Odd situation, please give some info on how an actual "flash" of a rom works?

[Guest Cooled Spirit]

Hello,

can somebody explain to me how a flash of a rom works, in a sense that I would like to know what parts the rom is (supposed to) alter and what remains intact?

I ask this because some stuff is happening that I can't explain: troubles that start occuring in one rom and seemingly continue to occur when I install an older (stable) rom back again.

Here's a timeline:

- My device with original stock rom suffered random reboots, so I decided to root the device and switch to Cyanogen.

- For a while, the random reboots staid, but they dissappeared after a while (I can't be really sure, frequent Cyanogen releases, automatic reboot after every update).

- The latest Cyanogen releases caused the device to freeze, which made me switch to Modaco FR19. However, the freezes continued to occur in FR19.

- Because I heard the FR19 is a very stable release (everybody's happy about it), I imagined the flash didn't work very well, so I flashed the ROM back to stock V10B using NVFlash. This is also approximately the period I switched to baseband 0622.

- I rooted the device again and installed FR19. Guess what? The freezes were gone, but the random reboots were back!

- Hoping a new release would improve things, I tried GR2. This caused additional issues, for example with bluetooth. Calling with my handsfree was very annoying.

- So this made me want to go back to the FR19 release. Taking history into account, I used NVFlash and reflashed the same V10B again. Having heard LG brought out a fix for the random reboots, I connected LG's update tool, and after a downgrade of the baseband to 0405, the update tool upgraded the device to V10C (I would have expected V10D, since I read that one contained the fix, but I might be mistaken here). There were some issues after the install, some forced stops of some apps (sorry, can't remember which one), which made me flash FR19 right away (I also installed baseband 0622). Now I am still experiencing those bluetooth problems, which did NOT occur in my earlier FR19 install. Also, the forced stops continue too... that didn't happen either on the earlier FR19 install.

So this made me wonder... I really get the impression that something of the previous releases "sticks", causing certain issues to "survive" a flash and continue to terrorize me in the next release. Normally speaking, I wouldn't expect that from a flash, so:

- either every flash I make is not completely succesfull

- either something that isn't updated during a flash is causing all of this

- my phone is simply broken

No matter what: I obviously don't understand how or why this is happening, so some enlightenment would be very welcome! Maybe this is all perfectly normal...

FYI: I always flash using clockwork recovery menu.

FYI 2: this is my second P990 (and all of the above is related to that phone). I will most likely ask LG to supply me a "new" one, but I'm not sure at all this would fix my problems.

Additional question: processor information says "Tegra 2 development version". Is that normal ?

Kind regards,

Cooled.

[Guest MacAllan]

If you don't whipe the phone before flashing ALLWAYS do a factory reset after flash, this should be done even after an update from version B to C and so on.

[Guest Cooled Spirit]

If you don't whipe the phone before flashing ALLWAYS do a factory reset after flash, this should be done even after an update from version B to C and so on.

I forgot to mention this, but indeed, I usually perform a factory reset and dalvik cache wipe.I most certainly did this before I installed the latest FR19 (which still suffers from old problems).

[Guest DJCannonball]

mine won't boot either, just flashed fr19 from the kitchen. did wipe data/factory reset + cache.

re flashed 5 times already.. i nevers boots again.

i also tried the pre-baked version... also doesn't boot

Edited August 10, 2011 by DJCannonball

[Guest Cooled Spirit]

Perhaps use nvflash and go back to stock?

[Guest orlox]

I dont know about others nut for me fr19 didnt work at all no matter how i was flashing it. Fr18 beta 2 was ok but i had random reboots. GR2 was terible. Super fast but i had random reboots AND freezes. So now I am stock 10c that came with 622 baseband greek and its almost fast but super stable even with the internal - external memore switch

[Guest Stevvie]

Are you sure you don't need to convert your phone back to EXT3 format if you had previously been running EXT4 ?

If it does then this might help

[Guest Cooled Spirit]

Are you sure you don't need to convert your phone back to EXT3 format if you had previously been running EXT4 ?

If it does then this might help http://android.modac...r-back-to-ext3/

There's an idea... but is it necessary when using nvflash ? I assume the complete SD is being partitionned and reformatted ? Or not ?

[Guest Cooled Spirit]

I dont know about others nut for me fr19 didnt work at all no matter how i was flashing it. Fr18 beta 2 was ok but i had random reboots. GR2 was terible. Super fast but i had random reboots AND freezes. So now I am stock 10c that came with 622 baseband greek and its almost fast but super stable even with the internal - external memore switch

Sorry for any issues you might have had, but this topic is more about flashing roms and what potentially went wrong during flashing in my case ;-)

[Guest orlox]

I wrote sll these not to qq but to show you that probably its not your fault or roms that you are having these problems but maybe something is slitly different on your phone so its incompatible with fr19 and gr2. Stock was always shitty. My problems solved by installing 622 stovk from lg. Maybe you should do the same for now.

Now more on topic. Roms probaly work like this.

nand is like a hard disk. android checks nands mbr to see what will it load. First stem is to install cwm recovery at mbr.

If you tell cwm to install a rom then that rom will quick format as fr1-18 to ext4 or delete as fr19 gr2 the partitions. Its like 6-7 partitions if I recall. then it will copy its data to the cotrndponfing partitions.

[Guest MacAllan]

There's an idea... but is it necessary when using nvflash ? I assume the complete SD is being partitionned and reformatted ? Or not ?

If you have ext4 file system you allways have to convert back to ext3 before flashing an ext3 ROM.

[Guest orlox]

From what he said he never had ext4. cyanogegen fr19 gr all are ext3 so he always was in ext 3.

[Guest Cooled Spirit]

I wrote sll these not to qq but to show you that probably its not your fault or roms that you are having these problems but maybe something is slitly different on your phone so its incompatible with fr19 and gr2. Stock was always shitty. My problems solved by installing 622 stovk from lg. Maybe you should do the same for now.

Now more on topic. Roms probaly work like this.

nand is like a hard disk. android checks nands mbr to see what will it load. First stem is to install cwm recovery at mbr.

If you tell cwm to install a rom then that rom will quick format as fr1-18 to ext4 or delete as fr19 gr2 the partitions. Its like 6-7 partitions if I recall. then it will copy its data to the cotrndponfing partitions.

I downloaded the june release from LG, which should fix the reboot issues from XDA and flased it using Smartflash. Also upgraded baseband as you indicated. Let's hope for the best. So far not a single reboot!