44 replies to this topic

[Avenger 2.0]

How would I make a recovery backup? Do you have a tutorial?

Maybe the clockworkmod from G300 will install on this phone.

[Yurbuh Tuggly]

Avenger 2.0, on 09 August 2012 - 06:54 AM, said:

How would I make a recovery backup? Do you have a tutorial?

See this thread (skip the part about z4root):
http://www.modaco.co...nd-recoveryimg/
Or here:
http://android.podtwo.com/romdump/
One or both of those methods might work..or maybe a simple ADB command, but I don't know about that.

Avenger 2.0, on 09 August 2012 - 06:54 AM, said:

Maybe the clockworkmod from G300 will install on this phone.

Maybe. But it's my opinion to wait for an 'official' ClockworkMod or other recovery with support for this phone. If it does NOT work, and you have no backup of the original, you will be left in a state such as I have right now....no recovery console at all.

[Avenger 2.0]

It doesn't work. Romdump gives segmentation fault and manual adb shell methode will not find any partitions.

Edited by Avenger 2.0, 09 August 2012 - 11:16 AM.

[Yurbuh Tuggly]

No luck with dumping anything from me either...yet.
I also tried this:
http://forum.xda-dev....php?p=28719715
And could backup APPS and other stuff, but not dump...even after manually inserting the romdump file (with Root Explorer) in system/bin and changing the permissions since it could not do it for some reason. It still just sits and does nothing when a dump is initiated.
There must be something peculiar about the file sysytem.

[SMHenryT]

Succes! I also followed those instructions for rooting. I just skipped unlocking the bootloader.

Quote

•Download 'unlockbootloader.exe' from http://www.modaco.co...ch_id=81949
•Run 'unlockbootloader.exe' and click 'ROOT Your Phone' -  a console will appear and then close, after this open the app drawer and check that Superuser.apk has been installed OK, if so, you now have root.
•Power off your phone, remove battery for a few seconds and replace, then power on whilst holding vol. down and power to go in to fastboot - the phone will hang on the splash screen whilst in fastboot.
After reboot I got a static white FTM screen, no reaction of the phone anymore so I thought it would be death. I booted into recovery console (Power on while holding volume up) and selected 'wipe cache partition' option. Rebooted the device and everything worked fine with root access!

Also I didn't select the 'wipe cache partition', I just selected 'Reboot'.
I wasn't sure that a partition would be erased or not.
THANKS so much!!
Unfortunately that romdump isn't working (see Avenger 2.0). Maybe I could try but I probably wil have the same error.
One more thing; @Yurbuh Tuggly; why did you replace superuser by SuperSU chainfire version? Does it have extra functions?

[Yurbuh Tuggly]

SMHenryT, on 09 August 2012 - 03:21 PM, said:

One more thing; @Yurbuh Tuggly; why did you replace superuser by SuperSU chainfire version? Does it have extra functions?

As it turns out, that was not totally necessary (although some say SuperSU is a bit slicker in operation). When I first tried a few root functions, one app informed me that it could not obtain root access, and "Troubleshooting" suggested the chainfire version. Which worked. If I had just rebooted the phone, it may not have been needed. After allowing Google Play to update SuperUser, I uninstalled the chainfire version (why have two?), and everything is fine. I also updated BusyBox (just to be sure it could, including the binary), and everything is fine with that also.

[Yurbuh Tuggly]

@Avenger 2,0 and SMHenryT:

Try this...it's a bit tedious, but it seems to do things.
Download romdump_v82b.zip from http://android.podtwo.com/romdump/
Install Terminal Emulator and Root Explorer from Google Play if you do not already have them. Give them both root access when asked.
Unzip the download on your PC, copy romdump to phone SD Card.
Cut and paste romdump (Root Explorer or similar) to /data/local/. Long press romdump>permissions>and give it everything.
Go back to SD Card and create a Folder named romdump.
Close out of any file manager.
Open Terminal Emulator and type in:
$ export PATH=/data/local/bin:$PATH
$ su
# chmod 04755 /data/local/romdump
# /data/local/romdump

You should see a lot of stuff going on (takes 10-20 minutes or so depending on sizes of partitions) ending with:
Dumping boot partition... done.
Dumping recovery partition... done.
Dumping system partition... done.
Creating Checksums... done.
Cleaning up... done.
All done.
Exit out of Terminal, and you should see some files in the romdump folder on the SD card. Copy these to your PC and tell me what you got.

