I'm finding a very unusual lack of info about those backup bootloaders, considering that flashing over the primary bootloader partition is one of the most usual reasons for people to brick, and the secondary bootloader can be used in some of those devices to just fix the phone in seconds..
On N4, the secondary bootloader only works with Qualcomm fast-download mode, but in the N5 the secondary bootloader is a fully-functional bootloader for fastboot that stays on the original bootloader version that came from the phone (in my case h10x), which literally makes you able to just zero the aboot sbl partitions and boot into the secondary bootloader and just flash a new bootloader and fix the stuff in matter of seconds.
I am not sure if on the newer Nexus there are also backup bootloaders (on N9 there are, don't know if fully functional for fastboot or no), but if there are and they're fastboot-functional, they're a HUGE deal.
Why there's like no info about this anywhere on XDA? Even trying to make a search here or over google for backup bootloaders brings veery small info about this, just isolated cases
I don't know if this belongs to a more technical forum or not
Really.. noone?
Is this a dead forum or wrong forum for this?
Related
hopefully SOMEONE from asus will read this. if not, prime owners email them or whatever.
ASUS-
you need to either-
a- FIX fastboot on primes with unlocked bootloaders.
b- give us working nvflash
c- both
The way we have to do things right now is so dangerous its ridiculous. I should not have to dd a boot image into raw flash, or /try/ to use blobs and the staging partition(which i for some reason can not get to work)
Its great you unlocked the bootloader, and my warranty being voided is fine. But, when there is a greater than necessary risk to hard bricking when there doesnt have to be, it pisses me off.
Right now its safer on other devices that had their bootloaders hacked and never officially unlocked.
DD should not have to be in an updater script, and i should have an easy, fast, relatively safe way to test a developmental kernel/boot.img when theres a high probability it wont work first shot.
I hope broken fastboot was just an oversight that you plan on fixing. At least if i have a soft brick i can just flash a new image, not have to use dd to fix it.
If things stay like this i can guarantee way more people than necessary will end up hard bricking their primes.
/end rant
di11igaf said:
hopefully SOMEONE from asus will read this. if not, prime owners email them or whatever.
ASUS-
you need to either-
a- FIX fastboot on primes with unlocked bootloaders.
b- give us working nvflash
The way we have to do things right now is so dangerous its ridiculous. I should not have to dd a boot image into raw flash, or /try/ to use blobs and the staging partition(which i for some reason can not get to work)
Its great you unlocked the bootloader, and my warranty being voided is fine. But, when there is a greater than necessary risk to hard bricking when there doesnt have to be, it pisses me off.
Right now its safer on other devices that had their bootloaders hacked and never officially unlocked.
DD should not have to be in an updater script, and i should have an easy, fast, relatively safe way to test a developmental kernel/boot.img when theres a high probability it wont work first shot.
I hope broken fastboot was just an oversight that you plan on fixing. At least if i have a soft brick i can just flash a new image, not have to use dd to fix it.
If things stay like this i can guarantee way more people than necessary will end up hard bricking their primes.
/end rant
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Totally agreed except they need to do a and be. We should already have fastboot working from unlock out the gate. And they should provide nvflash support for those that do choose to unlock based on your reasoning. It only helps us to do more with our warranty voided tablets and also keeps them working when things go wrong. If they want inspired innovation, let us innovate without so much risk!
^^Your right, they should do both.
ASUS, seriously. It's really easy for noobs, and even experienced users, to brick their Prime's. Seriously. Just fix fastboot or give us working nvflash, or preferably both.
Yup, no NVFlash is the biggest reason my prime will remain locked.
Letting you unlock the bootloader is a waste of time if fastboot doesnt work!
NVFlash is the answer though and i see no reason why this cant be released.
I am trying to understand some more about this tablet, so far I have learned (please correct any errors):
These were given away at Google I/O with fastboot and an unlocked bootloader.
The ones you purchase in the store do not have fastboot, and have a locked bootloader.
An unlocked bootloader will show an unlocked padlock at the bottom of the screen.
You can still root and change ROMs with a locked bootloader, but cannot repartition your device, or use NVFlash without currently-unknown keys.
