[Q] Problem booting the Eris - Droid Eris Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hello!
I think this post may be of more relevance to Development. But unfortunately, I do not have enough posts to do so. I usually don't have to post at all, thanks to searching.
This time I can't seem to find an answer to my problem, so here it goes;
I have an Eris that I'm using at the moment. I rooted it(or so I thought) back in the day. It seemed to work fine back then, and everything was dandy.
Never went about installing a custom ROM though, so I attempted. After I started it up, I realized I had made the worst mistake of them all. I didn't make a nandroid backup of the stock ROM. After a couple boot loops of the Cyanogen logo, I powered it into the bootloader to find that "S-ON" was showing. I cried a little at that moment.
If I try to install any other ROM(stock, EvilEris, etc.), it does not work. And after a couple of attempts of trying to install CM again, now only getting to the skateboarding androids, I have no idea what to do.
Does anyone possibly have a solution to this? I'm at a complete loss not being able to actually boot the phone into the ROM.
Also, everytime I try to just throw a PB00IMG.ZIP on the root of the SD card, it says there's "No image!"
Thank you for any help,
-Kickore

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kickore said:
Hello!
I think this post may be of more relevance to Development. But unfortunately, I do not have enough posts to do so. I usually don't have to post at all, thanks to searching.
This time I can't seem to find an answer to my problem, so here it goes;
I have an Eris that I'm using at the moment. I rooted it(or so I thought) back in the day. It seemed to work fine back then, and everything was dandy.
Never went about installing a custom ROM though, so I attempted. After I started it up, I realized I had made the worst mistake of them all. I didn't make a nandroid backup of the stock ROM. After a couple boot loops of the Cyanogen logo, I powered it into the bootloader to find that "S-ON" was showing. I cried a little at that moment.
If I try to install any other ROM(stock, EvilEris, etc.), it does not work. And after a couple of attempts of trying to install CM again, now only getting to the skateboarding androids, I have no idea what to do.
Does anyone possibly have a solution to this? I'm at a complete loss not being able to actually boot the phone into the ROM.
Also, everytime I try to just throw a PB00IMG.ZIP on the root of the SD card, it says there's "No image!"
Thank you for any help,
-Kickore
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Before you try the PB00IMG.zip, are you going into the Wipe menu and choosing the option "Wipe data/factory reset" before restarting the phone? If not, try starting in Recovery, do just that, and then try to restart. (Depending on the CM ROM you are installing, you may need to install a Google apps zip as well, if you have not already done so. However, it will boot without Google apps - you just will not have the market.)

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This is what happens when I go to wipe/factory reset the phone.
I'm sorry I wasn't a bit more descriptive in my first post.
I have clockwork mod recovery 2.5.0.1.
...With S-On...
This picture shows why I can't love anything.

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Since you have clockwork recovery, definitely do not try a PB00IMG.zip. There have been bricked phones from this.
See this post: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=12131623&postcount=9
This may be a good idea. That line "Can't read MISC" - I wonder if you have some bad blocks on that partition (or others)? Anyway, read through that post I listed above, flash that zip file, and it will create a file on the SD card called "MTD_Inspect.txt". Let's see what that shows.
(I think that once we determine the state of flash storage, the best bet may be to flash the Flashback_21v2, which will return the phone to stock, unrooted, and then you can re-root using ScaryAlien's modified version of JCase's 1-click root app to get Amon_RA recovery on the phone. Getting S-OFF going forward may not be such a bad idea, but one step at a time.)

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Listen to doogald, he's giving you some good advice!

