Im still expirmenting with different ways of possibly, hopefully, someday over the rainbow, getting my S7 successfully downgraded. Ive taken so much time waiting for things to copy and paste, and convert, and made a custom firmware hours later, only for odin to either freeze or straight up shut down after reaching file analysis... so im exploring other ways. im not sure if its a good idea to flash only parts of the firmware? like just the AP files?
I wish samsung would allow us to say "I dont care if my phone isnt as secure" and then their butts are covered cuz we consented and we can still downgrade the bootloader and android version as desired.
i cant find any information on how to make a disk image into an lz4 file (as in oreo) since that one system file from the marshmallow stock is simply a disk image, so i went about it the other way and removed the lz4 from all of the oreo files, making them all either plain .bin or plain .img files except leaving the pit file and the meta data folder alone, and then repackaged them back into the same categorized tar.md5 files. odin checks them as legit, but just wont actually *DO* anything with them... so i got looking into my old s5 neo rom and saw that it was a 1 file version and wondered.... maybe i can make a 1 file version with a combination of the files i need/want, all into one custom tar.md5 and then maybe *that* will at least attempt a flash..... has anyone else tried this? or has already been thought about and failed?.... I only want that oreo rom with the marshmallow system image... is it really so impossible??
So glad I have an Appsung device... theyre locking their stuff down just as hardcore so... why not merge the names. Sampple is another option. heh.
Related
New to Android, about 3 weeks now with my Rogers 1727R. I've been trying to grab all the good files and build my understanding of returning my phone to it's stock ROM if I have to return it or if I brick it etc. But I seem to have downloaded, from this forum, so many files, with different names and files sizes, I'm confused about what does what. So I'm asking any senior people here if they can tell me what I have, what it does, and whether I need it. Here goes:
Stock_ROM_SGH-I727R-UCKJ2-k0nane.7z - Think this is a stock ROM but un-bloated. It's 257 MB.
i727_stock_kernel_odin.tar - It's 10 MB, appears to be a stock AT&T ROM, but perhaps just the kernel, not the whole ROM?
Stock Recovery.tar - It's 6.08 MB. Downloaded it today.
Nandroid backup - 841 Megs with data.ext4.tar, system.ext4.tar, boot.img and recovery.img which I thought was a complete image of my ROM.
Look at the size differences. From 6 MB up to 841 MB. What the heck are all these files?
harry_fine said:
New to Android, about 3 weeks now with my Rogers 1727R. I've been trying to grab all the good files and build my understanding of returning my phone to it's stock ROM if I have to return it or if I brick it etc. But I seem to have downloaded, from this forum, so many files, with different names and files sizes, I'm confused about what does what. So I'm asking any senior people here if they can tell me what I have, what it does, and whether I need it. Here goes:
Stock_ROM_SGH-I727R-UCKJ2-k0nane.7z - Think this is a stock ROM but un-bloated. It's 257 MB.
i727_stock_kernel_odin.tar - It's 10 MB, appears to be a stock AT&T ROM, but perhaps just the kernel, not the whole ROM?
Stock Recovery.tar - It's 6.08 MB. Downloaded it today.
Nandroid backup - 841 Megs with data.ext4.tar, system.ext4.tar, boot.img and recovery.img which I thought was a complete image of my ROM.
Look at the size differences. From 6 MB up to 841 MB. What the heck are all these files?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the .7z file is a 7zip archive of the stock UCKJ2 rom...you would need to use 7zip to extract the contents before flashing with ODIN
the .tar file you listed is indeed just the kernel, not the entire rom, and it is from the AT&T version
stock recovery.tar is exactly that. its the stock recovery to replace clockwork mod should you need to return to that.
your nandroid backup is the entire system, a direct image of everything you had on your phone when you created it. this includes all settings, installed apps, etc
the .7z file is a 7zip archive of the stock UCKJ2 rom...you would need to use 7zip to extract the contents before flashing with ODIN
your nandroid backup is the entire system, a direct image of everything you had on your phone when you created it. this includes all settings, installed apps, etc
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So let's say I wanted to get back to my ROM the way it was the day I bought it. The Nandroid backup was done after rooting the day I bought it. So if I uncompressed the .7z file, is that what I would flash to get me back to square one, or the Nandroid backup?
harry_fine said:
So let's say I wanted to get back to my ROM the way it was the day I bought it. The Nandroid backup was done after rooting the day I bought it. So if I uncompressed the .7z file, is that what I would flash to get me back to square one, or the Nandroid backup?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the nandroid will get you back to the way YOU set it up. it wouldnt do squat for getting it back to stock.
the 7z file should take you back to stock.
its not complicated, you are just overthinking it.
a nandroid backup is YOUR backup, nobody elses. its an image of YOUR phone as YOU set it up. if you made the nandroid after rooting, and you restore from the nandroid, you will still have root, because its a direct image of your rooted phone. it will include all your settings, installed apps, and configurations.
