Bootloader unlocking

[Guest Garsay]

12 minutes ago, dazmatic said:

Thanks so much for your helpful insight. I'm not having much luck reading off the flash chip with my FT2232 adapter. I've tested software in windows and ubuntu but the flash doesn't respond so I may have to get a programmer like yours, the CH341 and 1.8V adapter. At least then it's purpose built for doing this job!

All I want to do is to be able to unlock the bootloader and flash a fresh android image to the emmc 

Yes, I use the CH341s programmer with a 1.8V converter.
You can use UEFI from my first post, a clean android will run there without problems.
If you can get Windows 10 up and running, I'll be very grateful to you, without a display I don't know what's going on there.
I wish you good luck.

[Guest dazmatic]

I've just ordered a CH341. Should be here in a few days. I don't have the 1.8V adapter but I've got a 1.8V power supply and logic converter. which appears to work fine so I'll know more when it arrives.7

Also ordered some 1.8V adapters, I run a business on ebay UK (user booskibits) and the 1.8V adapters are too expensive so I've bought small quantity (10) of adapters and sop8 sockets and also bought 10x spi flash chips as spares to test. I can't find wson flash but got sop8 which should fit on board the same.

Edited April 15, 2019 by dazmatic

[Guest dazmatic]

On 4/15/2019 at 9:44 PM, Garsay said:

Yes, I use the CH341s programmer with a 1.8V converter.
You can use UEFI from my first post, a clean android will run there without problems.
If you can get Windows 10 up and running, I'll be very grateful to you, without a display I don't know what's going on there.
I wish you good luck.

My ch341 arrived and ive read the chip and saved the original. Dont seem to be able to write your .bin though though. Have erased but cant write?

[Guest Garsay]

1 hour ago, dazmatic said:

My ch341 arrived and ive read the chip and saved the original. Dont seem to be able to write your .bin though though. Have erased but cant write?

You need to delete the memory before writing. You must also have a 1.8V voltage converter. Without it, the memory can be read, but it may not be quite right, but writing can cause problems.
From my experience, after erasing the memory, it is necessary to wait a minute and then it is possible to write, I do not know if it is a blockage in CH341, but I did not immediately.

[Guest dazmatic]

Thats probably why, not erasing before writing. ill try again.

[Guest dazmatic]

49 minutes ago, Garsay said:

You need to delete the memory before writing. You must also have a 1.8V voltage converter. Without it, the memory can be read, but it may not be quite right, but writing can cause problems.
From my experience, after erasing the memory, it is necessary to wait a minute and then it is possible to write, I do not know if it is a blockage in CH341, but I did not immediately.

So I've now got the modified flash on here. I'm in unknown territory now, how do I get into uefi?

[Guest Garsay]

1 minute ago, dazmatic said:

So I've now got the modified flash on here. I'm in unknown territory now, how do I get into uefi?

Unfortunately I couldn't get to UEFI, I don't know how and I don't have a display to see something, it doesn't work on HDMI, just after loading the drivers.
But booting from a USB device can be without problems even without access to UEFI, so at least it did.

[Guest dazmatic]

3 minutes ago, Garsay said:

Unfortunately I couldn't get to UEFI, I don't know how and I don't have a display to see something, it doesn't work on HDMI, just after loading the drivers.
But booting from a USB device can be without problems even without access to UEFI, so at least it did.

Yeah no luck with uefi but ubuntu livecd on usb works fine. really want to get android image working but ubuntu or even windows would be great

 

[Guest dazmatic]

So I can boot into ubuntu grub and try to boot windows loader from there using "chainloader (hd0,msdos1)/efi/boot/bootia32.efi" but it just comes up with an error message and then loads into the bootloader EFI menu so it looks like it can't detect the windows efi to boot from it but it can find the linux one fine?

Edited April 18, 2019 by dazmatic

[Guest Garsay]

1 hour ago, dazmatic said:

So I can boot into ubuntu grub and try to boot windows loader from there using "chainloader (hd0,msdos1)/efi/boot/bootia32.efi" but it just comes up with an error message and then loads into the bootloader EFI menu so it looks like it can't detect the windows efi to boot from it but it can find the linux one fine?

bootia32.efi is for a 32-bit system, but this UEFI only booted 64-bit systems if I'm not mistaken.
You need a 64-bit installation where bootx64.efi is located.
I'd like to know what it writes when booting x64 windows, as I would love to run them there, but as we wrote, without a display I just guess what's going on in the background, only Ubuntu ran smoothly, even installed in eMMC works for me.

[Guest dazmatic]

6 minutes ago, Garsay said:

bootia32.efi is for a 32-bit system, but this UEFI only booted 64-bit systems if I'm not mistaken.
You need a 64-bit installation where bootx64.efi is located.
I'd like to know what it writes when booting x64 windows, as I would love to run them there, but as we wrote, without a display I just guess what's going on in the background, only Ubuntu ran smoothly, even installed in eMMC works for me.

Yeah, got windows 10 to boot as far as the 64/32 bit selection screen, selecting 64bit begins the driver loads but then fails to blue screen with something about acpi bios.

 

acpi bios error

Edited April 18, 2019 by dazmatic

[Guest Garsay]

Just now, dazmatic said:

Yeah, got windows 10 to boot as far as the 64/32 bit selection screen, selecting 64bit begins the driver loads but then fails to blue screen with something about acpi bios.

ACPI ... I expected that, but thank you, it's very good information for me.
Unfortunately, I probably can't do anything about it, I'd love to run windows 10 there.
I don't know how to try to break it up.
If I could look at UEFI Setup, but I don't know how.
By F2, F1, DEL, ESC, or a combination? Maybe it's just blocked, but when I look at the BIOS image, I don't see anything like that blocking it.

