yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Android General] zMILWAUKEE:
thanks, http://xdaforums.com/member.php?u=5919159 , for the better explanation. Like I said in a previous post I'm on the patched KitKat. Bin, and it's working great. I feel bad that I didn't answer his question fast enough about the preloader. I could have warned him about not flashing it. Thank you http://xdaforums.com/member.php?u=5919159 for all your hard work and sharing your knowledge with us.
[Android General] loner.:
Yes when I connect it to a PC even though the screen on the tablet is black the PC's adb devices command does identify the tablet. I hear on the PC's speakers that the tablet is connecting again and again in a attempted boot loop. So I guess I need to wait for the battery to die. Since I can't get to the bootloader yet I can't use fastboot. Is there a command line for adb that can erase or format the area I messed up?
[Android General] Sparkrite:
As it is being detected by your PC I'm fairly sure you could use SPFT to flash the full ROM and revive the tablet quite easily so.
[Android General] loner.:
That be great, but I can't get the tablet to turn off yet. Maybe if I used the "kill all" command it will shut down or I will have to wait till the battery is dead I guess.
[Android General] Sparkrite:
How do you know it is actually "on"?

Sorry, just reread your previous post and have to agree, it does sound as if it is "on" in some form or other.

You could try connecting it to SPFT in download mode and toggling the power button and see if it starts to flash.
[Android General] loner.:
I can detect a little warmth on the back, and the sound of it reconnecting over and over while attached to the PC.
[Android General] bigrammy:
Hi,

As others have said SPFlashtool is your friend :good:

What you are hearing is likely the MTK preloader which cycles on and off.

You can see it in the PC's Device Manager (assuming you're using a windows PC)

Screenshot

Simply flash the preloader and lk from the correct firmware and ROM version you were on before you flashed the incorrect ones.

This will show you the whole process of installing drivers etc etc etc

[YOUTUBE]LzyYXAflmOk[/YOUTUBE]
[Android General] Sparkrite:
Have you tried a full flash while toggling the power button. Nearly impossible to kill these tablets unless the preloader is damaged and even then can be brought back to life but AFAIK it involves jtagging.
[Android General] Tzul:
That's strange. ADB only works in the Recovery and in Android, both of which require a somewhat working preloader and bootloader to get to. Fastboot resides in the bootloader, ADB doesn't.

You can forcibly turn off the tablet by keeping the power button pressed for 10-15 seconds.
[Android General] zMILWAUKEE:
Loner your in business, just reflash everything using SPFT. If you need help, Hovatek on YouTube has some great step by step videos on how to use, and setup SPFT. And all the files you need are right here in this forum on page 1.
[Android General] bigrammy:
:laugh: You didn't read my post then. 3 or 4 above this one. :laugh:
[Android General] loner.:
I don't know what's going on now the PC adb does not detect the tablet.
[Android General] Sparkrite:
Don't worry about that, if you have SPFT drivers installed correctly when you plug in the tablet in its off state the preloder will activate the windows drivers and SPFT should start flashing.
[Android General] bigrammy:
[MENTION=5142831]loner.[/MENTION]

Just follow my post http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=66293412&postcount=755
[Android General] loner.:
I must be doing something wrong, but I have used this successfully before, I get error (5054) [EMI] obtain DRAM failed!

I guess my load doesn't match my target?
[Android General] Old faithful:
Flashing/Rooting/Taking Ownership Tutorial

Sorry to barge into the emergency room with totally unrelated news, I hope you get your issue sorted out, loner. Maybe what I'm about to publish (and should have long ago but simply didn't have the time to do before) will help avoid problems like these in the future.

I just wanted to mention that since I've been asked by a few folks for my Flashing/Rooting/Taking Ownership Tutorial I wrote back a couple of months ago and that I submitted a rough draft of to a few members here for critique, I've revised it completely, correcting some mistakes, updating some info and posted it here, for those who may be interested.

Just be aware it's a work in progress that may still contain some mistakes!

It's in text format in 4 chapters and makes for quite a bit of reading, hopefully it will be useful. In any case do feel free to comment, criticize and to correct me if I'm wrong, it will only help me improve it, my goal is to hopefully help the community.