Without aforementioned keys, you cannot unlock or downgrade the bootloader, even with Odin. That or none of the Odin tars have the old unlocked bootloader.
The reason I am so fixated on the bootloader, is because this tablet seems to be nearly impossible to hard brick.
APX and Odin offer 2 modes of recovery, which should always be available, unless you wipe the bootloader portion of your NAND.
I am more interested in seeing what else I can make the tablet do besides run Android. The TABUNTU project is of great interest to me, but my GT-P7510 won't let me flash via APX...
I'd like to thank you as you have just managed to educate me a little I've only had my tab a few weeks so this was some good information I hope to try out some stuff also now I've herd its possible ill be fixated also
Sent from my HTC Wildfire S A510e using Tapatalk
It seems I have gotten TABUNTU to work via some Odin trickery, by sacrificing Android completely. Just because I cannot repartition the NAND, does not mean I can't use the existing partitions for un-intended uses
linux.img -> boot.img (modified boot.img-cmdline to mmcblk0p8)
ubuntu.img -> data.img
make into odin tar, flash.
Edit: more details here if interested in flashing TABUNTU on locked bootloader
This probably is not important, as I've already upgraded to CM9 and using it happily as a daily driver. I've been thinking about buying the Asus Transformer Infinity (TF700) and was reading about the tool to unlock the bootloader. I do understand that the "boot" area of the NVRAM is un-writable, and to allow this to be writable is to chance having that section of memory fubar, meaning no boot, meaning bricked device, etc.
Anyway, when I started coming up to speed on CM9 and reading most all of the pertinent threads, I don't recall reading anything on a locked bootloader for the NT. I rooted, prepared a bootable SD card with the .zip file, boot image and a few other files. Easy, but no unlock code or anything. So did that process unlock the bootloader and overwrite it with CM 9 files?
On a similar note, where does one find a memory map of the NT, showing where the bootloader and other partitions are? IE, I'd expect that the bootloader would take up the first block of memory, with other areas defined after that.
The bootloader is not locked (on the roms) Bauwks has unlocked it for us.
NookTabletsPower said:
The bootloader is not locked (on the roms) Bauwks has unlocked it for us.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If the original NT had a locked bootloader, then the process of flashing an new ROM was able to circumvent that?
georgia boy said:
I don't recall reading anything on a locked bootloader for the NT. .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Start reading!
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1480586
NookTabletsPower said:
The bootloader is not locked (on the roms) Bauwks has unlocked it for us.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The bootloader was never unlocked, as far as I'm aware. There was a flaw found that allowed the developers to bypass the bootloader and load custom images, including a new bootloader (cyanoboot).
So, as per title, I'm on stock Lollipop .690, and I'm very tempted to root/flash ROMs etc. But I realised it's a lot easier if my bootloader was unlocked.
Now I've done similar things to HTC/Samsung/LG phones so I know what unlocking bootloader means but I've always read reports that if you unlock an Xperia phone your camera doesn't work or something?
So if I unlock my bootloader, can I still use my camera? Basically, does anything bad happen?
1st off, this is a question so it belongs in the Q&A section.
Any how, when you unlock your bootloader the entirety of you INTERNAL memory gets wiped (any external SD cards do not get wiped). You also lose your DRM keys, these are stored in your TA files so make sure to back them up using the Backup-TA (you need root to do so however, this means you will have to downgrade to 4.4.2 to be able to back up your TA files) tool in the cross device development section. The DRM keys contain things liked noise cancelling algorithms, camera processing algorithms (the camera still works), X-Reality algorithms and other algorithms. What is actually lost when you unlock your bootloader is debated, as some people appear to lose them and some people don't. You also lose your warranty when you unlock your bootloader.
A vcat from every country of the world die
DNT
do not do this job dude u will regreat it to the end of ure life
Hello guys,
I've been trying to root this phone since i've bought it, problem is every option i read on the web doesnt work because phone's bootloader is locked, and all methods get to this point when u have to unlock ur phone bootloader but in order to do that u have to get in the phone bootloader wich is locked. So who the hell is giving advices like these i dont know. Problem is that i am motivated to still root it, nothing its impossible.
