Related
=========================================================================================
=== Device: GT-P5100 (Galaxy Tab 2, 10.1", 3G model)
=== Description: Safe stock ODIN image, recovery and root
=== Packaged by: cheatman ( xda - http://forum.xda-developers.com/member.php?u=490310 )
=== Stock ROM version: P5100XWALD7
=== Build date: 07 June 2012
=========================================================================================
Disclaimer: I am not responsible and assume no liability on how this information is used. This package is provided "as is" without any warranty and does not guarantee any fitness for any purpose.
ONLY FOR GT-P5100 (3G model)!!! Do not flash on any other Galaxy Tab 2!!!
Download the ZIP (large, about 600MB) from here:
=> DOWNLOAD FROM HERE (HotFile)
How to use: Read the readme.txt file or this post here.
On to the safe stock restore process:
1. Make sure you have the Samsung device drivers installed before you begin. If you don't, install them from here:
- 64bit: http://drivers.softpedia.com/get/MOBILES/Samsung/Samsung-Galaxy-S-USB-Driver-for-Windows-x64.shtml
- 32bit: http://drivers.softpedia.com/get/MOBILES/Samsung/Samsung-Galaxy-S-USB-Driver-for-Windows-x86.shtml
2. Make sure your tablet's battery is at least 30% charged up before you begin.
3. Make sure you have an external microSD inserted in the device, if you also plan on rooting afterwards. Nothing will be erased from the microSD, there is no need to worry about that.
4. Run procedure to flash back the stock ROM from Samsung (Ice Cream Sandwitch 4.0.3 - P5100XWALD7) from the folder "Step1-Stock". STOP HERE FOR PURE STOCK!!!
5. Run procedure to enable ClockworkMod recovery from the folder "Step2-Recovery". This step is OPTIONAL (only if you want a custom recovery). STOP HERE IF YOU DON'T WANT ROOT!!!
6. Run procedure to enable "root" access from the folder "Step3-Root".
7. Done! Enjoy! Profit!
===============================================================
========== Step 1 - Flashing Stock P5100XWALD7 ================
===============================================================
1. Download the file from the link above.
2. Shut down your tab.
3. Disconnect tab from USB and/or power cables.
4. Hold "Power+Volume UP" physical buttons on your tablet to initiate download mode.
5. Press "Volume DOWN" physical button on your tablet to confirm and enter ODIN mode.
6. On your PC, open "Odin3 v1.85.exe"
7. Press "PDA" button in ODIN and select the "PLATFORM_P5100XWALD7_482645_REV02_user_low_ship.tar.md5" file.
8. Press "PHONE" button and select the "MODEM_P5100XXLD7_REV_01_CL1128355.tar.md5" file.
9. Connect your tablet using a USB cable. In ODIN you should see the device "<added>" message appear. If you do not, there is a problem with the Samsung drivers installation.
10. Confirm that only the following options are checked in ODIN: "Auto Reboot", "F. Reset Time", "PDA", "PHONE". DO NOT CHECK RE-PARTITION!!! NEVER!!!
11. Click the big "Start" button and WAIT. Be patient!!! The process takes about 3-4 minutes but can take longer.
12. Do not power down the tablet while this takes place. Do not shut down your PC. Do not touch anything! Just wait! Get a coffee or something...
13. After full flash the tablet will reset automatically.
14. Congratulations you are now safely back to stock P5100XXALD6.
15. There is no need to flash the bootloader and CSC. Do so at your own risk.
===================================================================
========== Step 2 - Flashing ClockworkMod Recovery ================
===================================================================
1. Download the attached recovery file "p5100-recovery.tar.md5.zip" and extract it.
2. Shut down your tab.
3. Disconnect tab from USB and/or power cables.
4. Hold "Power+Volume UP" physical buttons on your tablet to initiate download mode.
5. Press "Volume DOWN" physical button on your tablet to confirm and enter ODIN mode.
6. On your PC, open "Odin3 v1.85.exe"
7. Press "PDA" button in ODIN and select the "p5100-recovery.tar.md5" file.
8. Connect your tablet using a USB cable. In ODIN you should see the device "<added>" message appear. If you do not, there is a problem with the Samsung drivers installation.
9. Confirm that only the following options are checked in ODIN: "Auto Reboot", "F. Reset Time", "PDA". DO NOT CHECK RE-PARTITION!!! NEVER!!!
10. Click the big "Start" button and wait a few seconds. Flashing recovery.img is super-fast!
11. After recovery flash, the tablet will reset automatically.
12. Congratulations you are now running recovery for your tablet.
13. Note: Internal SD is not working with this recovery, you must use external microSD cards to load up ZIPs.
14. You can also download and extract the kernel and flash it also on "PDA" if you want a rooted Kernel
=========================================================
========== Step 3 - Enabling root access ================
=========================================================
1. Download the attached file "CWM-root-P5100-v1.zip".
2. Copy the "CWM-root-P5100-v1.zip" file to the external microSD card.
3. Shut down your tab.
4. Insert the microSD in the tablet.
5. Hold "Power+Volume DOWN" physical buttons on your tablet to initiate recovery mode. It takes a while to start up recovery (10-15 seconds) so be patient. Try not to press too hard on the buttons as it does not help at all (takes same amount of time :-D)
6. Use the "Volume UP" and "Volume DOWN" buttons to navigate (select options) and the "Power" button to select. Don't HOLD the buttons, just press them (like a click or something).
7. Select the option to install ZIP from sdcard.
8. Navigate to where you copied the "CWM-root-P5100-v1.zip" file and select it.
9. Wait for the operation to complete.
10. Navigate back and select option to "Reboot system"
11. Congratulations you have a fresh stock ROM with CWM and root ready to go!
12. Enjoy
=======================================================================================
Thanks and greetings go to:
- Galaxian-Soup
- nycbjr
- All others who help and bring value to the XDA comunity!
Peace and have fun!
C.
Reserved!
Looking for mirrors. This is a very large file!
Thanks.
Ah damnit lol this was almost what i was looking for. I need the one for the wifi version.
Do you think the recovery would be the same? Thats the only part i really need lol.
Nvmind i see its all in one file lol
Recovery is in an independent folder, you don't flash the initial zip lol.
Anyway, the recovery and root steps should apply to p5110 as well.
Cheers,
C.
Thank you for all the hard work. I'm sure my Willy nilly ways will require me to use this
Sent from a note on fire in the middle of the sea
Hi,
I see that in your instructions for flashin stock do not use file "BOOTLOADER_P5100XXALD6_365113_REV02_user_low_ship. tar.md5" which is otherwise included in the package, does that mean that it did not necessarily use one?
When it is necessary to use that file?
Thanks.
Updating the bootloader is not required.
Playing with bootloaders is very risky and dangerous in general (can permanently brick tab).
Bootloader is responsible for the download mode. If you can access it and flash using odin, there is no need to mess with it. Upgrading it may result in a locked boot mode, meaning you can't flash custom stuff anymore.
I included only the required files and steps so you guys don't have to look for the right combination.
Peace,
C.
Thank you for the file sir oh sir.
Rapidshare mirror
Sized at 492.65MB, i recompressed the file using 7-zip to cut off the size a bit. It is below 500MB, meaning it's Dev Host friendly.
Code:
stock-safe-p5100-4.0.3-v1.zip 2E5566F2311BAD666A8CFD9674AEE0A5
stock-safe-p5100-4.0.3-v1.7z 946AAC1EDE408FFCA48BAF592AC3F92C
Step1-Stock
MODEM_P5100XXLD6_REV_01_CL1128355.tar.md5 07EFC235DC6989D50C9321076EDCDFC1
PLATFORM_P5100XXALD6_365113_REV02_user_low_ship.tar.md5 8186B1660ED2D4C1752336014ED047FD
Step2-Recovery
recovery.tar.md5 16AFDD2FEDBD8476521D9C144C823023
Step3-Root
CWM-root-P5100-v1 4D2E472F0C0A640F4170B9500F39FCAC
Can someone please confirm the hashs?
I rooted my Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 WiFi GT-P5110 using the manual and it works fine!
Thanks for the manual
Sent from my r00t3d GT- P5110 using XDA Premium App
Updated new version of the stock image.
Thanks for this find go to our friend "zi0m3k" (cheers, mate!)
C.
How did you capture the stock recovery from the device? I would like to do the same from my GT-P5113, but (of course) one has to flash CWM first to get access, and that overwrites the recovery.
Stock recovery comes with the stock ROM, so you need to overwrite it, not capture it.
But, to clarify the issue, you can root your device without a custom recovery. After you root, you can dump system images using the "dd" command.
Rooting using CWM zips is just more convenient and easier for everyone, it's not the only option, though. There was root before recovery...
C.
cheatman said:
Stock recovery comes with the stock ROM, so you need to overwrite it, not capture it.
But, to clarify the issue, you can root your device without a custom recovery. After you root, you can dump system images using the "dd" command.
Rooting using CWM zips is just more convenient and easier for everyone, it's not the only option, though. There was root before recovery...
C.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know that the final goal is to overwrite the recovery to get the benefits of CWM (e.g.). But if you want to save the *stock* recovery first, you need to capture/dump it from the device somehow before flashing (correct me if my logic here is incorrect).
Also, yes, I know a good way to dump it is with "dd", but one needs root to do that (I tried for the hell of it, to see if there was non-root read access, but alas, no).
I think you have hit upon my question regarding root: did you root the tab without flashing CWM? If so that will allow "dd" to capture the stock recovery, yes. If you used CWM, that you overwrote the recovery, and you would not have been able to save the stock recovery in that case.
I have not found a rooting method for the GT-P5113 that does not involve flashing CWM, so I cannot figure out how to same my stock recovery, which I would like to do before flashing CWM (and thereby losing the stock recovery forever).
I obviously dumped the recovery before I flashed CWM, otherwise it wouldn't be stock.
If I get you right, you want to know the root exploit I used to root my p5100 to get suid and be able to copy the "su" binary. In fact, getting elevated rights on a linux system if you have direct access to it is not rocket science. However, because that's a lot to write, here is a more simple solution you can apply to get a stock recovery that I didn't have at the time:
1. Go to samfirmware.com and download a stock rom for your device.
2. Extract the .tar.md5 files and get the "recovery.img" out of them. Usually the "boot" and "platform" files have one inside.
I reckon all p51xx devices have the same recovery anyway, but it might not be the case.
C.
cheatman said:
I obviously dumped the recovery before I flashed CWM, otherwise it wouldn't be stock.
