File system structure - Info for investigation of Recovery - Bootable SD Card

[cfrockit]

I can't get the burn tool to SEE the SD card... the dropdown list is empty....

The card must be clear of all existing Partitions.

The old partition needs to be deleted.

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

Under Storage click on Disk Management

In the displayed window, Click on the SD card first partition (down in the bottom right section of the window) and you should get an X on the tool bar (Under the word Help on the menu bar) which is Delete. Delete the partition so the card is blank, also no need to format either. Try again.

If you are unable to delete the Partition on the microSD card, search the Web there are many instructions describing tools/utilities on how to modify/delete/create partitions on Removable Media (USB, SD, external Hard Drives).

Thanks for the assistance, this will all go in the post for the rest of the EX users if you get this to work. If you do, can you also try the three finger reset to see if that gets fixed as well.

 

[bigwooly]

All of the links in that post lead to Dropbox 404 error file not found. So I don't have access to them. if you have them can you post them? Or anyone who got them before they got "lost"?

I am seeing around the net different file names for things. I have seen uImage zImage ramdisk.img recovery.img recovery_rd.img (that one looks like it's the ramdisk renamed or it's the RD AND the recovery data) I don't know what files the SY tabs need to flash.
The files that bricked my tab were Ramdisk.img/recovery.img/system.img/userdata.img and uImage with no file extension.
From the prompts on the flash screen the things that were updated were the file system and the system. I didn't see any reference to userdata or recovery.
I can not get either of my SYTABEX7's to connect to my PC with ADB. I can't seem to find the right drivers for WIN7 I think. I have tried all 3 of the ADB drivers: theAdb the bootloader and the composite drivers all fail to allow ADB to see my devices.

i deleted them off my dropbox cause i needed the space..... doh lemme see if i can find the harddrive they were stored on lol

 

[st0ne]

Thanx you! cfrockit has found a way, and I have confirmed it works, to get a bootable SD card! so I now want all kinds of files to rip apart so I can put my Frankenstein Tablet together! Muahahahaha!

 

[pdkimball]

Hello all, new to the forum and the sylvania tablet. I have spent a few weeks reading through the forums and instructions. Have returned to exchange twice and finally just purchased another one. So, now I have two SYTABEX7-2 "hwver" 11.2.3.1 purchased at Biglots, searched around for a couple that hadn't been tampered with already, not easy lol. As of right now, I have burned fresh images of all partitions out of the box named appropriately, as well as images after an update. Out of box is running DG2.2.1-7a3.b5 and update is running DG2.2.1-7a3.b5 - V2 for update-test. Both of these seem to be running pretty smooth. Flash player seems to be installed and netflix will open and play, but with extreme video lag. DG has confimed that the second version listed above is the most recen version running and another update fixing flash player support is to be released by end of this year! I will post a link a little later to download the images I burned with dd in emulator for anyone interested. A couple things I noticed while playing around and wonder if anyone has some insight?
First- when I hooked my keyboard up and started pressing buttons to find out what they did, pressing F11 brings up ethernet settings? I had an ethernet to usb that I plugged into the adapter and the tab immediately shut off with no response to anything untill unplugged and was able to boot right back up unharmed. Tried hooking into router and pc direct with same result. Wonder if this could be used somehow to connect to pc? If it wouldn't shut down completely anyway, lol. Just a thought?
Second - Now that I have all these images, I was thinking of trying to create a full .ius file with nthe editor. Anyone have an idea of what each partition should be added as? Editor gives choices of U0, UBOOT, RD, RD_, LK, NK, ADR_SYS, ADR_USER, ADR_NDISK, and ADR_AS. DG has different than usual names for their partitions making things a bit difficult to sort out. Anyone figure out what mtd7 "panic" is? Thinking this may be where to burn Tech's custom recovery? Or maybe it's just the logo and/or boot screen? I haven't pulled any of the files apart yet as I'm still learning as I go.

Thanks for any help the forum can provide and I will upload the disk images to be of further assistance to the cause!

PS- Tech's instructions said to do a custom burn to RECVRD, I haven't set up adb via wifi yet, can I or is this the only way I will be able to use custom burn with the inability to use usb connection? I assume that this would burn to either mtd7: "panic" or mtd2: "resv? OR flash_image? I know that I have succesfully burned one of the older beta's AND_AS file to "resv" with emulator and fixed the three finger reset, unfortunately I had not made an image of that partition to reflash rendering me with an older version and no file to fall back on. Hence the second return to the store, lol. Oops, lesson learned. This is why I burned all images before messing around this time and bought a second tablet! Thanks again for all who contribute. Once I get things sorted out I will post some instructions on flashing with the emulator as I had to go through quite a few different forums to get things rolling, would be nice to compile in one area.

