Hi all,
I searched long and hard for an answer to this one, but I can't make heads or tails of it. It started when I noticed that any apps I installed wouldn't stay through reboots, and any uninstalled apps came right back. So I tried reflashing Flashback 7.0 and 7.2, but the apps were still there. It does look like 7.2 installed correctly, although the apps were still there.
Then I tried flashing several different roms (TnT, Cyanogen, Vegantab, stock), but they wouldn't boot. Flashing back to Flashback allowed the tablet to boot, but the data was still there.
I tried manually formatting /data through cwm, but I got the lovely "Error formatting /data" message. Doing the normal cwm data wipe and repartition (4096,0 and 2048,0) didn't do anything either. I tried NVFlashing back to stock 4349, no good. I tried Flashback loaded with cwm 3.0.2.8 and the stock 1.2 recovery, but no avail. I blew away the partition table and nvflashed, no good. I tried pulling the battery, no good. I tried flashing the FORMAT utility, still stuck with this data. No matter what I do, it will only boot after installing Flashback 7, and then it retains the state it was in before going wonky.
The tablet works more-or-less for every app currently installed, apps load fine, all hardware appears to work fine, but once it's rebooted everything goes back to how it was when it went belly-up.
This has gotten the better of me, I'm hoping there's some nuance that you brilliant folk know of that I'm missing. Thank you for your time.
Both /data & /sdcard reside on the internal sd and are not touched by nvflash or by installing a new rom (all of which go on the internal nand (not sdcard). There are serveral ways to clear them. You can clear /data by doing a "factory/data reset" & repartitioning in CWM wll destroy/recreate both /data & /sdcard (so make sure you backup anything you want to save on /sdcard before you repartition). The standard repartition is 2048,0, but in some situations it is benefitial to repartition to 4096, 0 & then immediately repartition back to 2048,0.
After installing a new rom you should always do a factory/data reset, wipe cache & wipe dalvik to clear out data/installs from the prior rom.
Al
Thanks Al,
I forgot to mention, I've already repartitioned several different times, going up to 4096,0 then down to 2048,0 as I've seen recommended elsewhere. The wipe data/factory reset option also doesn't seem to be affecting the data staying put.
I remember a person with a similar situation. I believe rajeevvp had the person do some testng & it came out (in that case) to be a bad internal sd. He developed a way to use the external sdcard as the internal sd. I'll see if I can find the post or you can PM him.
Al
See this post http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1156200 and specifically post #44 Guide to swap internal and external SD card assignments on the ViewSonic gTablet for users with partly-functional internal SD cards.
Al
Looks like the same issue all around. Thank a million, here's to hoping it works.
Get me a dmesg output first.
Second, since you're on the 1.2 bootloader branch, don't flash the custom CWM zip file which is only for bl 1.1. Just skip that step (step 1). The rest of the steps are bootloader-independent. Step 1. is only for letting you make backups and restores using the external SD card instead of the internal one.
Third, I'd like to see the results of the test commands given in the thread that aabbondanza posted above.
Finally, for CWM 3.x and higher, I have another (and easier) technique that I think will work for backups and restores, but, I never tested as I didn't want to change bootloaders. Let me know if you're willing to be a guinea pig for testing this.
rajeevvp, the result of the test directory/file creation on /data and /sdcard were similar to the other poster, with the directories and files not being retained after unmount or reboot.
The results of the test commands are attached. Thanks again for all your help. Additionally, of course I'm willing to be a guinea pig for anything you've got in mind.
sktsswth said:
rajeevvp, the result of the test directory/file creation on /data and /sdcard were similar to the other poster, with the directories and files not being retained after unmount or reboot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
From the dmesg1.txt file I see that you have the non-standard internal SD card make that seems to cause this sort of problem:
<6>[ 10.001007] mmc2: new high speed SDHC card at address aaaa
<6>[ 10.007139] mmcblk3: mmc2:aaaa SE16G 14.8 GiB
<6>[ 10.011722] mmcblk3: p1 p2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can either return the tablet to VS or try my workaround hack along with a new CWM for 1.2-based bootloaders (soon).
Either way, I'd like to continue this discussion further in this thread.
rajeevvp said:
From the dmesg1.txt file I see that you have the non-standard internal SD card make that seems to cause this sort of problem:
You can either return the tablet to VS or try my workaround hack along with a new CWM for 1.2-based bootloaders (soon).
