[How To] Manually Update SYNET7LP/SYTABEX7 to Android 2.2 "Froyo"

[cfrockit]

Caution: If your tablet was shipped with Android 2.2 DO NOT UPDATE! These update files are beta and months old.
This process was originally intended for the manual upgrade of 2.1 tablets.

Using a microSD card OR from computer using USB cable and OTG Port

The following process will manually update the SYNET7LP/SYTABEX7 or Disgo 6000 to Digital Gadgets version of Android 2.2 "Froyo".

Digital Gadgets version of Android 2.2 "Froyo" is identified as "Android version" "DG2.20" in the "Settings" application on the "About device" screen.

View attachment 1997

Overview of the update process -
The manual update process requires identifying the hardware version of the tablet, once that is accomplished the proper update file can be downloaded. A utility needs to be download and unpacked to burn the update file either to a microSD card or burn using a USB cable connected to the OTG Port.

In the the microSD card method, the card is then inserted in the tablet and powered on which will then burn the update image. Upon completion the microSD card is removed, and the "Reset button" is pushed.

The OTG process requires loading the appropriate computer drivers to recognize the device so the utility can burn the update to the connected device.

The tablet can then be turned on and the system will boot with the new version of Android OS.

If none of this makes sense start here - Resources for the SYNET7LP/SYTABEX7/Disgo 6000.

Ask questions, suggest revisions, offer better methods. Everyone here is learning and willing to assist.

Requirements: microSD card 2 GB or greater or a USB cable using the supplied adapter, moderate computer skills, knowledge of "adb" (Android Debug Bridge) commands or a Terminal Emulator application.

Note: Creation of the update microSD card has been accomplished using XP and Vista 64bit OS. Attempts to create the update SD with Win7 64bit FAILED, however there is SUCCESS in updating using Alternate Step 4a: "Update from computer using USB cable and OTG Port" detailed in Post #2.

Note: Users that had previously reported getting a "No recovery image is found, try recover from SD" when attempting a "Factory Reset" (three finger method) once updated to 2.2 can Apply a factory reset - (step by step with pictures.

Warning: Use this information at your own risk. It is being provided by users of the device NOT the manufacturer/distributor. Several tablets have been successfully updated without any issues.

Do Not Proceed without understanding the process and moderate computer skills needed to complete the update.

Currently known not to work -
- OTG port does not allow mount of SD card on computer after the update. The update maybe missing UdiskMountService.apk. If you want to move files from your computer to the SD card using the miniUSB to USB cable, DO NOT UPDATE until a solution has been identified.
*This DOES NOT affect external devices using the HOST port - mouse, keyboard, etc. or USB drives connected to the Host port are recognized.

Work In Progress -
- Google Experience (Market, Talk, etc.) except for GMail. If you're hooked on Market for applications DO NOT UPDATE or find an alternative (SlideME - Sam 4.0, Amazon Market, GetJar, etc.) http://www.androidtablets.net/forum...-market-2-2-sylvania-disco-work-progress.html

Step 1: Hardware version identification either using adb or a Terminal Emulator application

Alternate Step 1) Terminal Emulator method to determine "hwver" without root access - Post #47

adb Method) Using "adb" query the device with this command - adb shell cat /proc/cmdline

C:\>adb shell cat /proc/cmdline
console=ttySAC3,115200 androidboot.mode=normal bmagic=0xeef07901 hwver=11.2.0.6

Note the "hwver=##.#.#.#" for your device as several Sylvania/Disgo types have been identified (11.2.0.6, 11.2.1.5, 11.2.1.8, etc) and are detailed in - http://www.androidtablets.net/forum...fotm-update-wrap-files-bin-ius.html#post92703.

Using the identified "hwver", the proper update file (*.ius) can be downloaded.

Note: The incorrect update file (*.ius) CANNOT be burned to the device. If you can't determine the "hwver" attempting to burn with the identified update files will be hit or miss.

Step 2: Download the appropriate update file

"hwver" specific update files (if available) can be found by substituting the identified "hwver" in the GET command below.

Insert the numbers ##.#.#.# "hwver=" returned in Step 1 after "data=" in the example url below. Paste this string in a browser session to identify what update is being downloaded.

Example -http : / / 222.73.93.45/sysup.php?data=##.#.#.#&vcode=0

Using 11.2.0.6 as an example - Enter this address -

http://222.73.93.45/sysup.php?data=11.2.0.6&vcode=0

Currently Returns -

12|http://222.73.93.45/update/11.2.0.6/11.2.0.6.2.0_beta3.ius

Download the update file identified the url above returns and note the location the file is save on your computer for use in Step 3.

