19/May - Superboot - rooting the Pulse Mini

[Guest dt_matthews]

That's interesting. I can't access mine either but I assumed I was doing something wrong as I'd never tried it before rooting the phone. I gave up and used a card reader.

hmm, intersting but not in a good way! can anyone advise, i really need usb access to my device and this patch appears to have stopped direct usb access ??

[Guest m2te]

That's interesting. I can't access mine either but I assumed I was doing something wrong as I'd never tried it before rooting the phone. I gave up and used a card reader.

I have experienced this too after flashing some debranding update.zip files I have been working on through the recovery console. Flashing with a Rom downloaded from the heuwua site fixes the problem for me but you then loose all the settings etc.

I did notice it seems to start doing this after I caused a boot loop through me having a bug in my update.zip file, have you guys experienced a boot loop at any time?

I don't think the problem is the root itself as I have flashed a rooted update.zip many times, maybe the rooting process takes the usb out in some circumstances..

[Guest dt_matthews]

I have experienced this too after flashing some debranding update.zip files I have been working on through the recovery console. Flashing with a Rom downloaded from the heuwua site fixes the problem for me but you then loose all the settings etc.

I did notice it seems to start doing this after I caused a boot loop through me having a bug in my update.zip file, have you guys experienced a boot loop at any time?

I don't think the problem is the root itself as I have flashed a rooted update.zip many times, maybe the rooting process takes the usb out in some circumstances..

hmm, well i need to persist a bit more to be sure what has/hasnt happened but its certinaly not behaving as it was before the rooting execution...

[Guest insx]

I haven't experienced a boot loop as far as I know. I did get some error about acore not responding after running superboot.

[Guest insx]

Just to let you know that I can't access the SD card via USB on my wife's pulse mini either. It was bought off ebay but I'm pretty sure it's not rooted (su: permission denied). I just get "Please insert a disk into drive F:".

It's different on mine, I can get drive F up but it only contains the T-mobile setup files and documentation.

Maybe I'm looking at the same thing and those files have been deleted on my wife's phone.

[Guest m2te]

Just to let you know that I can't access the SD card via USB on my wife's pulse mini either. It was bought off ebay but I'm pretty sure it's not rooted (su: permission denied). I just get "Please insert a disk into drive F:".

It's different on mine, I can get drive F up but it only contains the T-mobile setup files and documentation.

Maybe I'm looking at the same thing and those files have been deleted on my wife's phone.

I think that is different. From what I remember when the USB mounting is broken the T-Mob setup files no longer worked as well as the SDCARD.

[Guest insx]

I don't know what's changed but today I plugged in the USB cable, dropped down the USB notification, selected mount and there it is - drive F: with full access to my micro SD card in the phone.

[Guest mohrun]

I have a Huawei U8100 that people are reporting can be rooted using "1.0-pulsemini-superboot.zip". Before running it I thought I'd "look under the hood" and see how it works.

I read http://android.modaco.com/content/acer-liq...boot-explained/ and figured this one should be similar. I used split_bootimg.pl to unpack the "boot.superboot.img" kernel + ramdisk. Unfortunately it seems that the ramdisk is not a valid gzip:ed cpio-archive.

Anyone know how I can have a look inside the ramdisk image? Paul? :-)

[Guest redmongoose]

Thanks Paul, worked a treat.

[Guest The Only Boink]

Hi,

Being a newbie and all I need some guidance.

My primary objective is simple - I wish to unlock my Huawei U8100/T-Mobile so that I can use

which ever carrier I see fit.

What do I need to do once Superboot is "installed"?

I have done according to the guide - that is - starting the phone in bootloader mode and run the install-superboot-windows.bat.

The phone booted and then rebooted.

It seems to me that what was suppose to happened didn't happened.

I've tried to do this a few times with the same outcome.

Do I need to run command lines from a console?

Do I have to flash the phone with a costume ROM? and if so, where do I find such ROM?

Cheers!

[Guest Case_]

I have a Huawei U8100 that people are reporting can be rooted using "1.0-pulsemini-superboot.zip". Before running it I thought I'd "look under the hood" and see how it works.

I read http://android.modaco.com/content/acer-liq...boot-explained/ and figured this one should be similar. I used split_bootimg.pl to unpack the "boot.superboot.img" kernel + ramdisk. Unfortunately it seems that the ramdisk is not a valid gzip:ed cpio-archive.

