Hi All,
I'm new to this but I thought I'd post the question here since all the avenues I've tried have failed. What I am attempting to do is create a copy/clone/image of this fully configured TB-8505FS tablet. I want to preserve the applications, setting changes, layout, etc and perfectly replicate the copy/image to other TB-8505FS tablets. I have several thousand new tablets to deploy and ADB backup doesn't work to pull/push the settings properly.
I have tried SP Flash and Wwr_2.51 but I think I'm following Mediatek instructions and it isn't working to create a copy.
Is this possible without rooting the device?
Base tablet's Android must be rooted to create a full clone.
Related
Hey guys, Ive got a question.
My company has an android application that we license to companies, and we would like to purchase a few hundred android devices to load our application on to and then sell the devices at cost, but license the software that is on the device.
We have looked at several different android devices and saw the Archos 43 at a good price point, with the screen size we want. We are currently using Motorola i1's, but want something cheaper, and something that give us the ability to customize what firmware is on the device.
I was wondering if there is quick way (remember, we are going to have hundreds of these devices) to load our application on this device, and strip/remove all pre-loaded applications that came with the device.
We only need the wifi and the camera to work.
Would it be easiest to have a custom ROM that has basic Android with our program built in? Can this even be done, and are there any restrictions on this device as far as flashing a custom programmed Android OS. I see on Archos's website they talk about being able to load custom images, but not much detail about it.
On their website it states, "...ARCHOS has ‘opened up’ their Internet Tablets allowing users to install or even replace the Android system installed on the device."
This statement says that its "opened" up the tablets, but throughout the forums I see that the device doesn't already come rooted, and you need to root it before flashing a new ROM.
Thanks,
Christopher
1. Std. Archos is not rooted and is not even able to be rooted atm.
2. Archos has provided the SDE, a customised FW that allows a second kernel and Initram to be installed.
3. because you can then remove the Archos Android you can have a "custom rom".
You can't really stip down the Android to a point where it is secure without a very good knollage of android and the device itself.
To see how easy a custom ROm could be installed, look at UrukDroid installation.
http://code.google.com/p/urukdroid/wiki/Installation
Hey Chris
What you've read on the ARCHOS website is the SDE firmware. This "special" firmware from ARCHOS will not replace the operating system but it will you allow to install any custom kernel / initramfs.
So I think you better stick with the original firmware, but modify the system image as far as you want to go. Then you modify the init script in the initramfs to do not check the signature of the system image and there you go, easily customized Android, based on the original ARCHOS firmware.
BUT: Even though it's quite easy to flash a custom kernel / initramfs (just boot into recovery mode), it's not that easy to replace the system image because you have to write some scripts in the initramfs to do so and to be able to "upgrade" the image, etc..
That's just my input. Have a look at the links in my signature for further tricks and hints how to do stuff and links to my projects which are based on SDE and ARCHOS firmware.
There might be another solution, stick with UrukDroid (search the forums), an already highly customized and improved version of the official ARCHOS firmware, including installer, tools, etc..
Thank you both for the fast replies.
I'd rather not try go the two routes you have mentioned just for legality reasons, because the devices will be resold and I wouldn't want to get into that area...
Do you know of any devices that are more open to modification?
Thanks again.
Just yesterday i stumbled across http://www.taztag.com/index.php?opt...e&id=75:tazcard&catid=38:slideshow&Itemid=125
I don't know a price, but esp. for my needs the nfc part is interesting.
anybody knows how to make a ROM customized and make a "update.img" to run on a un-rootable device? I know when you backup a linux image for example ubuntu, this image will run on all other PCs, the image will automatically knows the new PC's drivers and adapt everything with that, is it what happening to an android too ?
It's not clear what exactly you mean by "un-rootable" device, but one cause an Android device cannot be rooted is that it requires signed updates. This signing happens using a special private key, which only device manufacturer knows. So, answering your question, if a device is truly un-rootable, it's likely impossible to make install custom update.img (because otherwise you could just include superuser binary in that custom image, and it wouldn't be unrootable in first place ;-) ).
