(How To) CM7 Bootable SD

[LHC_52]

Hi Lew, welcome. You have it right, running a bootable SD card means the internal memory is just sitting there untouched so you won't need to worry about its partition structure until (if) you decide to mod the internal memory.

Check this out for formatting video http://www.androidtablets.net/forum...using-handbrake-convert-video-nook-color.html

JP

JP - Thanks for the confirmation on the internal/sdcard memory. I'm digging through the handbrake tips now. I only have a few weeks before we leave on this month long trip and I want to get loaded up with as much of my material as possible for the nook as we're not planning to take laptops etc. This forum is great but it's kind of like trying to drink water from a firehose sometimes, there's just so much info and jargon flooding out of the threads.

Cheers,
Lew

 

[J515OP]

Well we might not be able to control the flow of the hose but at least we can help you get it pointed in the right direction

 

[Libraridan]

All I get when I boot up off of the SD card is the "Loading" (with skulls) screen and then the CM Recovery menu. Am I doing some basic thing wrong?

 

[ShutterPeep]

All I get when I boot up off of the SD card is the "Loading" (with skulls) screen and then the CM Recovery menu. Am I doing some basic thing wrong?

That means you're not booting CM7. Your SD has a bootable Clockword Mod instead. Did you do the steps from the first post? You might have confused the generic sd card image with that of the bootable CWR image?

 

[LHC_52]

Well we might not be able to control the flow of the hose but at least we can help you get it pointed in the right direction

JP -

Well I picked up the NC from my buddy that brought it back from the US last night for me. Man, this thing looks even better than the pictures - nice and slim, and has enough weight to feel like it's sturdy and well built, but not too heavy (certainly not like the weight of the Xoom that I have checked out at the local shops from time to time.... but could not get myself to part with the 600bucks for....)

So, I have the NC plugged in and charging and I won't fire it up until the light goes green on the plug. In the meantime, I noticed that the greeting screen popped up shortly after I plugged it in to charge, but I just pressed the power button to let it go back off for charging. Figured it would charge faster with the screen off than to have the screen lit up.

Now then - some questions -

1 - In general, does the NC charge when it's fully powered off (like when you get ready to boot off the SD card) and if so, does it charge faster this way?

2 - I noticed on the back of the packing box that my box has a green dot on it, not a blue dot that I have seen referenced with regards to the 1 gig / 5 gig partition business I read about somewhere last night.

Does this mean that I have the old partition?
Does this mean that I have the earlier version of the B&N software?
If the answers to the above questions are yes, when I do fire it up, and either manually upgrade the B&N software to 1.2 or it happens automatically, does the partition change to the "new" reversed partition ? I sort of suspect not, but figured I should ask. The idea of having an extra 5 gig instead of 1 is desirable and I don't want to find that I have it, and then someday "poof" it's gone if I can prevent it from happening.

Got my SDcard all ready to go & gmail account set up, just a few hours and I'll be tinkering away.

Comments, suggestions, warnings etc. are welcome. Thanks a bunch!

Lew

 

[J515OP]

JP -

Well I picked up the NC from my buddy that brought it back from the US last night for me. Man, this thing looks even better than the pictures - nice and slim, and has enough weight to feel like it's sturdy and well built, but not too heavy (certainly not like the weight of the Xoom that I have checked out at the local shops from time to time.... but could not get myself to part with the 600bucks for....)

So, I have the NC plugged in and charging and I won't fire it up until the light goes green on the plug. In the meantime, I noticed that the greeting screen popped up shortly after I plugged it in to charge, but I just pressed the power button to let it go back off for charging. Figured it would charge faster with the screen off than to have the screen lit up.

I am sure you are excited For the money the Nook simply cannot be beat. Once you get it running CM7 from a card go compare it to that xoom and I think you'll be impressed even considering you will be running from an SD card and on Android 2.3 not 3.0.

Now then - some questions -

1 - In general, does the NC charge when it's fully powered off (like when you get ready to boot off the SD card) and if so, does it charge faster this way?

The Nook charger puts out plenty of juice and you probably won't be able to notice a difference between charging while using or charging while off.

2 - I noticed on the back of the packing box that my box has a green dot on it, not a blue dot that I have seen referenced with regards to the 1 gig / 5 gig partition business I read about somewhere last night.

Does this mean that I have the old partition?

This means you have the new partition. Not an issue if you are running off a bootable SD but you will need to repartition to install custom ROMs internally.

Does this mean that I have the earlier version of the B&N software?

This means you will most likely have B&N 1.2 out of the box.

If the answers to the above questions are yes, when I do fire it up, and either manually upgrade the B&N software to 1.2 or it happens automatically, does the partition change to the "new" reversed partition ? I sort of suspect not, but figured I should ask. The idea of having an extra 5 gig instead of 1 is desirable and I don't want to find that I have it, and then someday "poof" it's gone if I can prevent it from happening.

If you are on a prior version of B&N it is a pretty simple update to 1.2. Just follow the instructions on B&N's website and place the 1.2 zip file in the root of your internal memory. I would suggest repartioning to the old partition setup. The update won't change you to the new partition it only comes out of the box that way.

Got my SDcard all ready to go & gmail account set up, just a few hours and I'll be tinkering away.

Comments, suggestions, warnings etc. are welcome. Thanks a bunch!

Lew

You should be good. Let us know how it goes.



JP

 

[LHC_52]

Great - thanks for the quick reply and info. I'll be back hopefully later today with a status update.

Is there a way to re-partition the internal memory, but keep the stock firmware (in case of warranty issues) and run off the SD card for a while?
I don't really need to do it at the moment, but if it's not too difficult, I might consider it to squeeze a bit more storage space for me. This is assuming that you "can" access the internal data partition from the CM7 SDcard system.

