[giga8547]

ok for some odd reason after updating to factory file on 2 of my readers and going to pandabombs flash all wnet well. so the other 2 i got for testing purpouses i decided to mod them as well same exact steps but once i flahsed them they imidiately bricked with no shell access period so i decided to starrt expiramenting and flahsed the pdn cruz ui rom lo and behold it came up and then i reflashed 3x with the cruz factory file and still had shell access i am still working on the device to make it work properly and boot normaly i will keep everyone updated but a not is that flahsing the pdn rom seems to have forced the factory file to re flash bootloader and all but fail at a part so will keep trying untill i have a sucessfull recovery

[giga8547]

UPDATE I FIXED IT

ok i have officialy brought the unit's back to full functioning stock firmware here is what i did

ok after having a boot loop and no shell access nothing i went in search of a solution figuring my devices were gonners i thought what was the harm so after 2 days i did it and here is how

i downloaded this
http://www.mediafire.com/?yrdd2f40xg6qdq1

i then formated my sd card in fat32 and renamed that file to PD_INX7E_ENG_6410POP.zip

i put that into the cruz readers sd slot and booted the device into recovery mode )hold power and volume up untill you see the little robot and the status bar)
be patient it can take up to 5 min to flash the first time yes i said the first time
ok as soon as it reboots hold the power and volume up button again you may have to push the reset button while holding the power and up button
and again once it boots into recovery release the buttons and let it flash

ok flashing step 1 done you should see a boot screen that says pandigital novel if so good work so far if not flash again becauyse so far this is your only option to repair your device

ok if all is well so far take your sd card and format it yet again as fat32 and put the factory velocity micro flash from their support page on it
put it in your cruz reader and hold the power and volume up and then hit the reset button while continuing to hold the power and vol up button release the restt button and keep holding the power and vol up button it should boot into the recovery again let it falsh again it mayu thake a little time. once it has finished it will reboot with a white screen at that point push the power and vol up button and tap reset again continue holding the power and vol up button it should boot into recovery again and let it load

once done the device should boot up properly in the original firmware



hope this helps and if their is any clerification needed ask

[move]THIS IS A LAST RESORT USE AT YOUR OWN RISK[/move]

[jgm]

Good to know in case I brick mine also xD

[giga8547]

Quote

Good to know in case I brick mine also xD

Just a little side note once you brick it like i did and have to restore it that way something in the file system changes so the market will never work again all downloads fail everything else works like it should but market will not but the cruz market still works and i did notice a recovery error log on the sd after all was done tellling that a mount point was missing but only impact i have seen that it has made on the unit is no more market market works just no downloading like it cant see the fre memory on the unit also appstosd which i was able to get working on 2 of my units also quits working so it is not without consenwquince if you brick you enup wityh what it was ment to be in the first place a factory fresh reader now you can still install apps via adb push no problem but is just a pain to track them down then adb them to the device

any how some one needs to make a real recovery flash that will completely wipe format partition ect the ram/nand that way it will take it to a vigin state i know that velocity micro has one but those greedy sob's wont share it lol

[jgm]

Quote

Just a little side note once you brick it like i did and have to restore it that way something in the file system changes so the market will never work again all downloads fail everything else works like it should but market will not but the cruz market still works and i did notice a recovery error log on the sd after all was done tellling that a mount point was missing but only impact i have seen that it has made on the unit is no more market market works just no downloading like it cant see the fre memory on the unit also appstosd which i was able to get working on 2 of my units also quits working so it is not without consenwquince if you brick you enup wityh what it was ment to be in the first place a factory fresh reader now you can still install apps via adb push no problem but is just a pain to track them down then adb them to the device

any how some one needs to make a real recovery flash that will completely wipe format partition ect the ram/nand that way it will take it to a vigin state i know that velocity micro has one but those greedy sob's wont share it lol

And how about comparing the files inside the panda fw zip file with the ones provided by cruz fw and removing the ones that installed the panda rom that arent on the cruz fw from the crz reader using adb?