---------- Post added at 03:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:12 PM ----------
Answering second question, no, it's not the same for Android. Most Android device use ARM processor, and in ARM world you usually need to know addresses and other characteristics of every peripheral device (RAM, display, camera, etc.) to make it work, and those are different for different devices. So, full system image made for one device most likely won't work for another device (unless they're very similar).
But there're also those "partial updates", which doesn't have complete system image, but only some components, e.g. a theme or some application. Such partial updated might be possible to install on different devices. (But if such update comes from a vendor, it is usually locked for a particular device anyway).
let me make it clear, I have a MSI tablet, I tried all rooting ways like z4, Gingerbreak v1.20 and superoneclick nothing's working for it (so it's un-rootable at least because of I couldn't find any way for that!) .
I found an official "update.img" from msi website, i upgraded the ROM to the new version, it was when i found we can make root access by editing of the "update.img".
Well, "a MSI tablet" still doesn't sound too specific ;-). I guess, you might have more specific responses if you'd write the exact model name you have (did you also try to search forum for it?).
As an example, I can tell about Nook Tablet - its boot loader is exactly locked, requiring signed updates. But folks here at XDA devels still found a hole in it and described how to get root on it and how to install custom updates for it (and are working on CyanogenMod for it). I personally bought Nook because I knew there's a great, active community behind it, so there would be custom hacks and updates for it.
"MSI Windpad Enjoy 10" it's the exact model name. unfortunately this one is not a famous model and there's no useful information for this device
Goldiecalypso,
I do not know if it will work for you.
I have an Aishuo A816 which I could not get rooted, what I did was find a ROM that was pre rooted and forced an upgrade with that. Everthing is now fine and if I change rom I can now root with superoneclick.
Keith
we are also discussing on this matter:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1453613
we have the official ROM, but nobody's here to make it rooted.
try to rooting msi enjoy windpad
hi goldiecalypso
can you to try learning how to rooting ?and rooting the msi windpad,together?
(excuse me for my bad English)
I want to, but I have no idea how to start!
We are a large urban school district located in southern California that will be soon be distributing approximately 11,000 android tablets to our first grade classrooms. The biggest challenge we’ve had with this project so far is coming up with a way to quickly and reliably clone the devices with all the apps and settings. The approach we’ve been attempting to take is the same as how we would handle PC’s by creating a master image that then gets copied to all the other devices.
Our first attempt at doing this was by using adb backup/restore. This process was less than ideal as it didn’t copy all the settings/preferences that we wanted and still required a lot of manual configuration to get the devices in to our ideal state. The bigger problem we had here was that sometimes it would just hang during the restore. Most of the time it did work but we’ve run in to this restore problem enough that we need something more reliable.
So our current cloning method is using Clockworkmod Recovery. Basically we flash CWM on to the device, make our backup, copy that backup to the destination devices and restore it with CWM. Seems to work great. And it copies everything on the devices so there’s virtually no manual configuration that needs to be done.
However there’s a few caveats with this process. At first we found that it was also cloning the MAC address which of course caused havoc on our wireless network. Through a whole lot of trial and error I found that if I delete /data/nvram/RestoreFlag from the data backup tar the MAC address no longer gets cloned. Thought we were good, but…
The next problem we found when attempting to enroll the devices in to our MDM system. They end up replacing each other because they all show the same UDID and GUID. The MDM app is installed in the backup image but we are waiting until after it is restored to complete the enrollment. I’m not sure if the UDID and GUID is something specific to the MDM or if that’s a global Android thing.
So does anyone know if there something else I can delete from the backup to prevent this? This also raises the question, are there any other items in a CWM backup that should not be copied between devices? Or is there a better method we could use to clones the devices?
The device we are currently using is a Lenovo A1000 (MTK MT8317). After creating the backup I’ve been removing the system and cache tars entirely and only the file mentioned above from within the data tar. So the only parts that get restored are data and boot. Any suggestions are welcome.
ttttttttttttttttt said:
We are a large urban school district located in southern California that will be soon be distributing approximately 11,000 android tablets to our first grade classrooms. The biggest challenge we’ve had with this project so far is coming up with a way to quickly and reliably clone the devices with all the apps and settings. The approach we’ve been attempting to take is the same as how we would handle PC’s by creating a master image that then gets copied to all the other devices.
