Flashing system.img to recover phone and save data? - Motorola Atrix 2

Long story short, I was trying to get the full ubuntu hack working on my phone, and after pushing a file, my phone is stuck at the motorola logo forever. It makes no sense why; the file I pushed was just a revised mountosh script that for one shouldn't be running at boot and two doesn't even affect system files. It seems like the only way out is to use fastboot, but instead of restoring the entire system and losing everything, can't I just flash a stock 2.3.5 system.img via fastboot? Will that boot into the new system and preserve all of my data?

Alternatively, is there a way to use adb in the stock recovery? I've tried and nothing shows up under devices. If I could do that, then I could flash the CWM on boot file or at the very least do a adb push to save my data.

Yes it will work. Just use the system.img from the fxz and flash away.
However, I have not had success on my Windows computer with flashing system.img using the fastboot that came bundled with the Android SDK. I'm not sure if the same is true on Linux, but you will probably be more successfully using the binaries found here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1138092

Manned up and did it. For those stuck in a situation like mine, I just downloaded the stock fastboot recovery for 2.3.5, manually flashed the system.img, and it booted up fine with all of my data intact.

Related

Boot Issues, Trying to Go Back To Stock

So I got a pixel recently. I unlocked the bootloader, installed TWRP, and rooted it. However, it's been a few years since I had an unlocked and rooted phone so I forgot that the OTA updates can't be applied. So I decided to go back to the factory image. A quick google search lead me to an article where they said I could select the Full Unroot option in the settings of SuperSU and it would attempt to restore the stock boot image and recovery image. So I did that, and ended up in a boot loop.
Well, then I decided to try flashing the entire factory images from google, using the flash-all.bat file they provide. It seems to flash the bootloader and the radio fine, but when it comes to the part where it flashes everything in the "image-sailfish-nde63l.zip" (I picked this build because it was the one I was on when the pixel arrived) folder it says "Error: failed to load 'image-sailfish-nde63l.zip': not enough space."
I can still get to the TWRP recovery, and I can get to the bootloader, but currently nothing else seems to work. Please, can anyone help me?
UPDATE: The issue was outdated adb and fastboot. I had 1.0.32, once I had the latest versions (1.0.36 right now) I could fix everything.
UPDATE: So I extracted boot and system from the zip file and manually flashed those. It boots now, but when it does it says there are errors with the device and to contact the manufacturer, also a lot of dialog boxes pop up saying various processes have stopped.
I think that if I manually flash the rest of the contents of the zip folder it will work, but there are a lot of files and I'm not sure which partition to flash them too, or which one's are needed. Does anyone know how to manually do what the flash-all.bat script does? Flashing bootloader, radio, system, and boot are not enough it seems. If you read the script it's just doing a 'fastboot -w update' on the zip file.
I hope what I'm saying makes sense. Thanks.
Did you try flashing the stock boot.img to both slots before going back to stock?
fastboot flash boot_a boot.img
fastboot flash boot_b boot.img
This is what chainfire recommended in his supersu post when he was talking about flashing twrp. Maybe try doing that and then try using the flashall script. Also make sure your download is not corrupt or something. https://plus.google.com/+Chainfire/posts/CBL8pnKtA8F
Evo_Shift said:
Did you try flashing the stock boot.img to both partitions before going back to stock?
fastboot flash boot_a boot.img
fastboot flash boot_b boot.img
This is what chainfire recommended in his supersu post when he was talking about flashing twrp. Maybe try doing that and then try using the flashall script. Also make sure you download is not corrupt or something.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, I didn't do any flashing myself before going back to stock. I selected the "Full unroot" option in SuperSU, based on the first result when googling "unroot pixel".
As soon as I did that I was stuck in a bootloop and I tried to restore the factory images according to the google webpage, but that's when I get the error.
Doing what you said doesn't work either, not even redownloading the image.
Actually, now it's worse. When I select recovery from fastboot menu it shows "No command" with a broken android. So twrp is gone now too.
If anyone can help me at all, that would be amazing, thanks.
UPDATE: So I extracted boot and system from the zip file and manually flashed those. It boots now, but when it does it says there are errors with the device and to contact the manufacturer, also a lot of dialog boxes pop up saying various processes have stopped.
I think that if I manually flash the rest of the contents of the zip folder it will work, but there are a lot of files and I'm not sure which partition to flash them too, or which one's are needed. Does anyone know how to manually do what the flash-all.bat script does? Flashing bootloader, radio, system, and boot are not enough it seems. If you read the script it's just doing a 'fastboot -w update' on the zip file.
I hope what I'm saying makes sense. Thanks.
th3p3r50n said:
Actually, now it's worse. When I select recovery from fastboot menu it shows "No command" with a broken android. So twrp is gone now too.
If anyone can help me at all, that would be amazing, thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This happened to me too. That's my current situation. Have adb and fastboot still but can't figure out what steps to fix it.
I think you should focus on why the flash all didn't work. Do you have the latest fastboot? Did you check the md5 of the downloaded rom image? What OS it's your computer running?
How do we verify latest fastboot. I thought that was my issue but don't see where this can be found. I have latest minimal adb and fastboot installed.
fracman said:
How do we verify latest fastboot. I thought that was my issue but don't see where this can be found. I have latest minimal adb and fastboot installed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The commands <adb version> and <fastboot --version> seem to return version numbers. My setup returns:
Android Debug Bridge version 1.0.36
Revision fd9e4d07b0f5-android
and
fastboot version fd9e4d07b0f5-android
respectively
Thank you cntryby429. I assumed I was using the latest versions because I had just installed them through the SDK Manager, turns out I was using version 1.0.32. I found the latest version of Minimal ADB and Fastboot and the flash-all script worked fine. I still had a few issues though, so I did a factory reset and then ran the flash-all script again. Now everything works perfectly again. Thanks so much!

