Cannot Access External SD, So I Cannot Recover with CW Mod

[Chance0066]

I would just like to start out by saying thank you to everyone that participates on this forum I have been reading through here for the past few days to work on my Coby Kyros 8042-4, and you have all been very helpful. I got the 8042 for free from one of our companies clients, and I'm really enjoying it. I needed to get Google Play on it though, so I used the method and ROM from this thread:

http://www.androidtablets.net/forum/coby-generation-3-development/39688-rom-custom-rom-coby-kyros-8042-rooted-google-apps-google-play.html

Everything went through with Livesuite fortunately, but now the tablet won't allow me to write anything to the SD Card. I'm pretty confident the ROM is the problem, because the SD Card worked fine before, and I have put the SD into another device and it worked fine. I've looked through and google searched as much as I can, and even tried a couple of options. I was about to try to use vampireinfo's method to recover it, but then I noticed that I would need the SD card working in order to do that. If I could get the device back to factory somehow, I'm sure I could try using the terminal method to flash and root it again. If anyone could help me with this I would certainly appreciate it. I enjoy using this device, but not having the SD card is a huge problem for me. Thanks for any advice.

 

[Traveller]

Did you make a system dump before you used Livesuite? If you did, the Development Index sticky has a link to restore to stock using that dump. If you didn't, you can try one of the existing dumps. But in that case there is no guarantee that the hardware will function correctly since Coby loves to change things.

Using Livesuite just to get Google Play on the tablet is like cutting off your nose to spite your face. It's simply not worth the trouble.

 

[Chance0066]

Right, I was oblivious to this at the time. Had I known, I would have used a different method. No, I didn't back up, because I wasn't really sure what I was doing to be honest. I kind of looked at this as a way for me to go more familiar with modifying android devices, because I've had a few, but never bothered changing anything. I've tried using the cmd prompt, but I'm obviously doing something wrong because I'm getting a "device not found" error message.

 

[Traveller]

Before we go any further, did you format the MicroSD card, and if so, what file system (e.g. FAT, NTFS) did you format it with?

 

[Chance0066]

I have not been able to format it using the tablet, or through windows. It starts, then just stops and remounts the card, but the card won't work properly. When I put the same card into a GS3, the GS3 formatted it, but I didn't choose the format type. I think it's FAT32, but I could be mistaken. Just to be more specific about what is happening here, every time I restart the tablet... I can access the card normally to a point. After a couple of files are transferred though, windows starts to pop up error messages having to do with the location of the card. For example, I was trying to copy the contents of the MID8042_dump.zip on the root of the SD card and it got through the boot.img and bootloader.img before it started to give me erros. I know that sounds inconsistent and possibly confusing, but that's what I'm seeing happening right now.

 

[Chance0066]

Ok, biggest newb move of the year. Didn't have USB Debugging mode activated. Now maybe I can get somewhere with CWM.

 

[Traveller]

Does that mean the MicroSD is working correctly?

 

[Chance0066]

Nope, but I thought that might be the reason I was unable to use any of the adb commands. However, I've since enable USB Debugging, and installed the drivers from the google sdk. My current drivers are listed as Android Device - Android ADB Interface. I still cannot use any adb commands though (error: device not found). Also, CWM will not reboot into Recovery Mode, but that's probably because the SD Card is still not reading correctly.

 

[Traveller]

If you didn't install ADB, download the root tool in the Development Index sticky as it has a copy of ADB included. If you did, and according to your posts, you installed the SDK, open up a command prompt and navigate to the directory where ADB is located, then run the following commands and see if that mounts the MicroSD.

adb shell
mount -o noatime,utf8 -t vfat /dev/block//vold/179:1 /mnt/extsd

If that doesn't work, then you may have to try going back to stock using Livesuite.

 

[Chance0066]

Still getting the "device not found" error anytime I try to run adb commands. I'm pretty sure I have everything installed correctly though. I've tried to run the commands through both, my pc cmd and through a terminal emulator on the tablet itself. What throws me off most is that, if I never had Debugging enabled and I never had the drivers install correctly, how did Livesuite work in the first place?

 

[Traveller]

Run the following commands:

adb stop-server
adb start-server
adb devices

The last one should return the device name and ID. If it doesn't, your ADB installation isn't set up properly. In which case, start from square one. Install the drivers, download the root utility, and use the ADB executable there.

 

[Chance0066]

Ok, that seems to have been the problem indeed. I can now use adb commands using your utility upload. I can try to run your utility now as well I suppose. I only have one img file though, and that's the one I downloaded from the link in your sticky. Thanks again for all your help btw, it is appreciated.

EDIT: As far as mounting the extsd, it is giving me a Operation not permitted message.

EDIT: Just used your root utility to make a dump of my system files for what that is worth. Incredible piece of work you have there.

 

[Traveller]

Run these commands and post the output here.

adb mount
ls /dev/block/*

Now that you have ADB running, there may be hope for you to resolve this.

 

[Chance0066]

Are these the kind of results you were looking for? I tried running the "adb mount" command and I just got the help menu, so I used "adb shell" then "ls /dev/block/*"

ls /dev/block/*
/dev/block/loop0
/dev/block/loop1
/dev/block/loop2
/dev/block/loop3
/dev/block/loop4
/dev/block/loop5
/dev/block/loop6
/dev/block/loop7
/dev/block/mmcblk0
/dev/block/mmcblk0p1
/dev/block/nanda
/dev/block/nandb
/dev/block/nandc
/dev/block/nandd
/dev/block/nande
/dev/block/nandf
/dev/block/nandg
/dev/block/nandh
/dev/block/nandi
/dev/block/nandi1
sunxi-mmc.0
/dev/block/ram0
/dev/block/ram1
179:0
179:1
93:64
93:65

 

[Traveller]

Try...

adb shell
mount

That output for the ls command is perfect however.