Database Info

Recovery Mode

I touched on this in a couple of threads in development and want to get an idea if this is an issue all Inspires. We get into Hboot/Recovery mode by holding the "volume down" and "power" for about 5 seconds. For me though, this doesn't work when the phone is completely shut down. It works great if I does this during a restart though.
Why this matters?...Let's say you flash a ROM and can't get past the white logo (happened to me many a day on the captiavte ) without being able to enter recovery mode the phone will go into an endless bootloop.
Let me know if anyone of you have any issues entering hboot/recovery from shutdown.
******SOLVED*******
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=11439830&postcount=87

fastboot disable!

mattbollenbach said:
yeah, i've noticed its been tricky to get into recovery mode from a solid shutdown. not sure why though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tricky or impossible . I've been trying for the past hour. What did you do to get it to work?

Geesh. An hour later still no luck entering recovery from shutdown.
Sent from my Inspire 4G or Desire HD or whatever this thing is called via XDA app.

So if you have a bad kernel or Rom there is no way to get back? That Is quite worrisome, making me reconsider the captivate...
Sent from my Inspire '4g'.

hololight said:
So if you have a bad kernel or Rom there is no way to get back? That Is quite worrisome, making me reconsider the captivate...
Sent from my Inspire '4g'.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Percisely what concerns me.

I'm sure you remember that on the Captivate, you can hold volume buttons and plug in USB to go straight to download mode as well. Maybe the Inspire is the same way?
EDIT: I do have CM installed, but I held Volume Down and plugged in USB and it went into Recovery.

The phone hasn't even been out a week; I'm sure all these things with kernels and radios will become easier and more clarified with time.
As far as booting into recovery goes, I'm still not sure what the deal is.
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App

Soved. Disabling fastboot corrects things.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=11439830&postcount=87

You mean disable fastboot on a working phone... lol. That's the potential issue I think we are concerned with. Isn't fastboot in the settings?
Sent from my Inspire '4g'.

hololight said:
You mean disable fastboot on a working phone... lol. That's the potential issue I think we are concerned with. Isn't fastboot in the settings?
Sent from my Inspire '4g'.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes but apparently a battery pull while the phone is off works just the same if you forget to disable fast boot (as I'm sure I will do )

I don't know what it is, but I've yet to be able to get it into recovery mode via the buttons. Well...that's not true, I've gotten into recovery after a battery pull by volume-down/power, but that's it.
Been having a lot of difficulties over the last day or so with the sdcard unmounting, usually accompanied with the error in the status bar. And apparently Rom Manager won't do reboot into recovery if it doesn't see the card :-/
So I've had several times now where I've wanted to get to recovery, and have to either get back to the computer for adb or do a battery pull.
Anyone else have troubles getting into recovery? I did disable the fast boot option in settings. (took me a minute to figure out that's what you guys were talking about, lol)

pendo said:
I don't know what it is, but I've yet to be able to get it into recovery mode via the buttons. Well...that's not true, I've gotten into recovery after a battery pull by volume-down/power, but that's it.
Been having a lot of difficulties over the last day or so with the sdcard unmounting, usually accompanied with the error in the status bar. And apparently Rom Manager won't do reboot into recovery if it doesn't see the card :-/
So I've had several times now where I've wanted to get to recovery, and have to either get back to the computer for adb or do a battery pull.
Anyone else have troubles getting into recovery? I did disable the fast boot option in settings. (took me a minute to figure out that's what you guys were talking about, lol)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've been seeing this the last day or two as well. Ejecting/Re-inserting SD card will usually remount ok. Anyone else seeing this?
I wasn't able to get to recovery from power off until I turned off fasboot, but then it booted right up with vol-/pwr.

Yea the 8gb card the phone came with, when I do a restart would not mount correctly once I got the phone booted back up, so I put a 16gb card that I had lying around into the phone and it doesn't do it now in a restart. Must be those cards that shipped with the phone, unless yours is doing it on a after market card.
Sent from my HTC Inspire 4G using XDA App

It's done it several times today. Just a few minutes ago I was browsing inside a zip file on the card with root explorer and then it cut me off with the error message that the SD card was unexpectedly removed.
Oh and I was able to enter recovery from a power off condition as described here (fast boot disabled in settings) But is there a way to do that when its on? Like with the N1 we can press volume-down/trackball/power and it will force a reboot.....anything equivalent on the inspire?

