yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] kaefert:
Hi there!

I own one of those, and there are a handful of (german-speaking) people activly posting in this forum http://forum.tizzbird-tv.de/ about the Tizzbird N1. - The problem with that forum is that they heavily censor it - as soon as anyone posts info on how to "get in", or if someone asks uncomfortable questions - those posts gets deleted.

They sell it really cheap for 30€ (not all the time, but twice for one day @ redcoon) and although the Wifi-Chip (or the drivers for it) are really crappy, the media player part is really nice.

update: I've did a little research, and here is a little list of relevant links about the tizzbird n1:

==== Marketing Product Pages ====

http://valueplus.co.kr/english/product/product_player_n1.html

http://www.tizzbird.com/eng/index.php?mm_code=719&sm_code=755

http://tizzbird-tv.de/tizzbird/tizzbird-n1.html

==== Official Firmware ====

http://www.tizzbird.com/eng/index.php?mm_code=726&sm_code=727&board_search_head_word=stick+n1

http://download.tizzbird-tv.de/TizzBird_N1G_update_GMS_V3_20_13072719.tzbird

==== German Support Forum (posting info about root-access prohibited) ====

http://forum.tizzbird-tv.de/viewforum.php?f=11

==== GPL-Code for Tizzbird N10, N20 & N30 - but not for N1? ====

http://www.tizzbird.com/eng/index.php?mm_code=752&sm_code=754

==== Kernel Sources ? ====

http://www.cnx-software.com/2012/03...k-n1-android-ics-hdmiusb-dongle-media-player/

http://www.cnx-software.com/2012/07...hips-tcc8925-mini-pcs-cx-01-z900-tizzbird-n1/

https://github.com/cnxsoft/telechips-linux
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] HellcatDroid:
Yeah, the pretend to be "community friendly and supportive" but once you actually start digging in, they get quite agressive and boot you out.

Anyways, I got a N1 a couple of days myself now (snagged it for 30 bucks at another RedCoon sale :D) and I am surprised.

Got it pretty much only to tinker around with it and this thing suits more perfectly for that than I imagined.

Esp. that fact they used a simple SD card as "internal flash storage" - my guess is because a simple SD is cheaper than an actual eMMC flash chip, but it's so cool on so many levels for us.

I already found out how to replace the 4GB SD with a bigger one (have a 16GB in mine ATM).

I'll post some more details about it here later, got a few things I want to test and/or prepare first (thinking of some "easy to use cloning script"), but long story short:

You need to copy the bootloader to the very end (last few blocks) of the SD you want to use.

Once the BL is at the proper place it already boots from the new SD again, to be sure everything is as it's supposed to be one should apply an update via USB (I'm not 100% sure about a possible pointer to the BL that needs to be corrected, which the update does).

After that the partition information has to be edited to make the userdata partition larger and you're done.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] kaefert:
thanks for the info HellcatDroid!

It would be great if you could elaborate on how to put the bootloader at the end of the sd-card.

Also I would love to get info how to get root into the stock firmware, that crippled down root-firmware that they allow to exist in the official tizzbird forum doesn't really satisfy my needs :)
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] HellcatDroid:
I did it via a hex editor, but it should be doable with a few "dd" commands as well - that's one of the things I still want to try, find the propper dd params to copy the BL over.

If you dumped the original SD into a file using dd, at the very end of the image file you will find the bootloader and the very last block of the SD is a "header" telling the bootrom of the N1 a few things about it, so it can properly locate and load it.

So what you got to do is to copy those last ~230k from the image to the end of the new SD card.

As said, I'll try to write a small shell script that does it.

The rooting is even more easy (Stonecold would kill me if he'd read this, lol):

For when running on Linux (no can do on Windows, as Windows doesn't know the ext4 FS):

Since you got the SD in your PC anyways already, just mount partition 2 (e.g. if the SD is sdc on your PC, mount /dev/sdc2).

That is the partition where the Android system is sitting on.