If I get you right, you want to know the root exploit I used to root my p5100 to get suid and be able to copy the "su" binary. In fact, getting elevated rights on a linux system if you have direct access to it is not rocket science. However, because that's a lot to write, here is a more simple solution you can apply to get a stock recovery that I didn't have at the time:
1. Go to samfirmware.com and download a stock rom for your device.
2. Extract the .tar.md5 files and get the "recovery.img" out of them. Usually the "boot" and "platform" files have one inside.
I reckon all p51xx devices have the same recovery anyway, but it might not be the case.
C.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi, yes, that's exactly right - I wanted to know how you got elevated rights in order to use dd for this.
I really want the recovery image from *my* stock tablet - not one off the net.
Could you private message me, if you are uncomfortable talking about it here. I am well-versed in Linux (I've done kernel development, I'm part of the Gentoo Linux dev team, etc.), so I am no stranger to Linux. I know there are exploits now and then, but they are not usually trivial. If you found a new one for the current kernel, then I'm impressed, and please do tell. If you found the exploit somewhere on the net, can you send me a link?
Thanks, Joe
Well, I must admit I actually took my time thinking whether I should actually write a reply :-D
However, my main concern is having to write a lot to explain stuff, but considering you are a kernel dev, this should be easy peasy. In short, I didn't force my way in, I just *convinced* the system to let me in. It's an inherent problem of Android, in fact:
1. Extracted the boot.img and unpacked it.
2. Replaced the adbd binary in the ramdisk with an unsecure one.
3. Repackaged and flashed using ODIN.
4. Used adb root to get into the system, the *regular* way. Once adbd lets
5. Installed su and superuser.apk.
There is no need to exploit the kernel if the system is inherently flawed when it comes to direct access (adb root exists). Any and all Android devices that use this layout (boot.img) can be rooted this way. Sorry to disappoint you about the exploit, but I am no *real* dev. I just know my way around :-D
PS: You can get the latest boot.img I did for this purpose here
Hope it helps with your recovery dump,
C.
cheatman said:
There is no need to exploit the kernel if the system is inherently flawed when it comes to direct access (adb root exists).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Very interesting - that was my missing piece of the puzzle - I had not realized one could replace the adbd. Makes sense. I will certainly give this all a try! I may be experienced with Linux, but I have a lot less background in android internals; learning quickly, though. In fact, my next project (when I get some time) is to try building the GT-P5113 ROM from source (and also some delving into AOSP). Being able to customize at the source level would be very cool.
LavaJoe said:
Very interesting - that was my missing piece of the puzzle - I had not realized one could replace the adbd. Makes sense. I will certainly give this all a try! I may be experienced with Linux, but I have a lot less background in android internals; learning quickly, though. In fact, my next project (when I get some time) is to try building the GT-P5113 ROM from source (and also some delving into AOSP). Being able to customize at the source level would be very cool.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would be eternally grateful if you could post the stock rom for the 5113 (including stock recovery) if you can. I would settle for just the stock recovery in flashable form via odin etc.
A read through Samsung's kernel source reveals that the governors are already coded into the kernel (install voltage control and you can switch between governors and schedulers at will).
It looks like the set stock speed on the 10.1 5113 is 1008MHz.
Does anyone know how/where in the kernel overclocking is programmed?
The source also looks pretty comprehensive for the tablet and apparently is very similar to that of the 7" tab. I imagine it wouldn't be too hard for a veteran coder to fix this up for the 10" users.
I haven't coded in years and I'm not familiar enough with Android to do anything but attempt to compile the source from Samsung.
Hi,
Does this work on P5100XXLD6 ?
Android version 4.0.3
Thanks
SPECIAL KNO'DIS: This Guide has been changed to refelct proper installation for both types of Maven Pro tablets, be Sure to follow the appropriate guide.
For the purpose of this guide, I'll assume you already have working ADB and Fastboot on your PC, if not, you'll need to set that up first. This guide doesn't cover installation of ether of those. If you're looking for the guide to the Viking Pro (RCT6303W87DK), go here.
KNO'DIS: I, OR ANYONE ELSE AT XDA, WILL NOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR "BRICKING" YOUR TABLET!! IF YOU MANAGE TO MAKE A BRICK, DUE TO YOUR "FUN-DA-MENTAL" INABILITY TO READ, GO BUILD A BBQ PIT WITH IT!! (Or ask for help, there's a lot of friendly people around here)
So, without further ado, lets get started. First, you'll need to know which version of firmware your device is running, this can be found in 2 different ways. From a running device go to: Settings/About tablet and look at the Build number. Or you can boot into stock recovery and the firmware version will be at the top left of the screen.
You should see something like the following, and note the 2nd number after the 2nd "V":
Code:
RCT6213W87DK-ANDROID5.0-V37-V1.9.30 <-- This is x.9.x version of firmware
or
RCT6213W87DK-ANDROID5.0-V68-V1.12.30-B <-- This is x.12.x version of firmware
Now that you know which firmware you have, follow the approriate guide below. I've broken this post into 2 different sections, as each tablet is just a little bit different.
About the Bootloader
This applies to both versions of firmware and tablet users. Turns out, the booloader doesn't have to be unlocked in order to install a custom recovery or root the device. So there's really no reason to unlock it, and I have removed that portion of this guide.
Installing MTK Preloader Signed Drivers
Drivers located Here
x.9.x Versions
Steps (Windows 8/8.1/10): For step 2 you will have less than five seconds. Preloader mode is only active for a few seconds. So read first!
1- Extract the drivers to the Desktop and open the Device Manager ("right click" on the Start button, select "Device Manager")
2- Plug your tablet in as such: turn off the tablet. Plug in the micro USB on the tablet, the other to the USB port on the PC, now very quickly in the device manager locate the new device and right click on it. For me, it showed up under "Other devices" and read MT65XX.
3- Select "update driver software" then select "browse my computer for driver software" (make sure "Include subfolders" is selected.
4- Click "Browse..." and navigate to where you extracted the driver zip. You "should" be at the following path: Desktop/MTK Preloader Signed Drivers
5- Click on "OK" then "Next". The driver should install at this point. Once that is done, unplug the usb cable from the pc (I find it easier to just keep the micro in the tablet).
x.12.x Versions (Requires Full size Male-to-Male USB Cable)
Steps (Windows 8/8.1/10): For step 2 you will have less than five seconds. Preloader mode is only active for a few seconds. So read first!
1- Extract the drivers to the Desktop and open the Device Manager ("right click" on the Start button, select "Device Manager")
2- Plug your tablet in as such: turn off the tablet. Plug in the full size USB cable to both the tablet and the PC.
3- Plug the micro USB into the tablet, the other to another USB port on the PC, now very quickly in the device manager locate the new device and right click on it. For me, it showed up under "Other devices" and read MT65XX.
4- Select "update driver software" then select "browse my computer for driver software" (make sure "Include subfolders" is selected.
5- Click "Browse..." and navigate to where you extracted the driver zip. You "should" be at the following path: Desktop/MTK Preloader Signed Drivers
6- Click on "OK" then "Next". The driver should install at this point. Once that is done, unplug both USB cables from the PC (I find it easier to just keep them in the tablet).
Installing TWRP
Firmware/TWRP Downloads
Maven x.9.x (Currently Contains: V37-1.9.30 and TWRP)
Maven x.12.x (Currently Contains: V63-V1.12.0-20150802 and V66-1.12.20-B-20150831 Firmware and TWRP)
Special Thanks to: @ShadowCX11 for testing for me.
Be sure you are using the appropriate TWRP for your version of firmware, and do the following:
1- Extract the firmware and the SP Flash Tool to your desktop.
2- Start the SP Flash Tool, and where it says "scatter file loading" click and navigate to the folder where you have the firmware and load the scatter file (depending on device, it could be in the "Images" folder).
3- Once that is done, uncheck everything, and select "recovery" only, from the list, navigate to the TWRP image file and click "Open", then click on the download button.
4- Plug the USB cable(s)* back into your PC. At this point the flash tool will load the recovery to the tablet. DO NOT UNPLUG ANYTHING UNTIL THE FLASH TOOL SHOWS YOU A GREEN CHECK MARK TO INDICATE THAT IT IS DONE, OR YOUR TABLET COULD BE HARD BRICKED AND IRREPARABLE.
5- After you get your check mark, unplug and boot into recovery, hold the Volume + and Power button. When splash screen comes up (the 2 dogs) release the power button.
6- Welcome to TWRP
*Remember, x.12.x requires 2 USB cables to work
ROOT
You can get root by flashing the latest SuperSu zip file located here, be sure to download the flashable zip.
Otherwise, for root, you can use the KingRoot app located here, (get the apk, or "Download for Android") and if you don't want a Chinesse Super User app, you can replace it with the ChainFire SuperSu by going here.
NOTE: This method of replacing KingRoot with SuperSu no longer works properly, and results in a bricked device.
Device Tree
GitHub
CREDITS
@vampirefo (for the CWM Recovery and teaching me about TWRP, there would be no recoveries if it wasn't for him!)
@Bogram (for the lk.bin patch trick)
@smartmanvartan (for the flashing guide)
Reserved
Reserved #2
Hello! I've had my Maven Pro for a couple months now and I still haven't rooted it like I have with the rest of my devices. I'd love to do it too, but reviewing your instructions, I found that my version number is way different. V66-V1.12.20-B. will that version patch tool still work for it? is there an update that it's refusing to download? Thanks!
Edit: on top of this, i can't get it to even connect (step 2) with any of my microUSB cables. (they work with my other devices)
equinox13 said:
Hello! I've had my Maven Pro for a couple months now and I still haven't rooted it like I have with the rest of my devices. I'd love to do it too, but reviewing your instructions, I found that my version number is way different. V66-V1.12.20-B. will that version patch tool still work for it? is there an update that it's refusing to download? Thanks!
Edit: on top of this, i can't get it to even connect (step 2) with any of my microUSB cables. (they work with my other devices)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ooh, a v12, sorry friend, lol. Make sure the tablet is off, and be ready with "Device Manager" open, the preloader only shows up for a bit, then it disappears. The patch tool should still work for you, but the TWRP recovery may not. If it doesn't, the CWM recovery will after I modify it, because it's non-touch.
If neither recovery works for you, you can give me a copy of your "boot.img" file, and I can convert TWRP or CWM to work on your tablet. Also, I've changed the guide up top to include other root methods.
If you have any trouble, by all mean, post, and I'll try to help you through it
Regards,
Nepo
EDIT:
A friend found some V12 firmware, and I'll be uploading it soon. I can get a boot.img file from it to make a recovery.
My maven pro is stuck in a bootloop after I rooted now I don't know what to do. I can't even shut it down
GartimusPrime said:
My maven pro is stuck in a bootloop after I rooted now I don't know what to do. I can't even shut it down
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can reflash firmware while it is in a bootloop, I've done this many times. If you have everything set up, drivers, SP Flash Tool, firmware, etc..
