FIXED ClockworkMod wont load OS to my Blade

[Guest Peterkins]

Having successfully updated my wife's Orange SF to r4 with clockworkmod and my own LG gt540 to 2.1, my son decided to let me upgrade his Orange SF to r4 too. Mistake, big mistake, Huge.

Flushed with success by my previous attempts. I used fastboot to install ClockworkMod without (or so I thought) problems.

I stuck the phones microSD card in an adapter, stuffed it in my PC and copied to it the r4 zip file. Put the microSD card back into the phone and tried to install it - this time without success....

The messages I get on the blade are:

-- Installing: SDCARD:r4 blah blah

Finding update package ...

Opening update package ...

Installing update ...

Formatting SYSTEM ...

Copying files ...

E:Can't symlink /system/bin/iwconfig

E:Failure at line 6:

symlink iwmulticall SYSTEM:bin/iwconfig

Installation aborted.

I have since reformatted the microSD card first as FAT and then FAT32 thinking the SD file system might be damaged.

Interesting the behaviour of clockworkmod has changed since having reformatted the SD card. Before I did, installing images resulted in the successful copying of files, deleting files, and an installation done message (though the new OS didnt ignite).

After having formatted the uSD Card, clockworkmod fails as above. I suspect clockworkmod assumes files/directories to be already present on the SD card. I wont know for sure until I get my wife's SF back at the weekend.

Any help would be appreciated - my son wants his phone back; at present its a paper-weight.

BTW: the results are pretty much identical no matter which ROM I try to install, stock orange, 2.2, r4, etc

What will be the chances I can backup my wife's phone to a uSD card and restore it on my son's SF using clockworkmod?

---- fixed

Having re-formatted the uSD card that came with the SF on several occasions and not having been interested in partitionning it, I decided to nick the uSD card from my LG GT540.

I formatted it as FAT and copied MoDaCo r4 to it, stuck it in the SF, started up ClockworkMod, did a factory reset thingy (no error messages this time) so asked it to update from the SDcard.

Five minutes later I had a working SF. Its only taken 10hours, 10hours I'll never see again.

Damn those people in ZTE land and their penny pinching and a big thank-you to BigBearMDC. who suggested it might be the uSD card and not me or the software.

Peter

Edited October 27, 2010 by Peterkins

[Guest El Nino9]

hi there

could you please go this this site http://android.modaco.com/content/zte-blad...rkmod-recovery/

and re-download the clockworks recovery image

and also re-download the r4 MCR or w.e. rom you decide to use.

i will assume you are using a windows OS if its linux or mac os it should be even easier to do so.

just follow the instructions on the first link i have sent you at the top in pauls first post.

i did not root my phone as paul stated that the bootloader is fully unlocked so that means you can use fastboot commands. i slightly deviated from the instructions as i had android sdk installed on my laptop with fastboot too (in linux) and i just typed in fastboot flash recovery clockworkmod.img (as i had renamed it that and i was cd / in the directory.

for simplicity i will try explain to you what paul has wrote and try expand on some points.

firstly download and extract the fastboot.zip folder, maybe easier to extract it to C:\

so folder directory should be C:\fastboot\ and inside it should be the files extracted

then download and extract the recovery image, i would highly recommend you try do a md5sum command but i don't know how to do that in windows but if you believe the file you have downloaded is not corrupt in any way continue. move clockworkmod recovery in the C:\fastboot location so that its with the other files.

check the directory that this is the situation i.e. you have adb-windows.exe and fastboot-windows.exe and then open CMD (command prompt)

type in the command cd C:\fastboot *then press enter*

then type in fastboot-windows flash recovery recovery-clockwork-2.5.0.9-modaco-r2-blade.img or if you renamed the recovery image file name fastboot-windows flash recovery xxxxxx.img where xxxxxx is the name of what you have named the recovery image

you should see it sending the data and flashing. after this is down reboot your phone

in cmd type fastboot-windows reboot

once this is down your phone will restart. switch it off after the restart. hold volume down and power and keep holding it and you should be in clockworks once again. try mount the SD card from there

mounts and storage, press home for select, then mount usb storage, press home.