 

[cfrockit]

Hello all, new to the forum and the sylvania tablet. I have spent a few weeks reading through the forums and instructions. Have returned to exchange twice and finally just purchased another one. So, now I have two SYTABEX7-2 "hwver" 11.2.3.1 purchased at Biglots, searched around for a couple that hadn't been tampered with already, not easy lol. As of right now, I have burned fresh images of all partitions out of the box named appropriately, as well as images after an update. Out of box is running DG2.2.1-7a3.b5 and update is running DG2.2.1-7a3.b5 - V2 for update-test. Both of these seem to be running pretty smooth. Flash player seems to be installed and netflix will open and play, but with extreme video lag. DG has confimed that the second version listed above is the most recen version running and another update fixing flash player support is to be released by end of this year! I will post a link a little later to download the images I burned with dd in emulator for anyone interested. A couple things I noticed while playing around and wonder if anyone has some insight?

Welcome!
You are extremely patient and persistent. Many of us who purchased the earlier versions of this tablet almost a year ago have had to learn patience the hard way while waiting for an "official" update to fix several ongoing issues.

Looking forward to your image dumps.

First- when I hooked my keyboard up and started pressing buttons to find out what they did, pressing F11 brings up ethernet settings? I had an ethernet to usb that I plugged into the adapter and the tab immediately shut off with no response to anything untill unplugged and was able to boot right back up unharmed. Tried hooking into router and pc direct with same result. Wonder if this could be used somehow to connect to pc? If it wouldn't shut down completely anyway, lol. Just a thought?

It's just sloppy coding. If you use the Search Forum feature you'll find a few posts where we identified a standalone application or shortcut to the Ethernet settings from another InfoTMIC device. There is NO ethernet hardware in this tablet but there is in other variations so they just left the code there but hid the menu entry.

Second - Now that I have all these images, I was thinking of trying to create a full .ius file with nthe editor. Anyone have an idea of what each partition should be added as? Editor gives choices of U0, UBOOT, RD, RD_, LK, NK, ADR_SYS, ADR_USER, ADR_NDISK, and ADR_AS. DG has different than usual names for their partitions making things a bit difficult to sort out. Anyone figure out what mtd7 "panic" is? Thinking this may be where to burn Tech's custom recovery? Or maybe it's just the logo and/or boot screen? I haven't pulled any of the files apart yet as I'm still learning as I go.

Take a look at vio's IusEditor posted in the Custom Rom thread. Also you'll find the partition layout from our attempt to port a recovery application. "Panic" is just a dump after crash.

cat /proc/mtd

Thanks for any help the forum can provide and I will upload the disk images to be of further assistance to the cause!

PS- Tech's instructions said to do a custom burn to RECVRD, I haven't set up adb via wifi yet, can I or is this the only way I will be able to use custom burn with the inability to use usb connection? I assume that this would burn to either mtd7: "panic" or mtd2: "resv? OR flash_image? I know that I have succesfully burned one of the older beta's AND_AS file to "resv" with emulator and fixed the three finger reset, unfortunately I had not made an image of that partition to reflash rendering me with an older version and no file to fall back on. Hence the second return to the store, lol. Oops, lesson learned. This is why I burned all images before messing around this time and bought a second tablet! Thanks again for all who contribute. Once I get things sorted out I will post some instructions on flashing with the emulator as I had to go through quite a few different forums to get things rolling, would be nice to compile in one area.

Great questions! adb won't allow you to burn it's either done with IUW.exe in expert mode or by creating a bootable SD card.

Enjoy the learning process, this was my first tablet and having no Android experience just with the assistance of folks here, xda and Let me google that for you to search and research we gained a lot on insight that should get you well on your way to having a fun toy.

 

[pdkimball]

Thanks cfrockit I will make my way through some more information. Before uploading any files I want to make sure there is not an issue with them because of how I made the dumps. I seem to be having an issue flashing the "resv" partition even with the backup I made of that exact partition and version. When running the command flash_image resv /sdcard/resv.img I keep getting the following error:

mtd: not writing bad block at 0x03700000
Error writing resv: No space left on device

Am I missing something here? If I'm burning the exact same image that was on that partition back to the same partition shouldn't there be enough space for that image? Is there a way to format the mtd partition to make sure it is completely empty before writting to it? I'm thinking that there may be multiple images sticking around since I've tried multiple burns and sometimes with the same name?

I have the IUW.exe installed but never get a green device light for custom burn, pc never even indicates any connection of any sort. When making the bootable sd card do the files need any certain name to them and will any image burn automatically based on the type to the right partition? I am awaiting a reply from Tech Vendetta to get up to speed where he's at with recovery and such, but in the meantime having fun and much frustration trying to get this tab to do what I want for developement! Lol Thanks for any assistance that can be provided.