Do the following:
1) Startup the Flash Tool and Load your firmware, as described in the OP (be sure to "uncheck" the Preloader)
2) Plug in your micro USB cable to both the PC and the tablet
3) Press and hold the "Reset" button located on the back
4) Click the Download button, then let go of the reset button, it should start flashing the firmware.
If it doesn't the first time, retry steps 3 and 4. I've had it fail the first time before, but work on the second.
Good Luck and let me know how it goes. Also, if the battery is completely drained by the time you read this, just flash firmware normally (again, uncheck the preloader). The tablet has to be powered off to flash it anyway.
Regards
Nepo
So after reflashing my tablet (a Canadian V12 that had V68, and flashed to V66 trying to unlock the boot loader and install CWM), USB doesn't work. The port doesn't output any voltage, and neither does the keyboard connector. The tablet acts like nothing is there, as does the PS3 controller I tried. Also, before, Firmware Update would say there's no updated firmware. Now, it doesn't seem to do anything. I flashed every partition except preloader, MBR and ebr, and the sec partitions. Do I have to reflash again, or is there something else I can do?
On a completely different note, I tried flashing a patched lk.bin, and it failed with an error I don't remember (I had temporary access to a PC).
One more thing that was quite interesting to me. It seems if you reboot into recovery or bootloader from Android (APM+ or root), you're then able to access the recovery with Power + Vol. Up. Is this known, or was it a fluke?
ShadowCX11 said:
So after reflashing my tablet (a Canadian V12 that had V68, and flashed to V66 trying to unlock the boot loader and install CWM), USB doesn't work. The port doesn't output any voltage, and neither does the keyboard connector. The tablet acts like nothing is there, as does the PS3 controller I tried. Also, before, Firmware Update would say there's no updated firmware. Now, it doesn't seem to do anything. I flashed every partition except preloader, MBR and ebr, and the sec partitions. Do I have to reflash again, or is there something else I can do?
On a completely different note, I tried flashing a patched lk.bin, and it failed with an error I don't remember (I had temporary access to a PC).
One more thing that was quite interesting to me. It seems if you reboot into recovery or bootloader from Android (APM+ or root), you're then able to access the recovery with Power + Vol. Up. Is this known, or was it a fluke?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No USB is a new one on me, I wish I had a x.12 version of this tablet to test on (mine's x.9) I'd try a re-flash, this time, do everything but the preloader, the reason for not flashing a preloader is because it sometimes semi-bricks one of these tablets.
Interesting note, there was a guy on the Viking thread (RCT6303W87DK) that flashed CWM without unlocking his bootloader, and everything is working fine for him...
Regards,
Nepo
PS, Power + Vol Up is the standard way to enter recovery on this device (I have the Xposed APM+ apk installed too)
NepoRood said:
No USB is a new one on me, I wish I had a x.12 version of this tablet to test on (mine's x.9) I'd try a re-flash, this time, do everything but the preloader, the reason for not flashing a preloader is because it sometimes semi-bricks one of these tablets.
Interesting note, there was a guy on the Viking thread (RCT6303W87DK) that flashed CWM without unlocking his bootloader, and everything is working fine for him...
Regards,
Nepo
PS, Power + Vol Up is the standard way to enter recovery on this device (I have the Xposed APM+ apk installed too)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So just a quick question: Is the device /dev/recovery for sure recovery? I want to see if I can just use dd to flash recovery.
ShadowCX11 said:
So just a quick question: Is the device /dev/recovery for sure recovery? I want to see if I can just use dd to flash recovery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, to pull a copy from a running tablet you use dd, and the path is: /dev/recovery
So, I'd do it this way, using adb:
Code:
adb push NAME_OF_RECOVERY.img /data/local/tmp
# Wait for it, then type:
adb shell
#Followed by:
dd if=/data/local/tmp/NAME_OF_RECOVERY.img of=/dev/recovery
#After it finishes:
reboot recovery
Okay, I got CWM installed! Now to see if I can find a way to build TWRP...
ShadowCX11 said:
Okay, I got CWM installed! Now to see if I can find a way to build TWRP...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great! Is the CWM in portrait or landscape? You can always try to port the one I built for the x.9's, just unpack stock recovery, unpack TWRP, swap out the prebuilt kernel and repack.
NepoRood said:
Great! Is the CWM in portrait or landscape? You can always try to port the one I built for the x.9's, just unpack stock recovery, unpack TWRP, swap out the prebuilt kernel and repack.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's in landscape, and works quite well! I just like the touch interface a bit more. I'll try the kernel replacement.
ShadowCX11 said:
It's in landscape, and works quite well! I just like the touch interface a bit more. I'll try the kernel replacement.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I prefer TWRP as well, that's why I built it
The only reason I don't have one posted for x.12 users is I can't test it. If you get it to work properly, let me know and I'll add it to the OP so others can benefit. :good:
If not, I can do some builds for you to test, if you don't mind. I have the x.12 kernel in my repo
NepoRood said:
I prefer TWRP as well, that's why I built it
The only reason I don't have one posted for x.12 users is I can't test it. If you get it to work properly, let me know and I'll add it to the OP so others can benefit. :good:
If not, I can do some builds for you to test, if you don't mind. I have the x.12 kernel in my repo
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I can't figure out how to extract the kernel, because I don't usually have access to a PC. However, I'll take some testing builds if you can make them.
Also, back to the USB issue, a reflash of everything except preloader didn't fix it. However, checking the firmware update now tells me that this is the latest version (which is definitely wrong, since I had v68). It must be an incompatibility between the USA and Canadian variants. If you find a Canadian firm dump, can you send me a link?
---
Hmm, okay.
So I just took a look at the model number on my box, and it's RCT5213W87DKF. That extra letter is what changes this a bit. I'll try seeing what I can dig up in terms of OTA updates, and I'll keep posting about what I find.
---
Okay, so after a few packet captures, I found the tablet makes a GET request to http://tablet12.gyrodock.com:2300/OtaUpdater/android?device=RCT6213W87DK with the User-Agent rk29sdk/4.0, but the server returns a 404 page. When I do this in the browser, however, I get something quite peculiar happen, which interests me. Most of the other places on the site return a Tomcat 404 that has the path in the parenthesis. However, for the OTA URL, it just has empty parenthesis. POST requests to that URL return a 200 OK with no return data, which is also interesting. I'll keep hunting around.
Some people might not have a PC to run flash_tool on, so here's how you can flash recovery/uboot/mbr/ebr2/logo/sec_ro from within Android
I'll use recovery as an example. I'm using a V12 tablet, so steps might be different if you have a V9. I tried to make this guide as revision-agnostic as possible, so correct me if I mess something up.
Root your device. The method I use is KingRoot, because it doesn't require any weird things. You can uninstall KingRoot and flash SuperSU later.
Download a recovery image. Make sure if you have a V12 tablet, you download a recovery image for V12, and a V9 recovery for a V9 tablet, or you'll brick your recovery. I personally prefer TWRP, because it has more features and a nicer UI, but CWM works too.
Get shell access. You can use a terminal emulator.
Type in su, and give the terminal superuser access on your device.
Type in dd if=/sdcard/Download/mavenVY_XXX.img of=/dev/recovery, where Y is 9 or 12, and XXX is CWM or twrp3.0.2. This will flash the recovery image.
Finally, type in reboot recovery. This should reboot into your custom recovery! It might also enable Power + Vol Up access to recovery, however, this hasn't been confirmed.
All the other partitions are similar, just replace the references to recovery images with the respective file names for the raw partition, and /dev/recovery with /dev/[PARTITION]. You can NOT flash the android or usrdata partition while in Android or you'll most likely soft-brick your tablet, however, you can boot into TWRP and go to the terminal and do the flash. You must copy your disk images to /tmp when doing so however, or you'll probably lose the disk image during the flash, effectively causing a brick.
Hope this helps people out!
ShadowCX11 said:
I've found out that it seems the v12 tablets strictly enforce the checksums of partition images, so flashing a custom recovery or uboot does not work with flashtool.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nice addition, but all you have to do is disable it in the Checksum.ini file (change the 1 to 0):
Code:
[IsEnableChecksum]
CHECKSUM_SWITCH=0
I did that for the v9 versions, but only uploaded the v12 firmware...
NepoRood said:
Nice addition, but all you have to do is disable it in the Checksum.ini file (change the 1 to 0):
Code:
[IsEnableChecksum]
CHECKSUM_SWITCH=0
I did that for the v9 versions, but only uploaded the v12 firmware...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh... makes sense...
ShadowCX11 said:
Oh... makes sense...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm glad you posted that info, it'll be super handy for folks that may not have access to a PC, or would rather use their device instead of a PC :good:
First of all, sorry for publishing an uncomplete guide, im traslating my own full spanish guide and at the same time making it more complete and better, and i decided to do it this way, publishing progressively
/////////////////////////////////////////
SECTION 1: Android argot summary
I put this link here so any new user in the Android rooting/flashing world can learn the classic words used
http://www.talkandroid.com/guides/beginner/android-rom-and-rooting-dictionary-for-beginners/
Note: in bootloader it says that the phone comes locked, which in our case usually is not the case, but anyway you can know if your phone is locked just by trying to get into the fastboot mode, if you can't get into it, its locked.
An Android phone's disk is virtually splitted in several partitions, like a computer, but not exactly the same because even when your phone has a lot of partitions, you will only see one if you didn't rooted your phone, or two if you did, and the partition where you have your photos and the rest of your personal downloaded things is named sdcard (yes, is a legacy of Android, even when we don't have sdcard), or even in some ROMs is called userdata or something like that; another partition is system, where the ROM itself is, is like the installation of Windows; another is data, where the config files of the apps are stored when you start using them; another is cache, where the cache of the apps are (you can think of it like the apps are compressed always, and to run faster they descompress themselves in that partition), and there are two of those partitions: dalvik cache and cache; also bootloader, which is like the BIOS of the computer, is the most basic program that makes possible the phone to boot, and also it is not possible to edit it, it is not writable, it is this way so that you wont never be able to hardbrick your phone (which means that you can literally drop your beautiful phone into the trash, no way of fixing it), like it was in older phones, and also in this partition you also have the fastboot mode, which i'll explain later; and the last one im explaining (there are more but you probably wont never know about them) is recovery, where there is installed the recovery, and what is recovery? is a tool which is by itself an entire operating system, but made specifically for "developing" purposes, mainly for flashing ROMs and making backups of the entire partitions. We have two recoverys for Mi4C, the Mi Recovery, which comes by default with your phone, and is very limited, mainly you can only flash Xiaomi's official ROMs, and the TWRP recovery, which is the absolutely most popular recovery, and strongly suggested to use, no disadvantages at all. Also know that, like in Windows you can't format the very own Windows partition and you must use and external tool, which would be the Windows installation CD program or something like that, here we have the recovery, you can't flash or wipe using Android, you must be in the recovery mode.
