[General Topics] Kantharaj Chinnappa:
Lenovo P780 errors- "Kernel Block Map to PMT mismatch" "No find KernelGZ" "No Split"

DISCLAIMER

---------------

I ASSUME THAT THE PERSON READING THIS THREAD/ARTICLE IS FAMILIAR WITH WHAT IS ROOTING AND ITS RISKS. ITS YOUR OWN RISK TO ROOT YOUR PHONE AND INSTALL

CUSTOM RECOVERY OR CUSTOM ROM. ITS YOUR CHOICE. I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY BRICKED PHONE ARISING OUT OF THE PROCESS/OBSERVATION FOLLOWED IN THIS THREAD

THIS THREAD IS ONLY FOR THOSE:

=> KNOW HOW TO USE TOOLS LIKE MTK DROID TOOLS AND SP FLASH TOOLS

=> HAVE ISSUES OR DIFFICULTIES OR ERRORS WHILE ROOTING OR INSTALLING CUSTOM RECOVERY

BASED ON THE ABOVE POINTS, PLEASE PROCEED FURTHER

FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE FACING LOT OF DIFFICULTIES ROOTING AND UPDATING CUSTOM RECOVORY ON LENOVO P780 PHONE

THESE ARE JUST MY OBSERVATION, THE DIFFICULTIES AND ERRORS I FACED AND HOW I FOUND WAYS AROUND THEM IN DUE COURSE.

I WONT GUARANTEE IT WILL WORK FOR YOU, BUT IT MAY, MOST PROBABLY OR GIVE YOU MORE HELP IN SOME PARTICULAR SITUATIONS.

FIRST THINGS FIRST. DO IT WITHOUT FAIL

PLEASE KEEP A FACTORY IMAGE BACKUP OF YOUR WORKING PHONE BY USING SP FLASH TOOL. STORE IT ON A SEPARATE DRIVE OTHER

THAN PHONE MEMORY/PHONE SD CARD. PROCESS THIS ROM IMAGE WITH MTKDroid TOOL BEFORE DOING ANY KIND OF WRITE OPERATION ON YOUR PHONE

TAKE A BACKUP OF YOUR CONTACTS, MESSAGES, IMEI, PHOTOS/VIDEOS, PERSONAL STUFF, SETTINGS ETC AND STORE THEM ON YOUR DESKTOP/LAPTOP/EXTERNAL DRIVE

GENERALLY GOOD PRACTICE IS TO TAKE ALL SORT OF BACKUP FROM THE ACTUAL PHONE ITSELF BEFORE DOING ANY WRITE OPERATIONS.

THERE ARE PLENTY OF CHINESE MEDIATEK PHONES FOR WHICH FINDING PROPER IMAGE IS NEXT TO IMPOSSIBLE

THERE IS NO BETTER FRIEND THAN A FACTORY IMAGE TAKEN OUT OF YOUR OWN WORKING PHONE. YOU WONT REGRET

PHONE MENTIONED THROUGHOUT THE THREAD:

LENOVO P780 8 GB MODEL. Bought in INDIA 2013

Android version : 4.4.2

Baseband version : P780.V24, 2015/01/06 09:40

Build number : P780_ROW_8G_S228_150112

IMPORTANT PREPARATION AND GROUND WORK

FIRST OF ALL HAVE LOADS OF PATIENCE. DO NOT HURRY IN TO DOING THINGS FAST AND REPENT LATER. DEVOTE LOTS OF TIME TO UNDERSTAND THE PROCESS

READ EVERYTHING AND WATCH ALL RELEVANT INTERNET VIDEOS FULLY, CAREFULLY AND PROPERLY.

DO NOT FORGET TO TAKE A COMPLETE FACTORY IMAGE BACKUP OF YOUR PHONE USING SP FLASH TOOL. PROCESS THE IMAGE WITH MTKDroid TOOL. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT

1. Have a reliable PC or Laptop. I have rooted and updated custom recovery on my phone using Win 8.1 laptop.

Hence I would prefer a PC/Notebook with windows OS(7/8.1) installed. It is easier to find software and drivers for windows.

2. Connect your switched ON phone to PC and verify if it is detected properly by your PC.

You should be able to access the phone storage and SD card if any

3. Ensure your phone is always USB debugging mode enabled.

4. Use a tool like "usbdview" to clean up errant drivers first. Have a clean device manager at beginning.

5. Ensure you have installed proper ADB drivers. Check in device manager you should have something like "ADB interface" with no yellow triangle.

That means your drivers are properly installed. If finding drivers are difficult use PDAnet or search for universal ADB drivers and install them correctly

6. Preloader or VCOM drivers should be installed correctly. The one which worked perfectly for me was the one which I saw in You Tube by ITXTutor.