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doogald said:
Since you have clockwork recovery, definitely do not try a PB00IMG.zip. There have been bricked phones from this.
See this post: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=12131623&postcount=9
This may be a good idea. That line "Can't read MISC" - I wonder if you have some bad blocks on that partition (or others)? Anyway, read through that post I listed above, flash that zip file, and it will create a file on the SD card called "MTD_Inspect.txt". Let's see what that shows.
(I think that once we determine the state of flash storage, the best bet may be to flash the Flashback_21v2, which will return the phone to stock, unrooted, and then you can re-root using ScaryAlien's modified version of JCase's 1-click root app to get Amon_RA recovery on the phone. Getting S-OFF going forward may not be such a bad idea, but one step at a time.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry it took a minute.
Here's what the MTD inspect gave me.
Code:
Eris MTD Partition Status Report Generated on Fri May 18 22:11:36 UTC 2012
PARTITION DEVICE_NAME SIZE(Bytes) BAD_BLOCKS #_E-BLKS ECC_FAIL ECC_CORR BBT_BLOCKS
misc /dev/mtd/mtd0 655360 0 5 0 0 0
recovery /dev/mtd/mtd1 5242880 0 40 0 0 0
boot /dev/mtd/mtd2 2621440 20 20 0 0 0
system /dev/mtd/mtd3 178257920 1350 1360 0 0 0
cache /dev/mtd/mtd4 136314880 9 1040 18 0 0
userdata /dev/mtd/mtd5 167247872 1 1276 0 0 0
#################################### misc PARTITION ###################################
Partition Symbolic Name: misc
Partition (character-special) Device: /dev/mtd/mtd0
Partition Total Size: 655360
Partition EraseBlock Size: 131072
ECC failed: 0
ECC corrected: 0
Number of bad blocks: 0
Number of bbt blocks: 0
Block size 131072, page size 2048, OOB size 0
Dumping data starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x00001000...
#################################### recovery PARTITION ###################################
Partition Symbolic Name: recovery
Partition (character-special) Device: /dev/mtd/mtd1
Partition Total Size: 5242880
Partition EraseBlock Size: 131072
ECC failed: 0
ECC corrected: 0
Number of bad blocks: 0
Number of bbt blocks: 0
Block size 131072, page size 2048, OOB size 0
Dumping data starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x00001000...
#################################### boot PARTITION ###################################
Partition Symbolic Name: boot
Partition (character-special) Device: /dev/mtd/mtd2
Partition Total Size: 2621440
Partition EraseBlock Size: 131072
ECC failed: 0
ECC corrected: 0
Number of bad blocks: 20
Number of bbt blocks: 0
Block size 131072, page size 2048, OOB size 0
Dumping data starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x00001000...
ECC: 1 uncorrectable bitflip(s) at offset 0x00000000
ECC: 1 uncorrectable bitflip(s) at offset 0x00000800
#################################### system PARTITION ###################################
Partition Symbolic Name: system
Partition (character-special) Device: /dev/mtd/mtd3
Partition Total Size: 178257920
Partition EraseBlock Size: 131072
ECC failed: 0
ECC corrected: 0
Number of bad blocks: 1350
Number of bbt blocks: 0
Block size 131072, page size 2048, OOB size 0
Dumping data starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x00001000...
ECC: 1 uncorrectable bitflip(s) at offset 0x00000000
ECC: 1 uncorrectable bitflip(s) at offset 0x00000800
#################################### cache PARTITION ###################################
Partition Symbolic Name: cache
Partition (character-special) Device: /dev/mtd/mtd4
Partition Total Size: 136314880
Partition EraseBlock Size: 131072
ECC failed: 18
ECC corrected: 0
Number of bad blocks: 9
Number of bbt blocks: 0
Block size 131072, page size 2048, OOB size 0
Dumping data starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x00001000...
ECC: 1 uncorrectable bitflip(s) at offset 0x00000000
ECC: 1 uncorrectable bitflip(s) at offset 0x00000800
#################################### userdata PARTITION ###################################
Partition Symbolic Name: userdata
Partition (character-special) Device: /dev/mtd/mtd5
Partition Total Size: 167247872
Partition EraseBlock Size: 131072
ECC failed: 0
ECC corrected: 0
Number of bad blocks: 1
Number of bbt blocks: 0
Block size 131072, page size 2048, OOB size 0
Dumping data starting at 0x00000000 and ending at 0x00001000...
Apparently, I have a few.

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Ok, the next step is probably to try what is in this post: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=11651122&postcount=21
That post mentions that you should download a decent ROM, but I think that you are already there.
Just a quick note: you should also read the warning in bright red here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=11652502&postcount=40
Never mind, I'll quote it:
ErisMTDNuke_v0.9.zip IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS AND SHOULD NOT BE USED WILLY-NILLY. IT'S ONLY USE IS FOR DESPERATE, LAST-RESORT MEASURES - CLOCKWORK "SOFT BRICKINGS" WHERE PARTITION CORRUPTION IS EVIDENT.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
At this point, please understand that your phone is bricked and it may not come back. Let's see what the ErisMTDNuke does, though.
I mentioned earlier the thought of unrooting by flashing Flashback and then re-rooting with JCase's 1-click app. That's still a possibility, too. That will at least replace the Clockwork Recovery with stock Recovery. However, the other way is to flash the CM7 ROM that you were going to flash anyway and replace the recovery using the app GScript Lite.
Flashback can be downloaded from here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=792026
You can download the one without the radio, if that's what you want to do.
Anyway, let's see what ErisMTDNuke does. Good luck.