 

[cfrockit]

Thanks cfrockit I will make my way through some more information. Before uploading any files I want to make sure there is not an issue with them because of how I made the dumps. I seem to be having an issue flashing the "resv" partition even with the backup I made of that exact partition and version. When running the command flash_image resv /sdcard/resv.img I keep getting the following error:

mtd: not writing bad block at 0x03700000
Error writing resv: No space left on device

Have you made a visual inspection of the image with a Hex Editor? Does it contain any data or is it all padding 0xffffffff? There is no consistent proof that "resv" is really an image of anything, meaning some devices had full firmware images, others only a system. image and one even had a WinCE image. There is quite a bit of back ground information in the http://www.androidtablets.net/forum/sylvania-tablets/13447-custom-sylvania-rom-development.html thread. Unfortunately, it requires reading or searching through the posts.

Am I missing something here? If I'm burning the exact same image that was on that partition back to the same partition shouldn't there be enough space for that image? Is there a way to format the mtd partition to make sure it is completely empty before writting to it? I'm thinking that there may be multiple images sticking around since I've tried multiple burns and sometimes with the same name?

You can't burn a dump. A little more research and you'll find that dd does NOT preserve OOB data.

I have the IUW.exe installed but never get a green device light for custom burn, pc never even indicates any connection of any sort. When making the bootable sd card do the files need any certain name to them and will any image burn automatically based on the type to the right partition?

Some of the tablets U0 "u-boot-nand.bin" image does not support the "Communicating with PC" to allow for burning with IUW.exe.

The files do need to confirm to the naming conventions found in several of the instruction documents referencing IUW such as http://www.androidtablets.net/forum/infotmic-based/17274-introduction-iuw-burning-tools.html

I am awaiting a reply from Tech Vendetta to get up to speed where he's at with recovery and such, but in the meantime having fun and much frustration trying to get this tab to do what I want for developement! Lol Thanks for any assistance that can be provided.

 

[pdkimball]

Great, thanks cfrockit! Was able to successfully copy the system.ius so now have the files I was looking for. The links below are to download a few different files you have requested on this thread as well as others. The IUS file is seperate from the others, and each file named after the version has the build.prop, system.apk and DD images in the .zip files. Thanks again and hope these help sort things out for this new hardware version. Let me know if you need anything else. I will edit with links for downloads once they are done uploading and update the other thread with them as well so they are easy to find for people wandering through the forum.

IUS for DG2.2.1-7a3.b5 - V2 for update-test.zip - http://www.mediafire.com/?119tw7l2uqne5av
DG2.2.1-7a3.b5.zip- http://www.mediafire.com/?dkcpwf730ld5852
DG2.2.1-7a3.b5 - V2 for update-test.zip - http://www.mediafire.com/?bzlhn2ykaza19pr

Based on these uploads, would anyone be able to tell me if OTG or update.zip or boot from SD is enabled and how to get into it? I have tried multiple combinations with no luck. I don't have alot of experience yet breaking down the files. Thanks! ​

 

[cfrockit]

Based on these uploads, would anyone be able to tell me if OTG or update.zip or boot from SD is enabled and how to get into it? I have tried multiple combinations with no luck. I don't have alot of experience yet breaking down the files. Thanks!
​

Continuing discussion specific to Hardware ID "hwver" 11.2.3.1 to thread http://www.androidtablets.net/forum/sylvania-tablets/16444-hardware-id-hwver-11-2-3-1-a.html#post147817

 

[Halfabrain]

I'm not entirely sure where to ask this question as the references from one post have you jump to another and so on. I'm looking for the original firmware for the SYNET7LP. In looking at post #7 from this thread, there is a link to another thread "Porting Clockwork Recovery to tablets". From post #38 to #45 there is a good bit of information, but then disappears as other posters for other tablets get into it. Was this link a good link for the tablet?

Is this the original firmware? Also in Porting clockwork post #16, there is the breaking down of the partitions into .img files, but the links show files not found. Are these still somewhere in the forum? I'm looking to obtain the original firmware. Thanks in advance for the help.

 

[cfrockit]

I'm not entirely sure where to ask this question as the references from one post have you jump to another and so on. I'm looking for the original firmware for the SYNET7LP. In looking at post #7 from this thread, there is a link to another thread "Porting Clockwork Recovery to tablets". From post #38 to #45 there is a good bit of information, but then disappears as other posters for other tablets get into it. Was this link a good link for the tablet?

Is this the original firmware? Also in Porting clockwork post #16, there is the breaking down of the partitions into .img files, but the links show files not found. Are these still somewhere in the forum? I'm looking to obtain the original firmware. Thanks in advance for the help.

There were at least 4 different Hardware Id "hwver" identified for the SYNET7LP sold initially by Sears and Toy R Us almost a year ago.

11.2.0.5 - This was the first one identified. It was never confirmed that if each update changed the Hardware Id in progression.The 1st update firmware (Android 2.1 ) is named system.bin but it is an InfoTMIC Update Wrap (.ius) file format and will burn with IUW.exe. http://www.androidtablets.net/forum...et7lp-update-software-missing.html#post104049
11.2.0.6 - Most common one reported
11.2.0.7 - Firmware worked on previous tablets but was incomplete.
11.2.1.8 - Several of these firmwares would brick tablets

Porting Clockwork Recovery never went anywhere.