Search for "How to Install MTK Preloader 65xx Driver Correctly - Windows 8.1 64bit approved ! [HD]-PAxTCvRmlio" in You Tube.

Go Through the tutorial and download files from there. Do it exactly as it says in the tutorial.

[NOTE : IF YOUR ANTI VIRUS BLOCKS MTKDroid TOOL CREATE AN EXCEPTION]

7. Download MtkDroidTools-v2.5.3 tools on your PC. Once downloaded run the application as administrator. Switch ON your phone

Connect phone to PC. Take screen shot of MtkDroid tool application with your phone details. Create a scatter file and save it.

During this process MTKDroid showed only one error

04/06/15 14:09:29 ATTENTION!

04/06/15 14:09:29 File /system/recovery-from-boot.p which restore factory recovery in case of phone switching on in a normal mode Is Found!

[NOTE : I CAN SAY CONFIDENTLY YOU CAN IGNORE THIS ERROR. IT MIGHT BE SOMETHING THAT LENOVO USES TO ENFORCE ITS OWN RECOVERY IMAGE. THIS ERROR

FURTHER CREATES SOME PROBLEM DURING ROM IMAGE PROCESSING.]

8. Download SP Flash Tool v5.1352.01. Run the tool as administrator. Open the scatter file saved in previous step.

Go to Readback. Do a complete readback on phone. Start address always from 0x0000. Wait until READ back completes. It may take 15 to 30 minutes

and you end up with atleast 700MB size file.

My backup was 1 GB. Less than 700 MB means, there is some issue with read back. The factory image of kitkat which came as OTA was more than 700 MB.

Don't continue. Retry readback properly. You might have missed or incorrectly done some procedure(for e.g. wrong end address).

9. Once read back is complete, Run MtkDroidTools-v2.5.3 tools on your PC. Connect phone(switched on) to your PC.

Go to "root, backup, recovery" tab. Click on "To process ROM_ file from Flash Tool".

It will pop up asking to load the ROM image which you made in previous step.

Load that image. MTK should automatically start processing image.

At this point I got error as follows

05/06/15 19:16:27 --- Kernel Block Map to PMT mismatch!

05/06/15 19:16:27 -------------------------------------------

05/06/15 19:16:27 BlockName Offset

05/06/15 19:16:27 -------------------------------------------

05/06/15 19:16:27 Kernel: __NODL_PRELOAD 0x0000000003980000

05/06/15 19:16:27 PMT: PRELOAD

05/06/15 19:16:27 Kernel: __NODL_BMTPOOL 0x0000000118980000

05/06/15 19:16:27 PMT: FAT

05/06/15 19:16:27 -------------------------------------------

DON'T WORRY ABOUT THIS ERROR AS WELL. LET THE PROCESS CONTINUE

MTKDroid TOOL will ask if you need to make a CWM recovery automatically, click no and one more window will pop up, press cancel.

[NOTE : EVEN IF YOU SELECT YES TO MAKE CWM RECOVERY, MTKDroid TOOL WILL THROW MORE ERROR AS COPIED BELOW.

IT WONT CREATE CWM RECOVERY IMAGE. HOWEVER PROCESS WILL COMPLETE]

05/06/15 19:16:34 --- ERROR :No find KernelGZ

05/06/15 19:16:34 --- ERROR :No Split Boot Image

Because of PMT mismatch error Flash tool will create two scatter files.

MT6589_Android_scatter_emmc.txt and

MT6589_Android_scatter_emmc_PMT.txt.

MTK Log is as below.

05/06/15 19:16:27 --- scatter from PMTis write to the file:

C:\Users\..\Desktop\MtkDroidTools-v2.5.3\backups\Lenovo-P780_150112_ForFlashtoolFromReadBack_150605-191615\MT6589_Android_scatter_emmc_PMT.txt

05/06/15 19:16:27 - Use it if SP FlashTool errors of 8038 or 4050 occurs

The entire processed ROM file will be kept in backups directory of MtkDroidTools directory. Ensure you make a copy of this for safe keeping. This

is very important especially MT6589_Android_scatter_emmc_PMT.txt file will be very useful later.

[WHY YOU NEED TO DO ALL THESE FIRST IS BECAUSE IF YOU BRICK YOUR PHONE, EVEN A SOFT BRICK, MTKDroid TOOL IS VERY MUCH USELESS.

THIS TOOL WORKS ONLY IF YOUR PHONE IS SWITCHED ON AND BOOTED TO HOMESCREEN. MTKDroid USES ADB DRIVERS TO CONNECT WITH PHONE AND NOT VCOM DRIVERS.