No reboot option in powermenu?
Sent from my Inspire '4g'.

***Really Solved***
So, pull the battery, take out your SIM (just in case) and your Micro SD card. Then hold down Volume Down and then press and hold (for a moment) the Power button; release the power button after a moment while continuing to hold the Volume Down button. The Bootloader screen will load up and you will now be able to use the Volume rocker to select Recovery. As soon as the phone starts to reboot in to Recovery put your Micro SD card back in. I know this works because I just saved myself from what I though was going to be a Warranty claim.

Restart into recover mode worked best!
lrs421 said:
I touched on this in a couple of threads in development and want to get an idea if this is an issue all Inspires. We get into Hboot/Recovery mode by holding the "volume down" and "power" for about 5 seconds. For me though, this doesn't work when the phone is completely shut down. It works great if I does this during a restart though.
Why this matters?...Let's say you flash a ROM and can't get past the white logo (happened to me many a day on the captiavte ) without being able to enter recovery mode the phone will go into an endless bootloop.
Let me know if anyone of you have any issues entering hboot/recovery from shutdown.
******SOLVED*******
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=11439830&postcount=87
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks a million...after flashing a different rom on my Inspire, I had a hard time getting into recovery mode...it most definitely worked best doing a restart rather than a full shut down!!

I screwed up a flashed a ROM from recovery that probably shouldn't have. I am unable to boot my phone (inspire 4g) and hangs at HTC screen. I can enter HBOOT screen however, recovery mode doesn't work. It's if the files needed to load into recovery aren't there. Any fix for this?
Thanks in advance

to enter recovery on DesireHD/Inspire 4G you must have your device booted up and hold down the power button. After that choose reboot. Then choose Recovery and press Ok. If you have a recovery installed it will reboot into that recovery if you have no recovery im not sure what will happen

[Q] Stuck at ASUS splash screen after April update (RESOLVED)

Ok so i've looked, cant find anything to help me out here... Its always possible i used the wrong search terms but i think i did pretty good...
Anyway, i had flashed i believe a CWM version of ICS when it first came out because it was easy to do, and i was able to keep root. Well I ended up with the CWM Recovery version that had the problem of constantly booting into CWM, so i fixed that and the tablet was telling me there was a firmware update, so i did it..
Now im stuck at the splash screen... When i try to boot into Recovery, it says its loading the recovery image but never does anything else. When i tried to load the other screen where you can choose recovery or the OS, i think people call it the linux screen? I dont remember, but when i did that, the big battery meter displayed on the phone for a second then disappeared... Wont turn on now, so i just plugged it in.. Is there something im missing? Or something i can do that anyone is aware of?

Check if the Android Debug Bridge works, and is your device a B60 or lower, (sbkv1)? If so you can use NvFlash to restore the tab.

Thing O Doom said:
Check if the Android Debug Bridge works, and is your device a B60 or lower, (sbkv1)? If so you can use NvFlash to restore the tab.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its B90, SBKv2...
Last time i tried to boot, i tried Power+Volume Up and i saw the large battery that android phones typically show when they are powered off and you plug it in.. If i remember right, TF101 typically boots up if you plug it in when turned on, but it turned on, flashed that battery image and shut off, havent been able to turn it on since... Plugging it into my computer though, it wont turn on, plugging it into the wall outlet it turns on and sticks at the splash screen, so i'm gonna leave it there for a bit and see if it charges, then i'll try plugging it into the comp to see if ADB works... I'll let you know, thanks!

To get to recovery its power +vol down. Power + vol up gets you to apex mode, blank screen.
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using xda premium

.....don't know if I read all your info correct but to enter recovery is volume down + power until you get a message at the top of the screen then you let go both and press volume up to enter recovery or if you don't hit volume up it takes you to the cold boot / wipe data screen.

Yes, i posted that... I tried booting to recovery and it freezes when it says its loading the recovery image.
I was trying other combinations trying to remember the linux screen or whatever it was called, but either way. ADB mode doesnt work, im stuck at the splash screen.

