Android Tablets Forum banner
201 - 220 of 236 Posts
Yeah, I got it to boot, I got into the login and popped up the onscreen, but when I logged in it spat out errors and kicked me back to the login screen. I'm thinking about trying the sweet dual boot of Backtrack 5 on XDA if this doesnt work.
 
Yeah, I got it to boot, I got into the login and popped up the onscreen, but when I logged in it spat out errors and kicked me back to the login screen. I'm thinking about trying the sweet dual boot of Backtrack 5 on XDA if this doesnt work.
Sorry work has been killing me. I dont really remember having issues getting this to work except it was pretty slow. I had to use xfce or whatever it was called, to login. Once I was logged in I was able to update ubuntu to 11.10 and then install gnome and Unity 2D. Once unity 2D was installed I could use it for my session. However it was very buggy. G Tab only had 512mb of ram and once it was gone Ubuntu had a thing with killing processes and one of those was Unity. I might be able to provide more assistance if you tell me the steps you performed to get it working?
 
Sorry work has been killing me. I dont really remember having issues getting this to work except it was pretty slow. I had to use xfce or whatever it was called, to login. Once I was logged in I was able to update ubuntu to 11.10 and then install gnome and Unity 2D. Once unity 2D was installed I could use it for my session. However it was very buggy. G Tab only had 512mb of ram and once it was gone Ubuntu had a thing with killing processes and one of those was Unity. I might be able to provide more assistance if you tell me the steps you performed to get it working?
I partitioned my sdcard, put the files on it while keeping permissions (pretty sure) And flashed the new .img Do you think i should just try backtrack 5?
 
I partitioned my sdcard, put the files on it while keeping permissions (pretty sure) And flashed the new .img Do you think i should just try backtrack 5?
When I setup the xubuntu in this post I used gparted to make one ext3 partition and format it. Then I ran sudo tar -xjf /path/to/rootfs.tar.gz -C /mount/<sd-card path> to extract the tar to the sdcard. Then I used the sudo tar -xjf /path/to/wifi.tar.gz -C /mount/<sd-card path>. I then flashed the boot.img and put the sd-card in and rebooted.

I have never used backtrack 5. I hear good things about it but have never used it personally.
 
Is there a good way to revert to a standard 1.2 Gtab ROM after using this?
you can nvflash the kernel back by following the op. This only works with an sd card so the android files system you were using is still completely in tack. The only thing that is changed is the boot partition. Its changed to use a kernel pointed at the sd-card instead of internal flash storage. The op tells you how to make a backup of your current boot partition and then you can flash between your backup and xubuntu as needed. If you want to go completely fresh 1.2 stock just Nvflash the 1.2 stock tnt. Its posted somewhere on this site.
 
you can nvflash the kernel back by following the op. This only works with an sd card so the android files system you were using is still completely in tack. The only thing that is changed is the boot partition. Its changed to use a kernel pointed at the sd-card instead of internal flash storage. The op tells you how to make a backup of your current boot partition and then you can flash between your backup and xubuntu as needed. If you want to go completely fresh 1.2 stock just Nvflash the 1.2 stock tnt. Its posted somewhere on this site.
Been trying to do that for a while now... it gets stuck at part 7. Would MSC be the kernl partition?
 
Been trying to do that for a while now... it gets stuck at part 7. Would MSC be the kernl partition?
Nope..the kernel on most gTabs is partition 10 (LNX).

BUT, you can have nvflash skip MSC since there is nothing necessary there. Just edit the gtablet.cfg file (in your nvflash folder) and delete the "filename = part7.img" line & re-save it. Nvflash will still format MSC but instead of copying part7.img to it, it will leave it blank.

Al
 
Nope..the kernel on most gTabs is partition 10 (LNX).

BUT, you can have nvflash skip MSC since there is nothing necessary there. Just edit the gtablet.cfg file (in your nvflash folder) and delete the "filename = part7.img" line & re-save it. Nvflash will still format MSC but instead of copying part7.img to it, it will leave it blank.
Was finally able to see the birds!


