[Upgrading, Modifying and Unlocking] codelover:
Tester & feedback needed

Yay! Joining the party, officially. :laugh:

Guess what? The test files that i sent you three weeks ago were packed using the correct method stated above, but like you said, it didn't work for you.

I am not sure how you tested, but like you told me, you were not testing under stock ROM, instead, you tested them on marsapa ROM...

So, i think it's better to start all over again, restore the stock ROM and start from scatch so we can get more accurate results.

1) Restore the complete stock ROM: STOCK ROM 20141218-145608.

2)

Test Cases

:

TEST #1: boot.img from latest marsapa ROM (After flashed above stock ROM)

Step: Flash boot with SPFT & try to start the phone normally.

Purpose: To test whether the system can be booted from a modified boot image packed with tags 0x40000100.

TEST #2: boot_1_nomod.img : Simple repack, original files not touched, only added HELLO_WORLD.txt in root '/'.

Step: Flash boot with SPFT & try to start the phone normally.

Purpose: To test whether the system can be booted from a modified boot image.

TEST #3: boot_2_unsecured.img : Change ro.secure=1 to ro.secure=0, nothing else.

Step: Flash boot with SPFT & try to start the phone normally.

Purpose: To test whether the system can be booted from unsecured boot image. (Note: Carliv test was ro.adb.secure=0, not ro.secure)

TEST #4: recovery_nomod.img : Simple repack, original files not touched, only added HELLO_WORLD.txt in root '/'., nothing else.

Step: Flash recovery with SPFT & try to start the phone normally.

Purpose: To test whether the system can be booted from modified recovery image.

TEST #5: Flash secro.img ONLY.

Step: Flash secro with SPFT & try to start the phone normally & also try boot into recovery.

Purpose: To test whether SBOOT checksum can be triggered/updated if flashed along with security related file.

TEST #6: Flash boot_1_nomod.img + recovery_nomod.img + secro.img + lk.bin:

Step: Flash with SPFT & try to start the phone normally & also try boot into recovery.

Purpose: To test whether SBOOT checksum can be triggered/updated if flashed along with security related files.

TEST #7: Flash complete stock ROM, but replace boot/recovery with boot_1_nomod.img & recovery_nomod.img:

Step: Flash with SPFT & try to start the phone normally & also try boot into recovery.

Purpose: To test whether SBOOT checksum can be triggered/updated if flashed along with the complete ROM.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

*

ONLY

unbrick (restore stock boot.img) if test #3 failed, otherwise,

DO NOT

unbrick until all 7 tests are done, just continue with the next test.

Additional info, the boot.img from [MENTION=4729462]marsapa[/MENTION] custom ROMs were repacked using tags of 0x40000100, and it's proven working for them too.

AFAIK, he added init.d support to init.rc, no other file was changed except init.rc, what i am trying to say is, tags addr 0x4e000000 is NOT absolute.

IMHO, until you can boot from a basic repacked stock recovery image, otherwise working on custom recovery would be wasting time.

If some of the above test fail, we can conclude that something else is stopping the phone from booting using modded image...

If that is the case then we can try another approach, by hijacking the OTA method, as the OTA can install new recovery without any issue.

The OTA method looks very suspicious, i have some idea how to do it, but let see how the above tests go first.

P/S: I unpacked carliv's boot_unsec.img & repacked, MD5 matched, so my test images should be OK too.

Regards.