SOLUTION: Do not do the update after fixing your TF101 if you have this same problem, because you'll have it again! Either way, here's what you do.
1) Since you cant shut off the TF101, hold the power button until the screen goes blank, then immediately let go of the power button and hold volume down. 2) The splash screen will re-appear, dont let go of the Volume Down button until you see the text at the top left corner of the screen prompting you to press volume up to enter recovery.
2) Dont press Volume Up since it will freeze trying to get into recovery. Instead, just wait and make sure your not holding down or pressing any buttons.
3) After a few second, you will be presented with two icons, one to wipe data and one to boot android/linux, selecting android/linux WILL work and boot, but you'll have the same issue as before without fixing anything if you reboot again. Follow the instructions to wipe your data. YOU WILL LOSE EVERYTHING!
4) At this point, Recovery still wont work. Boot your TF101 and get it setup and use the Play Store to download a terminal emulator
5) Open the terminal emulator and type SU and press enter, confirm superuser access.
6) Type in the following and press enter when done: echo boot | dd of=/dev/block/mmcblk0p3 bs=1 seek=0
7) Restart your transformer, let it boot normally the first time, after that, recovery should work.
8) Problem solved, DONT install the update this time! Install a custom ROM the typical way using CWM, and your set!

So, one thing i've noticed is im being spammed out of my mind from the OS to do that system update, so i've found that the best thing to do once your bootable, is to flash a custom ROM.
I tried this but went back to the same ICS version I had before, and ran into the same problems. Ended up with a whole other ROM, and now all problems are solved!
Good luck to anyone that has this issue!

#3
so you lost all data, all apps, all settings, all the effort and work and time to config apps and settings... UGH
I am in the same boat on my TF201 after the JB update bricked my tablet... really pisses me off as Asus says RMA it (which you know they will just wipe your data) or wipe the data yourself and hop it works. So badly want to salvage my app settings and all the work I did to trick out my tablet. F***** Asus, their own update fried my tablet.

ODIN to stock without power button working? Is it possible?

Sorry for the long title but it states my predicament. Basically my power button is done and I can't boot into recovery anymore. It just is a endless cycle of reboots(vibrates everyone 15 seconds or so). I even tried to enter download mode, which it does but than restarts the bootloop issue. Anyhow, I've never used ODIN so someone please fill me in. I want to ODIN back to stock because it's my last hope and basically I can't get into recovery anymore anyway. But do I need to use my power button to ODIN? Also what if I can't get into ODIN mode because it just wants to continue to reboot. Any help? I'm at a lost here.
Oops, wrong section. Mods can you please move to Q&A...sorrrry.

tu3218 said:
Sorry for the long title but it states my predicament. Basically my power button is done and I can't boot into recovery anymore. It just is a endless cycle of reboots(vibrates everyone 15 seconds or so). I even tried to enter download mode, which it does but than restarts the bootloop issue. Anyhow, I've never used ODIN so someone please fill me in. I want to ODIN back to stock because it's my last hope and basically I can't get into recovery anymore anyway. But do I need to use my power button to ODIN? Also what if I can't get into ODIN mode because it just wants to continue to reboot. Any help? I'm at a lost here.
Oops, wrong section. Mods can you please move to Q&A...sorrrry.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Moved to Q and A. I suggest pulling your battery for at least thirty minutes or maybe an hour. Then put the battery back in(do not power on) and plug the phone into your charger and allow it to charge overnight. From what you have said the power button does indeed work but you have done something to your phone causing a boot loop. In the morning search XDA for Odin procedures (there are a plethora of them on XDA) and attempt your Odin to stock. If the phone continues to boot loop I hope you have insurance... I did this to my LG Optimus once... And couldn't save it...

VeNuM said:
Moved to Q and A. I suggest pulling your battery for at least thirty minutes or maybe an hour. Then put the battery back in(do not power on) and plug the phone into your charger and allow it to charge overnight. From what you have said the power button does indeed work but you have done something to your phone causing a boot loop. In the morning search XDA for Odin procedures (there are a plethora of them on XDA) and attempt your Odin to stock. If the phone continues to boot loop I hope you have insurance... I did this to my LG Optimus once... And couldn't save it...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It does "work" but not correctly. Apparency its a known issue and called SDS. basically the way it acts is that when I press the button, the phone
Is acting as if I pressed it twice. So I press it to turn screen off, screen comes right back on. Long press power button for reboot menu, flashes, dissapears and than comes right back. This I believe is why I can't boot into recovery or download mode. Not that the phones bricked, but the phone is having trouble recognizing power button hits.
So my last try was to Odin back to stock just to see if that helps. But when I hold the buttons down to get into download mode or select it in reboot menu, it boots into it real quick(I see download mode appear on screen) but than immediately starts looping. So when I use Odin, will it automatically boot into download mode for me? What about mobile Odin?
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda app-developers app