That is very helpful. Last question.
What is a Stock Recovery file? You referred to it, and I see it's a rather small file, so it's not a ROM or Kernel. The name makes it sound like it's my stock ROM.
I know it has to do with CWM.
Any edification would be helpful.
Please keep questions in the Q&A section.....Thank you.
No recovery is not the rom. Recovery is like if u owned a computer around 1995 you had ms dos and windows well dos would allow you to make changes to windows that would not affect dos. Pretty much same thing. Recovery is where you flash the roms from but the roms do not change recovery. Cwm is clock work mod recovery . If you used odin to flash stock firmware tar tht woukd change your recovery from cwm to the stock recovery but i do now see we have a recovery tar where u can just flash the recovery tar but not the entire stock firmware tar.... to be honest id suggest doing alot of reading before you start messing with these things
---------- Post added at 07:32 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:27 PM ----------
Get on youtube and look up videos by qbking you can learn alot from them there for the epic not our device but u can more understand the basics if u watch them
I have a question, that probably isn't feasible, but I will ask it anyway. I was noticing that the size of the actual cdt.bin codegroup is a lot larger than the file flashed by the SBF. This makes me think that when the normal CG31 file is flashed to the system, that rather than replacing the existing file, it updates it, and the update must be in line with what it is expecting.
I was looking at sbf_flash, and the capability it is supposed to have, and it got me to thinking. It says that it is able to flash a specified file, that will overwrite what is there whether it is the right thing or not. (or something to that effect) what it says is, " in other words you can write arbitrary data to any location on the flash -- be careful."
This makes me wonder if it would be feasible to extract the complete cdt.bin file from a phone that has not taken the .629 update, and completely overwrite the cdt.bin codegroup, using sbf_flash.
Someone more familiar with all of this has probably already thought of this, and found it won't work, but just in case I figured I would throw the idea out there.
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
Hi folks.
I have an unusual smartphone from a Brazilian manufacturer, CCE, who have been bought for Lenovo.
This manufacturer are not exactly knowed for their support our product quality and I'm prety sure my device will not be updated or suported for any longer.
It's the SK504 and I want to try to customize the rom, build tunning apps (battery consumption sucks) and things like that. I have a good programming backgroung but not for mobile devices so I'm stepping on eggs for now.
The first thing I tried to do was get a backup from my actual rom so if I mess with something I shouldn't I would be able to come back to a working version through fastboot.
long story short, I managed to obtain through romdump 5 files; checksum.md5, config.gz, system.info.gz and system.tar
but, in the posts I been reading, it gives me the idea that I should get a boot.img, a recovery.img and a system.tar.gz
And with this I would be able to generate my own system.img through a different process.
Since I'm not being able to find what I did wrong, can anyone tell me if there are a different way to get those boot.img and recovery.img?
I tried the "adb backup -f boot.img boot" but it generates a 1kb .img file and I don't believe this is a valid boot.img.
rhodesbauer said:
Hi folks.
I have an unusual smartphone from a Brazilian manufacturer, CCE, who have been bought for Lenovo.
This manufacturer are not exactly knowed for their support our product quality and I'm prety sure my device will not be updated or suported for any longer.
It's the SK504 and I want to try to customize the rom, build tunning apps (battery consumption sucks) and things like that. I have a good programming backgroung but not for mobile devices so I'm stepping on eggs for now.
The first thing I tried to do was get a backup from my actual rom so if I mess with something I shouldn't I would be able to come back to a working version through fastboot.
long story short, I managed to obtain through romdump 5 files; checksum.md5, config.gz, system.info.gz and system.tar
but, in the posts I been reading, it gives me the idea that I should get a boot.img, a recovery.img and a system.tar.gz
And with this I would be able to generate my own system.img through a different process.
Since I'm not being able to find what I did wrong, can anyone tell me if there are a different way to get those boot.img and recovery.img?
I tried the "adb backup -f boot.img boot" but it generates a 1kb .img file and I don't believe this is a valid boot.img.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Instead of making a backup, have you tried to find original restore image? Usually it is a an .IMG file.
qwertyu123 said:
Instead of making a backup, have you tried to find original restore image? Usually it is a an .IMG file.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I used Root Explorer to look for both, recovery.img and *.img.
No result.
try this http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2450045
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.