[KonstaT]

Errm, sorry guys to spoil all your rom dumping fun, but...

There is an official Ice Cream Sandwich update (or ROM dump if you will) available for ZTE Acqua/Medion Life P4012. Clean, untouched images for every partition.
http://wwwen.zte.com...mobile/germany/
http://wwwen.zte.com...43024203566.zip

I know it can be difficult to find it from the total of five threads in Skate Acqua section.
http://www.modaco.co...82-system-pull/

[Yurbuh Tuggly]

KonstaT, on 09 August 2012 - 09:41 PM, said:

Errm, sorry guys to spoil all your rom dumping fun, but...
There is an official Ice Cream Sandwich update (or ROM dump if you will) available for ZTE Acqua/Medion Life P4012. Clean, untouched images for every partition.
I know it can be difficult to find it from the total of five threads in Skate Acqua section.

Yes...saw that and got it the first day it was posted. Not blind, and DO know how to search
However, tried to run the 'update' on the Medion phone the first day I had it, but it errored out with something like:
"This update is not appropriate for this device"...or similar words with the same meaning.
So I assume that Medion has 'done something' with their install of ICS to make it proprietary, or that what is on the phone as it is delivered is otherwise different or more current.

That this command:

Quote

cat proc/mtd

has no output similar to this:

Quote

dev: size erasesize name
mtd0: 000a0000 00020000 "misc"
mtd1: 00480000 00020000 "recovery"
mtd2: 00300000 00020000 "boot"
mtd3: 0fa00000 00020000 "system"
mtd4: 02800000 00020000 "cache"
mtd5: 093a0000 00020000 "userdata"

is puzzling to me.

Edited by Yurbuh Tuggly, 10 August 2012 - 06:39 AM.

[KonstaT]

Yurbuh Tuggly, on 10 August 2012 - 06:31 AM, said:

Yes...saw that and got it the first day it was posted. Not blind, and DO know how to search
However, tried to run the 'update' on the Medion phone the first day I had it, but it errored out with something like:
"This update is not appropriate for this device"...or similar words with the same meaning.
So I assume that Medion has 'done something' with their install of ICS to make it proprietary, or that what is on the phone as it is delivered is otherwise different or more current.

Well, you don't have to install it to your phone (and it probably would with some minor modifications). It has clean images and it'll give you information what belongs where. This is what I found out in five minutes.

/dev/block/mmcblk0p16 boot
/dev/block/mmcblk0p17 recovery
/dev/block/mmcblk0p18 splash
/dev/block/mmcblk0p19 system

/dev/block/mmcblk0p1  qcsblhd_cfgdata.mbn
/dev/block/mmcblk0p2  qcsbl.mbn
/dev/block/mmcblk0p3  OEMSBL.MBN
/dev/block/mmcblk0p13 fat.bin
/dev/block/mmcblk0p15 EMMCBOOT.MBN

It also has the stock recovery if someone was missing that. Copying contents of recovery folder of that update to your system should restore stock recovery on boot (recovery-from-boot.p). It also tells that recovery partition is /dev/block/mmcblk0p17 and someone could also dump that partition with:

dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0p17 of=/sdcard/recovery.img

I was just saying there is no point in wasting time ROM dumping when your efforts should be in getting custom recovery working. It might as easy as posting a stock recovery.img to cwm builder. Someone adventurous might even try recoveries for N880E or V889D which are pretty much the same as this device.