Next step for me will be to try to condense it all into a Cheat Sheet of sorts to be used as a quick reminder while actually doing it all.

Hope it helps, have a great week.
[Android General] gtallmadge:
Old Faithful, the link you provided requires an decryption key. Am I missing something?
[Android General] Old faithful:
Thanks for letting me know - I'm not too familiar with how mega works, let me see what I can do.

Try it again and let me know if it works. Thanks!
[Android General] zMILWAUKEE:
Me to Old faithful post back soon so we can all read up on it and help you where we can.

---------- Post added at 02:27 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:23 AM ----------

Oh yeah if you don't like Mega, give MediaFire a shot, that's what use and I like it a lot.
[Android General] clsA:
My Tablet was no longer charging after installing BlissPop. I restored my backup and it didn't help

I had to use SPFT to restore the system to working order.
[Android General] loner.:
I gave up for today, I will take a fresh look at restoring the tablet tomorrow, so far nothing that should work has. I don't want to get frustrated and toss it in the trash.

So tomorrow with a fresh cup of caffeine, I start over.
[Android General] clsA:
Congratulations on your 1000th Post :svetius:
[Android General] zMILWAUKEE:
Loner you don't need to use adb, your making this harder than it needs to be. All you need to do is reflash with SPFT. That YouTube video a few posts back will walk you through everything.

---------- Post added at 04:19 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:09 AM ----------

For some reason the bootloader and preloaded on this ROM don't work together, you need to flash that patched ik.bin that Tzul posted. Right now I'm on the KitKat patched ik.bin on blisspop. I'm glad that someone ported a working ROM but as you see this was his first project and it seems as though he rushed to get it done. I didn't have the non charging problem but mine was that the tablet would keep restarting on its own if I turned it off then plugged it in. My wife thought it was possessed and called a priest..lol.. But with that patched ik.bin everything is all good. Oh and one more thing, he left an app that has been flagged as a Trojan virus. check services.apk or something like that.
[Android General] loner.:
I tried SPFT earlier today didn't work. The problem was mentioned in post #763. It may have something to do with me flashing the wrong preloader and lk.bin. I will give it another go tomorrow. Thanks

---------- Post added at 09:29 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:21 PM ----------

The BlissPop rom has a app that was flagged as trojan virus?
[Android General] zMILWAUKEE:
Yes apparently it was in a lot of ROMs on lollipop, Hovatek has a video on YouTube on how to remove it. It's pretty straightforward. I'll dig it up and post the name in this post in a bit.

---------- Post added at 05:09 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:51 AM ----------

OK found it, it was ckservice.apk, and it's malware not a Trojan.
[Android General] loner.:
I have successfully used SPFT before. I just couldn't get it to work on this bricked tablet yet, I hope I can get it to work soon.
[Android General] loner.:
Well nothing seems to work, SPFT will not flash the files with the messed up lk.bin and preloader.bin. I wish there was a way to flash the device, but it seems to be to screwed up to save.

If there is a way to do this, let me know, but I am doubtful. I was hoping for a fix to bring this one back from the dead.

I am thinking of picking up another Tab2 A 10 since it wasn't the tablet at fault I screwed it up and using this one for parts in case I crack the screen in the future
[Android General] Old faithful:
Don't despair, apparently the case isn't that hard to open up, the idea is to disconnect the battery. You should be able to flash it then. I'll see if I still have that video showing how to do it.
[Android General] Tzul:
First, are you using the SPFT in Windows or Linux?

If it's Windows, open the device manager, then connect the tablet (turned off) via USB.

If the preloader is working, you should hear the typical "USB device connected" sound effect. And if the drivers are installed, the device manager should briefly show "MediaTek PreLoader USB VCOM Port" under "Ports (COM & LPT)". Like in this screenshot, but without the yellow warning triangle.

After two seconds or so, the "USB device disconnected" sound effect will play and the device manager entry will disappear again.

This is what happens with a working preloader. But if it's broken, which yours appears to be, there is still a way to save the device.

There's a special flash mode that allows you to restore the preloader, and only the preloader. Afterwards, you can proceed as usual (flash the other partitions normally with the SPFT).

