[TouchPad General] Shadowex3:
Let's face it, these tablets have had a good run but they're just unusably slow and laggy with any remotely modern version of android. Unfortunately going back to stock is not the simplest in 2022, especially if you've tried one of the more extreme android installs which wipes WebOS and rebuilds the partition table. I spent the morning collecting files and putting together a process from about 25 different websites dating back to 2012. The most comprehensive guide I found was Here but it still didn't fully work for me and some commands had to be done differently, particularly when rebuilding the partitions.

Keep in mind I wasn't kidding when I called this the nuclear option. If you can use any other less extreme method you probably should. This one is a risky pain and basically boils down to nuking the whole thing from orbit before rebuilding the partitions line by line by hand in a terminal.

Necessary files

Everything can be found in this mega folder

ACMEUninstaller2

Novacom

devicetool.jar

WebOS doctor jars (versions 3.0.0 and 3.0.5 in conjunction with devicetool should let you skip the now broken WebOS activation step)

7zip or similar program that can open jar files

Recovery image (nova-installer-image-topaz.uimage)

Java

WebOS quick install

Setup

Make sure Java is installed and working on your system

Make sure your touchpad is fully charged

Open Novacom files.zip and find the right version for your architecture. Odds are that's win-64. If you're on linux check your distro's repos first

Reboot (esp if you're on windows)

Find the Palm, Inc (lowercase L, capital i) folder. On windows this defaults to c:/Program Files/Palm, Inc

Place nova-installer-image-topaz.uimage in your Palm, Inc folder

Place ACMEUninstaller2 in your Palm, Inc folder

Boot your touchpad into WebOS recovery mode, either via bootloader or by holding power+volumeup (can take up to ~30secs)

Open a terminal window and navigate to your Palm, Inc folder

Run one of the below commands. THIS IS THE POINT OF NO RETURN.

Windows: novacom.exe boot mem:// < ACMEUninstaller2

Mac: ./novacom boot mem:// < ACMEUninstaller2

You should see a bunch of text scrolling and two images of a penguin around the top to one side. When it's finished it will warn you there's nothing installed it recognizes.

Try to reboot into recovery mode. You will probably get an exclamation mark with www.palm.com/ROM below it, or just the HP logo

In the Palm, Incterminal execute the below command (capitalization matters):

novacom boot mem:// < nova-installer-image-topaz.uimage

Navigate your terminal to the terminal subfolder and execute novaterm.bat

A small java window named "NovaTerm:" should pop up on your screen

In the NovaTerm: window click file and then connect

Another popup should appear titled Select device to connect with a really long string of letters and numbers ending in (usb, topaz-linux) in it. Click OK

If not check the dropdown arrow, make sure your USB is connected, reboot if all else fails and try again

Now that NovaTerm:says it's connected go back to your terminal and execute the below:

Windows: novacom -t open tty://

Everything else: novaterm should have been enough

Your terminal should now say root@webos-device:/# or the like. There may be some extra gibberish if you pressed an arrow key or something.

Now you need to rebuild all your partitions. Execute ONE of the code blocks below these instructions in exact order, one line at a time. You should not see any errors about something being mounted or the like. If you do reboot your touchpad and try to restart from step 13, that's what I did.

Once that is done try to reboot into recovery mode again, you'll probably only get the HP logo instead of the big USB symbol.

Open a new terminal window and navigate to wherever you're keeping the WebOS Doctor jar files

start WebOS doctor 3.0.0 (the only version that can deal with partition issues) from inside the terminal so you can see the output: java -jar webosdoctorp300hstnhwifi_customhpactivationbypass.jar

Don't touch the WebOS doctor window. Moving it to other monitors seems to break it for some reason.

If you see errors where it's trying to find the device and can't try unplugging/replugging the touchpad. If that doesn't work try rebooting. One person said uninstalling novacom at this point and letting WebOS reinstall the drivers fixed it. It seems hit or miss if there's weird USB detection issues on Win10.

WebOS doctor should complete without issues and have you reboot.

When the touchpad successfully reboots it'll ask start asking you for a language and first time activation. HP's master servers are down, this won't work. Reboot into recovery again

Navigate your terminal to wherever you're keeping devicetool.jar and execute it: java -jar path/to/devicetool.jar

Your terminal should say "found device: topaz-bootie" and then talk about configuring things and volumes for a while.

Once the terminal says Device is ready. reboot once final time.

That should be it. Once you've got everything installed and WebOS up and running there's still a few steps needed to deal with the lack of auth servers and expired certificates.

Enable developer mode by putting webos20090606 into the "Just Type" bar on the homepage and hitting enter

Run WebOS-Quick-Install-4-7-2.jar just as if it were a normal application (no need for terminal). It's basically a replacement app store that runs on the PC.

You should see the HP Touchpad recognized by WebOs Quick Install. If it is click the globe on the right side of the app's window

Search for "Preware" in the popup (you need to click the magnifying glass after typing)

Install Preware, which is a replacement app store that runs on the touchpad itself