[Yurbuh Tuggly]

KonstaT, on 10 August 2012 - 09:40 AM, said:

It also has the stock recovery if someone was missing that. Copying contents of recovery folder of that update to your system should restore stock recovery on boot (recovery-from-boot.p). It also tells that recovery partition is /dev/block/mmcblk0p17 and someone could also dump that partition with:

dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0p17 of=/sdcard/recovery.img

Thanks (very much) for the tips. All sorted now..rooted and back to stock recovery (with a backup in case anybody ever needs it).
Sorry for my ignorance.
Now the quest for CWM continues. I have tried just about everything I could find with no luck yet. Will try CWM builder (nice..thanks for the link).

Edited by Yurbuh Tuggly, 11 August 2012 - 08:12 AM.

[Avenger 2.0]

Should I unlock the bootloader first before trying to install custom recovery or roms? Maybe it is possible to flash the update from zte with unlocked bootloader?

[Yurbuh Tuggly]

1) I don't think you want to flash (or otherwise install) that ZTE 'update'..there is nothing within it that is new, and much that is older than the stock Medion install (and you might lose some system apps that are custom to the Medion).
2) I read somewhere that in the past, most ZTE's came with an unlocked bootloader anyway. If this model is the same, and that is true, nothing to do. I was able to flash untold numbers of CWM images with no problems except that they did not work at all.
I now have two 'custom' CWM images...one regular, one 'Touch'. I have tested them without flashing :

adb reboot bootloader
fastboot.exe boot recovery.img

And they both load, but with issues. In the non-touch, I can scroll, but not actually choose anything, and in the Touch, I can make selections, but nothing actually happens when I do.
Errors are such:

Quote

E: Can't find misc
E: failed to find "cache" partition to mount at "/cache"
E: Can't mount /cache/recovery/command
E: Can't find misc
E: failed to find "cache" partition to mount at "/cache"
E: Can't mount /cache/recovery/log
E: Can't open /cache/recovery.log
E: failed to find "cache" partition to mount at "/cache"
E: Can't mount /cache/recovery/last_log
E: Can't open /cache/recovery/last_log
E: Can't find misc
E: failed to find "cache" partition to mount at "/cache"

Have not had the courage to actually flash one yet.

PS. in the interest of sharing, and any potential diagnostic help if somebody with more experience wants to take a look and see what might be wrong and/or how to fix it, the generated recovery.img and original source files, etc are here:
http://jenkins.cyano.../recovery/3163/
and here:
http://jenkins.cyano.../recovery/3164/

Build e8fd075dd893887290ed0e2d72364025 is the standard recovery.
Build d0ad0e194df882ac84879515405f2b10 is the Touch recovery.
Both dated August 11, 2012..2:59 and 3:35 am respectively

Please note that these MAY NOT WORK correctly. Do not download and flash trivially.  I only know that they LOAD in unflashed mode.

Edited by Yurbuh Tuggly, 11 August 2012 - 02:15 PM.

[SMHenryT]

@Yurbuh Tuggly
I did the romdump thing and it created 4 files: config.gz, system.info.gz, system.tar and a checksum.md5.

@KonstaT
I also saw the official Ice Cream Sandwich update (even before I bought the phone). But I didn't know it was the same as a ROM dump. I thought it was an update for our devices that ran an older version of Android (Froyo, Gingerbread). So wrong thinking of me...

@KonstaT
Also thanks for figuring the /dev/block/.. things out!
I ran succesfully this code:

dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0p17 of=/sdcard/recovery.img

and it created a recovery.img file.
One question: What's the difference between this file and the recovery-from-boot.p file (from the update).

@Yurbuh Tuggly
Is there a way to see that the bootloader is unlocked? Or do I have to try installing a new bootloader and see what it brings.

[Yurbuh Tuggly]

SMHenryT, on 11 August 2012 - 10:57 PM, said:

@Yurbuh Tuggly
I did the romdump thing and it created 4 files: config.gz, system.info.gz, system.tar and a checksum.md5.


@Yurbuh Tuggly
Is there a way to see that the bootloader is unlocked? Or do I have to try installing a new bootloader and see what it brings.

