yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Dell Streak 7] hoodred:
I contacted 2 dell out of warranty repair service

portatronics.com in NY

responded they are unable to repair Read Only Mode and stated They have tried it before.

The other one

http://www.sandiegopchelp.com/services/tablet-repair/dell/streak-7

They asked me to call them, which I did however when I called they were very vague whther they can repair the read only problem.

All they said send it in and we will run diagnostic which will cost $ 29-59 and quote you for the repair (replacement any part) cost + labor cost.
[Dell Streak 7] stevedebi:
I thought all Dell S7 had a one year warranty? Didn't they come out in April of 2011?
[Dell Streak 7] hoodred:
They wont honor the warranty if you are not the original owner (ie: bought it from ebay) or the devices rooted
[Dell Streak 7] TheManii:
Depending on how much the seller is willing to assist, I believe you can do a 'transfer of ownership' on it, it's sometimes required for getting an unlock code with dell. I'm assuming it will also transfer the warentee if it's still valid.

You might need the owner to complete the process and dell might not always allow it, but just a thought.
[Dell Streak 7] stevedebi:
I think you could get a transfer of ownership, and returning it to unrooted and stock is quite possible.

EDIT: Oops, if the memory is locked I suppose it can't be unrooted! D'oh!
[Dell Streak 7] WookieFan:
This issue is the only thing that is keeping me from rooting my DS7. Can't tell you how many times I have let the battery "fully" discharge. And this sounds like the source of the issue.

Can anyone confirm that talking with Dell CS/Helpdesk can get the read-only fixed for a charge? Voiding the warranty is one thing, but refusing to support or repair their products is another.
[Dell Streak 7] hoodred:
I did and they refuse.

I called 5 times and always get transferred to Dell Mobility in India. Offered them to pay for repair. 3 times they refused, one offered to call me back (need to check with supervisor and nobody call back), One offer $ 399 to exchange for refurbished unit.

My hunch telling me there are something wrong with the Dell streak 7 that they are not telling us or trying to avoid recall.
[Dell Streak 7] jydie:
WOW... all these comments are causing me to doubt the Streak 7 even more. I already sent mine in and had the Read-Only issue fixed... but does this "fix" prevent it from going into read-only mode in the future??

Has anybody sent the same tablet in for read-only repair more than once??
[Dell Streak 7] stevedebi:
Was the S7 even sold in India? That might be the problem.
[Dell Streak 7] WookieFan:
Another thing to consider. In another thread, it was mentioned that both Dell and T-Mobile confirmed an OTA upgrade from Froyo to Honeycomb.

So why was it delayed? Possibly to do with a certain read-only issue found when rooted and discharged? And the warranty returns we provided Dell gave them an opportunity to identify a fix?

I know, a little thin, but that's my theory. Imagine. Now I'll have to nvflash again to upgrade to the official 4G OTA. Lolz. I just got used my Honeycomb tablet the way it was...

Let's hope read-only was actually fixed in this next possible OTA...
[Dell Streak 7] stevedebi:
Can you provide the link? My S7 is still stock and I'm interested in OTA. Any time frame?
[Dell Streak 7] WookieFan:
http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=974317

Just one guy, but check it out. Last post in the thread.
[Dell Streak 7] hoodred:
I was curious to see if it is design defect or software bugs so went to bestbuy and saw they have Dell Streak 7 WIFI with Honeycomb 3.2 Open Box for $ 159. It was the last one so I bought it.

I run the test by letting the power go to 0 (watching netflix only last 2 hours from fully charge to 0).

Guess what It wont BOOT stuck on DELL logo screen.

HOWEVER this time the recovery partition wasnt lock up

Tried factory reset (original recovery from dell) did nothing.

So I NVflash CWM v5

did factory reset with it (erase data, cache, dalvik cache).

and it WORK. However you lost all your data.

So I run second test again by draining the battery to 0.

Well the it locked up again. And i did factory reset with CWM 5 and the streak comes alive again.

I am returning the Dell Streak 7 WIFI to best buy today.
[Dell Streak 7] stevedebi:
I have run mine down twice. I have discovered that I have to plug in the S7, let it run for a while, then turn it on and then power down and charge fully. (As I recall - it has been a while). But you do have to charge it a bit first - one cannot simply plug it in and try to power up.