Note: The "vcode=" is also a variable in the get command which is checking "ro.versioncode" (adb shell getprop ro.versioncode). At this time it seems to have no affect on the link returned. After updating to DG2.20 version code changes to "10".

Note: In some cases the GET command no longer provides the link to the update file, however the most recent files are in this post.

http://www.androidtablets.net/forum/sylvania-tablets/12785-infotm-update-wrap-files-bin-ius.html

NOTE: Disgo 6000 tablets using these files will be updated to DG2.20, thus the Sylvania boot animation will appear and all future updates will be from DG/infoTM.

Step 3: Download "InfoTM Update Wrap Tool" and review the instructions http://www.androidtablets.net/forum/infotmic-based/17274-introduction-iuw-burning-tools.html

IUW Version 1.2 Note: Also attached at the bottom of this post.

Step 4a: Using USB cable & OTG port - see post #2 below.
or
Step 4: microSD card Follow process "2. Burning by SD card" detailed in http://www.androidtablets.net/forum/infotmic-based/17274-introduction-iuw-burning-tools.html.

a) Start "IUW.exe" which may be located in the "iuw1.2" folder created when the files were extracted from the archive which is attached.

In the "Paths:" section "Choose a wrapped image:" by clicking on the ". . ." button

b) Select the *.ius file downloaded in Step 2. "Choose an SD drive:" by clicking the drop down arrow
c) Select microSD card. (See Note below)

"Wrap Information:" should populate with something like this or like in the picture below.

Company: sylvania
Board:    P7901UH
FileNum: 11.2.0.6.2.0
Size:    64 MB

Image List:
U0 (246 KB)
RD (173 KB)
LK (2376 KB)
ADD_USER (4.5 KB)
ADD_AS (62934.5 KB)

View attachment 1998
d) Click "Burn"

Note: Some OS's (Win 7) see the SD card but the IUW tool won't, try using XP or Vista 64 bit which have been confirmed to work. Also, some cards may need to have all partitions wiped leaving the card Unallocated in order to be seen by the IUW tool.

If old partition needs to be deleted here are some basic instructions.

Using XP, click Start > right click My Computer > left click Manage
Using Win 7, click Start > right click Computer > left click Manage

OR - Click Start, click Run, type compmgmt.msc, and then click OK.

In the console tree (expand Storage), click Disk Management. The Disk Management window appears.

Click on the SD card first partition (down in the bottom right section) and you should get an X on the tool bar which is Delete. Delete the partition so the card is "Unallocated" no need to format. Try Step 4 again.

e) Upon "Burn Completed!", with tablet "Off" insert the microSD card in the tablet SD Card Slot.

View attachment 1996

f) Turn Device On - Press the power button on the back of the device to turn on.

Upon completion of the update burn process the tablet will display "Take off SD and reboot."
If anyone can catch a video of the burn process that could be informational.

g) Remove the microSD card

h) Press the "Reset button" on the back of the device using the tip of the stylus.

i) The tablet can now be turned on and the system will boot with the new version of Android OS.

View attachment 1999

Note: The initial boot will be slow. The animated "Sylvania" splash screen will take longer to cycle through but after a few boots it seems to load faster.

To make the SD card usable again, delete all partitions from the microSD card using the basic instructions quoted above. It can then be formatted once inserted in the tablet.

Post your experience so others may benefit by your experience.

Here are some getting started - http://www.androidtablets.net/forum...resources-synet7lp-sytabex7-disgo-6000-a.html.

Thank you to everyone who assisted in providing insight to these methods.

 

[ImagineThat]

Great Work, and a very nice write-up! Here are modified instructions, starting at step 4, for burning directly from the computer without using an SD card. This has only been confirmed to work with WinXP.

Step 4a: Install USB drivers for the tablet

a) With your tablet turned OFF connect a USB cable between your computer and the OTG port on the tablet.

b) Press the power button on the tablet, it will appear to do nothing; "found new hardware" will show up on your computer.

c) You have only a few minutes to complete this step or the tablet will time out and go into the normal boot process. Direct the new harware wizard to install from a specific location. Point it to the "otg_driver" folder created when you extracted "iuw1.1-english.rar". This will install a driver that alllows the tablet to communicate directly with your PC.

d) Once the driver is installed the tablet should say "Communicating with PC..." as shown in the picture below (you may have to wait up to 2-3 minutes for the tablet to display this, I'm not sure why there's such a delay, some users have had it come up right away)




Step 4b: Follow process "1. Burning by OTG" detailed in "Introduction of IUW burning-20110118.docx", as modified below

a) Start "IUW.exe" which may be located in the "iuw1.1-english" folder created when the rar file was unpacked.