Our first attempt at doing this was by using adb backup/restore. This process was less than ideal as it didn’t copy all the settings/preferences that we wanted and still required a lot of manual configuration to get the devices in to our ideal state. The bigger problem we had here was that sometimes it would just hang during the restore. Most of the time it did work but we’ve run in to this restore problem enough that we need something more reliable.
So our current cloning method is using Clockworkmod Recovery. Basically we flash CWM on to the device, make our backup, copy that backup to the destination devices and restore it with CWM. Seems to work great. And it copies everything on the devices so there’s virtually no manual configuration that needs to be done.
However there’s a few caveats with this process. At first we found that it was also cloning the MAC address which of course caused havoc on our wireless network. Through a whole lot of trial and error I found that if I delete /data/nvram/RestoreFlag from the data backup tar the MAC address no longer gets cloned. Thought we were good, but…
The next problem we found when attempting to enroll the devices in to our MDM system. They end up replacing each other because they all show the same UDID and GUID. The MDM app is installed in the backup image but we are waiting until after it is restored to complete the enrollment. I’m not sure if the UDID and GUID is something specific to the MDM or if that’s a global Android thing.
So does anyone know if there something else I can delete from the backup to prevent this? This also raises the question, are there any other items in a CWM backup that should not be copied between devices? Or is there a better method we could use to clones the devices?
The device we are currently using is a Lenovo A1000 (MTK MT8317). After creating the backup I’ve been removing the system and cache tars entirely and only the file mentioned above from within the data tar. So the only parts that get restored are data and boot. Any suggestions are welcome.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can try use adb from Android SDK but this method needs root
We did initially try adb but it was inconsistent during the restore phase. Sometimes it would just stop in the middle and never complete. Didn’t try it on a rooted device. So maybe that would have helped…
Anyhow I found the solution to my immediate problem. Figured out what our MDM vendor refers to as the UDID is really the Android_ID. So by deleting that row from the settings database in our master backup image it’ll generate a new one the first time the OS starts after restoring with CWM.
I’m still a little concerned we’re going to find other issues cause by this cloning method later on but I guess we’ll just have to roll with the punches as they come.
In case someone else ever needs to clone devices like this and in the interest of sharing here’s the basic steps we’re following.
1.) Setup the master device as you like with all the apps and settings.
2.) Install Clockworkmod Recovery on to the master device
3.) Boot into CWM Recovery
4.) Mount /data and connect to adb
5.) Delete /data/nvram/RestoreFlag (this step prevents duplication of MAC address)
6.) Using sqlite open the database (this prevents duplication of Android_ID): \data\data\com.android.providers.settings\databases\settings.db
execute: delete from secure where name='android_id';
7.) unmount /data
8.) Create a backup
9.) Boot the device back in to normal mode and copy the clockworkmod folder to your computer. This the backup image you’ll restore on the other devices.
10.) [OPTIONAL] I deleted the system and cache backup files from this folder and also removed them from the nandroid file. There didn’t seem to be anything in these we cared about so removing those speeds up the restore process.
Once you have the backup image here’s how to restore it on the other devices:
1.) Install CWM Recovery
2.) Copy the clockworkmod folder from your computer on to the device
3.) Boot in to CWM Recovery
4.) Restore the backup
5.) Reboot the device back in to normal mode
6.) [OPTIONAL] Complete MDM enrollment
Sorry for the thread grave dig, but thanks for posting info on how to do this. I have attempted cloning in the past and ran into similar issues. My question - is this process the same for Android Lollipop 5.0/5.1? I have some Lenovo K3 Notes I'd like to deploy and cloning would save a lot of time.
Haven’t had the need to do any devices running 5.x versions so can’t say for sure. I would imagine a similar process would work.
But I will provide a bit of an update. Our initial deployment of 11,000 Lenovo A1000 devices have been out in the field since February/March of 2014 and no trouble has come to light using this cloning method. These devices run 4.1.2
Sometime around May 2014 we did another round that was about 300 Lenovo A3000 devices. Don’t have one of these handy and I don’t remember the exact Android version but it was 4.x something.