So as I said, the bootloader is readable only by security, and it includes the fastboot tool, so you must know to lost the fear of this world, that YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO HARDBRICK YOUR PHONE, you will always have fastboot to reflash a complete Android ROM (which requires a computer and a fastboot ROM, which is different than a flashable ROM. You will use a fastboot ROM in the first flashing tutorial, more bellow)
What is Fastboot? Basically is a tool which acts like a server in the phone, and as a client in the computer, and is made mainly to make basic things to the phone, like flashing partition images (included in the fastboot ROMs, extension of each one is .img) or read the locking status of the bootloader.
What is a locked bootloader? In our phone, is a bootloader that only allows you to flash official xiaomi roms, but as xiaomi don't offer a global version of miui for our phone, the only official rom is the chinese one, which appart than having only english and chinese languages, is very bloated of chinese apps, so is very recommended to unlock the bootloader and flash any other rom of your desire.
How to access fastboot? First, shut down the phone; second, press at the same time the Power and the Vol - buttons for a few seconds, there should appear in the screen a Fastboot logo. Note that the phone may automatically shutdown if no connection is made with a fastboot client in a computer in about 10 seconds after entering fastboot mode
How to access recovery? First, shutdown the phone, then press at the same time power and vol+ for a few seconds
What is ADB? Is a tool that works the same way as fastboot (phone and computer connected), but instead of being in bootloader, it is inside of android, and instead of doing essential work for the phone, it does more practical things like transfer of files, but you will probably not use ADB at any time. Also, for transfering files you wont use ADB, which like Fastboot is a command line tool only, but you will use MTP, which is the media transfer protocol, the graphical way of transfering files, in your computer it will appear like a classical external drive, but in Windows the icon will be like an iPod.
Note before starting the flashing tutorial: go to Settings > (bottom) About phone and look at the MIUI version, MIUI version numeration is supposed to follow a date (the date of release) except the first number which could not be the year, it could be 5, 6 or 7, so a correct numeration would be for example 7.2.1.0 (there is always a 4º number which is always 0 if do remember well). The thing is that when you buy the phone to a reseller, is very usual that they flash their custom MIUI rom which comes with international language, its fine, but it also comes with spyware and adware everywhere. Those roms usually comes with a version numeration of strange repeated numbers, like 77. 87. 55. 99., remember that the first number always must be 5, 6 or 7. In case that you have preinstalled this rom, i suggest you strongly to follow the guide fully, including the clean flashing with fastboot rom
Note 2: you need to have the bootloader unlocked in order to continue, please read the unlock tutorial below
Note 3: this guide supposes you have Windows. If you have Linux or Mac, or you have any problem, please ask here
Note 4: for this guide we are going to use a Drive folder shared with a spanish mi4c community, so file names may contain spanish words but shouldn't be a problem. Sorry for the inconvenience, but it's for ease purposes. Drive link: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B3N1d6szT1RYWkNET0pEbWhud3c#list
SECTION 2: Flashing guide (part 1/2: cleaning)
We are going to flash the 7.1.4.0 fastboot ROM in order to update as much as we can all the firmware (drivers of usb, modem, camera...), clean all from the weird ROM of the reseller and all of that without locking the bootloader.
Please, charge your phone first to at least 50%. Also, this process will erase all your personal data in the phone, backup all you need before.
1. Download the Fastboot 7.1.4.0 ROM (for example, here https://drive.google.com/folderview...RUR3WkE&tid=0B3N1d6szT1RYWkNET0pEbWhud3c#list ) Also download the 2 other files from that link.
2. Go to the root directory of your computer drive, usually C:\ and create a new folder with a simple name without special characters, neither spaces (for example, flash) to avoid problems in the process (at the end of the guide you will be able to delete that folder).
3. Go into that folder and extract the ROM, you must be able to see a folder named images and files together (Note: maybe you could need 7-Zip to extract it)
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
4. Now Install the other 2 files you downloaded. Then, reboot the computer and poweroff the phone
5. Exec the MiFlash tool, copy the path of the folder (for example, C:\flash) and paste it in the MiFlash tool
6. Now go to advanced
7. Click on Browse for Fastboot Script and choose flash_all.bat (if you are not able to see the file extensions, you should enable the viewing of file extensions (google for it))
8. Now put the phone in Fastboot mode (being it powered off, press power and vol- at the same time for a few seconds until the Fastboot logo appears) Note: to exit this mode, just press power for a few seconds
9. Now connect the phone to the computer with the usb cable (adaptors may give problems) and press on Refresh in the MiFlash tool in order for the phone to appear in it
10. Press on Flash, wait for the green bar to finish (could last minutes, just wait, if error is shown, post it here, if more than 1 hour and nothing changes, maybe is the computer, maybe is the cable, maybe is your bad luck). Done this part of the guide
Credits for this section of the guide
SECTION 3: Flashing guide (part 2/2: Flashing at last!)
1. (Downloading) Enter the Drive folder posted above and download the TWRP zip, the ROM of your desire (see below for reading more of every ROM), the google apps (MIUI already comes with preinstalled google apps, not needed in that case; also, you can download the google apps at opengapps.org and picking ARM64 and 6.0 android (or the version that the ROM you are choosing is, probably 6.0), and picking pico or nano is enough, comparison table here https://github.com/opengapps/opengapps/wiki/Package-Comparison ) and the supersu (only if you want root, anyway you can flash supersu at anytime without needing to wipe or anything, is easy). If you didn't do the part 1/2 and you need the Windows drivers, you can download it from the Drivers Windows folder, install it and reboot the computer.
1.1 (Uncompressing) Unzip the TWRP file in a sort path from the root folder, like for example in C:\TWRP (at the end of the guide you can delete this). You should see a file called recovery.bat (if you can't see extensions, google for enable it), it is for the step 3.
1.2 (Testing MTP) We will need to use MTP while we are in the recovery mode, so first let's test it in Android. While the phone is fully booted in Android and in the launcher screen (if starting for the first time, skip all the tutorial with whatever info), plug the phone to the computer, and in the phone swipe down the notifications bar, you should see a notification saying something of MTP or wired connection, activate MTP. Now in the computer, open My Computer and you should see Mi4C there, open it and try to navigate and create a folder, if all is ok, it works. If you are not able to create a folder o transfer any file from your computer, do not continue until this is fixed.
2. (Fastboot) First, keep the TWRP folder open and the recovery.bat file visible. Unplug the phone and put it in Fastboot mode (power it off, then Power and Vol- for a few seconds)
3. (Recovery flashing) Just execute the recovery.bat file (double click) and press a key if it asks for it (there should appear a green window with text). Done, recovery flashed (read text to see if everything is done). Now with TWRP installed, you won't need anymore (you shouldn't) the computer for using fastboot, now only for transfering the ROM files to the phone to use it from the TWRP.
4. (Wiping) Now let's boot into Recovery mode (TWRP in this case), two ways for it: you can Power and Vol+ while it is powered off, or you can boot Android, go into Settings, About phone, updates and in the 3 dot menu, there is a button for booting into recovery.
Note about the first TWRP start, it should appear this screenshot
Just press on never show again and swipe. Now, in TWRP, enter Wipe, select all partitions and wipe them all, it should appear an error about usb otg, doesn't matter, wipe is done correctly. Now you need to reboot into Recovery mode again, needed when wiping partitions another than cache or dalvik cache (if you don't reboot now, it won't let you flash), so press the mid button in the navigation bar to go to the main menu, and enter in Reboot > reboot recovery. If a message of "no OS installed" or "install supersu" appears, say no or ignore
5. (Flash!) Now, with the phone plugged, MTP should be working, so now you have to transfer the ROM, gapps and supersu files (gapps=google apps; gapps and supersu if needed as i explained in step 1). Now in the phone, press install, select the ROM, then add zip, select the gapps, add zip, supersu, and then swipe, a minute later there should appear a reboot system (android) button and the wipe cache button, first press wipe cache button, do it, and then reboot system.
Congratulations, now you can consider yourself a h4k3r, next step hacking into NSA maybe or something? Wait for the guide
From now on, flashing will usually consist in downloading the rom file from the phone (or from the computer and then transfer to the phone) and with the same gapps and supersu files downloaded above, you can flash, and then wipe cache. This is a dirty flash, only do it if updating a ROM, if going o another type of rom you must clean flash, which is done by first wiping all partitions as done in step 4 (note: all personal data would be lost, backup with titanium backup for example, and transfer all files to computer)
SECTION 4: Summary of ROMs available to our phone
MIUI: the ROM that comes with the phone, made by Xiaomi, full of features, loved by ones, hated by others
-MIUI chinese: the original official Xiaomi one, only in english and chinese languages, and comes with preinstalled chinese apps. Two variations: stable (released like once per month) and weekly
-MIUI .eu: modified version of the chinese, removed preinstalled chinese apps, a lot of languages included. Also comes in stable and weekly versions.
CyanogenMod: is a proyect which purpose is to make the full ROM open sourcered, and include more features than the official Google Android ROM doesn't include.
-CM from Kumajaya: most popular edition for our phone, this guy is doing a very good job with the kernel, making the ROM very stable and battery efficient.
-CM from Team Superluminal (TSL): they were the first to bring us CM, is not open sourcered (or at least is not their main job, as opposed to kuma) but is pretty stable, more recommended for noobies, kuma is more for staying up to date frequently
Resurrection Remix: a ROM that brings together a lot of different ROMs, unifying a lot of features. In Mi4C is a bit unstable for now, but is a matter of time.
Moke
SLIM
And I add here a link for a nice unlocking bootloader guide http://forum.xda-developers.com/mi-4c/general/guide-unlocking-mi4c-bl-verification-t3336779
Recovery + Official ROM
THREAD REMINDER
akrai said:
First of all, sorry for publishing an uncomplete guide, im traslating my own full spanish guide and at the same time making it more complete and better, and i decided to do it this way, publishing progressively
/////////////////////////////////////////
SECTION 1: Android argot summary
I put this link here so any new user in the Android rooting/flashing world can learn the classic words used
http://www.talkandroid.com/guides/beginner/android-rom-and-rooting-dictionary-for-beginners/
Note: in bootloader it says that the phone comes locked, which in our case usually is not the case, but anyway you can know if your phone is locked just by trying to get into the fastboot mode, if you can't get into it, its locked.