Select "Link USB" on the left and "Easy burn" for USB mode.

In the "Choose a wrapped image:" section find your file by clicking on the ". . ." button

b) Select the *.ius file downloaded in Step 2.

"Wrap Information:" should populate with something like this...

Company: error
Board: error
FileNum: 11.2.0.6.2.0
Size: 64 MB
 
Image List:
U0 (246 KB)
RD (173 KB)
LK (2376 KB)
ADD_USER (4.5 KB)
ADD_AS (62934.5 KB)

d) Under "Link information:" the box under "Dv." should be green. If it is grey then check your tablet to make sure it didn't timeout and boot up. Also, make sure "Communicating with PC..." is shown on your tablet. The box may be green but if the tablet screen is blank the burn will not work.




"Click "Burn"

You should see the progress bar get to 100%

e) Upon "Burn Completed!" the tablet will ask you to pull the OTG cable and restart

f) Press the "Reset button" on the back of the device using the tip of the stylus, then turn the power on like normal. It will then go through the whole flash update process.

g) The tablet can now be turned on and the system will boot with the new version of Android OS.

 

[ImagineThat]

With the tablet turned on, connecting the OTG port to a computer no longer gives you the option of mounting for editing the SD card on the computer with this update. Anybody else notice this? With the DG2.02 firmware a notification popped up to allow this.

 

[cfrockit]

With the tablet turned on, connecting the OTG port to a computer no longer gives you the option of mounting for editing the SD card on the computer with this update. Anybody else notice this? With the DG2.01 firmware a notification popped up to allow this.

Looking in /system/app there doesn't seem to be a UdiskMountService.apk application to provide status that something is connected to the OTG port.

Copying the one from the previous version so far has no affect. There may be another service that needs to make this run.

Good find. Something else to track down. Along with how to get a working Market.

 

[Cat88Extreme]

So if I update to Froyo will I loose the ability to use a wireless mouse via the USB port, or does this just affect modifying the SD card.

*** Edit *** Nevermind, cfrockit replied to another post about UdiskMountService.apk I posted earlier. That's a wierd coincidence since i couldn't find anything about this apk, I ask about it today and now it's being discussed due to the froyo update. I had asked what it was for so I knew if I could/should remove it from the system apps.

 

[cliffordtrue]

Looking in /system/app there doesn't seem to be a UdiskMountService.apk application to provide status that something is connected to the OTG port.

Copying the one from the previous version so far has no affect. There may be another service that needs to make this run.

Good find. Something else to track down. Along with how to get a working Market.

Did you use ADB to push the file or install from the apk when copying to the tablet? (or both)

Also, have you uninstalled the phone, bluetooth, etc... to see if you get improved performance?

 

[st0ne]

ok. i have 1 of my ex7's updated. I noticed that I had to boot it a few times before it got stable. It would shut off when I touched the screen. It is quite stable now.
I did notice a few things.. someone mentioned that there was an option in the settings to turn on the G sensor. Can't find it on the EX7. I also noticed that on the stock ex7 the app is called 'My Device" but with the update it is called "My Tablet" both seem to work fine, but the update doesn't have the FTP option. I have a NAS and it has a file server on it. so I can, with my stock tab, turn on WiFi and connect to my nas and search dirs and download files. This is a great function. think there is a way to inject the old "My Device" apk and remove the new "My Tablet"?

I am still going over everything I can think of to see what works and what doesn't. Using them side by side to see response time and the like...

NOw that we can flash them... where do we start to figure out how to put together our own mish-mosh OS's with the functions we need and want and get rid of the bloat ware phone stuff that is the digital anchor to these Tabs?

 

[cliffordtrue]

I also noticed that on the stock ex7 the app is called 'My Device" but with the update it is called "My Tablet" both seem to work fine, but the update doesn't have the FTP option. I have a NAS and it has a file server on it. so I can, with my stock tab, turn on WiFi and connect to my nas and search dirs and download files. This is a great function. think there is a way to inject the old "My Device" apk and remove the new "My Tablet"?

I use ES File Explorer to connect to my NAS. I have been using this for a couple of years and it works well. If you check for Estrongs you should find it.

 

[ImagineThat]

NOw that we can flash them... where do we start to figure out how to put together our own mish-mosh OS's with the functions we need and want and get rid of the bloat ware phone stuff that is the digital anchor to these Tabs?

We have to figure out how the *.ius file is created, or "wrapped" by infotm so we can pull it apart, modify things, then put it back together for flashing. The IUW tool has an advanced burn option where you use individual files for each type of partition, but it will take some trial and error to get an image file properly packaged in in the right format since we don't have any to start with.