Either way, I'd like to continue this discussion further in this thread.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Since some of these tablets are showing up with different internal sd cards than most of us, is it possible that when we are having these people nvflash back to stock, that the bct's config of these new chips would be different & we are causing the problem by flashing the incorrect bct back to the device? Would it be safer to modify our nvflashes to read & use the user's bct when nvflashing back to stock?
Related
I've had a Gtab for a few days and tried TNT 4.4 and now Vegan 5.1, and in both ROMs, my tab keeps freezing. It often freezes on Gallery, but it has frozen elsewhere. I've tried wiping it with clockwork, but the problem wont go away. Any ideas? Any other way of reformatting the drive or anything else?
Since you're familiar with clockworkmod, you could try to re-partition the internal sd to 2048 and 0. WARNING: this will format your device and delete everything on the user partition (what's called "sdcard" in these ROM's), back up all data externally (micro sd or usb flash or pc) or it will be gone!!!
This is a common fix for force close across platforms.
Be Sure To BACKUP Important Data to something other than the Internal Device's 16 GB flash memory.
I would also re-flash whatever ROM you want after the re-partition.
There is also a "format all" procedure from Calkulin in one of his threads in development forum.
Edit: There's a couple of format procedures in the development forum, one uses nvflash (sticky) and Calkulin's looks to be .zip. I haven't used either of these, but I would be familiar with nvflash/apx and have that set-up before attempting either.
Hi everyone,
In my overzealous attempts to reformat an old 4gb external SD card through CW Recovery, I managed to reformat my internal SD card (I was using the Clockwork Recovery version 2.5). I thought that "format sd card" would reformat my external memory card and not leave me without a usable phone, but I guess I misunderstood.
I spent at least five hours going through all of the ODIN tutorials and trying them out, and found that using Eugene's 2.2 with 2E recovery ROM actually allows me to boot up (hooray! ), while the stock rom from this thread simply forces a bootloop on my poor phone, with occasional freezes. Even using AIO's "Flash to Stock" from Eugene's 2.2 doesn't work.
Further searching has lead to the thread about partitioning using parted, which has been hard for me to use effectively (I made a new partition, but I couldn't get it to mount properly).
I was really excited to come across this tutorial, but it didn't solve my problem. After getting through all of the steps, at step 5, ODIN3 versions 1.0, 1.7, and 1.81 (I tried all 3 on 3 different walk-throughs of the tutorial) never were actually capable of repartitioning the sdcard properly. Every time after the first time of using "parted" to reduce the card to a single partition, I found that that lone partition was always the only one there (15.5 gb /SYSTEM Fat32). No changes had been made to the sd card's partitions.
I don't know if it helps any, but the ROM I was running before I reformatted the card was Bi-Winning 3.0, and Voodoo had not been disabled at the time of the reformat, which may be why I can't flash new ROMs through the recovery as well.
As near as I can tell, ODIN can't actually return my vibrant's partitions to factory settings, so is there a way for me to do that manually? I think that would solve my problem.
Thanks,
-NewbieCube
My guide (you linked to) clearly states its not for this intent... if you read it, you would also see I linked to Eugenes froyo that does not brick. If you did it, THEN you did my guide ODIN to JFD, you are on a fully functional stock 2.1 JFD build.
If your intent was to just format the external sd, go to menu settings, sd card/phone storage, unmount the external and format it.
Right, I know that. In fact I read all through your thread and tried to flash to Eugene's first, and then to JFD, but JFD does not boot properly. It just gives me a black, unresponsive screen. I'll definitely go back through once more and try that again, though, as you clearly know what you're talking about.
I basically formatted the wrong storage (internal sd vs external sd), and would like to get that internal back to stock, so you are right that Eugenes -> JFD should work. I'll report back with results.
^ yeah, exactly... that should work with no issues. let me know if it does not.
Oddly enough, that didn't work for me either. Since my phone still can boot into Eugene's (albeit with 0.00B available to apps), I know this should work, just from reading through your guide. So once more, here's what I did:
1. Download mode -> ODIN 1.70: Flash Eugene_2E_JK2_Froyo.tar.md5, and s1_odin_20100512.pit (from Eugene) Re-Partition NOT checked (Eugene's thread says not to)
2. Boot up into Unbrickable Froyo, with no application space remaining Mount sdcard and move Update.zip (s15274n's) into the root folder without issue.
