Hi guys, I'm fairly new to this whole ftf system so I am having a bit of trouble extracting the boot.img out of it. I am working on a pure stock 6.0 ROM but need the boot.img extracted, I already got the system just need boot. I have tried using flashtool to convert the boot.sin to a boot.img and it tried making a 450 terabyte file when I clicked dump data. Any advice would be great. I also just tried renaming extension but that yielded a black screen upon immediate boot.
As a side note I don't think this is even going to work because starting from 6.0 and above the file system changed from system folder to the new format with the .dat files and that really makes things even more complicated than they already are.
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I have spent several weeks working on this (reading thread after thread) on modifying stock firmware and im running into a problem. I more or less want to know if what i want to do is actually possible. I have downloaded the original .tar.md5 firmware image, opened with 7zip and "extracted" the .tar file (more or less just removed the hash) and then extracted the .img files from the .tar file. I have unpacked/mounted/modified/repacked using several methods (dsixda kitchen -which havent been able to work around adding the java path since after i add the path cygwin thinks im missing clean app until i remove the path in which case i get an error saying it cant find java/ i have tried mounting using ext4_utils in ubuntu) my issue arises when i take my modified and repacked system.img file i cant get it to work either by 1. zipping it in a .tar with the other .img files and flashing with odin, 2. zipping system.img alone into a .tar and flashing with odin, 3. installing cwm/root and flashing the system.img)
More or less my question is
1. is it possible to modify the stock firmware and load it onto the tablet without rooting
2. can system.img be flashed by itself or does it need the other .img files in the same .tar
3. does the tar file require being signed before flashing even with CWM recovery and root already on the tablet?
I have used these forums for a while to find answers, but i am new to posting, i havent needed to post a question until now since i spend as much time researching as i can before bothering people with a question (i like to figure stuff out and hate to admit defeat) Thanks in advance for the help despite my noobishness
Hello everyone,
I'm new to low-level Android hacking, so I guess I need some help.
What I am trying to do is getting the stock files from an LG E400, and modify 1-2 things, repack, flash, and see if it works for me.
My first step:
1) Rooting the LG E400
2) Flash CWM Recovery
3) Create a backup
4) Get boot.img from the backup.
So I have a boot.img (which I think is stock, because rooting does not modify the contents of the boot image as far as I know.)
After that, I followed this tutorial to extract the kernel and the ramdisk.
I used a hex editor for this. I saved the kernel and the ramdisk as separate files, and I tried to gunzip the ramdisk. That seemed to work. However, after that, when I try to run cpio on the file, I get a lot of "Malformed number" errors, and only two empty folders are extracted.
And that is where I'm stuck at.
Are the LG phone boot.img-s encrypted somehow? Am I doing something wrong?
If anyone can help me, I would be really grateful.
Thanks in advance
Hi Guys
I need some basic help/understanding about Android ROM modification.
In particular for an Android MX TV Box - but the questions is generic and applies to any ROM I guess.
The Rom im flashing has the following files (and works perfectly):
factory_update_param.aml
hd18d_mx4.zip
recovery.img
I am able to successfully restore my box with this image (so I know that the image is working fine).
Within the hd18d_mx4.zip there is:
Directotories: data, META-INF, recovery, system
files: boot.img, bootloaded.img, logo.img
I tried to do a very basic step of deleting a single system.apk file from the system/app folder (no other changes) and I am unable to flash this firmware.
Any ides - what am i doing wrong?? It seems like i cant make any modifications to the zip file or there are problems.
I tried using dsixda Rom kitchen, and even if put rom in working directory, and then immediately
Please help - this is driving me mad!! Aaarrghghg
Note: OTA updates don't work on my Nexus 5 due to TWRP blocking them. Now my phone doesn't recognize the OTA update anymore (When my phone went to install the OTA updated and rebooted, it rebooted into TWRP instead and completely ignores the updates existence since then). To fix this I plan to simply push the factory img of 5.0.1 to my device directly. I downloaded the factory .img from Google's website .
However instead of a .img file i'm used to, I got a .tgz. I extracted that and got a .tar and then extracted that to finally get my folder with the .img files. However now I'm not sure which one to push to my device. There is a img file called "radio-hammerhead-m8974a-2.0.50.2.22.img" but judging by the file size, I don't think that's the correct one (only 45MB). There is a .zip file called "image-hammerhead-lrx22c.zip" but this contains multiple .img files, the largest one called "system.img". I'm guessing this is the correct one to push to my device via adb since it's about 1GB in size?
I suspect pushing the entire .zip file to my phone and flashing that would be bad as it looks like it'll overwrite TWRP?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Here's a lot of useful information about OTA's Check it out: http://forum.xda-developers.com/google-nexus-5/general/info-nexus-5-ota-help-desk-t2523217
You'll need boot and system at least,
If you plan on keeping twrp and root, you may as well just flash one of the flashable zips already available in the development forum
Actually you should have a radio and bootloader img file. First one is - as the name says - the latest radio software (which is needed for GPS, WiFi, cellular network and so on). Second one is the latest bootloader. I'd update them both.