Anyone know how I can have a look inside the ramdisk image? Paul? :-)

I second this question - I'm interested in rooting Vodafone 845, which, according to some reports, can also be rooted using this guide, but I'd also like to take a look at what I'm doing and perhaps have a way to revert back to default unrooted kernel image. I'm quite familiar with the process on Magic 32A (I've released some stuff before on XDA), but using the usual split_bootimg.pl on this .img file doesn't result in anything useful. Any idea how to split this .img file and how to eventually put it together again? Linux or Windows, doesn't really matter. I reckon there need to be some changes done in the split_bootimg.pl script, Thanks a lot for any info.

[Guest gforums]

You should be able to use the same split_output script.

The "recovery.img" file is the "system.img".

"file20.mbn" is the "boot.img"

For me, this worked well. at least on a pulse mini.

[Guest mohrun]

I second this question - I'm interested in rooting Vodafone 845, which, according to some reports, can also be rooted using this guide, but I'd also like to take a look at what I'm doing and perhaps have a way to revert back to default unrooted kernel image. I'm quite familiar with the process on Magic 32A (I've released some stuff before on XDA), but using the usual split_bootimg.pl on this .img file doesn't result in anything useful. Any idea how to split this .img file and how to eventually put it together again? Linux or Windows, doesn't really matter. I reckon there need to be some changes done in the split_bootimg.pl script, Thanks a lot for any info.

I would be surprised if the problem is in split_bootimg.pl. It is a pretty simple script that splits the image into the parts that make up an Android boot image. The format is specified in

http://android.git.kernel.org/?p=platform/...otimg/bootimg.h

Either Huawei decided to use a different / modified format, or the kernel in the superboot-image has some special code to handle a different type of initrd. My money is on the latter. It would be a simple modification to obfuscate, encode or encrypt the ramdisk and let the kernel reverse the process after loading the initrd into RAM (before using it). The fact that the superboot initrd seems compressed (does not shrink when run through gzip) at least appears to strengthen this theory.

I tried to PM Paul, but no reply. He is probably busy rooting some phone or another, and I guess we are all happy that he makes that his no 1 priority :(

Time does not permit me to delve deeper into this. I'm just accepting I don't have root on my phone for now.

[Guest mohrun]

Time does not permit me to delve deeper into this. I'm just accepting I don't have root on my phone for now.

Sometimes insomnia arrives at the most opportune moment :(

I spent most of the night with Pauls superboot image, a hexeditor and google. It appears there is no obfuscation, it is just stored in a way that a noob like me does not quite understand yet :( I managed to extract the files, and a quick look indicates it works as explained in the thread I indicated in my previous post.

/superboot/superboot.sh:

mount -o rw,remount -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock4 /system

rm -rf /data/xbin

rm -rf /data/bin

rm /data/app/Superuser.apk

rm /system/xbin/su

rm /system/bin/su

cat /superboot/su>/system/bin/su

chmod 4755 /system/bin/su

cat /superboot/Superuser.apk>/system/app/Superuser.apk

mount -o ro,remount -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock4 /system

I will have a closer look, then I'll post details of how to reproduce for anyone else interested in this.

[Guest Case_]

So, had a little time today to try some more and it seems like there IS something wrong with the split_bootimg.pl script after all. If I use unpack-bootimg.pl instead, I do get proper ramdisk extracted from the boot.superboot.img... (and hopefully kernel image as well, although it's called *-kernel.gz, but doesn't seem to be a gzip file)

[Guest mohrun]

So, had a little time today to try some more and it seems like there IS something wrong with the split_bootimg.pl script after all. If I use unpack-bootimg.pl instead, I do get proper ramdisk extracted from the boot.superboot.img... (and hopefully kernel image as well, although it's called *-kernel.gz, but doesn't seem to be a gzip file)

I think split_bootimg.pl splits the image per the spec in bootimg.h, but it looks like there for some reason is an extra empty page (2048 bytes) after the header page in the superboot image. Modifying the script as below will make it extract a valid ramdisk image.

The kernel is in zImage format (which contains an unpacker and a gzipped kernel).

The reason unpack-bootimg.pl works is that it does not follow the spec, it just looks for some magic bytes and splits the file there. This is unreliable, but will in most cases extract the ramdisk properly, even if the file does not follow the bootimg.h structure.