Then just copy over the files needed for root to where they need to go, chown/chmod them properly, unmount and done :)

I used the "update-supersu.zip" I had for my Nexus7 to grab the required files.

But I'm planning to make a simple rooting script as well.

So if all goes as planned it'll come down to

- insert original SD

- run script 1

- insert new SD

- run script 2

- to root run script 3
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] kaefert:
brilliant! I would love to see those scripts :D

way easier than start tinkering with that stuff myself ;)

One thing I wonder about - over at the official forum you said that a simple dd copy didn't work - is that if the target sd-card is bigger or also for an sd-card of equals size? because with equal size simple dd copy of the sd-card should still work, even if some things need so be exactly at the end.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] HellcatDroid:
Yup, just a dd didn't work because the new SD card was larger and the bootloader ended up being somewhere in the middle of the card instead of at the end.

While your thought of "dd to equal size cards" is totally correct, it might still fail due to the fact every card is not 100% exact same size counting down to last byte.

There ususally is a tiny size difference (a few bytes to kbytes) between cards, even if they are supposed to be same, so the bootloader might end up truncated or not exactely at the end.

If, however, the size of the cards is 100% the same, down to the last byte, then yes, a simple dd clone would work.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] kaefert:
Oh! Didn't know that. I thought same marketing size means not the same size they write on the box, but at least the same size between those that are marketed with the same GB numbers on their stickers.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] HellcatDroid:
OK, here we go, I slapped together a few scripts for prepping a new (and larger) SD card to work in the N1 and while having the SD in the PC to aplly some root.

* hints at attachment of this post

The scripts might still have problems and not work on any Linux out there, but it's a start.

If there's more people interested and joining in on this I might continue but for now I got what I wanted - more storage and root.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] somade:
Hi

I think I destroyed my MiniSC cand! The N1 is dead. I tried to insert the card in a linux and gparted did not see anything. What can I do?

thank you for your help
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] kaefert:
Could you post how you got there? what did you do to the sd-card that destroyed it?
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] HellcatDroid:
Hi.

If you got a dump from a working state of the SD you can just dd it back onto the card.

If you don't, it can still be recovered but might need bit more work.

Two options:

find someone who gives you a dump of their card and use the write-card script from my above post to write it to your SD.

Problem with this: a working dump contains copyrighted code, like the bootloader, it technically it's "not OK" to share it

we come up with another script that only contains an "empty" image (i.e. only partitioning information) and that takes the bootloader and recovery from the official update and gets the card into a state that it boots into recovery and lets you install a working system using the official update from USB (option in the recovery menu)

Option 2 would be nicer, IMO.

I'll try to make up said script :)
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] somade:
Thank you for your immediate answer!.

Actually I dont know what has happened, maybe the sharp instrument I used to remove the plastic cover scratch it...But now when I put it in a card reader the led of the reader switch off and the card is heated!!!. And also when I put it in the N1 the blue led turns off!.

So I bought a new empty micro Sd .

Waiting for your script to partition the new card and then boot in recovery mode and install a firmware....

Because I am not expert to linux please give me a lot of details how to do this.

Thanks again!
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] kaefert:
Do you think the bootloader is even part of the offical updates? wouldn't it be "best practice" to leave the bootloader partition alone as long as possible (and normally firmware updates don't need to change the bootloader)

update: something else I've just found, those might be kernel sources for our Tizzbird N1:

http://www.cnx-software.com/2012/07...hips-tcc8925-mini-pcs-cx-01-z900-tizzbird-n1/

-->

https://github.com/cnxsoft/telechips-linux
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] HellcatDroid:
Yep, the bootloader is in the update - at least in the 3.20 one.

And yes, usually the bootloader shouldn't be touched because that's usually the one thing that can "perma-brick" Android devices.

However, sometimes the manufacturer updates it (fixing bugs, adding functionality) - on my Nexus7 they updated the bootloader on pretty much every update and also Samsung updates their bootloaders every now and then (and every single update flashes the current one).

Last, not least, on the N1 the bootloader isn't on a partition but at unpartitioned space at the very last blocks of the SD (=> reason for a simple dd to a larger card not booting).