I had the same problem With my s3... It was out of warranty so I sent it to mobile tech videos to have the power switch repaired. It's been great ever since. I realize that doesn't really Answer your question about Odin, just figured I'd chime in with what I had to do. I was afraid to attempt to Odin or flash anything before the repair bc in my mind the phone believed the power button was being pressed repeatedly and that would make it interrupt the flash.

Also if you're under warranty, Samsung will most likely fix it despite being rooted. Mobile Tech Videos sounds like a great option too if you're out of warranty, glad to see there's an alternative way to get it fixed.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

I don't have the phone in question but for my Samsung Vibrant (Galaxy S, T-mo variant) if you press and hold the Volume Up button while plugging in the charger or say your computer's USB port the phone will boot into download mode. Not sure if it will work for the S3 though. Hopefully it does! :fingers-crossed:
Also, for my work around, I've mapped the Volume up button within ROMs to 'POWER WAKE' to replace the power button. It's not needed but its an easy way to reboot to recovery if its implemented in the Roms power menu. Occasionally the phone will crash or the battery may die. If I'm at home, that's an easy fix, just boot up download mode and flash a kernel/modem/recovery via odin and make sure auto reboot is selected. The phone should boot, granted there are no errors. The only problem I have is when it crashes or battery dies and I'm not at home I can't turn on the phone. If anyone knows a way around powering on or booting into recovery without the use of the power button or odin/download mode I will be eternally grateful. I'm try to get my Vibrant in working order for my father whose never had a Smart phone. I myself have upgraded to the s4 and am glad I stuck with what I knew instead of getting the HTC One. =]

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1931310
Read this thread. Power button issues on S2 might help and save you time and money. Or if you want to get into download mode use adb.. "adb reboot download " or can be done in terminal.
Sent from my SCH-I535

[Q] soft brick vibration issue

So while trying to put on a new ROM (I've rommed and done custom recoveries and radios on this phone before) I had TWRP recovery on it and the ROM I was going to wanted CWM on it, so I flashed that and on battery it will show Samsung logo then go into a 2 second vibrate boot loop.
None of the button combos work. I ordered a jig on ebay and it flashes download mode for about a second before it flashes again and goes into the 2 second vibrate mode again. I tried to go from jig to Odin and it saw it for a split second, but disconnected/failed as soon as it started looping.
I read about the power button issue and the behavior matches, but I know I was the one that messed this thing up.
Is the JTag repair service my only option at this point?
I got an S4 so I'm just trying to get this revived to get rid of it so too expensive and I'll just sell it for parts.
thanks in advance for the help!
Jeffro

jeffro7172 said:
I read about the power button issue and the behavior matches
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Focus on that.

theesotericone said:
Focus on that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The reason I dismissed that was because I actually did it twice.the first time I was able to get into odin.
So of course the next time I did it, I told it to reboot into recovery and that was the last command I gave it. Since recovery is hosed I think that's why it's just looping.
I guess it could be the power button but I think because I hosed recovery, it's just not booting.

This phone has a separate recovery partition. So even if you hosed the recovery it would still boot. Theory here, like I said I've never seen anyone report a recovery bootloop. I think it's just a timing issue. Power button happened to get stuck when you where flashing something. The fact that it won't hold DL mode further leads to the simple solution.
You got a stuck power button.

Isn't the sop for this problem a battery pull? If you take the battery out and put it back in and the phone tries to turn on by itself(lights or vibration) then it's a faulty power button.

jondroid2 said:
Isn't the sop for this problem a battery pull? If you take the battery out and put it back in and the phone tries to turn on by itself(lights or vibration) then it's a faulty power button.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
makes sense guys, that's what it does. Guess it just so happened to crap out right when I was messing with it. Thank you all, I'll head that route and see if I can get it revived.

