions from this thread
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1058649
Here is a thread on how to easily flash to the 1.2 bootloader.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1039000&highlight=guide
Holy heck, thanks man. Do you have a paypal or something so I can send you like 5 dollars?
Nope, just mash the thanks button ;-)
Good luck!
No offense to the OP, but from my observations it seems that NVFlash is more of a breaker than anything. Everybody says to know NVFlash in case you end up with problems...that's fine, people can apparantley use ot to help fix errors that may have happened...
The fact is, most of the "I've bricked my G-Tablet" posts usually contain the line "So I NVflashed..."
I know that the developers use NVFlash for it's ease of use to go between roms, and see what it is that they need to see (I've never used it, so I don't know)
The fact is, the instructions that Mantara posted do not require NVFlash at all. In fact, after flashing 3588, they don't even require CWM.
If I ever softbrick, THEN I'll mess with NVFlash...but until then, it seems that NVFlash might actually cause me to have my first softbrick.
Nvflash is a handy tool to have and yes it can cause errors. Most of the time those errors occur because the partition table on the tablet don't match the partition table for the Rom being flashed. About half the gtabs have different partition tables from what is considered standard. That's why I have been pressing the issue of repartitioning when you first get your gtab and also when you move from 1.1 to 1.2. It helps make sure your tab and the software are on the same page.
I am Trying to boot into Clockwork Mod and when the Birds screen comes up and the the recovery key detected in the upper left corner it gets stuck there. Is there anything I can do to get Clockwork working? Also I do not know how to NVFlash on a Macintosh Thanks
You used the wrong version of CWM. Go to my website and read. It's designed for beginners. All necessary files are available for download.
http://viewsonic-gtablet-for-dummies.webs.com/clockworkmod.htm
Your website is wonderful and easy to understand and I did use the right CMW v8 with the right folder ect. I think I have it in now but I also have TNT Lite 4.4 and it boots up ok but will not reinstall the Clockwork Mod and the one that is in there I have used for a couple of weeks and it worked well. I think I need to NVFlash it but I do not have a PC I am on a Mac. Love you Site it is great.
Unfornately, I know nothing about mac. Let me contact someone who knows a mac inside out. Let see what he's got to say about it.
You are awesome!
Nvflash is not possible on a mac. There isn't even a driver for adb.
You have 2 options. Either use chloroform to knock out a friend and then use his PC or tell us exactly what you did and then we can work something out.
So, you say you have TNT lite on there. That would make it 1.1 branch. I'm guessing you tried to get the CWM for 1.2 in there before and that bricked it. You really do need to nvflash either the stock rom or the cwm v8 in there. Unless you can tell us something else...
Here is what I did I installed Rom manager and went into it and from within I was able to flash a different version of Clockwork Mod and it worked and now I just started in Clockwork. Thank you so much for your help. By the way do you recommend in stayiing with 1.1 bl or going to 1.2 and trying the newer stuff? Again I will joined your new site and will be watching close and I am going to get a pc just so I can work on my Gtab. Thanks again Tom
You also have a great sense of Humor Thanks again Tom
Mac users can use Linux running in a virtual environment (like VirtualBox) to use nvflash. No drivers required.
I'm glad you found a solution.
The most stable and smoothest rom is the calkulin+clemsyn combo. The most popular is vegan-tab ginger. Look at my list on my site for the appropriate bl.
PS - I didn't know ROM manager works now. Early on, there were people reporting some horror stories about rom manager killing their gtabs. That's why I didn't recommend it. Hm... I'll take a look at it now.
Thank you I never thought of that I have VM ware on this Mac with Windows XP so I guess I could run it on that. Thanks so Much
Hey I read some bad things as well but I was desperate and thought might as well try it and hurrah it worked
You're welcome. Goodintentions is correct in bringing up the ROM manager issue though. Flashing ROMs or CWM with ROM manager can result in APX looping that requires more than a simple nvflash to correct. I've had several people send me their tablets for recovery after having used ROM manager.
+1. Rom manager is no touchey! There are at least a few new posts a week from people borkifying there tabs from using that app. Not saying it happens every time just that it can happen. Its not worth loosing all your data because you wanted to save 5 seconds.
Glad you got it worked out. Try nvflash from from your vm next time