[Q] Google OG Pixel problems soft bricked

Hello everyone,
I have an OG Pixel 5'', the stock Android was 7.1.2 and I updated it to Android 8.1 Oreo. Bootloader is unlocked, and I am able to install a TWRP 3.2.1-0 no problems. Phone at the time worked well. Now I have tried to flash an ElementalX Kernel on my device. This worked and I managed to boot. However, a message "There is an internal problem with your device, please contact the manufacturer". There is a thread to fix this and I should have done my research better.
Anyway, I went into TWRP and did a complete wipe of the phone, thinking that I could have just boot into TWRP again and copy the stock flashable zips to reflash the ROM.
It turns out that:
a) TWRP doesnt work. I.e when I got into fastboot mode (Power + Volume Down) and selected Recovery, the phone flashed to screen with Google image and then flashed back into the one with the green Android.
b) I managed to boot twrp via fastboot from my computer. So I booted into fastboot mode, and then on my computer, did: fastboot boot <twrp3.2.1.zip>. This worked and I managed to get into TWRP again. However, I cannot transfer file to flash. I.e when the phone showed up on my computer in TWRP, I cannot drag and drop anything into mounted folder.
I have tried the following to get stock ROM from this website: https://developers.google.com/android/images
a) I decided to look at ADB Sideload. So from the above website, I downloaded the zip files under Full OTA Images and then in TWRP, I went into Advance and chose ADB SIdeload. On my computer, I did "adb sideload name_of_zip_file_downloaded". The process started but ended very quickly, the finished time was 0.00 second, which means that nothing happened. Clearly, TWRP console showed that it is unable to mount /data and other folders. I guess the reason is that I am running a "live" TWRP? I checked by going back to TWRP mainscreen and tried to mount. However, all hard drives show 0MB (OTA USB and the main drive).
b) I used factory images approach by downloading zip from the same website, but this time under Factory Images. For this one, I unzip the files to a separate folder. Then I did flash-all.sh script but it said that my fastboot is too old.
So... to fix fastboot, I tried: (I am on Ubuntu 16.04.02)
a) Remove whole android fastboot with sudo apt-get remove, then reinstalled => Did not work. Still fastboot is too old
b) Download entire Android SDK from here: https://developer.android.com/studio/install.html. Fastboot still didnt work
c) From the Android Studio website, I tried to download just the command line tools. However, I could not find the folder with fastboot in it. A Google search shows that the fastboot and adb should be in platform-tools folder. Couldnt find any
Once again, I apologize for a very very long thread (It's 5am and I am trying to figure this thing out). Please, let me know if you guys can offer any help. Any help is greatly appreciated. FYI, I am coming from a Moto Z Play, and if things happen I would just boot into TWRP and copy the zip over. Clearly, this is not the case. This is my 1st Pixel as well.
Please let me know and thank you very very much.
Installing ex messes with the boot.IMG you need to reflash twrp after. Also don't manually flash stock zips that doesn't even make any sense. Download the latest android sdk or base platform tools then get the latest factory image and extract it into platform tools. Then go into fastboot and manually flash the official factory image
To use fastboot on ubuntu you have to put sudo infront of the command: sudo fastboot ........, Because of a permissions thing.
Sent from my Google Pixel using XDA Labs
Thank you everyone. I have managed to reflash the OS. Gonna stay with stock kernel
maxwell0312 said:
Thank you everyone. I have managed to reflash the OS. Gonna stay with stock kernel
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I personally recommend using a custom kernel just make sure to follow the OP exactly. As the kernel and twrp are usually stored in the boot.img together and the kernel overwrites the boot.img the problem was likely that you just did things in the wrong order which would cause twrp to be removed. Typically the order of installing custom stuff from stock goes this way: flash_all to restore stock boot.img, boot twrp, factory wipe, flash rom, flash twrp, boot rom, reboot into recovery, flash kernel, flash twrp, reboot system, reboot recovery, flash magisk. Some rooms vary as they may require you to do things like flash a vendor img or delete the vendor overlay folder(always follow OP).