Now, it won't let me go into recovery (stock or CWM). I remember flashing the boot.img from the xubuntu post so could it be the reason why? (was partition 10 exactly).
 
Was finally able to see the birds!


Now, it won't let me go into recovery (stock or CWM). I remember flashing the boot.img from the xubuntu post so could it be the reason why? (was partition 10 exactly).
Not if you nvflashed stock over it. What exactly did you nvflash (full stock or stock w/cwm)? When you try to boot to recovery, what happens?

Al
 
Not if you nvflashed stock over it. What exactly did you nvflash (full stock or stock w/cwm)? When you try to boot to recovery, what happens?
Full stock with 1.1 and 1.2. It says Recovery Key detected, it tries to boot the recovery kernel but get stuck there.
 
Full stock with 1.1 and 1.2. It says Recovery Key detected, it tries to boot the recovery kernel but get stuck there.
The first thing to try is format MSC with nvflash. Paste this http://dl.dropbox.com/u/36150173/format_partition7.bat into your nvflash folder & execute it. This will format partition 7 which is normally MSC. A corrupt MSC can keep recovery from starting. If that doesn't work, go to the Dummies site & do Code Red and tell me if it works.

Al
 
The first thing to try is format MSC with nvflash. Paste this http://dl.dropbox.com/u/36150173/format_partition7.bat into your nvflash folder & execute it. This will format partition 7 which is normally MSC. A corrupt MSC can keep recovery from starting. If that doesn't work, go to the Dummies site & do Code Red and tell me if it works.
I think the MSC partition also prevents my Gtab from charging or registering touch commands for some reason.

Tried your batch file and nothing. It always get stuck around 11m ... the part7 in Format_NvFlash fits but all the others (16mb) won't.
 
Ok... did some more research and saw the erase_image way to erase the MSC partition. I have done so and got some bad blocks warnings.

This is the output:

mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x000e0000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00100000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00120000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00140000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00160000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00180000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x001a0000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x001c0000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x001e0000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00200000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00220000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00240000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00260000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00280000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x002a0000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x002c0000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x002e0000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00320000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00340000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00360000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00380000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x003a0000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x003c0000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x003e0000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00400000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00420000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00440000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00460000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00480000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x004a0000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x004c0000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x004e0000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00500000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00520000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00540000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00560000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00580000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x005a0000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x005c0000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x005e0000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00600000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00620000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00640000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00660000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00680000

Would explain why it gets stuck?
 
Ok... did some more research and saw the erase_image way to erase the MSC partition. I have done so and got some bad blocks warnings.

This is the output:

mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x000e0000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00100000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00120000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00140000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00160000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00180000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x001a0000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x001c0000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x001e0000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00200000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00220000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00240000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00260000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00280000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x002a0000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x002c0000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x002e0000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00320000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00340000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00360000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00380000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x003a0000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x003c0000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x003e0000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00400000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00420000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00440000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00460000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00480000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x004a0000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x004c0000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x004e0000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00500000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00520000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00540000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00560000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00580000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x005a0000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x005c0000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x005e0000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00600000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00620000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00640000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00660000
mtd: not erasing bad block at 0x00680000

Would explain why it gets stuck?
Yep!

First, if your tab is under warranty, now would be a good time to request an RMA.

If not & you are up for some experimenting then read on! Here is the rationale for what you can try (but no guarantee it will work). There are currently 3 different partition structures that exist on gTabs. Most have partition 6 as BLO & partition 7 as MSC, others have partition 6 as MSC & partition 7 as BLO, but the most strange configuration is one I have on 3 of my families 4 gTab...13 partitions (instead of the normal 11...2-12). They have 2 extra partitions (NVC & KLO) that the others DO NOT have. What this means is that the gTab is capable of different partition arrangments as long as all the critical partitions are there.