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Dear doogald,
You are the coolest person on the internet. You have saved my phone by referencing forum posts made years ago that I totally couldn't figure out by myself.
Thank you very much.
I'm happy to announce that my phone has completed it's boot into stock, and I can now drag down my lock screen and activate my phone on the Verizon network.
I'll take to Jcase's one-click app tomorrow.
Thank you again,
-Kickore
P.s. Seriously, the coolest person on the internet ever.

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Wow, that's awesome. Thanks redirected to bftb0, who did all of that work.
The way to install Amon_RA is here: http://androidforums.com/eris-all-t...2-custom-recovery-trackball-not-required.html
You should be able to use Scenario 5 in the first post (the JCase 1-click app method) that ScaryAlien mentions that it works with stock or stock-based ROMs like xtrSENSE. Just remember that 1-click works like this:
- allow third party app installs in settings->applications
- install the app (you may need the free app Astro File Manager to actually install by opening the .apk file in that app and choosing to install the app)
- run the 1-click app
- shut down and restart the phone - don't restart in recovery; restart as if you were going to make a phone call
- shut down and restart in Recovery by holding VolUp while booting
At some point I'll also post what you'd need to do to get the S-OFF engineering bootloader on, which will allow you to fastboot flash to recover any future problems (which, knock wood, will not happen...)

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I attempted Jcase's app. It did give me Amon_RA's Recovery. It did not give me S-Off though, which I'm assuming is why you mentioned the engineering bootloader in your last post.
On a side note, I decided to experiment with something that wasn't clockwork mod, and found that I can flash custom ROMs with this Recovery. I also backed up my stock one this time, JUST IN CASE!
Well, it worked and I'm running GSB v4.5!
Still, I really appreciate it regardless of who originally found/wrote the documentation on how to do it. I'm a user with like 5 posts due to everything being figured out usually, and you're still helping instead of "GOOGLE IT."
So thank you.

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kickore said:
I attempted Jcase's app. It did give me Amon_RA's Recovery. It did not give me S-Off though, which I'm assuming is why you mentioned the engineering bootloader in your last post.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Which version of the bootloader do you have? It will either be 1.46.0000, 1.47.0000, or 1.49.0000. (The method to get the 1.49.2000 S-OFF depends on which you have now, IIRC.)

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I currently have the 1.47.0000.

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kickore said:
I currently have the 1.47.0000.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok. I am away for the weekend, but will try to get some detailed instructions ASAP. The generalized instructions, though (and it's quite a few steps, sorry to say):
- get a copy of the root PB00IMG.zip file onto the SD card
- get a copy of Flashback (with radio) onto the SD card
- get a copy of ScaryAlien's version of JCase's 1-click root app on the SD card (which I belive you have)
- Nandroid backup when you have now
- start in HBOOT and let the phone run the root PB00IMG.zip (it should detect and ask you to flash it automatically). This gives you 1.49.2000 S-OFF with an old version of the Eris ROM
- * Run the JCase root app (this gets you Amon_RA Recovery back)
- Flash Flashback with radio (this gets you the updated radio back - the root PB00IMG.zip file will flash an older version of the radio)
- Run the JCase root app again to root the phone
- Restart in Recovery and Nandroid Restore GSB
- restart and you'll be back where you were with S-OFF
- (Important) Erase the PB00IMG.zip file from the SD card (or rename it or move it into a folder).
(I may have missed a step - this is off the top of my head. Also, the step with * may be wrong - I think that the root ROM is Android 1.5 and JCase's root app may not run. I don't recall - I'll need to check on that one...)

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There is no need! I figured it out from what you said. I'm not really that new at this whole rooting process... But I'm not a programmer and would not have been able to do anything otherwise. I really do appreciate your help.
Thank you so very much!
-Kickore
Edit:
As a suggestion, perhaps making a new guide for anyone who comes to this forum can easily get the files which are now dead links. As well as follow a comprehensive guide on the rooting process.