Could it be riskiy? Well just a suggestion 

[TonyUFN]

Bricked how?  In my case, white-screen flashing, etc.  no activity.  What's your definition of bricked?
Any ideas on un-bricking at this stage?

[jgm]

Mmm what about the file found on META-INF/com/google/android/updater-script

Isnt that the script responsible for installation? Or is there like says the readme only for reference?

format("MTD", "bootloader");
package_extract_file("u-boot.bin", "/tmp/tmp_image");
write_raw_image("/tmp/tmp_image", "bootloader");

show_progress("0.1", "1");
format("MTD", "kernel");
package_extract_file("uImage", "/tmp/tmp_image");
write_raw_image("/tmp/tmp_image", "kernel");

show_progress("0.1", "1");
format("MTD", "ramdisk");
package_extract_file("ramdisk-uboot.img", "/tmp/tmp_image");
write_raw_image("/tmp/tmp_image", "ramdisk");

show_progress("0.1", "1");
format("MTD", "recovery");
package_extract_file("recovery.img", "/tmp/tmp_image");
write_raw_image("/tmp/tmp_image", "recovery");

show_progress("0.1", "1");
format("MTD", "logo");
package_extract_file("logo.img", "/tmp/tmp_image");
write_raw_image("/tmp/tmp_image", "logo");

show_progress("0.1", "1");

unmount("/system");
mount("MTD", "system", "/system");
delete_recursive("/system/app");
delete_recursive("/system/framework");
package_extract_dir("system", "/system");
show_progress("0.4", "6");
unmount("/system");

unmount("/data");
mount("MTD", "userdata", "/data");
delete_recursive("/data");
delete_recursive("/data/app");
package_extract_dir("data", "/data");
show_progress("0.3", "3");
unmount("/data");

Quote

Bricked how?  In my case, white-screen flashing, etc.  no activity.  What's your definition of bricked?
Any ideas on un-bricking at this stage?

Well a real brick should be one where you are not even able to move into recovery mode.

[TonyUFN]

If thats the case, how could you roll back to ANY version of firmware.  Which seems to be my case.
Would be nice if they actually used a removable media for system files

[giga8547]

Quote

If thats the case, how could you roll back to ANY version of firmware.  Which seems to be my case.
Would be nice if they actually used a removable media for system files

if you have white screen and then nothing try going into recovery hold power and vol up till you see the android bot flash the device 3x in sucession with the oem firmware on vm site if that dose not rvive your unit you are at the last resort stage and can try what i did


BUT BE WARNED THIS IS NOT A PERFECT SOLUTION AND ONCE DONE YOU MAY NOT BE ABLE TO USE THE MARKET AND THERE ARE A FEW GLITCHES AS WELL IM STILL TESTING IT ALL OUT I HAVE NOTICED TODAY SOME 3RD PARTY APPS LIKE SKYFIRE CONFLICTS WITH THE KEYBOARD NOW AND JUST SOME RANDOM OTHER MINOR GLITCES BUT ITS STILL BETTER THAN A PAPER WEIGHT.

now i am looking for older VM cruz reader flashes mainly ones from the devices first release or farther back than the one released in oct any one has links to them let me know

[iamJiNXZ]

@ TonyUFN I'm in the same boat as you unfortunately. This will be fun to explain to the wife in my case, lol.