If you have ever looked closely at the nvflash output you may have noticed that partitions 2 & 3 never get "sent" like the other partitions (even though they are included in the gtablet.cfg file). What I surmise is that the partition tablet (PT) is created on the fly from data in gtablet.cfg INSTEAD of sending the part3.img. If this is the case, we should be able to create a custom partition structure in gtablet.cfg so that we move the location of MSC to an area of the nand that is good and move a different non-critical partition to the area that is bad. A good candidate would be the OGO parition (normally partition 8 ). We know little about this partition except that on SOME ANDROID devices (and not necessarily the gTab), the boot animation is located there. As far as I know gTab roms store the boot anim in /system/media do we SHOULD be able to swap partitions (and since we know that the area where MSC is now located is bad, we will not even try send the OGO partition file.

If you want to give it a try, download this
http://teamdrh.com/DRH-Downloads/Full_Stock_NVFlash_CWM_5504_Touch.zip and extract to a folder then download this gtablet.cfg that I modified http://dl.dropbox.com/u/36150173/gtablet_cfg.zip and extract it into the same folder where you extracted the nvflash (overwrtitng the existing one), then nvflash. You may want to run the nvlfash .bat from a command prompt (instead of double clicking the .bat file) so you can capture the output. This will nvflash stock 1.2 along with CWM5504 with partition 7 being a blank 32M OGO partition & partition 8 being the 16M MSC partition.

Let me know if you decide to try it (an if it works of course).

Al
 
Well, it is a second-hand Tab I bought about a year ago so DMA is out of the question.


What you are proposing is very interesting... I will try it out and let you know how it turns out.

Edit: Ok, the NvFlash process works. However, I am still stuck at the birds. Do you think Partition 7 might be still causing this?
 
Well, it is a second-hand Tab I bought about a year ago so DMA is out of the question.


What you are proposing is very interesting... I will try it out and let you know how it turns out.

Edit: Ok, the NvFlash process works. However, I am still stuck at the birds. Do you think Partition 7 might be still causing this?
Does it boor to TnT? Is it acting differently than before you did this nvflash? Are at the birds only when trying to boot recovery? Did you save the nvflash output?

Download & run this http://dl.dropbox.com/u/36150173/backup_gtablet_rev2.zip & post the partition.txt file that it creates. It may hang on partition 7, but I'm just interested in the partition.txt file it generates. I'll check back in the AM.

Al
 
Download & run this http://dl.dropbox.com/u/36150173/backup_gtablet_rev2.zip & post the partition.txt file that it creates. It may hang on partition 7, but I'm just interested in the partition.txt file it generates. I'll check back in the AM.
PartitionId=2
Name=BCT
DeviceId=19
StartSector=0
NumSectors=1536
BytesPerSector=2048

PartitionId=3
Name=PT
DeviceId=19
StartSector=1536
NumSectors=64
BytesPerSector=2048

PartitionId=4
Name=EBT
DeviceId=19
StartSector=1600
NumSectors=1024
BytesPerSector=2048

PartitionId=5
Name=MBT
DeviceId=19
StartSector=2624
NumSectors=64
BytesPerSector=2048

PartitionId=6
Name=BLO
DeviceId=19
StartSector=2688
NumSectors=2048
BytesPerSector=2048

PartitionId=7
Name=OGO
DeviceId=19
StartSector=4736
NumSectors=16384
BytesPerSector=2048

PartitionId=8
Name=MSC
DeviceId=19
StartSector=21120
NumSectors=8192
BytesPerSector=2048

PartitionId=9
Name=SOS
DeviceId=19
StartSector=29312
NumSectors=8192
BytesPerSector=2048

PartitionId=10
Name=LNX
DeviceId=19
StartSector=37504
NumSectors=8192
BytesPerSector=2048

PartitionId=11
Name=APP
DeviceId=19
StartSector=45696
NumSectors=128000
BytesPerSector=2048

PartitionId=12
Name=CAC
DeviceId=19
StartSector=173696
NumSectors=82624
BytesPerSector=2048

It does hang on partition 7.
 