Pixel 2 Magisk Bug won't take pin

Pixel 2 XL is soft bricked at the moment and I can't for the life of me think of what I need to do to recover it. I unlocked my bootloader and rooted when I switched to Pie, (I saw people we're already able to use Android pay on a rooted device again and I just couldn't help myself.) I installed twrp accidentally tried to flash TWRP not realizing I needed to temporary boot it and pushing the zip over erasing the recovery I proceeded to just fastboot it and carry on with the normal procedure with my phone. after getting Magisk installed I had my phone all set up until the next time I turned it on and back off again It said I forgot my PIN which I know I didn't I think this was because a glitch with smartlock I just setup so I go to my recovery and wipe the Dalvik cache, cache, Internal storage, and data and low and behold my phone bootloops never making past the final stage before it gets to the lockscreen. I go to Fastboot screen on my phone and my mac can't list my phone as a device in adb and now I am having issues getting back into recovery which I think might be because I am on the stock kernel my Fastboot screen on my phone says Product Name - Taimen, Variant - MSM USF:SAMSUNG(64gig) DDR:SAMSUNG, Bootloader version - TM220j, Baseband version - g899800253-1805232234, my Serial number, Serure boot - Yes, Device status - Unlocked, Vart console - Disabled, HW version - rev_10
I can't get it to stop bootlooping and just turn off.
bump
xda Zed said:
bump
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try flashing the stock boot.img with Fastboot. That might get you out of it. Since you did all the wiping I can't say for sure. However, when you were at the point where it wouldn't take your password, that's all that needed to be done. I ran into the same thing. It's a Magisk bug. Magisk gets flashed to the boot partition so flashing the factory boot.img will fix it. TWRP also gets flashed to the boot partition so if you flashed it too, flashing a factory boot image will get rid of that too. ADB won't see the phone while it's in fastboot mode. You need to use "fastboot devices". You can download a factory image if you don't have one and extract the boot.img from it. Put it in the folder your fastboot is in, and then open a command prompt (terminal? I'm not a MAC person) from that folder and type "fastboot flash boot boot.img" (without the quotes). Make sure you use download the factory image that's the same as what you currently have installed on the phone.
robocuff said:
Try flashing the stock boot.img with Fastboot. That might get you out of it. Since you did all the wiping I can't say for sure. However, when you were at the point where it wouldn't take your password, that's all that needed to be done. I ran into the same thing. It's a Magisk bug. Magisk gets flashed to the boot partition so flashing the factory boot.img will fix it. TWRP also gets flashed to the boot partition so if you flashed it too, flashing a factory boot image will get rid of that too. ADB won't see the phone while it's in fastboot mode. You need to use "fastboot devices". You can download a factory image if you don't have one and extract the boot.img from it. Put it in the folder your fastboot is in, and then open a command prompt (terminal? I'm not a MAC person) from that folder and type "fastboot flash boot boot.img" (without the quotes). Make sure you use download the factory image that's the same as what you currently have installed on the phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I stopped my endless bootloop! Now it says my device is corrupt and cannot be trusted and may not work properly when I tried to start it I couldn't get past the google screen. When I plug it into charge now it doesn't automatically going into a bootloop that can only be stoped by going into the fastboot mode or running out of battery, but the the charging symbol on the screen won't go away. I might have wiped system when I was in TWRP when I couldn't boot back after the first wipe. And I accidentally tried fastbooting Telstra img first. Anyway to get past this white Google screen? Also when I trey to go to recovery now it's the android laying on it's back with a red triangle and it says no command. Should I execute the flash-all script?
Downloaded the stock img files and ran the flash all .sh and now I am back in Android ready to mess something up again I could not thank you enough for your help I am so happy right now
xda Zed said:
Downloaded the stock img files and ran the flash all .sh and now I am back in Android ready to mess something up again I could not thank you enough for your help I am so happy right now
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Glad to hear you got it working again. As for the recovery screen that say no command, that't the way it works with the stock recovery. When you see that screen, press and hold power and volume up. That will get you into recovery. If you happen to try rooting again and get stuck in a bootloop or some such thing, just flash the stock boot image.. That should get you going again.