32gb touchpad partitions

lvm.static vgscan --ignorelockingfailure
lvm.static vgchange -ay --ignorelockingfailure
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/mmcblk0p14 bs=1024 count=1000
lvm.static pvcreate /dev/mmcblk0p14
lvm.static vgscan --ignorelockingfailure
lvm.static vgchange -ay --ignorelockingfailure
lvm.static vgcreate -s 8M store /dev/mmcblk0p14
lvm.static vgscan --ignorelockingfailure
lvm.static vgchange -ay --ignorelockingfailure
lvm.static lvcreate -l 71 -i 1 -M y --major 254 --minor 0 -n root store
lvm.static lvcreate -l 8 -i 1 -M y --major 254 --minor 1 -n var store
lvm.static lvcreate -l 2 -i 1 -M y --major 254 --minor 2 -n update store
lvm.static lvcreate -l 3 -i 1 -M y --major 254 --minor 3 -n log store
lvm.static lvcreate -l 32 -i 1 -M y --major 254 --minor 4 -n mojodb store
lvm.static lvcreate -l 17 -i 1 -M y --major 254 --minor 5 -n filecache store
lvm.static lvcreate -l 3523 -i 1 -M y --major 254 --minor 6 -n media store
lvm.static lvcreate -l 64 -i 1 -M y --major 254 --minor 7 -n swap store
lvm.static vgscan --ignorelockingfailure
lvm.static vgchange -ay --ignorelockingfailure
mkdosfs -f 1 -s 64 /dev/store/media

16gb touchpad partitions

lvm.static vgscan --ignorelockingfailure
lvm.static vgchange -ay --ignorelockingfailure
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/mmcblk0p14 bs=1024 count=1000
lvm.static pvcreate /dev/mmcblk0p14
lvm.static vgscan --ignorelockingfailure
lvm.static vgchange -ay --ignorelockingfailure
lvm.static vgcreate -s 8M store /dev/mmcblk0p14
lvm.static vgscan --ignorelockingfailure
lvm.static vgchange -ay --ignorelockingfailure
lvm.static lvcreate -l 71 -i 1 -M y --major 254 --minor 0 -n root store
lvm.static lvcreate -l 8 -i 1 -M y --major 254 --minor 1 -n var store
lvm.static lvcreate -l 2 -i 1 -M y --major 254 --minor 2 -n update store
lvm.static lvcreate -l 3 -i 1 -M y --major 254 --minor 3 -n log store
lvm.static lvcreate -l 32 -i 1 -M y --major 254 --minor 4 -n mojodb store
lvm.static lvcreate -l 17 -i 1 -M y --major 254 --minor 5 -n filecache store
lvm.static lvcreate -l 1618 -i 1 -M y --major 254 --minor 6 -n media store
lvm.static lvcreate -l 64 -i 1 -M y --major 254 --minor 7 -n swap store
lvm.static vgscan --ignorelockingfailure
lvm.static vgchange -ay --ignorelockingfailure
mkdosfs -f 1 -s 64 /dev/store/media

Troubleshooting

If your touchpad's home button has an LED blinking from side to side the battery isn't charged enough. Use the stock charger if available and leave it until it boots itself up. This could potentially take days. Mine only took about 12 hours.

If instead of recovery mode you get either a plain HP logo or an exclamation mark with www.palm.com/ROM below it this means your disk is wiped and there isn't even a recovery or anything. You'll need to use novacom to force nova-installer-image-topaz.uimage onto the touchpad and then connect to it externally using the novaterm utility. Once you run ACMEUninstaller2 this is the expected result.

If you're getting errors about the exclusivity of mmcblk0p14 and asking if it's mounted something went weird while running all of the partitions, try rebooting and starting again.

If you want to download the original WebOS doctor files you need to edit your hosts file and add 195.22.200.42 downloads.help.palm.com

A list of all the resources I used to compile this:

https://hroy.eu/tips/webos-touchpad-restore/ (massive credit to Hroy here, this is by far the most complete guide though it still needed tweaks to the partition rebuilding commands)

https://www.webos-internals.org/wiki/WebOS_Doctor_Versions
https://xdaforums.com/t/q-touchpad-seems-bricked.1971859/page-2#post-57616293
https://www.webos-internals.org/wiki/How_To_Recover#Doctor_disconnects_at_8.25
https://www.webosarchive.org/docs/activate/
https://forums.webosnation.com/hp-touchpad/330977-how-restore-hp-touchpad.html
https://pivotce.com/2015/06/24/tip-how-to-bypass-activation/
https://pivotce.com/2015/12/13/the-ultimate-bypass-activation-tool/
https://forums.webosnation.com/hp-touchpad/329655-hp-tp-server-error.html
https://forums.webosnation.com/hp-touchpad/317164-activation-bypass-touchpad.html
https://xdaforums.com/t/need-help-webos-fails-at-8-for-hp-tp-due-to-insufficient-free-extents-0-in-volume.3275076/
https://xdaforums.com/t/solved-bricked-and-webos-doctor-wont-help.1564938/
https://forums.webosnation.com/hp-touchpad/325404-recurring-maps-download-failed-error-2.html
https://xdaforums.com/t/guide-factory-condition-restoration-downgrade-to-webos-3-0-0.1426244/
https://forums.webosnation.com/hp-touchpad/332616-getting-restarted-touchpad.html
https://forums.webosnation.com/canuck-coding/274461-webos-quick-install-v4-6-0-a.html
https://xdaforums.com/t/tools-touchpad-toolbox-updated-2015-02-25.2756314/page-4#post-52922166
[MEDIA=youtube]VP-FH6fS2GI[/MEDIA]
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https://xdaforums.com/t/rom-guide-how-to-install-android-on-the-hp-touchpad-the-easy-way.2147284/#post-37965549
https://forums.webosnation.com/hp-touchpad/309309-hp-touchpad-booting-issues.html
https://www.rootzwiki.com/threads/the-official-fix-your-touchpad-8-12-stopped-no-sd-opps-reformat-crap-thread.14249/
https://xdaforums.com/t/guide-video-how-to-bypass-webos-activation-on-the-hp-touchpad.3636750/
https://pivotce.com/2015/06/15/tip-edit-your-hosts-file-for-access-to-old-palm-servers/