once it has been mounted copy the newly downloaded rom file on to the root of the SD CARD.

now safely remove the usb device in windows and after that unmount the sd card in clockworks.

click back and go to install zip from sd card and press home

select choose zip from SD CARD and see if you have results

in no way am i suggest you are an idiot of any sort, i apologise if i have tried to make it as easy as possible for people to understand this post but i wish you all the best :P

its difficult to brick these as the device is fully unlocked in terms of bootloader, so if fastboot works phone works :D

Edited October 27, 2010 by El Nino9

[Guest Peterkins]

Hi there and thanks for your efforts at explaining the process.

What you have missed is that that have installed ClockworkMod and Modoco r4 for the blade on my wife's phone without incident. I tried to use the same files and the same process on my son's phone - and failed.

ClockworkMod seems to be installed just fine, it'll clear out cache files, format system directories factory reset, indeed pretty much everything ClockworkMod was intended to do EXCEPT install a new ROM on my son's phone.

Its not just r4 I can't install either. I've downloaded a cuppla version of froyo, and the orange stock hopeing to reset the phone back to factory but, alas, with no joy.

I think what I have learned is that the ClockworkMod process uses a file dump of the source environment and scripts to recreate it in the target environment. The first part of the script erases as much of that target environment as makes sence. Froyo ROM install scripts, for example, seem to trash the entire target environment then reconstruct it using the script, copy files and build symlinks until the source environment is recreated. At this point, control is passed back to the phone and the new OS is booted.

At least, I think, is what is supposed to happen. I think what is happening is that those creating ROMs are making assumptions about the target environment and when these assumptions are discovered to be untrue, the installation fails. As far as I can see on my son's phone, the file copy process is failing somehow such that when symlinks are supposed to be created, the files don't exist and the installation barfs (its a technical term).

Having tried lots of different ROMs - and failed consistently - that is, the way it fails is consistent, I can only assume ClockworkMod is flawed but in a way that only I have stumbled into (since it worked flawlessly for me once and everytime for everyone else). The alternative, which I'm prepared to entertain is that the phone is faulty. However, the phone worked before I started using ClockworkMod and hasn't since.

I think what I need is another, perhaps more primitive route to getting an OS onto the phone but one that doesn't rely on the phone having a viable operating system, rooting, or any of that new malarky.

As I said, the alternative will be to get hold of my wife's SF at the w/e, back it up and restore to my son's phone and hope that ClockworkMod backup and restore function works! It's that or try to return the phone and get a replacement.

Regards

-----

Aha!. I just noticed that the Wipe Data/Factory Rest option does not complete without error. The messages I get are:

-- Wiping data ...

Formatting DATA ...

Formatting CACHE ...

Formatting SDEXT ...

No app2st partion found. Skipping format of /sd-ext.

Formatting SDCARD:/.android_secure ...

E:Can't mount /dev/block/mmcblk0p1 (or /dev/block/mmcblk0)

(no such file or directory)

Error mounting /sdcard/.android_secure!

Skipping format ...

Data wipe complete.

I noticed that the original uSD card had some semblance of a unix file system on it. However, now that I've reformatted the uSD card the directory structure is missing , do I need a way to recreate it?

Is this why I can't load a new ROM???

Peter

Edited October 27, 2010 by Peterkins

[Guest s4m312]

Hi Peter,

I think that I have exactly the same issue as you did here, did you manage to find a fix?

Regards.

[Guest captainkirk]

I had a similar problem that i could not install any OP other than 1.

I found that if you used an older version of ClockworkMod it installed them with no problems.

I am now using version 2.5.0.9 rather than the latest and they install first time on my OLED san fransico