Mi mix 3 Global ROM bootloop

I'll start by apologizing if this has been solved elsewhere I have searched but found no answers.
I have the global variant and was rooted with twrp. I wanted the ota update so I unrooted and updated. Today I had some time so I flashed twrp wiped and entered bootloop. I attempted a full factory reset through twrp but still bootlooped. I have fastboot rom and have attempted to use miflash to fix it but get the "cannot found lock.bat" error though when first starting miflash I get the "can't find flash script" error. The drivers are properly installed yet the error persists. I cannot get adb to sideload which is, I'm guessing because of the wipe removing debugging mode? Is there any way to get the ROM image to the phone(I tried adb push command but says no device. Yet flashing recovery works so I know it's connected and recognized) so I can flash it via TWRP or the stock recovery img to flash and work from there? I'm kind of at a loss here. Am I now the proud owner of a very neat paper weight? I seriously hope not as I'm not exactly made of money and I've only owned the phone for a couple months.
Any and all help is greatly appreciated.
Update
I have managed to get adb push to start sending global v10.2.2.0 to the root folder. I'm hoping this will allow me to flash from twrp.
Mota420 said:
I'll start by apologizing if this has been solved elsewhere I have searched but found no answers.
I have the global variant and was rooted with twrp. I wanted the ota update so I unrooted and updated. Today I had some time so I flashed twrp wiped and entered bootloop. I attempted a full factory reset through twrp but still bootlooped. I have fastboot rom and have attempted to use miflash to fix it but get the "cannot found lock.bat" error though when first starting miflash I get the "can't find flash script" error. The drivers are properly installed yet the error persists. I cannot get adb to sideload which is, I'm guessing because of the wipe removing debugging mode? Is there any way to get the ROM image to the phone(I tried adb push command but says no device. Yet flashing recovery works so I know it's connected and recognized) so I can flash it via TWRP or the stock recovery img to flash and work from there? I'm kind of at a loss here. Am I now the proud owner of a very neat paper weight? I seriously hope not as I'm not exactly made of money and I've only owned the phone for a couple months.
Any and all help is greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Update 2 phone working but still confused.
Pushing the ROM via ADB did indeed allow me to flash from twrp and restore the phone. My question now is why did it happen? Is the new OTA MIUI 10.3... update incompatible with twrp or did something anomalous happen with the flash? I flashed exactly the same method I used with the 10.2.2 ROM a few weeks ago....
OTA's should only be used when completely stock! Even though you uninstalled root, there were still system modifications that more than likely caused your issues. The fastboot version of the firmware is different than the TWRP image. You can not flash a TWRP image via fastboot, hence the missing scripts and bat files. If you had actually downloaded the fastboot image, you would have had a flash_all.bat file that would have returned your device completely to stock with a single run of that file.
Thanks for the reply and information. I actually expected my issues to begin upon installing the ota update and was quite surprised that it updated without error. What confuses me is how flashing twrp after the update caused the issues. I went through the normal process when flashing twrp and still ended up bootlooped. I made the mistake of thinking boot.img was the old stock recovery i renamed when i first rooted and flashing that as recovery. Obviously this was not the recovery file but fastboot. It was then that panic mode kicked in and things went from bad to worse. I formatted planning to flash the stock rom via adb which didn't work. Given that I never touched the fastboot image on the phone I'm confused on how the bat files and scripts weren't found.
I'll admit I'm not extremely well versed in this area.
Is it possible that the ota update contained different bat files and scripts than the previous rom had? Which would cause miflash to not recognize them when attempting to flash an older rom? I'm sorry if my questions are ignorant lol. I'm a process guy and a troubleshooter by nature which means even though I've resolved the issue, I need to figure out what caused it.
Would flashing fastboot to the phone as the recovery image have screwed up the bat and scripts? Having two instances of boot.img on the partition messed it up maybe? Was it the formatting even though I was still able to boot into fastboot after? Or was it something that happened during the unrooting and updating that messed it up and it didn't manifest until I flashed twrp? Like I said the update worked fine and the phone was fully functional until I tried to reroot.
Thanks again for taking the time to help. It's definitely appreciated.
Mota420 said:
Thanks for the reply and information. I actually expected my issues to begin upon installing the ota update and was quite surprised that it updated without error. What confuses me is how flashing twrp after the update caused the issues. I went through the normal process when flashing twrp and still ended up bootlooped. I made the mistake of thinking boot.img was the old stock recovery i renamed when i first rooted and flashing that as recovery. Obviously this was not the recovery file but fastboot. It was then that panic mode kicked in and things went from bad to worse. I formatted planning to flash the stock rom via adb which didn't work. Given that I never touched the fastboot image on the phone I'm confused on how the bat files and scripts weren't found.
I'll admit I'm not extremely well versed in this area.
Is it possible that the ota update contained different bat files and scripts than the previous rom had? Which would cause miflash to not recognize them when attempting to flash an older rom? I'm sorry if my questions are ignorant lol. I'm a process guy and a troubleshooter by nature which means even though I've resolved the issue, I need to figure out what caused it.
Would flashing fastboot to the phone as the recovery image have screwed up the bat and scripts? Having two instances of boot.img on the partition messed it up maybe? Was it the formatting even though I was still able to boot into fastboot after? Or was it something that happened during the unrooting and updating that messed it up and it didn't manifest until I flashed twrp? Like I said the update worked fine and the phone was fully functional until I tried to reroot.
Thanks again for taking the time to help. It's definitely appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OTA's are not a complete image. It is a partial update that only replaces what it has to replace. If MiFlash dis not recognize the image, it was either the wrong image or a corrupt image.
Sometimes updates to the system and recovery partitions fix exploits that things like root and TWRP take advantage of.
Fastboot isn't something you flash to the phone. It is a command line used to flash a dull factory image to the device properly. You do not need MiFlash to flash a fastboot factory image. All you do is extract the full image to your ADB folder unless it is system wide, boot your device into the bootloader, connect ir to your PC, and run the flash_all.bat command contained in the folder you extracted. A command prompt window will open, everything will complete after about a few minutes the window will close, and your phone will reboot.
So the "fastboot" rom is a rom designed to be flashed using fastboot? The miflash error was given because the rom I was trying to flash was corrupted. That makes sense as I'd never known of a fastboot rom before. But it has been a few years since I rooted and romd my phone. I always did the typical flash from the rom image from twrp. I'm still not sure how I got myself in a boot loop unless when I wiped after flashing twrp I accidentally selected another option that erased more than I wanted.. Which makes perfect sense. I knew it had to be an ID10T error lol.
Thanks for the explanation.