So i am asking, did anyone from EU, with the EU ROM (full of mallware) MIUI 8, managed to unlock its bootloader and then managed to root it ?! please lets discuss here the options that work and the options that didnt work so we can make it through and solve this problem, everything thats on web at this moment 27-11-2016 doesnt work on the False EU MIUI 8.
Thanks.
CatalinSava said:
Hello guys,
I've been trying to root this phone since i've bought it, problem is every option i read on the web doesnt work because phone's bootloader is locked, and all methods get to this point when u have to unlock ur phone bootloader but in order to do that u have to get in the phone bootloader wich is locked. So who the hell is giving advices like these i dont know. Problem is that i am motivated to still root it, nothing its impossible.
So i am asking you did anyone from EU, with the EU ROM (full of mallware) MIUI 8, managed to unlock its bootloader and then managed to root it ? please lets discuss here the options that work and the options that didnt work so we can make it through and solve this problem, everything thats on web at this moment 27-11-2016 doesnt work on the False EU MIUI 8.
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not posibble without unlocked bootloader. Even the pre-rooted China Developer rom needs phone with unlocked bootloader. Good luck with unlocking the bootloader.
EU ROM full of malware?!?! Where did you get that idea? Completely false.
Anyway as said, yes you do need to unlock bootloader. Impossible any other way, because the system has dm-verity (similar to HTC S-On) which prevents modification to /system. So if you can't modify system or boot partition then you can't put Superuser binaries anywhere. Unlocked bootloader allows to put Superuser on boot pertition.
Sent from my Redmi Note 4 using Tapatalk
CosmicDan said:
EU ROM full of malware?!?! Where did you get that idea? Completely false.
Anyway as said, yes you do need to unlock bootloader. Impossible any other way, because the system has dm-verity (similar to HTC S-On) which prevents modification to /system. So if you can't modify system or boot partition then you can't put Superuser binaries anywhere. Unlocked bootloader allows to put Superuser on boot pertition.
Sent from my Redmi Note 4 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can't we just flash a recovery-that can disable dm-verity using SP Flash and root the phone that way?
I am guessing not because no one has said it works
I'm getting rly impatient because I still havent got my bootloader unlock request approved yet lol
asusm930 said:
Can't we just flash a recovery-that can disable dm-verity using SP Flash and root the phone that way?
I am guessing not because no one has said it works
I'm getting rly impatient because I still havent got my bootloader unlock request approved yet lol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No because dm-verity is enabled/set in the kernel (ramdisk on boot partition), and if you modify the boot partition with a locked bootloader then it won't boot
Locked bootloader = prevents boot partition from being tampered with
dm-verity = set in boot partition, prevents system partition from being tampered with
So you simply need to unlock bootloader, there is just no other way to exploit the device (no possible attack vector). The device is very secure, like all Marshmallow devices.
So what is this false EU firmware you speak of? Obviously not the xiaomi.eu one because that requires unlocked bootloader.
You can flash global stable via SP Flash Tool, that's your best bet while waiting for bootloader unlock. If it's taking more than 1 week then you can contact official support or something via en.miui.com forum (its down at the moment for some reason).
CosmicDan said:
No because dm-verity is enabled/set in the kernel (ramdisk on boot partition), and if you modify the boot partition with a locked bootloader then it won't boot
Locked bootloader = prevents boot partition from being tampered with
dm-verity = set in boot partition, prevents system partition from being tampered with
So you simply need to unlock bootloader, there is just no other way to exploit the device (no possible attack vector). The device is very secure, like all Marshmallow devices.
So what is this false EU firmware you speak of? Obviously not the xiaomi.eu one because that requires unlocked bootloader.
You can flash global stable via SP Flash Tool, that's your best bet while waiting for bootloader unlock. If it's taking more than 1 week then you can contact official support or something via en.miui.com forum (its down at the moment for some reason).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
have you atempted to see what actually happens when a bootloader is unlocked? Like what does the miunlocker do/flash on the phone?
---------- Post added at 05:20 AM ---------- Previous post was at 05:04 AM ----------
CosmicDan said:
No because dm-verity is enabled/set in the kernel (ramdisk on boot partition), and if you modify the boot partition with a locked bootloader then it won't boot
Locked bootloader = prevents boot partition from being tampered with
dm-verity = set in boot partition, prevents system partition from being tampered with
So you simply need to unlock bootloader, there is just no other way to exploit the device (no possible attack vector). The device is very secure, like all Marshmallow devices.