To enter this flash mode, simply keep the volume-up button pressed while connecting the tablet (turned off) to the PC!

You should hear the USB connected sound, as described above, and a device manager entry should appear under "Ports (COM & LPT)". However, this time it's called "MTK USB".

If it doesn't, then you probably don't have the SPFT driver installed. Or your device doesn't support this special preloader restore mode. But the Tab 2 does, I tried it.

With this, you should be able to restore a valid preloader (using the SPFT, no other partitions selected), and after that the rest of the tablet.

Good luck.

---------- Post added at 06:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:08 PM ----------

Jtagging (opening the device, identifying testpoints on the mainboard, and soldering COM port wires to it) is only necessary for older devices. Like I said, this device supports restoring the preloader by holding volume-up while connecting USB. I guess this activates a special download mode in the boot ROM.
[Android General] Old faithful:
Wow, you never cease to amaze me... I'm definitely keeping this information and putting it in my knowledge base!!!! Where did you find this information?
[Android General] loner.:
I am using Windows 10. I can only assume the tablet is off, screen is black and the tablet is unresponsive, I had it on the charger for a hour or so this morning. When I plug the USB to the computer I see in the device manager like in your screenshot and the connect sound, but this keeps repeating (port/com connect in a loop) I have held the volume up button but nothing changes. I have used this same computer with SPFT successfully flashing Roms so I am sure the drivers are loaded correctly. I have put it back on the charger but I can't even be sure it's taking a charge, but I plugged the charger into another device (phone) So I know the charger is putting out a charge.

I know it's messed up as I am the one who flashed the wrong lk and bootloader. As it is I can't get past the connect (to the PC) because of the connection loop.

---------- Post added at 11:50 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:47 AM ----------

PS. I have held the power switch down for over a minute at a time and nothing, like the battery is dead. It doesn't act like it taking a charge. I wish it had a charging light.
[Android General] Tzul:
If your preloader is really broken, then that's probably pointless. As far as I know, it won't charge before the power management hardware has been initialized by the preloader and bootloader. "Off-mode charging" is performed in the bootloader, not while the tablet is actually off.

So, do you see the "MediaTek PreLoader USB VCOM" entry or not?

If it appears, then the preloader should be working... or maybe you flashed a wrong one from a different device? The "5054" SPFT error could mean that.

What tablet do you have anyway, A10-70F or A10-70L?

The repeating connect/disconnect is normal. USB power wakes up hardware -> boot ROM runs -> preloader runs and enables/disables USB -> preloader fails -> tablet turns off -> USB power wakes up tablet, and so on.

Are you sure? Holding volume up while connecting the tablet to USB should show the "MTK USB" device instead of the "MediaTek PreLoader USB VCOM" device.

The driver for the "MediaTek PreLoader USB VCOM" device, at least. "MTK USB" is a different device, but it should be handled by the same driver.

Yeah, like I wrote at the beginning, it's probably pointless. "Charger" is a misnomer. It's a power supply, the actual battery charging is controlled by hardware inside the device.

Like I wrote above, your tablet should turn itself off. Keeping it connected to USB just wakes it up over and over again, unsuccessfully trying to boot the bootloader.
[Android General] Old faithful:
Does Lollipop offere any real advantages?

Yes indeed... I second that motion, Xposed for Lollipop breaks a couple of my apps.

That being said, apart from the UI and embedded access to the external SD Card, I don't see the real advantage in Lollipop anymore. And as you probably noticed, the battery percentage thing was something that worked perfectly well in KitKat, among other apps that did and don't anymore in Lollipop, at least as far as I'm concerned.

Furthermore, now that a TWRP recovery has been custom ported to this device thanks to Tzul, I'm not so sure Lollipop is such a great OS anymore: If clsA is right and TWRP allows backup to be made directly to the computer from within recovery, it won't bother me not being able to make a direct backup to the

Real

SD card anymore, as what I dislike most about KitKat is the lack of access to the SD card from within recovery, as I distrust the so-called 'internal' SD Card and its propensity to corrupt and hate unnecessarily having to wear it out simply because it refuses to write directly to MY storage of choice, something I have true full control over as a user, the SD Card.

