[nchntrman]

Can all my wise peers assist me in making a "flow chart" or like documentation of the novel boot process. I assume some or all of this is typical Android and linux boot process. This is the type information i am seeking.I assume there are many stages between Power on and Home screen ready, images are loaded and fs are created etc. I would like to start he thread here in the forum and eventually compile the information into the Novel wiki here.

 

[clockworx]

I hope you don't mind an informal understanding. You may find errors later on, but I figure a rough starting point can't hurt (or if I'm horrible wrong I'll edit my post)Power on-> Bootloader -> Check for Recovery keypress -> (if recovery keypress, stop here and boot recovery, end of this boot sequence) -> (if not recovery keypress, continue)-> load kernel -> load ramdisk and mount to / -> mount system and data -> startup of various services, loading of drivers, check framework and then app apks and reload/recache of changed -> homescreenEDIT: GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH PLZ FIX properly showing arrows!

 

[nchntrman]

[quote name='clockworx;41981]...Power on-> Bootloader -> Check for Recovery keypress -> (if recovery keypress' date=' stop here and boot recovery, end of this boot sequence).. [/QUOTE']If I understood this correctly, the bootloader holds the code to flash the firmware. Thus as long as an update does not touch this portion of memory then i assume we should be able to downgrade firmware and use our own custom brewed firmwares.

 

[clockworx]

Nope, recovery flashes the firmware. Bootloader is just the initial system initializer, I think.

 

[HWgeek]

This should help flesh things out:Enea Android Blog: The Android boot process from power ongoogle search : android boot sequenceIts pretty much "standard" fare for embedded systems. Low level setup, boot loader 1 straps boot loader 2, straps init/kernel, straps filesystem, etc...Recovery is probably occuring as a check in boot loader 2, prior to kernel, or maybe kernel. Definitely before the filesystem gets loaded up though, as you don't want the overhead of the filesystem added and to do a recovery or firmware upgrade etc. Plus yaffs2 when running off of nand has a filesystem check prior to booting up all the way to insure integrity. There is a method to skip the check on boot up and put in it in the background instead, but it doesn't seem like PD did that.

 

[nchntrman]

Does anyone know how much memory (flash storage) is devoted to the recovery.img? It looks like the one with the Pandigital Firmware is kinda small, granted it has no interface and just flashed the firmware. I was wondering how much space the device has for a possible enhanced replacement.

 

[clockworx]

From here:http://www.slatedroid.com/pandigita...king-braaaaaaaiiiiins-wanted-3.html#post25794I get a size of 0xA00000 bytes, which is 10 485 760 in decimal? I'm just being lazy and using google, so it is entirely possible I messed this up, but....around 10MB?

 

[blazingwolf]

Which should be more then enough to handle Clockwork Recovery.

 

[nchntrman]

Does anyone know if the ADBD is included in the Novel's OEM recovery.img.If I try to flash firmware and the file is no good. Sitting at the Android Flash with Triangle and Exclamation Mark, is ADB available?Can't test till later, hoping someone will beat me to it.

 

[clockworx]

It is, but you can't shell in because I think /bin/sh is not available. If you do adb devices while in recovery mode you'll see PD_Novel recoveryI think (I forget what it normally says instead of recovery)

 

[nchntrman]

Any chance of pushing sh to a working directory in recovery mode? Also while close to the topic... is there another way to get the Novel into recovery mode?