3. Download mode -> ODIN 1.70: Flash s1_odin_20100512.pit, and T959UVJFD.tar (s15274n's) with Re-Partition checked
4. Boots once automatically into recovery, saying something about a failed MBR checksum and failure to clear userdata
5. Bootloops that never get past the VIBRANT logo screen
6. Boot into recovery and try deleting user data and cache data manually and to reinstall packages, but bootloops continue.
I really don't know what I'm doing wrong here...
UPDATE:
I even used Heimdall on another computer and got the same result, so it isn't ODIN. Why is reformatting the internal SD card to stock so difficult to do?
delete my post
I FIGURED IT OUT!!! ...by random chance
For my problem, it was indeed the voodoo lagfix that was messing things up, and this post:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=888084
helped me out tremendously.
So, I've no idea specifically where to start, so I'll just go from the beginning. Earlier today, I flashed a stock firmware for my device (I9300XXDLJ4 from the 'Stock Firmwares' thread) using Mobile Odin Pro successfully. No problems, except for when I forgot to factory reset the first time through.
More recently, I tried to re-flash CF-Root 6.4 to regain root, which didn't work as well as I had hoped, as I am now left with an unmountable /data partition on my internal SD, which means I cannot go any further in the 'factory reset -> restore' route. I have no idea what to do anymore - 30 Google searches later and about 20 separate flashes of firmware hasn't helped and I'm at the end of my tether. I really have no idea what other information to supply, so I guess if you guys have any idea you can let me know.
In addition, although a blank, yet working OS and phone would be better than a paperweight, I would like to keep my internal sd-card intact (or at least the partition with all my stuff on it). I also have a CWM6 back-up on my external sd if that could help me in any way.
So, yeah, whatever you can think would be greatly appreciated please and thank you.
(Long story short - unmountable /data partition on my internal sd means I can't boot/flash any 'proper' OS / it's soft bricked.)
UPDATE: Booted into stock Samsung firmware as above, not sure if it's because it's still got all the stuff from before and I haven't wiped it or it's genuinely fixed. May as well spend another half-hour on Odin to see what I can do.
UPDATE 2: Fixed. Mounting the /data partition only worked once I flashed the stock firmware - whether it's because of the recovery or the OS, I'm not entirely sure, but I'm now able to read/write to the /data partiton and I've just booted up my previous CM10 nightly, so... yeah. DO what you will with this thread mods. I'm done here, for now.
Irradium said:
So, I've no idea specifically where to start, so I'll just go from the beginning. Earlier today, I flashed a stock firmware for my device (I9300XXDLJ4 from the 'Stock Firmwares' thread) using Mobile Odin Pro successfully. No problems, except for when I forgot to factory reset the first time through.
More recently, I tried to re-flash CF-Root 6.4 to regain root, which didn't work as well as I had hoped, as I am now left with an unmountable /data partition on my internal SD, which means I cannot go any further in the 'factory reset -> restore' route. I have no idea what to do anymore - 30 Google searches later and about 20 separate flashes of firmware hasn't helped and I'm at the end of my tether. I really have no idea what other information to supply, so I guess if you guys have any idea you can let me know.
In addition, although a blank, yet working OS and phone would be better than a paperweight, I would like to keep my internal sd-card intact (or at least the partition with all my stuff on it). I also have a CWM6 back-up on my external sd if that could help me in any way.
So, yeah, whatever you can think would be greatly appreciated please and thank you.
(Long story short - unmountable /data partition on my internal sd means I can't boot/flash any 'proper' OS / it's soft bricked.)
UPDATE: Booted into stock Samsung firmware as above, not sure if it's because it's still got all the stuff from before and I haven't wiped it or it's genuinely fixed. May as well spend another half-hour on Odin to see what I can do.
UPDATE 2: Fixed. Mounting the /data partition only worked once I flashed the stock firmware - whether it's because of the recovery or the OS, I'm not entirely sure, but I'm now able to read/write to the /data partiton and I've just booted up my previous CM10 nightly, so... yeah. DO what you will with this thread mods. I'm done here, for now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good to read a thread with a quick "happy ending"!
Good work mate!
// Ohamn
I am having an issue creating backups. Last time I had issues with what seemed like the sd card, I bought a new 64 gig card and replaced my old one.
The old one still works fine with an adapter into my pc, but I wrote it off and sucked it up.
I just tried again making a backup in TWRP with an error, "unable to create backup folder". So, I switched over to CWM and tried the backup. Same issue.