So what is this false EU firmware you speak of? Obviously not the xiaomi.eu one because that requires unlocked bootloader.
You can flash global stable via SP Flash Tool, that's your best bet while waiting for bootloader unlock. If it's taking more than 1 week then you can contact official support or something via en.miui.com forum (its down at the moment for some reason).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm gonna try to flash a twrp recovery using this guide http://en.miui.com/thread-371349-1-1.html
and replace the recovery file with TWRP. Will report if it works
Yea it doesnt work haha
CosmicDan said:
No because dm-verity is enabled/set in the kernel (ramdisk on boot partition), and if you modify the boot partition with a locked bootloader then it won't boot
Locked bootloader = prevents boot partition from being tampered with
dm-verity = set in boot partition, prevents system partition from being tampered with
So you simply need to unlock bootloader, there is just no other way to exploit the device (no possible attack vector). The device is very secure, like all Marshmallow devices.
So what is this false EU firmware you speak of? Obviously not the xiaomi.eu one because that requires unlocked bootloader.
You can flash global stable via SP Flash Tool, that's your best bet while waiting for bootloader unlock. If it's taking more than 1 week then you can contact official support or something via en.miui.com forum (its down at the moment for some reason).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey can you upload you miunlock tool folder here? Want to see if the miunlock tool downloaded anything that enabled the bootloader unlock
asusm930 said:
Hey can you upload you miunlock tool folder here? Want to see if the miunlock tool downloaded anything that enabled the bootloader unlock
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can download it for free, just search for MiFlash - it's not a secret tool or anything.
Attempting to see what actually happens...? Even if I had the skills to reverse engineer MediaTek security, I wouldn't do it.
You're trying to do such simple things to trick the system but you need to realize that this hardware has been verified by Google themselves as secure and safe enough for Android Pay and SafetyNet and such. It *can not* be easily cracked, accept it.
Replacing recovery.img with TWRP? Seriously? How dumb do you think these companies are? Sorry for being rude but you really are just being silly.
You are wasting your own time, and now mine too... Sorry but I'm going to unsubscribe now because these questions are just getting silly.
Sent from my Redmi Note 4 using Tapatalk
CosmicDan said:
You can download it for free, just search for MiFlash - it's not a secret tool or anything.
Attempting to see what actually happens...? Even if I had the skills to reverse engineer MediaTek security, I wouldn't do it.
You're trying to do such simple things to trick the system but you need to realize that this hardware has been verified by Google themselves as secure and safe enough for Android Pay and SafetyNet and such. It *can not* be easily cracked, accept it.
Replacing recovery.img with TWRP? Seriously? How dumb do you think these companies are? Sorry for being rude but you really are just being silly.
You are wasting your own time, and now mine too... Sorry but I'm going to unsubscribe now because these questions are just getting silly.
Sent from my Redmi Note 4 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Man, I did not know that xiaomi actually put that much effort on making their mediatek phones actually google levels of secure.
Was always under the impression that they sorta skimped out on their mediatek lines (as they had before).
Now I'll just not try to unlock it unofficially lol
asusm930 said:
Man, I did not know that xiaomi actually put that much effort on making their mediatek phones actually google levels of secure.
Was always under the impression that they sorta skimped out on their mediatek lines (as they had before).
Now I'll just not try to unlock it unofficially lol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They had before sure, but in the recent year or so (since they started actually locking bootloaders) things changed - they want to target international market too.
Only reason the devices are not sold globally is because of some Mediatek patent/legal battle or something, not too sure (it's literally the only reason why they have snapdragon "pro" versions). But the device has a global firmware sold in Taiwan and some other places, and it is Google CTS certified (preinstalled with Google Play) and, since it's Marshmallow, requires all kinds of Google-approved security measures these days, which a lot of countries need legally too, so yeah.
Glad you understand. I read that if it takes too long to get unlock code, you should try/already be flashed on China dev ROM - so do that if you have not already.
Have you tried the unlocking link on this link? http://xiaomi-mi.com/redmi-note-4/