My wife was laughing saying that she hadn't seen me this excited about spending money before. Then again it's more the excitement about what I got and how much money I "didn't" spend I think.....

Cheers,

 

[J515OP]

Here is how you repartition the new format to the old. [HOW-TO] Repartitioning the NC back to 1GB/data, 5GB/media - xda-developers

You need to create a bootable ClockworkMod Recovery disk and make a backup of your stock system, repartition and then restore that backup.

You can access the internal memory from CM7 on SD card but as soon as you do that you are breaching the sandbox. Becareful if you do, since at that point anything you change or mess up will not be restricted to the card. The nice thing about the card is if you don't mess with internal memory it will be just as you left it when you remove the card and boot into it.

Fortunately even if you do go in an mess up the internal memory you will have the stock backup that you are making above you can always restore to

JP

 

[LHC_52]

Here is how you repartition the new format to the old. [HOW-TO] Repartitioning the NC back to 1GB/data, 5GB/media - xda-developers

You need to create a bootable ClockworkMod Recovery disk and make a backup of your stock system, repartition and then restore that backup.

You can access the internal memory from CM7 on SD card but as soon as you do that you are breaching the sandbox. Becareful if you do, since at that point anything you change or mess up will not be restricted to the card. The nice thing about the card is if you don't mess with internal memory it will be just as you left it when you remove the card and boot into it.

Fortunately even if you do go in an mess up the internal memory you will have the stock backup that you are making above you can always restore to

JP

We're up ! Got the CM7 installed and Android running fine.

I did muck up a few things though - In my excitement to get an ap and try d/l it etc. I installed Samba for the wireless file sharing and somehow it's not working.
It gives me a "failed SU request pls see logcat" - I have no clue what this means, I figured maybe I could deinstall Samba and then reacquire it from the market but realized I don't know how to do that either - haha. "There is much to be learned....."

The nook feels fine but I have noticed the gray bezel around the outside can slightly separate away from the center, near the USB connector. It make a little annoying plastic rubbing sound when I pick it up and place my thumb there. I pressed it down while I held the nook for a while and it seems to be better (maybe there's some adhesive in there that didn't take) but it's still there. I'll fiddle with that a little more later, it might be no big deal, but I have a week or so to do a swap at the store if I feel the need.

Anyway, just wanted to update on the progress here. I'll check back later to see if you can point me in the right direction for the Samba. I looked through the thread where I saw how to set it up for newbies and I think I must have accidently hit some button during the first launch of the app.

Thanks for all your help !
Lew

 

[J515OP]

Lew, bezel issues like that are not uncommon. Everybody has a different tolerence for what they will accept but you are likely to have some minor build issues. If it bothers you take it back but expect the next one may be the same. It really depends on how bad you think it is.

You need to grant Samba Superuser permissions when launching.

JP

 

[LHC_52]

Lew, bezel issues like that are not uncommon. Everybody has a different tolerence for what they will accept but you are likely to have some minor build issues. If it bothers you take it back but expect the next one may be the same. It really depends on how bad you think it is.

You need to grant Samba Superuser permissions when launching.

JP

JP - Yes, I sort of figured it was "normal" - I was more worried that it might get worse over time, but now that I have been using the NC for a bit I am sort of forgetting about it and it seems to come and go with the heat from your hand etc. Simple plastic tolerances I guess. I won't be too anal about this and will wait for a few days before I decide if I want to "spin the wheel" like you say. At this point I think I am just going to forget about it.

ok - figured out the samba thing - and tested it with a pdf file I had on the laptop. This is sweet. Not the fastest transfer method in the world, but better than fiddling with cables.

My son is now pestering me to look up some games.....that's a slippery slope I think I'll avoid for the moment.

You know the more I handle this NC the more I like it. And I still can't believe you can get all this functionality in something for 250 bucks. I think I have run the stock B&N system for about 10 minutes total now - haha.

I need to test out a video I encoded with handbrake now. I am not sure if there is a player in the android CM7 "out of the box" but is there a common one that people use ?

Don't want to pollute your thread with non - installation questions, so maybe I'll post any questions in a new thread shortly.

Thanks a million for your assistance. If the rest of the community on this forum is like you, it will be a very enjoyable process coming up to speed on Android and the NC/CM7

Cheers from eastern Canada,
Lew

 

[idontknow]

Wellcome LHC, just curious what B&N is selling right now....did you check what version your nook was as soon as you took it out of the box, you know under settings- my nook color? Where did your friend buy it from? Thank you and enjoy your nook.
Gloria

 

[J515OP]

The subforum for Nook Color Apps and games has some discussion about players. Vital Neon player seems to be popular.

 

[LHC_52]

Wellcome LHC, just curious what B&N is selling right now....did you check what version your nook was as soon as you took it out of the box, you know under settings- my nook color? Where did your friend buy it from? Thank you and enjoy your nook.
Gloria

Hi Gloria -
To tell you the truth I only spent about 10 minutes with the stock Nook software before I powered 'er off and loaded up the SDcard with CM7. I never thought to check the version. I guess I still can - I can power off, boot back to the stock and check it tomorrow evening. I suspect it's the 1.2 and J5150P said that based on the "color of the dot" on the box, I had the new partition in the internal memory.

My friend bought it at the Walmart in Rockland, Maine. I'm located about 2 hours from there in Canada - just over the Maine state / Canadian border.

Lew

 

[Schnoidz]

I bought mine 20 days ago and it had a green dot on the box. It was version 1.2.0. I didn't realize until today that it had the "bad" partitioning. I guess I'll follow the instructions in the link provided by JP in #113 to fix that.