An Android phone's disk is virtually splitted in several partitions, like a computer, but not exactly the same because even when your phone has a lot of partitions, you will only see one if you didn't rooted your phone, or two if you did, and the partition where you have your photos and the rest of your personal downloaded things is named sdcard (yes, is a legacy of Android, even when we don't have sdcard), or even in some ROMs is called userdata or something like that; another partition is system, where the ROM itself is, is like the installation of Windows; another is data, where the config files of the apps are stored when you start using them; another is cache, where the cache of the apps are (you can think of it like the apps are compressed always, and to run faster they descompress themselves in that partition), and there are two of those partitions: dalvik cache and cache; also bootloader, which is like the BIOS of the computer, is the most basic program that makes possible the phone to boot, and also it is not possible to edit it, it is not writable, it is this way so that you wont never be able to hardbrick your phone (which means that you can literally drop your beautiful phone into the trash, no way of fixing it), like it was in older phones, and also in this partition you also have the fastboot mode, which i'll explain later; and the last one im explaining (there are more but you probably wont never know about them) is recovery, where there is installed the recovery, and what is recovery? is a tool which is by itself an entire operating system, but made specifically for "developing" purposes, mainly for flashing ROMs and making backups of the entire partitions. We have two recoverys for Mi4C, the Mi Recovery, which comes by default with your phone, and is very limited, mainly you can only flash Xiaomi's official ROMs, and the TWRP recovery, which is the absolutely most popular recovery, and strongly suggested to use, no disadvantages at all. Also know that, like in Windows you can't format the very own Windows partition and you must use and external tool, which would be the Windows installation CD program or something like that, here we have the recovery, you can't flash or wipe using Android, you must be in the recovery mode.
So as I said, the bootloader is readable only by security, and it includes the fastboot tool, so you must know to lost the fear of this world, that YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO HARDBRICK YOUR PHONE, you will always have fastboot to reflash a complete Android ROM (which requires a computer and a fastboot ROM, which is different than a flashable ROM. You will use a fastboot ROM in the first flashing tutorial, more bellow)
What is Fastboot? Basically is a tool which acts like a server in the phone, and as a client in the computer, and is made mainly to make basic things to the phone, like flashing partition images (included in the fastboot ROMs, extension of each one is .img) or read the locking status of the bootloader.
What is a locked bootloader? In our phone, is a bootloader that only allows you to flash official xiaomi roms, but as xiaomi don't offer a global version of miui for our phone, the only official rom is the chinese one, which appart than having only english and chinese languages, is very bloated of chinese apps, so is very recommended to unlock the bootloader and flash any other rom of your desire.
How to access fastboot? First, shut down the phone; second, press at the same time the Power and the Vol - buttons for a few seconds, there should appear in the screen a Fastboot logo. Note that the phone may automatically shutdown if no connection is made with a fastboot client in a computer in about 10 seconds after entering fastboot mode
How to access recovery? First, shutdown the phone, then press at the same time power and vol+ for a few seconds
What is ADB? Is a tool that works the same way as fastboot (phone and computer connected), but instead of being in bootloader, it is inside of android, and instead of doing essential work for the phone, it does more practical things like transfer of files, but you will probably not use ADB at any time. Also, for transfering files you wont use ADB, which like Fastboot is a command line tool only, but you will use MTP, which is the media transfer protocol, the graphical way of transfering files, in your computer it will appear like a classical external drive, but in Windows the icon will be like an iPod.
Note before starting the flashing tutorial: go to Settings > (bottom) About phone and look at the MIUI version, MIUI version numeration is supposed to follow a date (the date of release) except the first number which could not be the year, it could be 5, 6 or 7, so a correct numeration would be for example 7.2.1.0 (there is always a 4º number which is always 0 if do remember well). The thing is that when you buy the phone to a reseller, is very usual that they flash their custom MIUI rom which comes with international language, its fine, but it also comes with spyware and adware everywhere. Those roms usually comes with a version numeration of strange repeated numbers, like 77. 87. 55. 99., remember that the first number always must be 5, 6 or 7. In case that you have preinstalled this rom, i suggest you strongly to follow the guide fully, including the clean flashing with fastboot rom
Note 2: you need to have the bootloader unlocked in order to continue, please read the unlock tutorial below
Note 3: this guide supposes you have Windows. If you have Linux or Mac, or you have any problem, please ask here
Note 4: for this guide we are going to use a Drive folder shared with a spanish mi4c community, so file names may contain spanish words but shouldn't be a problem. Sorry for the inconvenience, but it's for ease purposes. Drive link: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B3N1d6szT1RYWkNET0pEbWhud3c#list
SECTION 2: Flashing guide (part 1/2: cleaning)
We are going to flash the 7.1.4.0 fastboot ROM in order to update as much as we can all the firmware (drivers of usb, modem, camera...), clean all from the weird ROM of the reseller and all of that without locking the bootloader.
Please, charge your phone first to at least 50%. Also, this process will erase all your personal data in the phone, backup all you need before.
1. Download the Fastboot 7.1.4.0 ROM (for example, here https://drive.google.com/folderview...RUR3WkE&tid=0B3N1d6szT1RYWkNET0pEbWhud3c#list ) Also download the 2 other files from that link.
2. Go to the root directory of your computer drive, usually C:\ and create a new folder with a simple name without special characters, neither spaces (for example, flash) to avoid problems in the process (at the end of the guide you will be able to delete that folder).
3. Go into that folder and extract the ROM, you must be able to see a folder named images and files together (Note: maybe you could need 7-Zip to extract it)
4. Now Install the other 2 files you downloaded. Then, reboot the computer and poweroff the phone
5. Exec the MiFlash tool, copy the path of the folder (for example, C:\flash) and paste it in the MiFlash tool
6. Now go to advanced
7. Click on Browse for Fastboot Script and choose flash_all.bat (if you are not able to see the file extensions, you should enable the viewing of file extensions (google for it))
8. Now put the phone in Fastboot mode (being it powered off, press power and vol- at the same time for a few seconds until the Fastboot logo appears) Note: to exit this mode, just press power for a few seconds
9. Now connect the phone to the computer with the usb cable (adaptors may give problems) and press on Refresh in the MiFlash tool in order for the phone to appear in it
10. Press on Flash, wait for the green bar to finish (could last minutes, just wait, if error is shown, post it here, if more than 1 hour and nothing changes, maybe is the computer, maybe is the cable, maybe is your bad luck). Done this part of the guide
Credits for this section of the guide
SECTION 3: Flashing guide (part 2/2: Flashing at last!)
1. (Downloading) Enter the Drive folder posted above and download the TWRP zip, the ROM of your desire (see below for reading more of every ROM), the google apps (MIUI already comes with preinstalled google apps, not needed in that case; also, you can download the google apps at opengapps.org and picking ARM64 and 6.0 android (or the version that the ROM you are choosing is, probably 6.0), and picking pico or nano is enough, comparison table here https://github.com/opengapps/opengapps/wiki/Package-Comparison ) and the supersu (only if you want root, anyway you can flash supersu at anytime without needing to wipe or anything, is easy). If you didn't do the part 1/2 and you need the Windows drivers, you can download it from the Drivers Windows folder, install it and reboot the computer.
1.1 (Uncompressing) Unzip the TWRP file in a sort path from the root folder, like for example in C:\TWRP (at the end of the guide you can delete this). You should see a file called recovery.bat (if you can't see extensions, google for enable it), it is for the step 3.
1.2 (Testing MTP) We will need to use MTP while we are in the recovery mode, so first let's test it in Android. While the phone is fully booted in Android and in the launcher screen (if starting for the first time, skip all the tutorial with whatever info), plug the phone to the computer, and in the phone swipe down the notifications bar, you should see a notification saying something of MTP or wired connection, activate MTP. Now in the computer, open My Computer and you should see Mi4C there, open it and try to navigate and create a folder, if all is ok, it works. If you are not able to create a folder o transfer any file from your computer, do not continue until this is fixed.
2. (Fastboot) First, keep the TWRP folder open and the recovery.bat file visible. Unplug the phone and put it in Fastboot mode (power it off, then Power and Vol- for a few seconds)
3. (Recovery flashing) Just execute the recovery.bat file (double click) and press a key if it asks for it (there should appear a green window with text). Done, recovery flashed (read text to see if everything is done). Now with TWRP installed, you won't need anymore (you shouldn't) the computer for using fastboot, now only for transfering the ROM files to the phone to use it from the TWRP.
4. (Wiping) Now let's boot into Recovery mode (TWRP in this case), two ways for it: you can Power and Vol+ while it is powered off, or you can boot Android, go into Settings, About phone, updates and in the 3 dot menu, there is a button for booting into recovery.
Note about the first TWRP start, it should appear this screenshot
Just press on never show again and swipe. Now, in TWRP, enter Wipe, select all partitions and wipe them all, it should appear an error about usb otg, doesn't matter, wipe is done correctly. Now you need to reboot into Recovery mode again, needed when wiping partitions another than cache or dalvik cache (if you don't reboot now, it won't let you flash), so press the mid button in the navigation bar to go to the main menu, and enter in Reboot > reboot recovery. If a message of "no OS installed" or "install supersu" appears, say no or ignore
5. (Flash!) Now, with the phone plugged, MTP should be working, so now you have to transfer the ROM, gapps and supersu files (gapps=google apps; gapps and supersu if needed as i explained in step 1). Now in the phone, press install, select the ROM, then add zip, select the gapps, add zip, supersu, and then swipe, a minute later there should appear a reboot system (android) button and the wipe cache button, first press wipe cache button, do it, and then reboot system.
Congratulations, now you can consider yourself a h4k3r, next step hacking into NSA maybe or something? Wait for the guide
From now on, flashing will usually consist in downloading the rom file from the phone (or from the computer and then transfer to the phone) and with the same gapps and supersu files downloaded above, you can flash, and then wipe cache. This is a dirty flash, only do it if updating a ROM, if going o another type of rom you must clean flash, which is done by first wiping all partitions as done in step 4 (note: all personal data would be lost, backup with titanium backup for example, and transfer all files to computer)
SECTION 4: Summary of ROMs available to our phone
MIUI: the ROM that comes with the phone, made by Xiaomi, full of features, loved by ones, hated by others
-MIUI chinese: the original official Xiaomi one, only in english and chinese languages, and comes with preinstalled chinese apps. Two variations: stable (released like once per month) and weekly
-MIUI .eu: modified version of the chinese, removed preinstalled chinese apps, a lot of languages included. Also comes in stable and weekly versions.
CyanogenMod: is a proyect which purpose is to make the full ROM open sourcered, and include more features than the official Google Android ROM doesn't include.