No. It is acting the same, be it standard boot or recovery. Here is the output:
Flashing G Tablet with modified 1.2 4349 base image...
Nvflash started
rcm version 0X20001
System Information:
chip name: t20
chip id: 0x20 major: 1 minor: 3
chip sku: 0x8
chip uid: 0x17144046423f7597
macrovision: disabled
hdcp: enabled
sbk burned: false
dk burned: false
boot device: nand
operating mode: 3
device config strap: 0
device config fuse: 0
sdram config strap: 0

sending file: gtablet.bct
- 4080/4080 bytes sent
gtablet.bct sent successfully
downloading bootloader -- load address: 0x108000 entry point: 0x108000
sending file: bootloader.bin
| 941356/941356 bytes sent
bootloader.bin sent successfully
waiting for bootloader to initialize
bootloader downloaded successfully
setting device: 1 0
creating partition: BCT
creating partition: PT
creating partition: EBT
creating partition: MBT
creating partition: BLO
creating partition: OGO
creating partition: MSC
creating partition: SOS
creating partition: LNX
creating partition: APP
creating partition: CAC
Formatting partition 2 BCT please wait.. done!
Formatting partition 3 PT please wait.. done!
Formatting partition 4 EBT please wait.. done!
Formatting partition 5 MBT please wait.. done!
Formatting partition 6 BLO please wait.. done!
Formatting partition 7 OGO please wait.. done!
Formatting partition 8 MSC please wait.. done!
Formatting partition 9 SOS please wait.. done!
Formatting partition 10 LNX please wait.. done!
Formatting partition 11 APP please wait.. done!
Formatting partition 12 CAC please wait.. done!
done!
sending file: part4.img
/ 2097152/2097152 bytes sent
part4.img sent successfully
sending file: part5.img
\ 131072/131072 bytes sent
part5.img sent successfully
sending file: part6.img
/ 4194304/4194304 bytes sent
part6.img sent successfully
sending file: part7.img
/ 16777216/16777216 bytes sent
part7.img sent successfully
sending file: part9.img
/ 3911680/3911680 bytes sent
part9.img sent successfully
sending file: part10.img
/ 16777216/16777216 bytes sent
part10.img sent successfully
sending file: system.img
| 125207808/125207808 bytes sent
system.img sent successfully

Done! Please power off gTab by holding power button and close terminal session

PartitionId=2
Name=BCT
DeviceId=19
StartSector=0
NumSectors=1536
BytesPerSector=2048

PartitionId=3
Name=PT
DeviceId=19
StartSector=1536
NumSectors=64
BytesPerSector=2048

PartitionId=4
Name=EBT
DeviceId=19
StartSector=1600
NumSectors=1024
BytesPerSector=2048

PartitionId=5
Name=MBT
DeviceId=19
StartSector=2624
NumSectors=64
BytesPerSector=2048

PartitionId=6
Name=BLO
DeviceId=19
StartSector=2688
NumSectors=2048
BytesPerSector=2048

PartitionId=7
Name=OGO
DeviceId=19
StartSector=4736
NumSectors=16384
BytesPerSector=2048

PartitionId=8
Name=MSC
DeviceId=19
StartSector=21120
NumSectors=8192
BytesPerSector=2048

PartitionId=9
Name=SOS
DeviceId=19
StartSector=29312
NumSectors=8192
BytesPerSector=2048

PartitionId=10
Name=LNX
DeviceId=19
StartSector=37504
NumSectors=8192
BytesPerSector=2048

PartitionId=11
Name=APP
DeviceId=19
StartSector=45696
NumSectors=128000
BytesPerSector=2048

PartitionId=12
Name=CAC
DeviceId=19
StartSector=173696
NumSectors=82624
BytesPerSector=2048

It does hang on partition 7.
So, it looks like I was correct about the PT being created from gtbalet.cfg. MSC is now partition 8. Try using nvflash to format partition 8 (modify the format_partition7.bat file you previously used), then reboot & see what happen.

Al
 
So, it looks like I was correct about the PT being created from gtbalet.cfg. MSC is now partition 8. Try using nvflash to format partition 8 (modify the format_partition7.bat file you previously used), then reboot & see what happen.
Still stuck at the Birds. The only ROM I was able to boot so far was ICS. Anything else won't. Of course, ICS is unusable without the MSC partition...
 
201 - 220 of 236 Posts
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top