IF PHONE IS NOT DETECTED BY MTKDroid THEN PROCESSING ROM IMAGE WILL NOT BE POSSIBLE. THAT OPTION WILL BE DISABLED ON THE MTKDroid TOOL.

SO NO SCATTER FILES, NO RECOVERY, BOOT, PRELOADER IMAGES, ETC, OF YOUR PHONE. SO BE VERY CAREFUL]

------------------- PROCEED FURTHER ONLY AFTER IF YOU HAVE COMPLETED ABOVE TASKS -------------------------

NOW ACTUAL PROCESS OF ROOTING AND CUSTOM RECOVERY STARTS

FIRST THING YOU WILL HAVE TO TRY IS ROOT THE PHONE USING FREELY AVAILABLE TOOLS

1. I tried various methods of rooting but, not one worked on Lenovo P780.

framaroot, towelroot, iroot, root genius, geno, mobogenie and many more didn't work.

Finally the latest version of Kingoroot did succeed to some extent.

2. Kingoroot version which worked partially was 1.3.8.2338

By partially, I mean kingo app did say Root was successful on both PC and phone. However Root checker application said "Root is not properly installed"

Application like SuperSU and busybox did not work after installation due to improper rooting.

[TRICK : DO A FACTORY REST]

3. I booted the phone in to FACTORY recovery. Did a "Factory Reset"

Now things started to brighten up!! The ever tough Lenovo P780 started to give in slowly and steadily.

After Factory reset done and phone booted up. The first thing I did was to take SP flash tool Readback once again, so that I have a clean factory image.

you may skip read back if you don't need a clean image.

4. Used another rooting application this time, i.e., iRoot older version 1.7.9.2

Viola!!! phone got rooted properly this time.

Root checker showed "Root Available", busybox and other applications started working.

NOW WE HAVE ROOT ACCESS TRY INSTALLING CUSTOM RECOVERY

[NOTE : EVEN IF YOUR PHONE DOES NOT GET ROOTED BY 3RD PARTY APPLICATION READ ON THERE IS STILL HOPE]

1. MOST HELPFUL LINK ESPECIALLY FOR ROOTING CUSTOM RECOVERY INSTALLATION IS GIVEN BELOW

http://xdaforums.com/lenovo-p780/help/rooting-tutorial-kitkat-t2835605

IF ROOT FAILED FOR YOU USE TUTORIAL IN LINK TO ROOT AND TRY. THAT IS A DIFFERENT PROCESS. BUT FIRST CUSTOM RECOVERY

2. Go through the link fully. Get a good understanding. No need to do it exactly as it says. A little bit of tweak worked for me,.

3. I first tried to overwrite the factory recovery with the same factory recovery image that I backed up earlier, to see how it goes.

It is always good to try this as a first step to write using flash tool. Use the scatter files and recovery image from back up.

Here's the sequence of steps I tried.

a) Using SP-Flash-Tool-v5.1352.01, Tried to overwrite only the recovery image again with same factory image(download only). Note I used

MT6589_Android_scatter_emmc.txt scatter file which was created from my phone from MTK droid tools.

I got error from flash tool

"PMT changed for the ROM; it must be downloaded"

Error number 8038. The image was not downloaded

b) Now I realized why MTKdroid tool created another scatter file MT6589_Android_scatter_emmc_PMT.txt. It was for this issue.

I retried the same steps again, but now with MT6589_Android_scatter_emmc_PMT.txt file. Flash tool downloaded the factory recovery image successfully.

I powered on the phone, but was shocked to see it was not booting up. It came to lenovo logo and displayed error something like "DL install failed"

It was never booting up. It was SOFT BRICKED!!!!

How come with just overwriting factory recovery image again with same image.... I don't know reason for that.

Even a simple, harmless operation of overwriting factory image caused a soft brick.

This is the main reason WHY do a complete read back and relevant back up before starting write operations!!!!

I tried several other scatter files along with TWRP and CWM recovery images downloaded from the internet. I tried with all scatter files from

http://xdaforums.com/lenovo-p780/help/rooting-tutorial-kitkat-t2835605. It did not work.

c) Finally after several attempts, the working combination for me was a little surprise.

I tried MT6589_Android_scatter_emmc_PMT.txt file created from my phone, along with SP_Flash_Tool_v3.1304.0.119_lenovo and TWRP_v2.7.1.1_P780_ROW_KK_Corrected

both downloaded from http://xdaforums.com/lenovo-p780/help/rooting-tutorial-kitkat-t2835605

Select DA DL check box and do a download only.

This combination worked. Now I have a fully rooted and TWRP installed on my Lenovo P780.

Hope this helps!!!