Ohyay at the possible kernel sources!

It'd be so cool if that's really sources able to build a kernel for the N1 with - I think we might be able to even get custom recovery (CWM and the likes) on the N1 if those sources work :D
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] HellcatDroid:
OK, while trying to recreate a working SD card w/o using a dump of a working one I found out a few more things - some of them still need figuring out if we wanna do it properly.

There seem to be TWO bootloaders!

A stage1 bootloader of ~1kB size located at the third and second last block of the SD. If it's missing the N1 can't boot and it looks like ARM code (haven't tried to disassamble it yet), I assume the bootrom loads and executes that piece of code which in turn parses the header (see below) and load/starts the stage2 bootloader (the one also found in the FW update).

The very last block of the SD is a "header block" with some information beeing parsed either by the bootrom or (more likely) the stage1 bootloader.

The headerblock contains (among numerous other unkown data) the size of the ("stage2") bootloader (the one that then actually loads and boots the Linux kernel of the Android OS, this is also the one contained in the FW update) and the usable size of the SD card! (everything works fine though if the SD size is wrong and a proper FW update updates the header during writing of the bootloader and also sets the correct size).

Also, the headerblock has a checksum of which I have no clue on how it is generated.

All that is just educated guesses and might be totally off, but for now it looks like it's not too far off.

So, for now we can assume the following boot sequence:

Boot-ROM

-> loads stage1 bootloader from fixed position "SDsize - 3 blocks" (1 block = 512bytes)

stage1 bootloader at fixed position on SD

-> checks checksum of headerblock (?), gets size of stage2 bootloader from headerblock, locates stage2 bootloader based on it's size and loads/executes it

stage2 bootloader on variable position on SD

-> base initialisation of hardware

-> checks for recovery trigger (the red button on the remote control) and boots kernel from partition 6 if trigger present

-> boots kernel from partition 1 if recovery was not triggered

-> enters fastboot mode when booting the kernel fails

Kernel

-> loads base drivers and boots up the system
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] kaefert:
you're brilliant Hellcat!

And did you also find both bootloader stages inside the firmware updates?

Another question that came to my mind while reading your post (fastboot..)

Is there a way to use the Tizzbird as USB-slave? So to make use of adb and fastboot and such stuff? Okey adb could also be used via network I guess..
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] sebastian.heyn:
Somade, do you have a linux running on your pc? If no, download and get a knoppix running. and then contact me via pm. I have the original n1 image so no problem to recover the n1.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] kaefert:
Welcome to our rouge and non-censored Tizzbird N1 forum Sebastian! :D

I wonder if you found us here, if the German Tizzbird support also already knows about us ;)

update: I just remembered, I've sent you the link as PM over in the official forums, thats how you landed here.

Sharing your sd-card image might be a copyright violation, and if you're profile name is strongly linked to you're real identity you should definitly be cautious with such things on public forums...
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] HellcatDroid:
Nope, unfortunately the stage1 bootloader is not in the update :-/

Yeah, it works, even officially XD

Go to the TizzBird settings -> "System Settings" -> "Advanced Settings"

It has an option "OTG Mode" there, set it to "Debug".

If you have your N1 connected to your PC via the micro-USB port (and hence your PC powering the N1!) you can use ADB and fastboot just as usual :)

I have not yet tried if that option is persistant, i.e. it survives a power loss.

When booting the kernel fails it should fall back to fastboot mode, so flashing a new kernel w/o pulling the SD should be possible - need to test this a bit more, though.

What works is, if you're rooted and and you fire the command "reboot bootloader" from a root shell, that gets you into fastboot mode no matter what (given you applied above mentioned setting first).

But needing a running system to get into fastboot mode kinda defeats the purpose of it - this aint Ouya which is a total fail when it comes to fastboot XD

---------- Post added at 09:26 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:05 AM ----------

Eventually they will, I'd say.

And I'd love to see their faces when they do XD
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] kaefert:
Thanks for the answers Hellcat!