 

[cosmos]

I've got a problem and I'm looking for some suggestions..Through a sad tale of poor decisions I have my PDN in a very precarious position over the last 48 hours...I have a running system with all my favorite apps and everything is wonderful...However I have somehow managed to screw up my power up processing... Based on this thread and the references it appears I have messed up the boot loader...The problem.... I can no longer do a firmware install via the power switch and up volume. Symptoms.... The initial blue screen is messed up. The left inch is a stripe of the standard blue screen... The remainder of the screen is white.... If left for around 15 seconds this turns into the standard blues screen and the boot proceeds as before to load my working system.Before all this happened I would hold the two keys down... around 8 seconds the screen would flash... I would hold the keys until 15 seconds... And the little android progress bar would appear.Now at 10 seconds the white screen turns to standard blue. Continuing to hold the two buttons has not worked. I have tried constant hold.... The white screen appears over and over again as long as I hold the buttons.. I have tried various release times... I either get the white screen again...too long... or the blue screen turns into the blue screen with the moving bar at the bottom and it boots as normal....too shortI also tried to do the other method of firmware load... Using my WIndows 7 system and the pandigital app that downloads the firmware... It fails with some .net io.file.not.found message. I have never successfully used this method in the 2 months I've had the PDN..Sooner or later I will need to reload... So I'd like to figure out how to fix this problem.So my BIG QUESTION is..Is there a way using adb to restore the boot loader ? I would guess the bootloader.img file is where all the files are... Should I proceed on figuring out how to unpack this thing and then manually force the files over ?This is over my head.I need some help or someday my PDN will be bricked...Any suggestions appreciated..

 

[geebekazoo]

How about trying a firmware update via the Pandigital Direct PC connection software?

 

[cosmos]

Thanks geebekazooI tried that. I have never been able to get it to work since I've had the PDN in early July. I have win7. I get some .net message around step 4 when it tries to check on the firmware available... The message is long and as far as I can tell is complaining about some file not found. I have a number of .net things working. It is up to date. So I'm not sure how to get by that problem.I've also removed the covers and tried the zip file without the internal card and with the zip file on the internal card... No difference. It appears that while the buttons are being held it behaves differently. So it is detecting the buttons... But it can't do the next step of switching to the android progress bar and start the load... Perhaps that is in the recovery.img not bootloader.img...

 

[clockworx]

Yeah, hard to say if your issue is recovery.img or bootloader.img.If you have adb up and running you can just re-flash recovery, and see if that fixes it. Someone actually had the same issue and this fixed it. You'll need the files "fuse" and "recovery.img" from the pdn firmware zip. Just put them in your adb directory and:

adb push fuse /data/adb push recovery.img /data/adb shell chmod 755 /data/fuseadb shell /data/fuse recovery data/recovery.img(you should see some feedback here as it flashes)adb shell rm /data/fuseadb shell rm /data/recovery.img

If that doesn't work, you can do the same with bootloader.img

adb push fuse /data/adb push bootloader.img /data/adb shell chmod 755 /data/fuseadb shell /data/fuse bootloader data/bootloader.img(you should see some feedback here as it flashes)adb shell rm /data/fuseadb shell rm /data/bootloader.img

I would just try recovery first by itself. Hopefully someone can double check my stuff for typos before you need to flash bootloader.

 

[cosmos]

thank clockworxTHAT DID IT!!! ---- the manual adb recovery flashI still had the screwed up initial boot screen.. But after 15 seconds it goes into recovery and on reboot that gets fixed.

 

[animic]

I have a similar issue I have a pandigital reader that is not booting but Adb will not reognize it any help?

 

[johneo]

I am looking to hack my wife's pandigital. I had a coby tablet and dropped it in the street today. It is now toast. I want to be able to use some of the apps on my wife's pandigital e-reader. Any suggestions?

 

[blazingwolf]

I am looking to hack my wife's pandigital. I had a coby tablet and dropped it in the street today. It is now toast. I want to be able to use some of the apps on my wife's pandigital e-reader. Any suggestions?

Yep. Read the Wiki and post in the right section of the forums.

http://www.slatedroid.com/wiki/index.php/Pandigital_Novel

 

[mrsburnout]

Yep. Read the Wiki and post in the right section of the forums.

http://www.slatedroid.com/wiki/index.php/Pandigital_Novel

Thank you blazingwolf! Your reply totally deserves a +1