-CM from Kumajaya: most popular edition for our phone, this guy is doing a very good job with the kernel, making the ROM very stable and battery efficient.
-CM from Team Superluminal (TSL): they were the first to bring us CM, is not open sourcered (or at least is not their main job, as opposed to kuma) but is pretty stable, more recommended for noobies, kuma is more for staying up to date frequently
Resurrection Remix: a ROM that brings together a lot of different ROMs, unifying a lot of features. In Mi4C is a bit unstable for now, but is a matter of time.
Moke
SLIM
And I add here a link for a nice unlocking bootloader guide http://forum.xda-developers.com/mi-4c/general/guide-unlocking-mi4c-bl-verification-t3336779
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello Akrai,
First of all, I wanna thank you all your effort and dedication in helping us to fiddle with our smartphones. Thanks to people like you, the rest of us can enjoy greater funcionality and custome options.
On the other hand, I've got a doubt that I'd love you could shed light on. You'll see: not long ago I acquire a Xiaomi Mi4c device & my intention is being able to have added features of development in case I'd feel like trying things. However, I currently just want to have available tools as the recovery flashed and root access without getting to change to an EU version ROM, I mean, keeping the official developer ROM that it's already installed.
So, here my question: can I install the recovery without needing to change at ROM.eu and, therefore, avoiding to reinstall the Oficial developer one again? If I want to keep the aforementioned ROM, is that one which I've got to insert on the root folder of the phone?
Lastly, in the official ROM you can be root through the Security App/permissions. So, ¿Do I need equally to get SuperSU? Because It's not necessary to obtain root by other way running the official developer, right? I unlocked the bootloader and enabled root access already, certainly.
Thank you so much beforehand. I hope that I expressed myself clearly enough and so you can help me.
Greetings!
Lucas ^^.
Thanks a lot!!
Thanks a lot!! This is the first time I am using your post to clean-up a Xiaomi Mi4C of chinese bloatware, unlock and install a custom ROM from your particular google drive links... Am going to bookmark this for further use!!
Thanks a lot, very informative and descriptive...:good:
Can this method still relevant today on MIUI 9.2.2.0?
Hey, I have my Mi4C on MIUI 9.2.2.0 stable china. Can this method work for my phone now?
I have problem with mi flash unlock.
Long ago when I purchased this phone, it used a “reseller” ROM and this method worked just fine.
Anyone?
Sorry wrong thread. I should post in unlocking guide
I have been derailing the internet trying to figure out some way to root my device with and without usb connecting it to my mac. Frankly, as far as I can tell my mac and my phone won't support mass storage of android so odin etc seems out of the question. I just want to find a way to get my phone rooted (tried kingroot and it asked for computer and I've a mac so there you have it). Please if anyone could help me find a simple, maybe even complicated way to root my s6 (it's updated fully).
Define without USB? Like no OTG USB Storage or no USB cable? If that's the case then you're asking how to root the device without a computer which afaik with Samsung isn't an easy deed (perhaps not possible).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Firstly, you do this at your own risk. Js.
However.. If you can get it up and going on your Mac then try out Heimdall (the Mac/Linux Odin alternative some whiz managed to reverse engineer).
P.S. I have Linux but I've seen Heimdall is available on Mac, unfortunately I can't step you through installation.
https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2118100
Go to the TWRP.ME site and locate your device and download the latest TWRP image (should be 3.1.1.0)
https://dl.twrp.me/zerofltetmo/
Download dm-verity encryption disabler (without this, it's likely things won't go as planned, it ensures you haven't modified system files etc)
https://androidfilebox.com/miscellaneous/dm-verity-and-forced-encryption-disabler/
Choose a Root method (personally I prefer Magisk but for a first time superuser provider I would recommend SuperSu:
https://download.chainfire.eu/1114/SuperSU/SR1-SuperSU-v2.82-SR1-20170608224931.zip
[ PLACE PHONE IN DOWNLOAD MODE: Hold VOL-DOWN + HOME + LOCK, then press VOL-UP ]
1. Go to Utilities Tab
2. Click Detect Device; if it is not detected you have a problem (find fix then go to Step 3)
3. Output reads Device detected; beneath Download PIT save the file somewhere (e.g. Documents/s6.pit)
4. Go to Flash Tab
5. Beneath Options > PIT, browse for the .pit file you saved in Step 3
6. On the right hand side, beneath Partitions (Files) click > Add, on the left change the partition name to Recovery (where it will ask for a recovery.img file)
--- READ STEPS 7-9 BEFORE YOU DO THEM ---
7. Select the TWRP.img you downloaded earlier
8. Click Start, pick your phone up (be careful not to disconnect it)
9. AS SOON AS THE SCREEN GOES BLACK, HOLD: VOL-UP + HOME + LOCK
--- READ STEPS 7-9 BEFORE YOU DO THEM ---
10. If done correctly (and your bootloader is unlocked, and your RA lock is disabled) you will be in TWRP Recovery. Swipe to allow system modifications (you can always come back here later, you asked for Root so this will suffice).
11. Use Finder (File Browser) to navigate onto the phone from your Mac and copy SuperSU and no-verity onto the Internal Storage
12. From TWRP (on the phone) tap on the Install tab and if you aren't able to see the two .zip files you copied over, you're probably in the / directory; navigate to /sdcard
13. Tap on the no-verity.zip first, continue through, don't worry about using multiple .zips just install and go back when it is complete
14. Tap on the SuperSU.zip. Continue through, same as previous step, this time backing out to the TWRP menu and tap on the Reboot Tab > Choose System
15. If prompted to install anything (TWRP) untick the boxes and tap do not install.
16. Your device should be rooted. Don't turn the phone off, don't panic. SuperSU can cause the first one or so boots to end prematurely and the device will reboot (don't be alarmed if it cuts out).
Note:
On the odd chance that your device is stuck in a bootloop or you are worried about 'bricking' the phone, the only way that can happen (afaik) is if you disconnect during important installations such as during the Odin/Heimdall flash process or TWRP (under certain circumstances, even during Odin/Heimdall you can normally pull through). Otherwise, you'll just end up with a soft-brick (99.9% of the time this is the only thing that happens)
glgl
New to this community I hope this post is welcome here. Thanks to many of you I got a successful first time root and thought I would make a decent guide for others that stumble across this eventually.
This guide is for Windows only. I'm sure it would work similarly on Linux, but this is specific to Windows.
I AM NOT RESPONSABLE FOR ANY DAMAGE OR BRICKED DEVICE. That is always a risk you take with rooting, altering any software/firmware. This method did work for me, and if followed correctly it should work for you. Make sure you are using the same device this guide is for. That all being said, if anything goes wrong, this device is very easy to fix bootloops, soft bricks etc. Carry on.
YOU WILL LOSE ALL YOUR DATA AND YOUR TABLET WILL BE RESET TO FACTORY DEFAULT!! BACKUP ANYTHING YOU DONT WANT TO LOSE BEFORE STARTING THIS ROOT.
YOU WILL NEED A COMPUTER. This is NOT a hardware only root, in this guide, again, we will be using Windows 10.
Before starting anything, this will be the software list you need to download and install before moving forward...
The latest release of Magisk: GitHub - topjohnwu/Magisk: The Magic Mask for Android v.25.2 was the latest release at the time of this post, it might be updated when you are reading this. It should still work the same.
Odin: https://forum.xda-developers.com/attachments/odin3-v3-14-1-zip.5158505/ this should be a direct download link. If you dont like that, here is a link to the XDA fourm itself, make sure to download the Odin3 3.14.1.zip, ( 3.13.1.zip is not a link, reddit just highlights it because of the .zip, you just need to scroll down and find it in the forum, should be 1st or second in the list) NOT THE PATCHED VERSION.
The Firmware for your device (SM-X200) This is where I got mine, mind you it's the USA version: https://samfw.com/firmware/SM-X200/XAR/X200XXU1AVC1 If you are out of the states, there is many other sources for your exact firmware version, just type the second half of your build number (starting with "X200...etc.' into the browser followed by firmware then "download". The build number can be found in the software information inside of the "About tablet" section at the bottom of your settings.
The Samsung USB drivers: Samsung Android USB Driver | Samsung Developers You will need these to ensure a proper connection between your PC and tablet
And finally, this is optional, this already patched boot.img file already converted to .tar: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Rm4BPaIVXWClhjKFencRnheJlDB3RRVm/view This is a working boot file, at least for me and many others on XDA, feel free to make your own if you wish, it will be explained in the guide below.
P.S Using the boot file above will save you some time and may help you avoid errors or crashes inside of odin or on your tablet. Also, better for those not as experienced.
The Guide now starts below.
Enable Dev options. (This is done by going into the "About Tablet" section at the very bottom of your settings, clicking "Software information", then clicking build number multiple times until a prompt shows up saying you are now a developer, or have unlocked dev settings.)
Enable OEM unlock inside of Developer settings.
Power off device, then hold both volume up and down buttons and plug your tablet into your PC to boot into download menu
Hold volume up once in download menu, to start OEM unlock prosses
When unlocked, the device with automatically factory reset
Set up device, Enable Wi-Fi either during or after setup prosses.
Re-Enable dev settings (as we did in step #1), and make sure "Enable OEM unlock" Is on and or grayed out.
Download latest firmware for your device and extract it using 7zip, (Link for firmware is at the begining of this guide) there should now be a list of 4 files starting with BL_, AP_, CSC_OMC, and HOME_CSC. (We won't be using HOME_CSC, more on that later).
Using Odin, install the AP BL and CSC . In the BL slot, click the BL, then go to the extracted firmware from earlier and select the file the file that starts with "BL_X200". Then give it a second to load in, move to the AP section. Click AP, then select the file from the extracted file again, that starts with "AP". And for CSC, select the file "CSC_OMC..." Not the "CSC_HOME..." After all the files are in the correct slots, click Start at the bottom of the Odin3 application.
Once odin is finished, you need to boot back into stock OS by holding down volume and power button to get out of download menu, if prompted to push power button during boot, do so.
Go through the setup again, enable Wi-Fi and check and make sure OEM unlock is still grayed out and enabled.
Download Magisk From there official GitHub on to your tablet (Link above)
Install Magisk
IMPORTANT!!
This is where you have two options, either skip these steps, and use the provided boot.img file, or make your own (this is harder, you may run into errors and issues, but most of you have been doing this much longer than me, this is just a guide from someone new to this, so I thought my incite may be easier to understand) SKIP STEPS #14-#21 if you chose to download the provided boot.tar file at the beginning of this guide. (I would recommend reading them still, because understanding the prosses will help with a successful root, whether or not you choose to make your own boot.img file, this advice is from experience. Knowledge is power, right?