As a matter of fact, I was just discussing how modern operating systems have basically neutered users in many respects when it comes to control with a retired friend of mine the other day, an archivist, and she was ranting at how her new Windows 8.1 would not let her manager her files when she got pictures from her kids in her emails... where are my files,

why won't they let me chose where I can save my documents

?... I proceeded to show how she can open the 'containing folder', take a note of it, and how to use Explorer to move the file to where she

really

wants it instead of where windows 'had determined you should keep them'... And Android is just as bad if not worse, with its moronic concept that 'we shouldn't need a file picker', in other words that users shouldn't have free will and are too stupid to know how to manage their affairs... Thank You, Dan Morrill.... NOT!!! :mad: I'm CONSTANTLY HUNTING for stuff and wasting time on my Android devices because of that, moving stuff out of the 'default' folders to folders of MY CHOICE onto MY SD Card because Mr Morrill determined I was too dumb to know and that I shouldn't need to know where my stuff is and to simply trust Google with it... ARE YOU NUTS, MR MORRILL?... :rolleyes:

Anyway... Sorry for the rant, but if no one speaks up we'll all end up being managed by corporate giants and governments with little if any choice as to how to conduct our affairs, we've already lost a lot since the days of 'insecure' Windows 3.11... Sorry, but the hassles to be able to do stuff that was straightforward and easy to do in the DOS days are 100, no 1000 times more aggravating that the so-called 'enhanced security' it provides... :mad:
[Android General] clsA:
You misunderstood what I said, TWRP will never backup directly to a PC! What is will do is backup to USB-OTG or the ext-sd.

Twrp does work with the PC in MTP mode, meaning you can copy/move files to and from the device while in recovery (not backup to pc in recovery).
[Android General] Old faithful:
Thank you for the explanation - Great to now.

Well, at this point it's pretty academic for me, as the TWRP recovery for KitKat doesn't work at all (I tried). In any case, it would be great if that version indeed added backup to SD Card, that's its main attraction to me.

I've reloaded most of my stuff and the only thing I really miss from Lollipop is its better color rendering (even with Miravision dialed way down, skin tones are still too ruddy in my opinion).

At some point I'll make a short review of the apps I'm running - I've tried perhaps a dozen text editors and keyboards over the past few weeks and have become quite proficient with the tablet: )
[Android General] Tzul:
Please try again, I think I fixed it. It appears that the Android 4.4 kernel didn't like that the recovery binaries were 64 bit.
[Android General] Old faithful:
This did the trick - Thank you Tzul!

For those who might still be hesitating moving out from Carliv, here's the upshot on this TWRP Recovery in its present iteration for KitKat:

For those on KitKat,

it does backup to the external SD Card

:D.

Contrarily to what Tzul posted a couple of weeks ago,

the touch UI works perfectly well now

. No more button pushing. Great job, Tzul!

Wipe is more granular

, you can select more than simply cache or dalvik, you can in fact select every other partition

ZIP can be installed from the external card in KitKat

. There is also the 'USB-OTG' option, I presume to read from a connected USB key?

File management

: this recovery has a very smart File Manager with sort features. The only thing missing is a text editor ;)

UI is pure android

with home and back buttons, plus a GUI/command line toggle.

NVRAM can be backed up

, for those who are still worried about losing their NVRAM data should they use format in SPFlash

you can suit the UI to your liking

with brightness, vibration duration...

it has

SuperSU 2.52 built in

In other words... I love it! :good:
[Android General] Old faithful:
Just wanted to say thanks, as a matter of fact SuperSU caught it asking for Superuser privileges right on the first start of a fresh ROM install after I first turned WiFi activation on, which I denied. It is indeed extremely invasive, and for no reason at all.
[Android General] clsA:
I left some goodies here for those on Lollipop and TWRP >> http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=64546198&postcount=3
[Android General] Old faithful:
Great :)

I'm preparing a detailed "How To" tutorial for newbies as well, for new owners of the tablet to gain full ownership of the device, stopping at the basics, with as minimum fuss as possible, perhaps with expandable (hide/reveal) sections for details or more in-depth explanations.

I'm not sure how I'll post it, I'll get in touch with you guys to see what you think. I'd like to avoid the bloat that some threads gain, making search difficult for those who look for practical info.