The first time I didn't do this and had to do a hard reset due to numerous FC. The second time I was experimenting and the device recovered.

But I don't plan to let it run down again!
[Dell Streak 7] hoodred:
It was fully charged when I tested it (the charging light turn into green instead of red)
[Dell Streak 7] stevedebi:
I didn't try that. I let it charge for a little while and then powered it up, to then power it down. THEN I charged it fully.
[Dell Streak 7] WookieFan:
So, I just want to clarify. The reports I have seen regarding "read-only" describe an inability to do ANYTHING with the DS7 after a full discharge. Most of these reports seem to come from DS7s that were rooted. And you're saying that after fully discharging, you went though the set-up process, restarted and had to do the same all over again? That's what you mean by "locked up?" We're you rooted, or not?

Because others have reported that a full discharge resulted in a bricked DS7. Not sure that anyone nvflashed clockwork like you did, though. Nice work, if you've recovered from a "read-only" state.
[Dell Streak 7] jydie:
No... read only mode allows you to boot up into your Streak 7 just fine. But, if you install a new app then power down and power back up, that app will be gone. Read only mode is pretty much that... you can not update or delete anything in the devices internal memory. Every time you power it up, you are back to the exact state it was when the read only mode was activated. I even tried to restore back to factory settings, but the Streak 7 booted right back to the same instance before read-only mode was activated.

When my tablet was in read-only mode, the web browser would often crash as would most of the apps. So, although it can still be used... it is pretty much a waste of your time. :(
[Dell Streak 7] hoodred:
I have two the 4g version with froyo. One is rooted and the other is not,

both wont pass the dell logo boot up screen when it boot.

I tested the honeycomb wifi version from Best buy and the result you have to factory reset using cw5 to pass the read only mode and you will lose data.
[Dell Streak 7] stevedebi:
That is an interesting point. When I ran mine down to zero, I was still stock and unrooted. I have not had the battery drain now that I have root on mine.
[Dell Streak 7] aweskelo:
Can you please give some brief instructions on how to do this? e.g.- how do you use cw5?
[Dell Streak 7] hoodred:
I use fastboot to flash the cw5 recovery

you can find the link from here

Put your streak into fastboot mode (vol down + power) and connect to your computer using USB cable.

Put the cw file the same you put the fastboot.exe than just type under command pront (cmd.exe on windows)

fastboot recovery (the name of the cw5 file).img

Once you done, boot into recovery (Volume up and power) and select factory reset (user data and internal tablet) it will than go to CW5 recovery and again select factory reset.

I tested this with the WIFI Honeycomb version and I did it very quickly after the streak went to Read Only mode (the data format error code) and after failing to reset it with Dell standard recovery.
[Dell Streak 7] ramtix:
I am having the same problem now..I'm on 513stock version and I have CMW5. everytime I put something on my SD card, it gets erased when restarted and it goes back to the previous state, even if I update/install a new app.

I have tried the select factory reset (user data and internal tablet) but nothing happens, it just sends me back to CWM5.

anybody found a solution to this read-only problem?
[Dell Streak 7] TheManii:
It does sound like the read only problem, the only solution is to send it back to dell and hope they fix it if it really is the case
[Dell Streak 7] illdill:
Good job keeping up with this. I hope it pays off in the end.
[Dell Streak 7] onilink67:
wish I could say I was just got put on Temporary Assignment and had to move ... brought my steak with me though. I'm still pretty sure JTAG is the solution to this still trying to hunt down the points.
[Dell Streak 7] jydie:
I was reading about JTAG the other day, and I would agree with you... I have a hunch Dell support is using that to reset the read-only devices. The biggest problem I have with JTAG... I have no clue how to perform something like that. When I was looking at the internal S7 photos in a link that was posted here on XDA, I seen some pins sticking up from the motherboard. The group of pins looked similar to other JTAG pins I seen in the article I was reading.