[Guest dazmatic]

I've tried many combinations to enter bios without any luck. Not sure what else to do. 

[Guest dazmatic]

Could really do with a working version of the all the partitions from an original emmc.

[Guest Garsay]

1 hour ago, dazmatic said:

Could really do with a working version of the all the partitions from an original emmc.

I deleted all partitions and installed Ubuntu on eMMC.
I'm still investigating and trying to edit UEFI, to enable SETUP.
What I compare, it's very similar to Acer UEFI in hex code.

[Guest dazmatic]

I'm going to try and get a backup of the emmc before I flatten it and try installing android x86 as there's no full android images out there that'll work. To try at least. I'd like to get it working as a tablet again.

So to sum up so far:

Windows won't install because of acpi bios error

Ubuntu will install but I can't get WiFi or touch screen to work

Android x86 will run but there's no WiFi or touchscreen and no support from app store.

[Guest Garsay]

2 hours ago, dazmatic said:

I'm going to try and get a backup of the emmc before I flatten it and try installing android x86 as there's no full android images out there that'll work. To try at least. I'd like to get it working as a tablet again.

So to sum up so far:

Windows won't install because of acpi bios error

Ubuntu will install but I can't get WiFi or touch screen to work

Android x86 will run but there's no WiFi or touchscreen and no support from app store.

In the 10th partition, I remember the Mac's WiFi address is hidden.
Is there a Broadcom connected via SDIO if I'm not mistaken but needs to upload a Mac address and then it should work smoothly, but we haven't tried it yet, there's no time for it.
Touching, it should just be enough to load the driver, I don't remember what chip is used there, but it shouldn't be a problem to get in touch. I think it will be connected via I2C.

[Guest dazmatic]

Wifi working now in android x86. Doesn't work on live CD but works fine when installed.

Just need to get touch screen and drivers working now and it'd almost be a usable tablet again. Well, other than the fact it only boots into safe mode.

 

Edited April 19, 2019 by dazmatic

[Guest Garsay]

1 hour ago, dazmatic said:

Wifi working now in android x86. Doesn't work on live CD but works fine when installed.

Just need to get touch screen and drivers working now and it'd almost be a usable tablet again. Well, other than the fact it only boots into safe mode.

 

Oh, that's good, WiFi doesn't work from my drive.
I'm sending a screen of what's out there in Ubuntu.

[Guest Garsay]

I almost do not know Linux, but I managed to run WiFi and Bluetooth.
From the original Android I downloaded the firmware files and used them in Ubuntu, restarted and it works!
I attach the files in the attachment, in one picture is shown in the terminal where to copy them under what name.
I'm still trying to play with UEFI Setup and find out what's preventing Windows from running, but I'm a UEFI beginner, so I don't know if I'm going to succeed.

WiFi + BT.zip

[Guest dazmatic]

I can confirm, wifi/bt working in ubuntu. Just wish I could get touchscreen working. It would seem that the Goodix GT8110 drivers are a real pain to find or install.

[Guest dazmatic]

Yeah, I've now got 3 dead Hudls, the original, the dead replacement and the known working one.

Figured I'd bios mod the known working, live boot ubuntu and grab an image of the good emmc drive to restore to the dead replacement. I've got an image and an image of the partitions but now the known working replacement won't boot. Which is annoying as it was a replacement for my father original broken one who's going to be really disappointed :( 

[Guest dazmatic]

On 4/20/2019 at 12:15 AM, Garsay said:

 

Does your bios mod affect the way it boots? I'm thinking flashing it back to original bios would restore it's functionality as it doesn't seem to want to boot from a 32bit efi.

Edited April 21, 2019 by dazmatic

[Guest Garsay]

15 hours ago, dazmatic said:

Does your bios mod affect the way it boots? I'm thinking flashing it back to original bios would restore it's functionality as it doesn't seem to want to boot from a 32bit efi. 

With the new version of Android on Hudl 2 was BIOS update - I found BIN for update. Therefore, it is possible that with 4.4.2 it had a 32-bit BIOS and with Android 5.1 it has 64-bit BIOS. The BIN update is named: Vlv_X64_RELEASE, so it may have been distinguished as X64.
Just my theory.
I'm working on UEFI Setup permission, or to change the Variable Android to Windows, I found a part where this change is possible, but I don't know much about it, it's my first. There is no Windows for it, but Linux is, it is similar to Android. It's a shame, I would want Windows there. And I also found the primary display item, but I don't know how to change it.

[Guest dazmatic]

9 minutes ago, Garsay said:

With the new version of Android on Hudl 2 was BIOS update - I found BIN for update. Therefore, it is possible that with 4.4.2 it had a 32-bit BIOS and with Android 5.1 it has 64-bit BIOS. The BIN update is named: Vlv_X64_RELEASE, so it may have been distinguished as X64.
Just my theory.
I'm working on UEFI Setup permission, or to change the Variable Android to Windows, I found a part where this change is possible, but I don't know much about it, it's my first. There is no Windows for it, but Linux is, it is similar to Android. It's a shame, I would want Windows there. And I also found the primary display item, but I don't know how to change it.

That would explain why the image I got from the known working Hudl had only got 32 bit efi file, no 64. To which I then flashed a 64bit UEFI which is searching for 64 bit efi and OS. 

Me being an idiot didn't backup the original 32bit UEFI flash and then flashed with 64. Probably would have gotten away with it if I had kept a backup. Silly really as I've backed up everything so far, just thought they were the same.

 

EDIT: Yep, checked build.prop on newer Hudl, was running 4.4.2. Damn, need a UEFI bin from a 4.4.2 Hudl. 

Edited April 22, 2019 by dazmatic