[Android General] alsalloumabdul:
PLF USB Flashing Tool Needed

Dear all,

I've been very excited reading all your posts and see where this thread is going. I own a Parrot Asteroid Smart device and I was very happy with it. However, I hated the complications this company is doing to keep the device software within its scope.

I have suffered from issues in the software due to a mistake of deleting some files in the SD card that were associated with some installed apps, causing the device to disable touch interface. I have done a brutal factory reset but did not work because the touch interface was disabled. The Brutal Factory Reset steps, as per Parrot Developers Portal, are:

- Put on a USB key this plf file with a computer (the file can be found on their developers website)

- Plug your USB key

- Turn Off your car (and remove the car key)

- Remove front panel and push on the hard reset button during 1s. (with a needle)

- Move 2 fingers on the screen during 5 seconds while your turning on your car

- The update should start

- Put back the front panel and wait the end of update

- Remove the file proper.plf from USB key with a computer

What I did is to connect a mouse and a keyboard via USB ports and navigate through menus. I could not reinstall the ROM again within settings because my device was already up to date. So uninstalled many apps and deleted some corrupted files to get the touch running again.

Once the device started to respond to touching, I tried to the Brutal Factory Reset, and it initiated smoothly. Once the device started to read from the flash disk the screen became black but the power button light was on. I thought this was part of the process, but unfortunately the device screen kept off all the time although the power button light is always on, even if the key is removed.

I have downloaded Asteroid_Smart_update.plf, which contains the whole ROM but been looking for a way to USB flash it into my device. I've gone through a couple of guys who created a tool to USB flash ardrone_update.plf into Parrot Ar Drone Airplanes, and looked for similar creative tools but there was nothing clear.

I e-mailed Parrot Support twice, no response. I posted a couple of articles on their developers portal and customers forums, nothing yet. So I called Parrot's main headquarter in France and talked to the Customers Support department. After he heard the whole story all he replied was:

"Call Amazon to facilitate a device replacement, and if they did not contact Parrot again and we'll do it for you".

That wasn't a solution for me. I've got the device because I thought it is a real Android device that can be ROM-FLASHED anytime. It isn't cool for me to use Parrot-In-Device-Recovery-Tool only to reset the device. What if that recovery tool is dead, as in my device!

I live in Kuwait and shipping the device back to Amazon would cost me around 20KD (70USD). For the sake of the geeky adventure I am willing to contribute in 300USD (via Paypal or Western Union) to anyone heading a project that solves this problem, to help me as well as other people having the same problem.

Description of the required tool:

1. Folder containing a .exe application to run under Windows7/8

2. The application expect a file called "Asteroid_Smart_Update.plf" that contains a ROM to be placed next to it within the same folder.

3. When the .exe application runs, it USB-FLASH the device with the new ROM.

4. The device will be connected to a computer running this .exe file using a micro-USB to USB link as the development port on the device is a micro-USB one.

That's all!

Sincerely,

Abdullah