1) That's about all I can figure can be dumped at this point. You can open the *.gz and *.tar files with WinRar or similar to see what's there. It is a backup of various things, but as pointed out, fairly useless for any kind of 'restoring' to a full factory state.
2) I really don't know. Typically, on a bootloader screen you may see some text or a lock/unlocked graphic, but the bootloader screen on this phone appears to be masked by the Medion splash/logo. I still assume it is unlocked, but I would be very cautious about messing with it before somebody who knows more about such things can provide clues.

Quote

One question: What's the difference between this file and the recovery-from-boot.p file (from the update).

Did your generated recovery.img end up to be about 16MB in size? If so, then it probably the same as the one I created with the recovery-from-boot.p and associated install script.

[KonstaT]

Yurbuh Tuggly, on 11 August 2012 - 09:54 AM, said:

And they both load, but with issues. In the non-touch, I can scroll, but not actually choose anything, and in the Touch, I can make selections, but nothing actually happens when I do.
Errors are such:
...

Yeah, those errors are because the recovery doesn't know which partition is where. You need to post recovery.fstab to the builder. This is the correct recovery.fstab for your device (I extracted it from your stock recovery image).

# mount point fstype device [device2]

/boot emmc /dev/block/mmcblk0p16
/recovery emmc /dev/block/mmcblk0p17
/splash emmc /dev/block/mmcblk0p18
/system ext4 /dev/block/mmcblk0p19

/misc emmc /dev/block/mmcblk0p20
/cache ext4 /dev/block/mmcblk0p21
/data ext4 /dev/block/mmcblk0p22

/sdcard vfat /dev/block/mmcblk1p1 /dev/block/mmcblk1

/qcsblhd_cfg emmc /dev/block/mmcblk0p1
/qcsbl emmc /dev/block/mmcblk0p2
/oemsbl emmc /dev/block/mmcblk0p3
/cefs emmc /dev/block/mmcblk0p11
/amss emmc /dev/block/mmcblk0p13
/emmcboot emmc /dev/block/mmcblk0p15

CWM builder will probably never give you fully working recovery but it will get you started. You might need custom key layout, graphics, lunfile path, etc to get everything working. This means building the recovery from source yourself. You might want to consider contacting sebastian404. He loves cheap chinese hardware and he has plenty of experience in making recoveries for devices.

SMHenryT, on 11 August 2012 - 10:57 PM, said:

@KonstaT
I also saw the official Ice Cream Sandwich update (even before I bought the phone). But I didn't know it was the same as a ROM dump. I thought it was an update for our devices that ran an older version of Android (Froyo, Gingerbread). So wrong thinking of me...

@KonstaT
Also thanks for figuring the /dev/block/.. things out!
I ran succesfully this code:

dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0p17 of=/sdcard/recovery.img

and it created a recovery.img file.
One question: What's the difference between this file and the recovery-from-boot.p file (from the update).

Yeah, you can extract pretty much everything from those updates. Much better than any ROM dump can ever be. You should also be able to use it to restore your phone to factory condition.

I think that recovery-from-boot.p uses kernel from your boot partition and the rest from the actual recovery-from-boot.p file to restore recovery partition (same kernel is in both partitions anyway). It also does this on every boot if it's changed. You should rename or remove it if you want to have custom recovery.

That recovery.img is a full dump of your recovery partition. Stock recovery image that Yurbuh Tuggly posted to cwm builder seems to be exactly what it should.

I hope this device comes to Finland too. I've been following the CDMA variant of this device (N880E) for a while and the general hackability on that device seems amazing. It already has windows phone 7.5 port and official Gingerbread/ICS/Jelly Bean updates. Shouldn't be too difficult to make that same happen on this device.

[KonstaT]

I did a quick build of ClockWorkMod 5.5.0.4 for ZTE Acqua. I don't have a device and I can't test this myself. I don't take any responsiblity if something happens to your device! As far as I can tell it should be safe to test with:

adb reboot bootloader
fastboot boot acqua-cwm5504-recovery.img

Please report back how it worked out.

acqua-cwm5504-recovery.img
...
md5:15199bae26fbfd463ede7da1685390d5

[Yurbuh Tuggly]

KonstaT, on 12 August 2012 - 08:03 PM, said:

Please report back how it worked out.