Phone bricked when trying to flash stock bootloader - which should be what it had already? Help!

So a while back I unlocked and rooted my phone. I did something wrong the first time around and it bricked, so I started from scratch and flashed a stock firmware image, then installed Magisk. I used TWRP, but did not install it. No problems, except the OTA updates don't work, and the phone constantly nags me about it. I had a similar problem on a prior phone (Moto G4+) when the recovery partition was modified, and flashing back to stock fixed it on that phone. I finally get around to trying to fix this, figured Magisk did something to either boot or bootloader, so I re-flash boot.img and bootloader.img using the same images and instructions I originally used to flash my phone. boot.img fails claming bad signature, but bootloader.img succeeds. Now my phone will not successfully boot and claims it needs a factory reset. If I boot to TWRP, I can decrypt and see my data is intact (I explicitly chose not to encrypt my phone for this exact reason but *shrug*). If I install TWRP, it only boots to a TWRP screen and will not accept touch input. Booting TWRP from fastboot functions normally.
So basically, my data is intact. I want it to remain intact. My bootloader is mad at me. What do I do?
I have tried flashing the bootloader.img from multiple versions of the stock ROM and all of them have the same result. Using 'fastboot flash bootloader bootloader.img'
My only theory is that the key was written to the bootloader and flashing stock it doesn't have that key, but that doesn't make sense because what's the point of encryption then (see: I explicitly did not want my phone encrypted).
Update: I was able to fix it and retain all my data by using LMSA to recover it, but I edited the flashfile.xml to remove the step where it wipes userdata.

Categories

Resources