--- split_bootimg.pl	2008-12-03 21:59:25.000000000 +0100

+++ split_bootimg_modified.pl   2010-08-01 12:21:53.000000000 +0200

@@ -72,7 +72,7 @@

 my $m = int(($RAMDISK_SIZE + $PAGE_SIZE - 1) / $PAGE_SIZE);

 my $o = int(($SECOND_SIZE + $PAGE_SIZE - 1) / $PAGE_SIZE);


-my $k_offset = $PAGE_SIZE;

+my $k_offset = 2*$PAGE_SIZE;

 my $r_offset = $k_offset + ($n * $PAGE_SIZE);

 my $s_offset = $r_offset + ($m * $PAGE_SIZE);

I am still trying to figure out why the superboot image (as well as Pauls Amon Ra recovery image) does not follow the bootimg.h spec...

Edited August 1, 2010 by mohrun

[Guest Maxrunner]

I assume the end button is the right one. this is a vodafone 845 which suposedly also works with this but when i enter the super user permissions nothing appears.

The compile number is UB120V100R001C02B220

[Guest damnsmalldan]

The 845 is a fairly similar device which means this could work.

Whenever i try on Ubuntu 10.04 i get the message:

"<Waiting for device>"

I follow the steps exactly for Linux, but it just simply won't work.

Has anyone got this working on Ubuntu? If so, what did you do?

[Guest Case_]

mohrun: Thanks for the script patch. Still not able to create a working boot.img, but I think my problem is now the repacking of the boot.img.

damnsmalidan: You need to have adb and fastboot working first, which means modifying android udev rules for the PC to recognise the new device and installing and configuring usb_modeswitch.

[Guest geevz]

Got it working fine so fine. mine was build XXXXXXXXXXSP06.

For those with USB mounting issues : stop the usb debugging mode and it will mount the SD Card. :D

[Guest jasonXXx]

Hi any chance of updating the superuser APK on xda developers there is a new version Superuser 2.3.1 here is a link http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=682828

Also does this work fully and not mess other things up as i see people saying sd card is not mounting?

[Guest jasonXXx]

Got it working fine so fine. mine was build XXXXXXXXXXSP06.

For those with USB mounting issues : stop the usb debugging mode and it will mount the SD Card. :D

Does not work still no usb mounting and it also happens when flashing any rom thats not stock also any recovery image this need fixing untill this is fixed i will stick with stock everything. It feels to me that the pulse mini is dead before its even had a chance no developers and no one interested in helping.

[Guest jasonXXx]

Does not work still no usb mounting and it also happens when flashing any rom thats not stock also any recovery image this need fixing untill this is fixed i will stick with stock everything. It feels to me that the pulse mini is dead before its even had a chance no developers and no one interested in helping.

Ok got it working usb fine since i got no help i solved myself and this conferms the superboot make usb stop working. Ok step 1 install superboot and reboot device dont unplug usb keep it in all the time when system reboots then reboot back to fastboot and reinstall orig bootloader that way we have su but with orig bootloader this works 100% fine but if you wipe your system you will have to do the steps again. i have attached orig U8110V100R001C85B215SP02TMOUK boot image.

orig_boot.img

[Guest Jerry786]

Hi all. If i root my phone, will it get rid of the annoying and painfully slow T Mobile branding logo on startup?

Also, it seems as though rooting is causing a few problems, Can anyone confirm that everything is working fine on the Mini once rooted?

Thanks

Edited August 21, 2010 by Jerry786

[Guest jasonXXx]

Hi all. If i root my phone, will it get rid of the annoying and painfully slow T Mobile branding logo on startup?

Also, it seems as though rooting is causing a few problems, Can anyone confirm that everything is working fine on the Mini once rooted?

Thanks

Hi no it will not get rid of the t-mobile stuff and yes there are problems with usb mounting also the superuser app is very old. If you read my post above there is no usb problems but if you wipe you will need to redo steps to kepp rooted or i have just found a new way what sticks. step 1 install superboot dont unplug usb reboot when installled step 2 boot clockwork recovery via fast boot remember dont install clock work or usb problem is back just boot it via fastboot download the su-2.3.3 update.zip and place in your sdcard when you have booted clockwork select install update.zip from sdcard when done reboot backinto bootloader and flash the orig-bootloader attached abouv now you have the latest su-2.3.3 and now go into your settings and do a master reset. Thats it this way you will have stock all but rooted with the latest superuser app and no usb probs also it will stick when you master reset.

su_2.3.3.zip

clockwork_recovery_v1.8.1.4.img

Edited August 22, 2010 by jasonXXx