Nice (first) try!
Success at achieving no errors as far as any mounts go....but....like the few I have tried (non-touch) with Builder, can scroll through the selections, but cannot actually select anything. The key bindings on this device must be unusual. In the stock recovery, "Home" is the selection key, which is the second to the left (of four keys: Menu Home Back Search).
Interestingly, in your build, if I scroll through all the selections very quickly, "Back menu button enabled" text appears at the bottom. Scroll through again very quickly and it changes to "Back menu button disabled". Neither has any effect on the inability to choose a selection.
Cosmetically, when scrolling through choices with Vol+/Vol-, the entire display shifts to the left with a partial image then appearing on the right. Kinda like this:

Quote

oot system now     -reb

Scroll again and it moves back to normal.
I also found this to be common in the Builder versions I tried.
So,,,,,,,,almost there! Only need to be able to actually select something.

[Yurbuh Tuggly]

^^^ Update:
Took your image, sent it to Builder, and did nothing to it except check the box for "Touch".
Which resulted in this:
http://jenkins.cyano.../recovery/3266/
Which made it a CWM v6.0.1.1

Booted it, and I can select things! It still has the odd shifting to the left, but that seems to be purely cosmetic.
First thing I tried was a nandroid backup which was not particularly pretty (progress bar in the middle of text, constant shifting left and right, etc, but it actually DID things. There was some message at the end of generating the MD5, but I could not read it in time since the device automatically rebooted.Not normal?
The result on the SD card was a bit odd...4 different 'backup' folders all with different (and bizarre) dates/times. Three of them were empty, and the last one contained 7 files (most not nearly big enough to be a full backup--measured in k instead of hundreds of MB).
Also, in the sdcard/clockworkmod folder got a subfolder named 'blobs' with 1581 other folders with names such as .gc, 003,006......and ending with fff. Some are empty, some contain a single hexidecimal file of some sort.
Testing will continue........

Reboot System Now results in a dire warning :

Quote

Rom may flash stock recovery on
THIS CAN NOT BE UNDONE

The Yes choice is "Yes- Disable recovery flash" (??)
Any No choice (or tapping the hardware Back button) results in a normal reboot with no harm done.

Edited by Yurbuh Tuggly, 13 August 2012 - 06:21 AM.

[KonstaT]

Yurbuh Tuggly, on 13 August 2012 - 03:37 AM, said:

Interestingly, in your build, if I scroll through all the selections very quickly, "Back menu button enabled" text appears at the bottom. Scroll through again very quickly and it changes to "Back menu button disabled".

That's normal, it should happen in every cwm build. It adds 'back' entry to end of every list menu.

Yurbuh Tuggly, on 13 August 2012 - 05:59 AM, said:

First thing I tried was a nandroid backup which was not particularly pretty (progress bar in the middle of text, constant shifting left and right, etc, but it actually DID things. There was some message at the end of generating the MD5, but I could not read it in time since the device automatically rebooted.Not normal?
The result on the SD card was a bit odd...4 different 'backup' folders all with different (and bizarre) dates/times. Three of them were empty, and the last one contained 7 files (most not nearly big enough to be a full backup--measured in k instead of hundreds of MB).
Also, in the sdcard/clockworkmod folder got a subfolder named 'blobs' with 1581 other folders with names such as .gc, 003,006......and ending with fff. Some are empty, some contain a single hexidecimal file of some sort.
Testing will continue........

Yeah, I've found cwm 6.x is still quite iffy with the backups. That's why I built 5.5.0.4. It's the latest version I can trust at the moment.

Yurbuh Tuggly, on 13 August 2012 - 05:59 AM, said:

Reboot System Now results in a dire warning :

The Yes choice is "Yes- Disable recovery flash" (??)
Any No choice (or tapping the hardware Back button) results in a normal reboot with no harm done.

Warning is because you still have /system/etc/install-recovery.sh in your system. You should remove/rename it and also the recovery-from-boot.p.

That means that the hardware back key is working? So it's probably only select key and graphics to go. I'll post another build for you to try in the new thread in a bit.