The other bad thing about JTAG... you would have to open the Streak 7. At least TheManii is putting together a guide on how to do that. :)
[Dell Streak 7] onilink67:
you also need a JTAG flasher something I have but there are plenty of places that do this as a service. More then likely the JTAG pins were removed for the production model and we'd have to find the points to solder directly to. My streak is more dead then most in this thread so I'm planning on being the test mule whenever I get the time.
[Dell Streak 7] julianefz:
jtag

i been writing a email with ort- jtag and they reply me 2 days ago and say :

:D:D

we have finished support for nvidia cpus its is just matter of time with this model
[Dell Streak 7] cootertwo:
Dell from hell, sent me a totally new unit. No T-mobile brand on back, just DELL. Still working, though I hardly use it since I retired last month.
[Dell Streak 7] onilink67:
Sadly I have a RIFF Box JTAG but they are normally right up there with ORT

edit : just found this on RIFF's website I'll be back in the office in 3 weeks and i'll see what i can do

http://www.jtagbox.com/jtag-news/ri...ash-memory-plugin-v101-tegra2-emmc-supported/
[Dell Streak 7] Irishpaul70:
So any update on getting a DS7 out of its 'read-olny' state - apart from shipping to dell???
[Dell Streak 7] ramtix:
I guess none bro.. I just got my DS7 after almost 4 weeks waiting just to be replaced for a new one. I would have preferred of having the old one's read-only problem fixed than getting a new one.

Fingers cross that the new one wont have the read-only bug.
[Dell Streak 7] onilink67:
just got home to where my JTAG is yesterday I'll probably have some time to play around with it tomorrow
[Dell Streak 7] scarydrew:
read the forums, read only mode, dell streak 7 wifi us, called dell, sent it in to them, its been 3 1/2 weeks since i shipped it so i called to see whats taking so long, the guy (from what i could understand, language barrier) said they wont honor my warranty and they will fix it for $250!!!!! I am the original owner, still 180+ days on warranty, there was nothing done to the table to void the warranty no spill damage nothing wrong with it just one day turned it on and apps were crashing and after many hours of research discovered there was many others with the same read only problem... my problem now is, ive seen that many of you sent your tablets in even rooted ones and had it fixed/replaced which im pretty sure rooting does void the warranty, now i see that dell doesnt even sell tablets anymore, maybe because they realized how big they dropped the ball on this one, even before the read only problem i had nothing but problems with charging, stuck on dell logo, etc etc, does anyone know why dell is now trying to weasel out of repairing/replacing my streak? I sent an email detailing how horrible my years of dealing with dell have been and this being one of the worst experiences etc etc how the tablet didnt work properly from the day i received it, so maybe they are just trying to be scam artists and get some money out of me but wont resist against me complaining and they'll just fix/replace it for free... if anyone has any better inside information about what the heck is going on here let me know, but based on reading this thread im convinced that dell made yet another crappy faulty product and they dont care about screwing over the customer because it wont hurt their bottom line, thanks all, ill keep you updated
[Dell Streak 7] cootertwo:
Send Dell from hell a link to your posts. Sometimes it helps when they realize the whole world may be watching. Although I think Dell gave up caring about support when they shipped it all to India, like many others. It's all $$$$$ that's all that counts:mad:
[Dell Streak 7] hyem:
sorry to bump this thread up... can anyone please help this out?

I have buy the unlock code... its work to unlock.. but the "read only" state can't be fixed

btw is there still any chance for dell to replace at this time?
[Dell Streak 7] onilink67:
I'm still trying to work with internal channels to find information on how they fix this problem I get the feeling they are replacing the board though. If you're still under warranty I'd bet they will get it fixed one way or another for you.

As for fixing it ourselves I've been working with my RIFF Box a bit but their Tegra mode isn't the same as normal JTAG communication and still trying to figure it out. These boxes aren't known for good documentation ;)
[Dell Streak 7] Karadras:
I have same "read only" problems on my strick 7 4G

I followed by this link

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1132864

and continued research... but still nothing....

so.... add me
[Dell Streak 7] MasterGBC:
I recently had this problem, the "Read-Only" mode. I couldn't restore, i couldn't put any new Roms, or make any changes. It seems I let me Streak 7 Die over night without charging and it caused this.

Only solution I found was to send it back to Dell. I still had about 30 days warranty left. Shipped it out, next day they sent me another unit.
[Dell Streak 7] TheManii:
What rom did your refurb have pre installed?