Edit: It's kind of long, so I've split it in three sections, two are finished, working on the last one, so I should be able to submit the draft tonight, January 18, 2016, for review by the experts to see whether it's worth publishing ;)

Jan 18, 2016, 8PM - I've had a bit of an accident this afternoon that pretty much sapped my energy for the rest of day - and as I have a couple of days of intense work coming up, I won't be finished with it for several more days. Sorry, O.F.
[Android General] theclarkster:
I'd like to also voice my thanks for an the work done to get TWRP on this tablet! The current Lollipop build works well enough, but I'm not holding my breath for Lenovo to even providing any further updates for future OS versions. I'm not a developer by a long shot, but have a very basic understanding of how the framework for Android works. This leads me to a few questions:

1) Would the kernel we have now function if used in conjunction with a ROM build on Marshmallow?

2) If #1 isn't possible, how hard would it be to modify said kernel to build future Android OS versions?

3) If there are any future updates provided by Lenovo, is it possible to modify them all that they are flashable in a custom recovery?

I'm sure there's a lot more than this involved in building a ROM. Please understand that I'm not asking anyone to build anything (unless they want to, then I'd be more than happy to be a guinea pig). I'm just curious to know how difficult, or simple, it might be or if it's even worth pursuing. Thanks again for all the hard work! TWRP works great!
[Android General] Old faithful:
Firstly, I'd like to ask you why are you so adamant in this seeming 'escape forward'? What is it about Marshmallow that is so much better than Lollipop or KitKat that you need to have it? Don't you have any apps that run great in older OS implementation but don't anymore in the newer OS?

To answer your questions, let me be summarize from the knowledge I gained over the past month spending practically all my free time reading about this tablet and trying all kinds of things. I also invite anyone more versed than I to correct me if I'm mistaken.

Unlikely. There are already huge differences between 4.x and 5.x: different kernels means a different kernel will be required for any future 6.x (Marshmallow) recovery.

[*]Wrong question. You need to start with a 6.x kernel to build a 6.x based recovery. Solution is to port a 6.x based recovery assuming you can find a 6.x ROM compatible with the device. This means drivers and other low level stuff. That requires insider knowledge of hardware components of the device.

[*]Yes, if there is a ROM, a custom recovery can most likely be made for it. Not by you and me, but by generous developers like Tzul :).

To the regulars here, please don't hesitate to correct me if I'm wrong, I'll edit accordingly.
[Android General] Old faithful:
Thanks for the excellent investigation - It will sure help those running Lollipop. Just to confirm that on KitKat, there is NO AAL option nor are there any brightening issues.

I was however hoping to see something to adjust color intensity (saturation), that is the only thing pulling me towards Lollipop at this juncture, as I'm not sure I can live with the ruddy skin tone rendering on KitKat. I checked under Display, bu there is only PWM duty, which presumably means Pulse Width Modulation, possibly for backlight intensity. Ah well.
[Android General] Tzul:
There's no AAL option in the Engineer Mode app on Kitkat? Interesting. If I remember correctly, the brightening issue is present in Kitkat, it's just not as bad (and the scrolling was already smoother there, too).

It didn't happen with my SolidExplorer test, for example, but it did happen with the settings app test, similar to what's shown at the start of the video.

Yes, PWM is what you said. There are a few settings for Display/LCM (liquid crystal module), but unsurprisingly nothing directly for "MiraVision". Somebody could investigate how this MiraVision stuff works, or at least where the settings are stored, so that we can compare the Kitkat and Lollipop settings. I'd also like to know now what the Engineer Mode does when you toggle the AAL button, so that we can try to turn it off in Kitkat, too. Maybe I'll look into it, but I have more important work coming up, so I'll have to take a break from digging into this tablet.
[Android General] Old faithful:
There is simply NO option on my device at all... NO AAL, NO Video. It stops at "Sensor"...

I'll be back in a couple of days as well, got a lot to do for the next three days. It's just as well, it'll take my mind off the tablet for a little bit ;)

Good night and see you guys in a bit!
[Android General] CaptJager:
Followed instructions on how to use sp Flash tool to put custom recovery on and got this error when plugged into tablet and yes Tablet was off