@ giga8547 I tried your way as fixing it even if it's only good enough to pass of as working 100% till I can buy another one to replace it would have been fine with me, unfortunately it's currently FUBAR. I've tried d/c the battery , plugging it back in with one hand while stretching the mess out of my other hand to hold the up vol/power when i plug the battery in, tried using the reset button. it just won't go into recovery mode. So yay to a 1 lb flashlight when the battery is charged. It was worth a shot though

[TonyUFN]

Quote

if you have white screen and then nothing try going into recovery hold power and vol up till you see the android bot flash the device 3x in sucession with the oem firmware on vm site if that dose not rvive your unit you are at the last resort stage and can try what i did

You are missing my point.  The unit will NOT even go that far.  White screen is on for approx 10-15 sec, then off(repeated).  Seems to be failing to startup at all.  There is no Andy at all.  It doesn't even get that far.  So flashing anything seems to be impossible.  I've even visualized the boot sequence thinking something was just preventing the startup.  By that I mean... holding restore sequence(VolUp+Pwr) for sufficient time for a flash startup.  Several minutes sometimes, and tried several times through.  So consider these attempts at wasting a whole day goofing with it to get it back.

At this point, all that is seen is "white screen for about 10-15 seconds, then off.  rinse and repeat... thats all she does.

[iamJiNXZ]

@ Tony

Mine decided to just stay on the white screen and occasionally turn off then back on.

[giga8547]

if you cant go into recovery you have a HARD BRICKED 100% paperweight wondering what caused that as i did everything under the sun to mine and it did not do that it would atleast go to recovery mode.

what rev unit you using r101 r102 r103 it will be listed on the barcode on the box it came in on the bottom

your next best bet is to return it to the store or place you got it from say VM would not help and refused return for some reason  but make it sound good DO NOT MENTION YOU FALSHED A NEW FILE just say it stoped and wont work


unless you have a deep knowledge of electronics and know how or a way to preform a nand jtag you are stuck unless you can return it

[BoSoxFan]

I will be returning mine tomorrow, after 20 or 30 attempts to bring the R103 back, still no luck. I've bricked WM phones before but I was always able to bring them back, not the case with this ereader.

Hopefully someone smarter than I will figure out the changes and we can make the R103 a better ereader...

[iamJiNXZ]

Yeah, I've got a 1lb paper weight, I'm really hoping that I can get them to exchange it, the problem will be trying to explain why the screen stay stuck white, lol. My best bet will be to make sure the battery is 100% dead before returning it. It was a 103 from Best Buy as well. Still haven't told my wife, but I'm sure since we're both off tomorrow she'll notice that I'm not on it, since I've had it I'd been messing with it nonstop.  /dread

[joefigs]

Quote

Yeah, I've got a 1lb paper weight, I'm really hoping that I can get them to exchange it, the problem will be trying to explain why the screen stay stuck white, lol. My best bet will be to make sure the battery is 100% dead before returning it. It was a 103 from Best Buy as well. Still haven't told my wife, but I'm sure since we're both off tomorrow she'll notice that I'm not on it, since I've had it I'd been messing with it nonstop.  /dread

yeah im gonna have to return mine too... i think i'll just leave the battery unplugged and put the back on, i dont think theyll pull the back off at best buy

[iamJiNXZ]

Quote

i think i'll just leave the battery unplugged and put the back on, i dont think theyll pull the back off at best buy

That sounds like a good idea as well, lol.

[TonyUFN]

Yep, 103 from best buy.  If they weren't an hour away from the house, it would have been back already.  Just trying to coordinate the trip into town

[giga8547]

i have been reading alot about the 103's from bestbuy and people are not impressed it seems bestbuy bought subpar versions or rejects from the manufacturer at a deep discount to sell for $99  and if any one recalls looking in the news this is not the first time like when they had that generic suposidly oem lcd tv scandle where wal-mart had the tv for 3999 but best buy had the same tv for 1999 but after people got them and compared them they were not the same and in actuality the one from bestbuy was a dummied down version but thats only the first example there is reports in the better business buero about them doing the same with 90% of the items they sell and it may be the ceapest buy but not the best buy

[gbuskirk]

I think it's just that BestBuy's stock is newer and has hardware updates that may be incompatible with the ROM's, etc. here.  Another problem is that all the hacks here are based on trial-and-error, not on understanding of the hardware design and differences between versions.  The anecdotal evidence here goes in all directions so there's no clear path for a newbie to travel.