I wonder where else and how much of the Tizzbird N1 gets sold. Are we Redcoon customers in Germany & Austria the only people who bought this stuff? Or just the only ones who want to tinker with it?

update:

Another thing I wonder: Here on XDA-Developers you can find a lot of custom ROMs that are not built from scratch but are based on official ROMs --> What does the law say about stuff like that? I mean wouldn't sharing part of the official sd-card content fall into the same basket?
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] HellcatDroid:
I don't think they sold that many.

Android is open source, so releasing/sharing a modified version of it is no problem.

A problem could be propriatary closed source apps included in the OEM ROM, technically you wouldn't be allowed to ship those with your custom ROM but since everyone who gets the ROM has kind of a "valid license" (=they are included in the device you use the ROM on anyways) most manufacturs don't care.

However, a good example are the Google Apps, CM for example got some trouble with Google for having them included in their ROM - that's why these days you need to seperately install them.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] kaefert:
Well... thats a shame.. not only less money for them, but also less potential tinkerers for us ;)

It seems to be a good device for tinkering, with everything including bootloader stored on a removeable storage card :D

Well but it's licensed under the apache license, so the device manifactureres could make and distribute adapted versions of android which they don't need to open source and for which they don't have to give us permissions to redistribute them...

Well, the same should hold true for an image of this sd-card shouldn't it? you can't do anything useful with it if you haven't bought an Tizzbird N1 which should give you a "valid license" for it.

Yes, I noticed... But I guess the vast majority of cases here on XDA-Developers don't seem to be a problem.. So I think we could infer from that, that as long as no Tizzbird official tells us we can't, we could assume sharing their stuff with other licensees is okey and will be tolerated..
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] somade:
So my friends thank you for your efford. Waiting to repair my broken sd card
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] kaefert:
[MENTION=4173973]HellcatDroid[/MENTION]

Yesterday I tried your Script.

The new SD-Card works fine at first, also the root permissions work. But after I told the Tizzbird N1 to format the 800MB disk so that I had my 29GB it doesn't want to boot from that sd-card anymore. (at least that was what I think caused the non-booting problem) Or maybe it is that I checked the "NTFS" tick while formatting, sice I thought files bigger than 4GB would also be nice on there ;)

I will retry the process today in the evening and try rebooting without formatting the user-space, and see if that works, and if it does I will try to format without the NTFS-Tick and see if rebooting will still work after that.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] HellcatDroid:
Yah, I haven't tried with a 32G card yet, only with the original 4GB and a 16GB one.

The 32GB card I have has data on it I don't wanna loose, so I'd need to copy to over to somewhere for trying with that card.

I'll do it eventually, just need the time to do it.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] kaefert:
Did you check the NTFS-Tick while formatting the user space on the 16GB card?

Did you try to reboot multiple times with the 16GB card?
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] HellcatDroid:
Nope, haven't tried NTFS formatting but I can that tonight.

And yes, the 16G card works (with the bigger userdata partition) since a couple of days now, incl. reboots and power-off and power-on,

But I'll try to format it NTFS tonight when I get home.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] sebastian.heyn:
Edit: entry deleted ;)
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] kaefert:
hehe, why did you delete it? you think it was too offensive? ;)

(btw. emails where already sent out with the original content of your post ;))
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] sebastian.heyn:
Yeah, i thought it was offensive. I guess its more important to get the max out of the n1, instead of moaning about the way the business is set up.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] kaefert:
yes, thats the spirit :D I hope I find time to continue testing my sd-card issues soon, maybe today in the evening.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] HellcatDroid:
I tried NTFS formatting last night with my 16GB card and it worked.

I made a "new" copy over from the 4G to the 16G, booted up and formatted the userdata partition as NTFS, didn't accounter any problems.

As said, haven't tried with a 32GB yet.

Also, the script to prep an empty SD w/o having a dump looks promising, successfully made my 4G and 16G card (both completely wiped before trying) to boot into recovery with it.