If you're unsure how to check its:

settings -> about device -> OEM version
[Dell Streak 7] RichieRich84:
I had this same issue when I tried to flash mine to a new rom after installing rom manager and installin clockwork mod recovery 3.0.2.0 recomended from app. Then I did a factory reset from menu settings which you are not supposed to do which stuck me in a cwm boot loop. Just learnd today from someone that this might fix it haven't tried yet since mine is at my buddies house trying to fix it. I am gonna pick it up today and try it myself. http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1018809
[Dell Streak 7] aweskelo:
Any news on this front?
[Dell Streak 7] aweskelo:
Folks there is no fixing this AFAIK without jtag.

Meantime, do not let your streak die from battery drain. Turn it off or keep it on charger when not in use.
[Dell Streak 7] illdill:
Any update on the J-Tag fix?

---------- Post added at 06:58 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:21 PM ----------

I don't have this issue, but I am seriously interested in finding a solution as I have no doubt that at some point I will face it. Murphy's Law.

Anyway, I am not sure if this will help at all, but I did find a way to boot into clockwork recovery from fastboot.

The command is fastboot boot recovery.img (Do not use the flash command)

http://mirror2.streakdroid.com/manii/misc/ClockWorkMod/S7_3.2-5.0.2.7.img

Rename this to recovery.img after downloading.

This will reboot the device into the clockwork recovery menu unless the read only problem prevents the recovery from writing successfully. From there I guess you could play around with clockwork and try to flash an update. This probably isn't going to help anyone, but I thought I would throw it out there just in case.
[Dell Streak 7] stevedebi:
I like the thrive, but not the large form factor. 7 inch is just right.

Sent from my HTC View somewhere in LALA land
[Dell Streak 7] Chris123234:
You can add me to the list.

I pulled it out of the closet after not using it for nearly a year, but didn't remember why I put it away. Couldn't NVFlash or put CWM after factory reset wasn't working and realized what the problem was; same as it was back then. Probably going to take it apart out of spite.

edit: It's a T-Mobile Streak 7
[Dell Streak 7] Cerixus:
If "read only problem" means it looks like it flashed a new rom but when you reboot it's still stock 2.2.2 then you can add me to the list :(

Bought 2 DS7's on Daily Steals. My wife's already had 3.2, mine still has 2.2.2.
[Dell Streak 7] aweskelo:
You can attempt to return it to TMO or Dell. I did and they sent me a replacement. But you have to be sure its this problem.
[Dell Streak 7] aweskelo:
And by the way...never let the battery die on its own. The streak will not shut down on its own at low battery and that's what corrupts it.
[Dell Streak 7] stevedebi:
I had mine die that way but luckily it didn't go read only on me. I charged it for a few minutes, then turned it on while plugged in for the rest of the charge cycle.
[Dell Streak 7] WookieFan:
I've flashed the OTA Honeycomb on my T-Mo DS7 and it has run down several times without issue. I have to think something else is contributing to this issue.
[Dell Streak 7] sirbagin:
Hi,

Can anyone recommend an app which can shutdown the system when battery level drops below the pre set value?

I have one ds7 on order and I'm a bit worried about this problem.
[Dell Streak 7] otnos:
It's not caused by letting the battery run out. I have own this tablet for almost a year now and have many times used it until the battery died, but never did it go into "read only" mode.

My advice to you is treat this device with care and use it within its limitations. This is not a desktop so don't load it up with everything under the sun. Be careful with apps. Many times bad/poorly written apps may be the culprit to many of the DS7 problems. But we are so conditioned to having a reliable desktop and software that works, that we quickly blame the hardware for problems caused by a less than perfect OS running junk apps.
[Dell Streak 7] sirbagin:
Thanks for reply.

The fact that you have yours for more than a year is reassuring however my ds7 will be used by more than one person so I would feel better knowing that it can switch itself off before taking a gamble with it's own power management.
[Dell Streak 7] SayaX:
Add me to the list.

A friend gave me the tablet and it was the Tmobile US version with the sim card support. It had not been charged in forever and she couldn't figure out how to get it to work and had given it to me to fix/keep. I had figured out that it only needed an USB>AC since apparently USB Charging doesn't work (pretty lame!). I was pretty impressed until I went to restart the unit, it greets me with the same "Welcome to Android" screen and obviously it didn't save anything I had done to it before I restarted it. Did a hard reset from the bootloader, same problem. It's pretty sad as it seems to be a pretty decent tablet for the price aside from the battery life being abysmal.

However, playing with the tablet spurred me to go ahead and pick up a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 which I am pretty happy with.