Then starting in October 2014 we put out another 9000 or so Lenovo A3500 devices. These run 4.4.2
All around so far so good.
For the A3000 and A3500 there were two changes to the process. For step 5 in creating the backup I had to clear the entire nvram directory instead of just the one file. I don’t remember what exactly but there was something undesirable getting copied over. The result of clearing this directory is the first boot after the restore takes a little longer as each app runs through the “update” process at startup. The second change was I could not get CWM to backup and restore to/from the internal memory so instead did it from a micro-sd card. This ended up speeding up the restore process since we didn’t have to copy the backup to each device and instead just moved the sd card with the files already there.
this should be pinned in android dev
also sorry for grave digging? except this should be a maintained topic. why isnt this an ongoing thread?
I'm using Lenovo Ideatab A3000-h,
I want to make it to be set to run only one app after booting, not even the home page could run then, it will open at the app and still at it forever, I know it's a common need and this has been asked a lot of times before, So, after searching I discovered that there is three options :
1- Creating my own Custom ROM.
2- Making my application a launcher application using android manifest.
3- run a kiosk mode like surlock.
4- Modifying AOSP source code.
So, after a lot of search, I found that the third option can be easily broken be entering the tablet in safe mode and try to remove app then, or by removing it from accessing the tab by PC, and the second option can be broken by the same way.
So, all I got now is to use either the first option or the forth option, and when taking about the first option, thanks to NeroYoung I already know how to:
setting up android kitchen.
modifying ROM img files and jar files.
modifying build.prop.
generating the resulted Custom ROM.
but I don't know the way to reach my needs by customizing a ROM, so, all I want to know is how to modify the custom/stock ROM to achieve my requirement of booting to only a specific app. also if there is another way by making (System Backup ----> Modify ----> Restore Modified System) it will be great.
and when taking about the forth option, I already downloaded the source code and did know how to access it's resources, but don't know where is the source code that controls the start-up process and how to modify it. thanks in advance for all future contributors.
I have a question, and if possible the answer should be as wide as possible to work on as many systems as possible. While I am not fully conversed in Android functions, syntax, and interfaces, I have been programing various computers since the mid 80's and have applied rooting/jailbreaking methods to several systems (if it functions like a computer, I want my Admin rights, much thanks to each and all authors of these). I know that someone somewhere out there may have asked and already found a solution to this very annoying problem.
Thanks to the Google's decision to increase security in the Android OSes (KitKat and higher) by removing write access to the SD Card (as I call it a very 'bonehead' and brute force decision), most of the older apps do not work properly anymore with the user added SD Cards and most are not being updated with some form of support (create a folder on SD Card). The solution for most persons is to root the system then either run an app that corrects the problem or install a new LRAM image (Lockable RAM: 'unlock' the RAM and overwrite its data with a new image then re-lock it. I don't like the term 'ROM' for this as it has been incorrectly used since the late 80's). I have found at least 2 file managers that say they have a (in-app) solution, but these solutions don't extend to all of your other apps (ie "Root Explorer" or "B1" solution doesn't help your File server/uTorrent/Photo Gallery app).
But what of the owners that for one reason or another can't root their system (unable to root, not authorized or allowed to root, etc.) but want/need to have write access to the user added cards (mainly because their internal storage is just too small)? Example, in my case my personal phone has several apps that require it to remain in an unrooted state for certain work related programs (security issues).
So here is my question:
Is it possible, on an unrooted and stock LRAM android device, using ADB to PULL the "platform.xml" file, add the line '<group gid=”media_rw” />' to it, then PUSH the edited file back to the android device?
I realize this may require entering (various name versions) Recovery or Update mode which is specific to each device (I think Samsung calls their ODIN). But I think the ADB commands and computer side instructions should be the same. So if it is possible, please list all ADB instructions (I know the text editor used will depend on the PC/MAC OS used).
Thank you one and all that give any advice or assistance.
Well it looks like there have been a lot of lookers since I first posted this but still no reply by anyone that knows Android OS inside and out. Most of you are probably thinking "tl:dr" to all of it.
I know there has to be a way to update/upgrade system files that doesn't require rooting or a way to find the manufacturer's or cellular vender's access path or password.