Just need to add a few informative outputs (as in "what to do next" after the script has finished it's job) and I think it's ready to be uploaded then, tonight :)
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] kaefert:
brilliant! thanks for your efforts [MENTION=4173973]HellcatDroid[/MENTION]!

I ordered myself a 16GB card from amazon, will try it with that when it arrives. Until now I only own 4gb cards and smaller that where bundled with devices I bought and two 32gb cards that I bought extra.

edit: how did you solve the problem with the stage 1 bootloader that's not part of the official updates?
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] HellcatDroid:
I didn't.

For now I'll just put those 1.5kB along my scripts - since everyone who's ever gonna use it has the HW that is supposed to have it in the first place....

I also pulled a lazy one on the recovery, instead of rebuilding it from the update I just put the image along the scripts as well - which in this case is 100% OK as the recovery is nothing else but an Android/Linux kernel with the Android recovery UI - and the kernel is GPL and Android is.... eh, not sure what license Android is released under (Apache?), but it's open source and cool to use, so moo ;)

Planning on actually rebuilding the recovery from the update though, just not yet.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] kaefert:
Yep, Android is licensed with Apache's license.

Yeah, I guess since everybody else is doing it like that here on xda-developers, it's save to assume that it will be tolerated.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] dertombln:
Hello.

I tried to copy sd to an 8gb sd. worked. but if i format (fat od ntfs) the sd-card with the android-settings the stick does not boot anymore :(

it's a class 10 card. the original is class 4. you got no problems with your 16gb? tizzbird firmware: V3_20_13072719

and with my tizzbird it's not possible to entering recovery-mode (power on while holding the red-button?)

Any Idea?

Tom

PS: Thank you for helping me at Tizzbird-Forum!
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] pineipol:
I need some help

Hi HellcatDroid,

I have a Tizzbird N1 and I was trying to copy the original 4GB sd card to an 8GB sd card. Due to my old sd card reader my original SD card has result damaged and I would like to ask you if you could help me to recover it.

I have some knowledge about linux commands and I was viewing yor scripts but I think that them are based on a working sd card to copy to another one. Being my original sd card damaged I supose that your scripts won't work.

Please, could you help me to regenerate my sd card from a blank downloaded firmware from tizzbird.com or could you send me an original image from yourself, please?

I would thank you very much if you could help me,

Pineipol
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] yota:
one more, unfortunately...

Hello.

Unfortunately, I'm now one more case of a recent tizzbird n1 owner, with a broken microsd card.

I wasn't really trying to copy it to a bigger card or anything, I wasn't even aware that the internal storage was being provided by a card inside!

I guess I was trying to add storage, but by inserting a blank microsd, not the way you guys went about it.

Well, I fought with the piece of rubber that closed the microsd slot, and eventually won with the help of a somewhat sharp screwdriver.

Shame about losing the card in the process. It got a little of the plastic torn off, and on top of not booting, I'm unable to read it anywhere else, Linux or windows.

There's also the chance that I might have damaged the actual n1, but as the card itself is damaged, I'll hang on to the thought that only the card got damaged.

So, I find myself in the same situation of at least two more people here.

I usually just lurk around here, not contributing much, but not asking for anything also.

I enjoy just reading about stuff and discovering new ways to use both new and old devices alike.

I just wanted to get this out, so to let you know there's one more depending on being able to recreate the card to have once more a working n1.

Thank you for your efforts on this matter.

Yota
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] HellcatDroid:
Hey guys.

Sorry for the delay, but I was busy and AFK for a couple of days.

Anyways, find attached un updated set of my scripts, new is the "init-blank-sd.sh" one.

Just insert a SD card with any or even no content at all, run the script, follow the final steps the scripts tells you to the letter and the N1 will be allive and kicking again.

Also, I was able to reproduce the "not booting anymore after storage format" problem with my 32G SD card - just need to figure out why it's happening now.

Oh, and BTW, can someone please tell "der_tom" on the official TizzBird forum that PMing me there is of no use, I am not able to read anything PMed to me there, if he has something to tell or ask me, he should do it here.