I just checked with my phone plugged into my pc and the file system is defined as "Generic Hierarchal" which I've never seen before. I am almost positive I formatted it initially as either fat or ex fat. With the phone on, I have no issues with the card. I have music and other data on it and it reads just fine.
Other possibly relevant history:
previous rom was Beans 21 and was unable to update to 22 (do not remember the error)
wiped and loaded Alliance's latest V8 with no issues. Been running Alliance for a few weeks now with zero issues. (other than backup)
Do I need to wipe my card and format it in the phone? I think previously I formatted it in my win 7 pc with an adapter.
TIA for any info
Formatting the card with TWRP is probably better
I had this issue with an S3 and nothing would work. I tried mounting/remounting, formatting, and even a new SD card. It finally worked with a new SD, which is really weird because it was an old SD card compared to one of the newer ones.
Thanks for the response. I have 2 cards. Just cleaned off one and formatted in the phone. Still fails trying to do a backup. I hate the thought of buying a third 64 gig card.
I think I'll try going back to stock and see what happens. It'll be a while before I can. Sucks I can't backup first.
Thanks again for the response
interesting update, for anyone that might be watching this post: I d'loaded skips updated toolkit from here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2052788&page=10
and was able to make a backup.
just FYI
Bought a Sammy 64 and same issue. Unless anyone has any other suggestions, I'm going to Odin back to stock, I guess.
back to stock, unlock, root fixed it. just fyi.
georgepink said:
back to stock, unlock, root fixed it. just fyi.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not. Tried to load another rom and can't read from ad card. Damnit. Any help would be appreciated.
more drama...I re-loaded twrp, b/c I found an old post with roughly the same issue. It said to use cwm to fix permissions. Well, cwm doesn't offer that anymore, the comment is that it was placebo effect. twrp still does offer it. I ran it and then rebooted to android, then rebooted into twrp reco again and was able to load Alliance v8 again.
so, until 4.4 roms appear (which I will have to go back to cwm for, unless twrp gets updated) I guess I'm set.
I'd still LOVE to hear from someone who might know how this happened or what exactly happened, to know what to avoid.
Thanks again, to the one person that responded.
Back to square 1, cannot make nandroid backups.
In CWM v6.0.4.3 here's the errors:
trying to backup: Can't mount Backup Path
trying to mount external_sd: Error Mounting /external_sd
In TWRP v2.6.3.0 here's the errors:
trying to backup: backup folder: /external_sdcard/TWRP/Backups/
E:unable to create folder: /exterenal_sdcard/TWRP
E:Failed to make backup folder
Any thoughts? I know I've posted this multiple times, but not sure where to turn. I suspect if I go back to unrooted stock again and unlock / re-root, load twrp and fix permissions, it will work again for a while. But not permanently. I really want to fix this once and for all. But am not getting any clear direction to go. I have searched on and off XDA to no avail. hoping this time is the key. Thanks for reading and potentially helping.
[UPDATE #2]
I am now back on 1.4.2 stock (whew!!). Using the Ubuntu Recovery Unbrick sdcard did the trick. After doing that, I then flashed the raywaldo.com "repart.img" (which restores to 1.4.2). Thanks to all who offered advice. I've learned quite a bit about my NT during the past 24-28 hours. I'll hopefully get 10.2 successfully flashed tomorrow -- no more formatting! Only a safe wipe!! Cheers!
[UPDATE]
I now am able to boot from at least one SD card. I was able to put an sdcard image of 10.2 on a 4gb card and it DOES boot just fine. So it would appear that in worst case scenario, perhaps I can find a 16gb card that will boot and just use that (vs. internal memory). Does having a booting/working sdcard version of 10.2 give me any tools/etc. that might let me work on this internal memory (i.e. terminal emulator)?
I have a 16GB Nook Tablet that had been running a CM11 (KitKat) nightly. I was having WiFi issues (constant disconnects), so I decided to go back to 10.2 (or even 10.1.3). I did a stock reset to 1.4.2, and then flashed 10.1.3. It was acting flaky, so I thought "Oh, I didn't wipe everything before flashing, need to try this again". So during THIS "wiping" process, I was multi-tasking and went brain dead for a minute (I was on a conference call at work, IIRC). As I always do with my HTC phones, I went into "Mounts and Storage" in CWM and proceeded to format everything that shows up (yes, everything -- /rom, /bootdata, /factory, /system, /cache, /emmc, /data). When I put my full attention back to what I had just done, I had a VERY bad feeling..... (Trust me, I have already insulted my own intelligence enough over the past 24 hours -- so please, no posts telling me how stupid that move was...)