It indeed revived with a take apart and some power button fiddling. Thank you all very much!

[Q] Help! Can't reboot into recovery...

Hello everyone. I have Katkiss Kitkat #19 and TWRP recovery 6.something but I can't remember which. Anyway, I use to reboot into recovery by holding down the Volume down, then press Volume up when prompted to get into recovery. Now the power and volume buttons are completely busted. I can't press any of them. And I need to go into recovery to flash the new Rom.
So, here is what I tried:
1. Rom Toolbox. I tried to "Reboot into recovery" option but it just reboots the ddevice.
2. Terminal emulator: su reboot recovery, it says reboot: no such order
3. Tried to hook it to my laptop and use ADB, but no devices attached. I have Windows 8.1 64 bit. I have Android drivers installed and in the device manager it say Asus ADB and it shows Asus in the "safely remove" but I still can't see it in the My computer. I have USB debugging on and it asked me to allow my laptop keys and I agreed. Still, ADB doesn't work.
I don't know what else can I do. I can't go into recovery, bootloader or APX mode without the power and volume buttons. Is there anything i can do, or am I stuck here?
Any help will be greatly appreciated...:crying:

There's a few different apps that let you boot to recovery
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.siriusapplications.quickboot
More
https://play.google.com/store/search?q=reboot to recovery&c=apps
When you say the power and volume buttons are completely busted, have you tried taking the plastic bezel off and pressing the micro buttons under the normal silver ones ?

*Detection* said:
There's a few different apps that let you boot to recovery
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.siriusapplications.quickboot
More
https://play.google.com/store/search?q=reboot to recovery&c=apps
When you say the power and volume buttons are completely busted, have you tried taking the plastic bezel off and pressing the micro buttons under the normal silver ones ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried the first one and six from the second link and none of them work. Actually, when I was installing Xposed, I pressed reboot, but it said Reboot: No such tool. I don't know what's going on.
The problem with the power button is that my kid dropped the tablet many times and it got so many dents, so I took of the casing (or whatever it's called0 and then straightened it out, out the buttons in their places and then glued it in place. Now it's really hard to press the power button (the one underneath) but it works. But how can I do that every time I want to power off or reboot into recovery, specially if there is a boot loop. I can't do anything except pressing the power button.
That's why I wanted an easy solution at least to reboot recovery.
May be I should take off the casing one more time and try to fix the power and volume buttons one more time.
I just want to thank you for your super fast reply and taking the time to find those apps.
Thanks a lot...

In the past, while still on stock ROM,I have been using this tool to overcome the missing "reboot to recovery" option in the regular Asus power menu: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.transformer.recovery
Now I have tested it on KK #19 and this tool apparently does not reboot the tablet BUT:
when I run this tool and then reboot the tablet normally (with the power menu...) I get into recovery.
So if you are already able to reboot normally through Rom Toolbox you might try to run this one first before rebooting with Rom Toolbox.
NOTE I imagine you are perfectly aware that you are playing with fire here.
In case your tablet gets into a boot-loop while installing the new ROM, you might end up with a useless tablet. Is it really worth the risk?

Aliante said:
In the past, while still on stock ROM,I have been using this tool to overcome the missing "reboot to recovery" option in the regular Asus power menu: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.transformer.recovery
Now I have tested it on KK #19 and this tool apparently does not reboot the tablet BUT:
when I run this tool and then reboot the tablet normally (with the power menu...) I get into recovery.
So if you are already able to reboot normally through Rom Toolbox you might try to run this one first before rebooting with Rom Toolbox.
NOTE I imagine you are perfectly aware that you are playing with fire here.
In case your tablet gets into a boot-loop while installing the new ROM, you might end up with a useless tablet. Is it really worth the risk?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK, you did it. You got me scared, so I separated the casing in the power button part and clicked on the original button with a small screwdriver and it worked. Also the volume buttons. Now I don't know what to do. May be the buttons are broken from the inside. I'll try to see if those are sold on ebay or something. If not, I'll try to attach something to them from the underside.
Anyway, I'm really grateful that you made me take this step. I'll fix it tomorrow first thing in the morning. Well, we both know I'm not gonna sleep until I get it fixed, hahaha.
Again, thanks a lot...