A starting place may to be create an image form one of the mtd's on the device, make some modifications on the device, then try flashing the image back and see if it wipes out the changes.

Unfortunatley I've copied each mtd into an img file off the device (DG2.02 firmware) but cannot figure out how to unpack any of them except the boot partition. The system partition appears to be a yaffs2 file system but the normal unyaffs tools don't work. I even recompiled the kernel on an ubuntu install with a patch to enable yaffs2 file system support, but still cannot even mount the img to a loopback partition. Something's unique about these files and I don't know my way around hex too much...

 

[cliffordtrue]

c) You have about 90 seconds to complete this step or the tablet will time out and go into the normal boot process. Direct the new harware wizard to install from a specific location. Point it to the "otg_driver" folder created when you extracted "iuw1.1-english.rar". This will install a driver that alllows the tablet to communicate directly with your PC.

Mine took a couple of minutes before the driver was loaded and it connected without it booting up.

d) Once the driver is installed the tablet should say "Communicating with PC..." as shown in the picture below (you may have to wait up to 2-3 minutes for the tablet to display this, I'm not sure why there's such a delay)

Mine said it as soon as the driver was loaded

e) Upon "Burn Completed!" the tablet will go through the whole update flashing process.

When completed it said "Please pull out OTG line and restart.

f) Press the "Reset button" on the back of the device using the tip of the stylus.

After pressing the reset button it turned off and I had to press the power button to get it to turn on

Overall this went very well. I will give more feedback after I try to remove some of the system apps.

Thanks to all who worked so hard on this.

 

[st0ne]

Just in case no one has tried yet... I flashed my EX7 with the "11.2.1.5.2.0_beta3_1.ius" file. I just tried to do an OTA update and got an error. That made me wonder.... so I shut it down and did the 3 finger salute. It asked for the key press to recover. I did, then it did. Wiped it clean to a fresh flash of the 11.2.1.5.2.0_beta3_1.ius file.
That is a good sign. we need to look for that part of the code to isolate. Then go back and see if we can pull the update part of the stock install to include in later patch works.
I don't think I will take advantage of the return & replace offer they are giving. But I will root and ADB the stock Tab and pull everything out of the file structure and start going over it to see if we can come up with a way to "un-yaff" the file. or what ever.
cfrocket was the one to find the SD card boot wrapper PRG... I am thinking he will find the PRG to de-compile these files. (no pressure)

 

[st0ne]

OK let me rephrase that.... BEFORE I did the recovery I got an error when trying to OTA update... but I did it again AFTER the wipe and it's D/l'n now... fingers crossed...

 

[st0ne]

Well it downloaded ok. and it went through the steps of updating... but nothing changed from the flash of the "11.2.1.5.2.0_beta3_1.ius" file.
Gotta look for the update code from an LP7 to see if it can be re packed to push to an EX7.

 

[giveen]

We have to figure out how the *.ius file is created, or "wrapped" by infotm so we can pull it apart, modify things, then put it back together for flashing. The IUW tool has an advanced burn option where you use individual files for each type of partition, but it will take some trial and error to get an image file properly packaged in in the right format since we don't have any to start with.

A starting place may to be create an image form one of the mtd's on the device, make some modifications on the device, then try flashing the image back and see if it wipes out the changes.

Unfortunatley I've copied each mtd into an img file off the device (DG2.02 firmware) but cannot figure out how to unpack any of them except the boot partition. The system partition appears to be a yaffs2 file system but the normal unyaffs tools don't work. I even recompiled the kernel on an ubuntu install with a patch to enable yaffs2 file system support, but still cannot even mount the img to a loopback partition. Something's unique about these files and I don't know my way around hex too much...

I wrote to my contact within DG and asked if he could give us a clue on how to extract .ius files.

 

[mrkavanagh]

I upgrade my ex7 using step 4a. I have not rooted it yet, because I can not find androot for froyo. I am on a school trip with my son so i have had tons of time to mess with froyo on EX7 Things that I have noticed: PROS: Long battery life. I watched iron man 2, side installed several apps include android optimizer. Touch screen response and accuracy has increased including being able to actually use your finger. Sleepmode works now. Proccessing performance has increased. CONS: Back button does not show correctly when in portrait mode. OTHER: I am curious how i might be able to start the bluetooth proccess after i plugin in my bt dongle.

I also have noticed that wifi keeps turning off, but that might be because i am connected through someones mifi.

I might buy a couple more of these.

BtW where can i directly download androot apk to root this

Sent from my p7901a using Android Tablet Forum