Anyway, here's where I am at this point:
CWM 6.0.2.5 Recovery is installed (internal). Any boot attempt just goes straight to CWM.
SDCard boots will not work unless I use the "plug the USB cable into computer first" trick (prior to this, sdcard boot worked fine). I tried the sdcard boot with the "repart.img" (which should supposedly fix partitions and get me back to stock 1.4.2), but I now get the RED "X" instead of the GREEN check, so that was a dead end. FWIW, I have used this method twice previously after other issues and it always worked perfectly.
This NT was purchased (sealed) as a part of a "lost freight" auction, so it can never be registered with B&N (which is fine with me). I only point that out as it relates to any "fix" process wiping out serial number, etc. -- in this case, that really doesn't matter to me. And considering I formatted /rom, it's probably already gone anyway.
(EDIT: I should have mentioned that I am also unable to use adb via USB cable with a computer. I've tried both a Win7 box and an XP box -- neither will ever install any drivers. It detects a new device, "NookTablet", then searches/fails to find driver, and then when I try to manually point it to driver in Device Manager, it says it can't find compatible driver. I'm using the standard usb drivers found here in several NT threads. I've used the NirSoft USB viewer and uninstalled the Nook-related entries several times and retried, but still no joy. )
So where do I go from here? Any attempt to flash anything using CWM doesn't really appear to do anything (well, it APPEARS to complete just fine, but when I reboot, it just goes back to CWM). Is the Ubuntu brick fix SDCard the best approach for me?
I basically just want to get some advice before I start trying things. I'm usually successful at self-fixing my messes, but this time I thought it might save me some headaches to ASK FIRST.
Thanks in advance!!
kltalley said:
...
I went into "Mounts and Storage" in CWM and proceeded to format everything that shows up (yes, everything -- /rom, /bootdata, /factory, /system, /cache, /emmc, /data). When I put my full attention back to what I had just done, I had a VERY bad feeling.....
...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In formatting /rom and /factory you wiped out the all factory-installed individual device data (serial no., MAC address, security encryption keys, etc.) which NT requires in order to operate (see http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2575489 for more info).
Have you considered the unbrick methods described at http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=49638948? and http://raywaldo.com/2012/06/how-to-un-brick-a-nook-tablet-8gb-or-16gb/?
digixmax said:
Have you considered the unbrick methods described at http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=49638948? and http://raywaldo.com/2012/06/how-to-un-brick-a-nook-tablet-8gb-or-16gb/?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The sdcard "repart.img" I mentioned earlier was an attempt at the raywaldo.com unbrick. I immediately get the red "X" in the corner (vs. the green checkbox which indicates that it worked).
It would appear that the Ubuntu recovery/unbrick sdcard (that you linked to) might be my only viable option at this point.
Thanks, digixmax!
kltalley said:
The sdcard "repart.img" I mentioned earlier was an attempt at the raywaldo.com unbrick. I immediately get the red "X" in the corner (vs. the green checkbox which indicates that it worked).
It would appear that the Ubuntu recovery/unbrick sdcard (that you linked to) might be my only viable option at this point.
Thanks, digixmax!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Believe it or not, but I also did something just as bad as you did. Basically, I wiped out my Nook Tablet 16GB's entire partition table. However, I DID make dd dumps of all the important partitions such as /boot, /recovery, /factory, xloader, and /rom.
After rebooting the tablet, it obviously failed to boot, so I had to use a bootable CWM card. Plugged into my computer, adb shell, ran gdisk (GPT version of fdisk, because the NT uses GPT partition table), manually recreated partitions, then dd flashed the backed up partitions I made a long time ago (I always prepare for the worst in advance, just in case).
If you have a full backup, I believe you can recreate the /rom partition and extract the specific partition's contents into it.
Also, you should try installing a Linux distribution (I personally recommend Debian, but Fedora or OpenSUSE are also excellent. Ubuntu I do not recommend, funny as it sounds). Trust me, adb DOES work, even if you formatted everything. It's probably something with Windblows that is preventing you from accessing the NT's adb shell.
All is well again -- I have my NT back on 1.4.2 stock (see original post for details). Thanks to everyone!