14. If you choose to make your own patched boot file with magisk, go back to your PC, extract the "AP_X200..." file inside of the firmware file you already extracted, send that file to your Tab A8 (again this is for the SM-X200 ONLY!) via plugging your tablet into your laptop (MAKE SURE ITS POWERED ON AND UNLOCKED)
14.5. You will be prompted to allow data transfer between your tablet and the PC something like " allow this PC to access...etc". Allow it. Open your tablets root storage from the file manager on your windows computer. This PC, then select your tablet. You should see the root files.
15. Return back to the folder of the extracted AP_X200... file you extracted previously; it should be in a standard file format now, not a .tar file
16. Find the "Boot.img" file, copy it and return to your tablets root file
17. Paste the boot.img file you copied from the extracted AP_X200... file, into the root directory of your tablet. Then unplug your tablet and return to your tablet for the next step.
18. Open magisk, click install on the top option, to the right of "Magisk" NOT THE ONE THAT SAYS "App". Then click "Select and patch file" find your "boot.img" file you previously copied over to your tablet in step #16/#17, its often in recent files, but should always be in the tab "Galaxy tab A8" You can find that tab by tapping the hamburger icon (three horizontal lines) in the top left corner. Once there, select the "boot.img" file.
19. Once you find your file, click "Let's go" back in the main Magisk screen
20. Once completed, it should show that it installed the patched boot.img file in your tablets download directory. You have now successfully patched the boot file. If you get an error or a crash, try again. If you keep running into errors, make sure your file is the correct "boot.img" file. Don't be shy, re-read the guide, start over, if necessary, we haven't gone too far yet to try again.
21. Plug your tablet back into your PC, go back to your tablets root directory via your computers file manager, open whichever file Magisk installed its patched "boot.img" file (it should be in the downloads folder of your tablets root directory) copy it to your computer. You can move it anywhere but if you move it back to where the other firmware files that we downloaded and extracted are, you will need to right click the file, hover over 7zip, then click "Add to archive". Then, in the section of the options where it says "archive format" change the file type to tar. You will need to do this step either way, but make sure it's done BEFORE moving it to the other files we extracted earlier, because it will prompt you to replace the file, we don't want to do that.
22. Now take your tablet, unplug it if it's still plugged in, and power off. Once it's powered down completely, hold both the volume up and down buttons like earlier to get into download mode when unlocking the OEM, and plug it into the PC (WHILE STILL HOLDING THE VOLUME BUTTONS UNTIL THE MENU APPEARS). Once the download menu appears, (should be familiar by now) click once on the up-volume button, and you will now be ready to download your files to root your device! Yayy!
23. Open Odin3, and it should have on the left a, "Log" info box, "<ID: somthing/somthing> Added! ("something/something will be numbers, just make sure it says added, that means it sees your Tablet is in download mode and ready for your patched files"
24. You will see 4 slots to the right of the Log page inside of Odin. They will read (top to bottom) "BL", "AP", "CP", "CSC, and "USER DATA". Only BL, AP, and CSC will be used in this prosses, and should be the only ones with check marks to the left of them. If the check marks are not checked, check them.
25. Now, (don't worry almost done!) In the BL slot, click the BL box, go to the extracted firmware from earlier (Step 8) and select the file the file that starts with "BL_X200". Then give it a second to load in, move to the AP section. Select it, then find your boot.img file you made using magisk, or downloaded via the link at the top of this post. Select it, and now move on to CSC. Click it, find your "CSC_OMC" file (you might get away with using the CSC_HOME..." file, but at this point your tablet shouldn't have anything you want to save, as it should have been wiped when unlocking the bootloader, so just take my advice and use the stock CSC_OMC file.
26. Now, you should have files in the BL slot, the AP slot, and the CSC slot. Double check and make sure there are nothing in the "CP" slot, nor the "USERDATA" slot. Once you are ready, and all files are in the correct slots, and your tablet is ready to start downloading, (should have an empty progress bar under the "cancel" instructions on your tablet screen) go ahead and click " Start" at the bottom of the Odin application.
27. This prosses should be relatively quick, less than a minute, but in my many tries, sometimes it was quick, other times it took a minute or two. Once done, the Odin app on your PC should read "Pass" in a green box towards the top right corner of the app, under the Odin logo.
28. Proceed to shut down the device, by holding down on the Power and Volume Down keys, once the screen goes black, lift off the power AND volume down key, and immediately press down on the Power key (again) and the Volume UP this time. (Some guides have said it's not necessary to release from the power key when the black screen starts, and to only change from the volume down key to the volume up key, but in my experience, this may lead to a bootloop *Don't worry, it's fixable*. So, I recommend you lift off both and then immediately start clicking the power *again* and volume up) This should bring you into the system recovery menu. Use the volume down key to scroll down, and the volume up key for up, the power button is to select the option in the menu. Scroll down to "Wipe data/factory reset" and select it. Confirm when prompted, and it will reset your device using the firmware you just installed.
29. Setup as usual, enable the Wi-Fi, double check that OEM unlock is still enabled and grayed out in the developer menu (you will have to re enable the dev menu). Then go to Chrome, type in "Root checker apk" and download the apk, should be available in the first or second result of Google. MAKE sure to allow Chrome downloads, it will prompt you when the apk is downloaded. Open it, and check for Root. This is when I got a pop-up from Magisk, but it may happen at any time. Whenever it happens, just follow its instructions, it will reboot your tablet, then when it's powered back on, go back to root checker. When you check for root, wait a couple seconds, a pop up should show up with a count down, allow it, and it will show that you...are now...ROOTED!
YAY, you did it congratulations. This took me probably 12 hours and many different forums, because there has been a great debate on how to do this properly, but from what I've experienced this is all the right info and guides shoved into one. Many thanks to the XDA forums, and especially user "tofor" on the XDA forums, for the patched boot file when people where still having issues making their own.
I may make a YouTube video explaining all this, but I'm not super into the idea. We will see, depends how this post does and if people still need help. Again, I'm not a pro when it comes to rooting. I'm a nerd, I know my way around tech, but I was an iPhone kid, so I grew up with jailbreaking, which was 100% easier cause most the work was done for you. That all being said, I'm sure I missed some terms, or dint explain something perfectly, so please, to all of you who are much more experienced with this, FEEL FREE TO CORRECT ME!! Have any questions, I'll try to get to them, but I'm not super active. If I don't get to you, I'm sure somebody will. I really hope this helps; this was hell for me.
Great job on the guide! Worked perfectly for me on the 1st try!
Thanks for the guide, also there is TWRP out there now for this tablet
[RECOVERY][UNOFFICIAL] TWRP 3.7.0 for 2021 Galaxy Tab A8 10.5 [SM-X200]
Notes: What's posted below is a work in progress, but it should suffice to unblock efforts to build custom ROMs for this impressive tablet. This is unofficial and unsupported, so the usual caveats apply. Since we don't flash the bootloader, you...
forum.xda-developers.com
On step 25 for "Then give it a second to load in, move to the AP section. Select it, then find your boot.img" when I try to add the boot.img in the AP section it does not show the boot.img for me to select like it does with the other files.
Edit: I found out I needed to select the .tar and not extract and select the boot.img
Edit: Rooted doing what I need now! Thank you for such an awesome tutorial!
Sorry new to rooting here, for Step 8 do I need to go to the blue download screen for Odin to work? My odin is stuck on setupconnection
I only want to change the ''tap'' sounds when the display is touched. Do I really need to do all of this (root access) or is there an easier way to do that? This seems like a lot of work and I use this tablet regularly.
Hello and Thank you for your work.
Do you think your guide works for android 12? knowing that I found my version on samfw.com, namely the X200XXU1BVI6 version (CSC European Union). Thank you.
SerielRipou said:
Hello and Thank you for your work.
Do you think your guide works for android 12? knowing that I found my version on samfw.com, namely the X200XXU1BVI6 version (CSC European Union). Thank you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes the only thing i did was
extract the boot.img from the tar
put it on my phone patched it with magisk
put the new patched file on my pc.
created a new ap tar using all the old files it had except i added the new patched boot.img
after all files are in i created the .tar
used the same BL_X200XXU1BVI6_X200XXU1B
used the new ar has all original files except the modified boot.img
used the same CSC_XAR_X200XAR1BVI6
it worked super su says its rooted. been at it all morning coudl not have done it without this guide
Got as far as step 28, where things went a bit off.
After the download from odin was complete, the device immediately shut down and starting going through a bootloop without me having touched power or volume at all.
Then after getting into the system recovery menu and doing a factory reset, it didn't reset the device with the firmware and when trying to power it on it just remained in the same bootloop as before doing the factory reset.
I'm using the boot.img file with firmware EUX - SMX200XXS1BVJ1 which I'm pretty confident is the correct version as it matches the build number on the device.
This is what I get on the system recovery after doing a factory reset.
at step 28 your supposed to
"Wipe data/factory reset" and select it. Confirm when prompted, and it will reset your device using the firmware you just installed.
it reinstalls the tablets new firmware
edit - it wont just start up the tablet like everything is brand new out of the box. thats why you need to "Wipe data/factory reset
I did factory reset. That's what produced the lines after -- Wiping data...
After factory resetting it doesn't seem to install anything and just goes right back to the system recovery menu. Rebooting the device at that point just has it going back into a bootloop.
Got it working.
Had to redownload the firmware from step 8 onto the device and then use magisk to make my own boot.img
Things to note in case anyone needs them is that the file magisk makes might not be called boot.img, in which case you do need to rename it to boot.img for it to work and also if you get stuck with being unable to access the download mode on your device, you can use FRP HiJacker to fix it.
I'm also stuck on "SetupConnection" in Odin. I enabled USB debugging, but that didn't seem to help.
Worked, thanks for this tutorial and your work with it.
regards
mkpcxxl
Hello, I conjured up the Android 13 on the A8 today. But unfortunately I can't get it rooted. The root checker says it's not rooted. What do I have to do to make it count as rooted again?
I got it solved myself and now have Android 13 on Samsung A8 (x200) and rooted :-D
Worked for me.
I initially had issues and thought I had bricked it, but a combination of Odin issues and possibly cable/bad firmware issues caused the problems and not this guide.
Nice one.
Sync999 said:
New to this community I hope this post is welcome here. Thanks to many of you I got a successful first time root and thought I would make a decent guide for others that stumble across this eventually.
This guide is for Windows only. I'm sure it would work similarly on Linux, but this is specific to Windows.
I AM NOT RESPONSABLE FOR ANY DAMAGE OR BRICKED DEVICE. That is always a risk you take with rooting, altering any software/firmware. This method did work for me, and if followed correctly it should work for you. Make sure you are using the same device this guide is for. That all being said, if anything goes wrong, this device is very easy to fix bootloops, soft bricks etc. Carry on.