From the zip archive you should only flash certain imgs - if you flash all your data will be wiped (factory reset). What img files does the zip contain?
Why are you pushing them to your phone? You need to flash with fastboot from your computer. There is not just one img file for the update, there are several for different partitions on the phone. Have a look through some of the guides in the general section. Also, flashing one of the stock flashable zips would be much faster, but why not learn a little as you update.
Vomer has a thread of flashable 5.0 and 5.0.1 stock Google ROMs. Don't worry about factory images because you will lose everything once you flash these and it's a much bigger pain imo to back everything including internal on your phone up.
snappycg1996 said:
Don't worry about factory images because you will lose everything once you flash these
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not necessarily true.
You can flash bootloader, radio, and system without losing anything. You'll just have to reroot afterward.
Welcome. Today I am going to teach you how to modify your android boot logo!
Modify at your own risk! I strongly recommend that you do not try this. But if your going to attempt this, make a BACKUP! I will explain the backup process down the page!
This method has been tested on the Galaxy S6. I RECOMMEND you do NOT attempt this method on any other smartphone other than the S6!
I own a Samsung Galaxy S6 [SDK21 ARM64] and my carrier is Straighttalk. This method might possibly work with the newer Android smartphones. In other words, attempting to do my method will probably not work with androids running 4.4.2 or lower. I will first explain why.
According to what I researched, there is a file in the root directory of the Android system that contains a file called "initlogo.rle". That is your boot logo. Older Android phones had this. The .rle is a bitmap extension and cannot be edited with Android. Actually, let me rephrase that, the .rle COULD MAYBE possibly be edited if you were to download the right tools off of the Play Store but computers can identify .rle as a bitmap very easily and can be opened. Windows computers can open .rle according to what I researched.
The initlogo.rle is also part of the boot.img. The boot.img contains the kernel and the boot files (like init.rc), that are necessary for the phone to boot up. Modifying your boot.img requires a computer. You can't just replace the initlogo.rle with another one. To make changes to a boot.img, you need to unpack the ramdisk, replace or modify the files, repack, and THEN flash the modified boot.img to make the changes.
Newer Android smartphones don't have initlogo.rle. Or at least MINE doesn't. Instead, I had to search for my boot logo which took my quite a while. After searching deep into the android system and messing around with the files, I came accross PARAM.
If you were to go in the /dev/block/platform directory, you would come accross a file called PARAM. Mine was in the directory /dev/block/platform/15577000.ufs/by-name. Inside that directory is basically the whole system. You will find files like BOOT, EFS, OTA and all that. You will also notice that all those files look empty. They all show 0.00B. I don't know exactly why that is, but they aren't really empty files.
My official boot logo was in the file "PARAM". What I did was copied it to my internal directory and attempted to extract it. After trying different extensions, I founded out that .tar is the correct extension. So to extract it, I renamed "PARAM", to "PARAM.tar". After doing that, you will be able to actually extracted it and be left with files with .jpg. Basically pictures inside it. I used root browser. :good:
Inside, you should find "logo.jpg". And whatta ya know! It's your boot logo!
I used PicArt to create a custom boot logo. It is a really great app! You can get it off the Play Store. Then I renamed it to logo.jpg and replaced the original logo.jpg with my newer one. Make sure it is named "logo.jpg" or there will be errors!
Now the last step is to archive the files through .tar format. I used root browser to do that. To correctly archive the files, multi-select the .jpg files. In other words, DON'T SELECT THE "PARAM" FOLDER!!!
When archiving the files, use LZMA compression option along with tar.(Look for that with root browser). This will not compress the files as much which will reduce the risk of errors.
Once it's archived, rename the new archive file to just "PARAM".
LAST STEP! Before overwriting your PARAM, copy your modified PARAM into the /system folder and set the correct attributes (PERMISSIONS) to -rwxrwxrwx. Now you are ready. Copy "PARAM" to the same director where you originally got your unmodified PARAM file. It will ask you if you want to overwrite. Say yes.
I was now introduced with a different boot logo. My phone never got bricked during the process. However, with Android, ANYTHING can happen, so I will give you some advice. If you have a custom recovery, you can easily restore PARAM. Make a copy of your original PARAM and put it in your internal directory. If something ever goes wrong, you can use the file manager (like with TeamWin) and replace the currupt PARAM with your backup PARAM. Then set the permissions to -rwxrwxrwx or 0777
I strongly recommend that you do not try this. Yes, I took the risk and was able to safely change my boot logo. However, not all Android devices are the same so be very careful if you are attempting to do this one an Android device OTHER than the Galaxy S6.
Leave comments if you have any questions!