Has anyone figured out how the hardware plays into this problem? Or is it a strictly a software issue?
[Dell Streak 7] bdouglas:
How to tell if you have been "Read-Only"ed?

I have been searching for a little while, and I haven't come up with anything that says "if this happens you are stuck in Read-Only mode."

I have a Streak 7 (company property) that I think is in Read-Only mode. Another guy with my company flashed this and several other Streaks to dj_steve's HoneyStreak HD7-2.0R1. This one was brought to me about 2 months later because it "would not boot anymore". When I tried to start it up it stuck on the Dell logo. I soon realized though that if I left it on the Dell logo for a really long time (like 30 minutes) it would finally start to boot showing the StreakDroid logo. Once it finished booting it asked for a password. According to many of the posts that I have read this is because something happened to cause the device to "go encrypted." I know that we did not purposefully encrypt the device, but it is encrypted. I have verified that by using adb shell to bring up the settings screen with this command:

am start -a android.intent.action.MAIN -n com.android.settings/.Settings

Nothing I have tried seems to have any effect at all on the device. I have tried Factory Resetting from the settings menu, from the CWM recovery that is already on the device (4.0.1.4-DJ_Steve-Streak7) and by using "fastboot boot recovery.img" with a 5.0.2.7 CWM image. I have tried using NVflash to send the partition images to the device. I have tried using "fastboot flash" to flash the recovery image, the boot image, and the system image. None of them have any effect whatsoever on the tablet. It still takes 30 minutes to boot, and has the same password screen no matter what I do.

Is this what is meant by Read-Only mode?

If so, how can I prevent our other Streaks (we have 4 others) from suffering the same fate?:eek:

*EDIT* I also have a logcat saved that was taken one time when the device began booting showing the StreakDroid logo if anyone is interested in that. I don't know if any useful information can be gleaned form that text. I spent about 20 minutes looking through it and nothing jumped out at me as a cause.
[Dell Streak 7] wptski:
Some have claimed that allowing to battery run all the way down causes this yet others claim to have done just that several times and have no problems. Go figure.........
[Dell Streak 7] bdouglas:
Maybe...

Yeah I read that in several posts above. I can't say for certain whether the battery ran down on this one or not since I wasn't the one using it, but it had been working fine in the office until we sent it out with one of our technicians. The chances of the battery running down completely are pretty good since the tech's don't always have a good place to charge it.

I also read something suggesting that having a certain combination of ROM and recovery image cause this issue. Basically the gist of what I read seemed to say that some versions of clockwork recovery cause this problem when the device is factory reset because the device usually uses the stock recovery to do the factory default. Does anyone know if that is the case?
[Dell Streak 7] trungtuyen66:
i can not fac reset , or flash stock roms ecovery

help
[Dell Streak 7] giveen:
Yes you can.
[Dell Streak 7] Nocturnal_50:
not sure what everyone else is doing wrong... just re-flash your recovery then flash another rom over the top and done, its an emmc bug

turns out its not that simple... gonna chown the whole thing and see if I can mount as r/w
[Dell Streak 7] Nocturnal_50:
can someone who has a stable working S7 and someone who has one that is RO'd post a treeview of their /etc/fstab/ both stock preferably but a stable cm9/cm10 one would be great too... if I get it in the next 4 hours we can try some things to get it back to a working standard
[Dell Streak 7] TheManii:
if you mean /etc/vold.fstab, it's a static file.

If you mean /etc/recovery.fstab, that's not actually used by the rom, the fact it's in some roms is simply an oversight.
[Dell Streak 7] Nocturnal_50:
why cant it just be like normal linux? gonna chown/chmod the lot and see what that does, what have i got to lose?
[Dell Streak 7] TheManii:
Go for it, but android/linux isnt gnu/linux.

Android isnt designed around the concept of dynamic volumes.

It's only really capable of mounting when it knows far in advance what's happening.

vold.fstab isnt even modifiable without root, as the entirety of /system is normally mounted read-only.

You have to remount as read-write to be able to modify it
[Dell Streak 7] Nocturnal_50:
guess who brought their streak 7 back from read only mode :victory: now what to do with it...
[Dell Streak 7] wptski:
Okay, I'll take the bait, how?
[Dell Streak 7] giveen:
Congrats dude! You are going to help a lot of people out!