YOU WILL LOSE ALL YOUR DATA AND YOUR TABLET WILL BE RESET TO FACTORY DEFAULT!! BACKUP ANYTHING YOU DONT WANT TO LOSE BEFORE STARTING THIS ROOT.
YOU WILL NEED A COMPUTER. This is NOT a hardware only root, in this guide, again, we will be using Windows 10.
Before starting anything, this will be the software list you need to download and install before moving forward...
The latest release of Magisk: GitHub - topjohnwu/Magisk: The Magic Mask for Android v.25.2 was the latest release at the time of this post, it might be updated when you are reading this. It should still work the same.
Odin: https://forum.xda-developers.com/attachments/odin3-v3-14-1-zip.5158505/ this should be a direct download link. If you dont like that, here is a link to the XDA fourm itself, make sure to download the Odin3 3.14.1.zip, ( 3.13.1.zip is not a link, reddit just highlights it because of the .zip, you just need to scroll down and find it in the forum, should be 1st or second in the list) NOT THE PATCHED VERSION.
The Firmware for your device (SM-X200) This is where I got mine, mind you it's the USA version: https://samfw.com/firmware/SM-X200/XAR/X200XXU1AVC1 If you are out of the states, there is many other sources for your exact firmware version, just type the second half of your build number (starting with "X200...etc.' into the browser followed by firmware then "download". The build number can be found in the software information inside of the "About tablet" section at the bottom of your settings.
The Samsung USB drivers: Samsung Android USB Driver | Samsung Developers You will need these to ensure a proper connection between your PC and tablet
And finally, this is optional, this already patched boot.img file already converted to .tar: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Rm4BPaIVXWClhjKFencRnheJlDB3RRVm/view This is a working boot file, at least for me and many others on XDA, feel free to make your own if you wish, it will be explained in the guide below.
P.S Using the boot file above will save you some time and may help you avoid errors or crashes inside of odin or on your tablet. Also, better for those not as experienced.
The Guide now starts below.
Enable Dev options. (This is done by going into the "About Tablet" section at the very bottom of your settings, clicking "Software information", then clicking build number multiple times until a prompt shows up saying you are now a developer, or have unlocked dev settings.)
Enable OEM unlock inside of Developer settings.
Power off device, then hold both volume up and down buttons and plug your tablet into your PC to boot into download menu
Hold volume up once in download menu, to start OEM unlock prosses
When unlocked, the device with automatically factory reset
Set up device, Enable Wi-Fi either during or after setup prosses.
Re-Enable dev settings (as we did in step #1), and make sure "Enable OEM unlock" Is on and or grayed out.
Download latest firmware for your device and extract it using 7zip, (Link for firmware is at the begining of this guide) there should now be a list of 4 files starting with BL_, AP_, CSC_OMC, and HOME_CSC. (We won't be using HOME_CSC, more on that later).
Using Odin, install the AP BL and CSC . In the BL slot, click the BL, then go to the extracted firmware from earlier and select the file the file that starts with "BL_X200". Then give it a second to load in, move to the AP section. Click AP, then select the file from the extracted file again, that starts with "AP". And for CSC, select the file "CSC_OMC..." Not the "CSC_HOME..." After all the files are in the correct slots, click Start at the bottom of the Odin3 application.
Once odin is finished, you need to boot back into stock OS by holding down volume and power button to get out of download menu, if prompted to push power button during boot, do so.
Go through the setup again, enable Wi-Fi and check and make sure OEM unlock is still grayed out and enabled.
Download Magisk From there official GitHub on to your tablet (Link above)
Install Magisk
IMPORTANT!!
This is where you have two options, either skip these steps, and use the provided boot.img file, or make your own (this is harder, you may run into errors and issues, but most of you have been doing this much longer than me, this is just a guide from someone new to this, so I thought my incite may be easier to understand) SKIP STEPS #14-#21 if you chose to download the provided boot.tar file at the beginning of this guide. (I would recommend reading them still, because understanding the prosses will help with a successful root, whether or not you choose to make your own boot.img file, this advice is from experience. Knowledge is power, right?
14. If you choose to make your own patched boot file with magisk, go back to your PC, extract the "AP_X200..." file inside of the firmware file you already extracted, send that file to your Tab A8 (again this is for the SM-X200 ONLY!) via plugging your tablet into your laptop (MAKE SURE ITS POWERED ON AND UNLOCKED)
14.5. You will be prompted to allow data transfer between your tablet and the PC something like " allow this PC to access...etc". Allow it. Open your tablets root storage from the file manager on your windows computer. This PC, then select your tablet. You should see the root files.
15. Return back to the folder of the extracted AP_X200... file you extracted previously; it should be in a standard file format now, not a .tar file
16. Find the "Boot.img" file, copy it and return to your tablets root file
17. Paste the boot.img file you copied from the extracted AP_X200... file, into the root directory of your tablet. Then unplug your tablet and return to your tablet for the next step.
18. Open magisk, click install on the top option, to the right of "Magisk" NOT THE ONE THAT SAYS "App". Then click "Select and patch file" find your "boot.img" file you previously copied over to your tablet in step #16/#17, its often in recent files, but should always be in the tab "Galaxy tab A8" You can find that tab by tapping the hamburger icon (three horizontal lines) in the top left corner. Once there, select the "boot.img" file.
19. Once you find your file, click "Let's go" back in the main Magisk screen
20. Once completed, it should show that it installed the patched boot.img file in your tablets download directory. You have now successfully patched the boot file. If you get an error or a crash, try again. If you keep running into errors, make sure your file is the correct "boot.img" file. Don't be shy, re-read the guide, start over, if necessary, we haven't gone too far yet to try again.
21. Plug your tablet back into your PC, go back to your tablets root directory via your computers file manager, open whichever file Magisk installed its patched "boot.img" file (it should be in the downloads folder of your tablets root directory) copy it to your computer. You can move it anywhere but if you move it back to where the other firmware files that we downloaded and extracted are, you will need to right click the file, hover over 7zip, then click "Add to archive". Then, in the section of the options where it says "archive format" change the file type to tar. You will need to do this step either way, but make sure it's done BEFORE moving it to the other files we extracted earlier, because it will prompt you to replace the file, we don't want to do that.
22. Now take your tablet, unplug it if it's still plugged in, and power off. Once it's powered down completely, hold both the volume up and down buttons like earlier to get into download mode when unlocking the OEM, and plug it into the PC (WHILE STILL HOLDING THE VOLUME BUTTONS UNTIL THE MENU APPEARS). Once the download menu appears, (should be familiar by now) click once on the up-volume button, and you will now be ready to download your files to root your device! Yayy!
23. Open Odin3, and it should have on the left a, "Log" info box, "<ID: somthing/somthing> Added! ("something/something will be numbers, just make sure it says added, that means it sees your Tablet is in download mode and ready for your patched files"
24. You will see 4 slots to the right of the Log page inside of Odin. They will read (top to bottom) "BL", "AP", "CP", "CSC, and "USER DATA". Only BL, AP, and CSC will be used in this prosses, and should be the only ones with check marks to the left of them. If the check marks are not checked, check them.
25. Now, (don't worry almost done!) In the BL slot, click the BL box, go to the extracted firmware from earlier (Step 8) and select the file the file that starts with "BL_X200". Then give it a second to load in, move to the AP section. Select it, then find your boot.img file you made using magisk, or downloaded via the link at the top of this post. Select it, and now move on to CSC. Click it, find your "CSC_OMC" file (you might get away with using the CSC_HOME..." file, but at this point your tablet shouldn't have anything you want to save, as it should have been wiped when unlocking the bootloader, so just take my advice and use the stock CSC_OMC file.
26. Now, you should have files in the BL slot, the AP slot, and the CSC slot. Double check and make sure there are nothing in the "CP" slot, nor the "USERDATA" slot. Once you are ready, and all files are in the correct slots, and your tablet is ready to start downloading, (should have an empty progress bar under the "cancel" instructions on your tablet screen) go ahead and click " Start" at the bottom of the Odin application.
27. This prosses should be relatively quick, less than a minute, but in my many tries, sometimes it was quick, other times it took a minute or two. Once done, the Odin app on your PC should read "Pass" in a green box towards the top right corner of the app, under the Odin logo.
28. Proceed to shut down the device, by holding down on the Power and Volume Down keys, once the screen goes black, lift off the power AND volume down key, and immediately press down on the Power key (again) and the Volume UP this time. (Some guides have said it's not necessary to release from the power key when the black screen starts, and to only change from the volume down key to the volume up key, but in my experience, this may lead to a bootloop *Don't worry, it's fixable*. So, I recommend you lift off both and then immediately start clicking the power *again* and volume up) This should bring you into the system recovery menu. Use the volume down key to scroll down, and the volume up key for up, the power button is to select the option in the menu. Scroll down to "Wipe data/factory reset" and select it. Confirm when prompted, and it will reset your device using the firmware you just installed.
29. Setup as usual, enable the Wi-Fi, double check that OEM unlock is still enabled and grayed out in the developer menu (you will have to re enable the dev menu). Then go to Chrome, type in "Root checker apk" and download the apk, should be available in the first or second result of Google. MAKE sure to allow Chrome downloads, it will prompt you when the apk is downloaded. Open it, and check for Root. This is when I got a pop-up from Magisk, but it may happen at any time. Whenever it happens, just follow its instructions, it will reboot your tablet, then when it's powered back on, go back to root checker. When you check for root, wait a couple seconds, a pop up should show up with a count down, allow it, and it will show that you...are now...ROOTED!
YAY, you did it congratulations. This took me probably 12 hours and many different forums, because there has been a great debate on how to do this properly, but from what I've experienced this is all the right info and guides shoved into one. Many thanks to the XDA forums, and especially user "tofor" on the XDA forums, for the patched boot file when people where still having issues making their own.
I may make a YouTube video explaining all this, but I'm not super into the idea. We will see, depends how this post does and if people still need help. Again, I'm not a pro when it comes to rooting. I'm a nerd, I know my way around tech, but I was an iPhone kid, so I grew up with jailbreaking, which was 100% easier cause most the work was done for you. That all being said, I'm sure I missed some terms, or dint explain something perfectly, so please, to all of you who are much more experienced with this, FEEL FREE TO CORRECT ME!! Have any questions, I'll try to get to them, but I'm not super active. If I don't get to you, I'm sure somebody will. I really hope this helps; this was hell for me.
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what about android 13 on on sm-x200 is it same as these steps just use the tar for the android 13 build u r on? or no?
ignore this post.
So no root for android 13 ? if u find root could u share n ill do same if i fine a way.