Now Stuck at "Touch the future of reading" screen, after trying to revert to B&N

[johntee]

Hi. Can someone please point me in the right direction? At this point, I am pretty lost... I am stuck at the "Touch the future of reading" screen at reboot. (Same result whether the SD card is in the Nook or not.) Will not go past that screen.

I bought a rooted Nook Color from someone, right when the 1.1.0 update was being sent out. So I updated it to 1.1.0 and it worked OK, except that I never could get the Market or GMail or Talk to work. (I don't know whether they worked for the previous owner or not.)
After days of efforts to get Market/GMail/Talk working, I decided to go back to factory B&N and then re-root it, figuring a clean slate would allow those apps to work.


I don't want to bore you, but here's all the steps I did --

Installed ROM Manager, and Flashed ClockworkMod Recovery.
Did a complete Nandroid backup.
Played with settings and stuff to try to get GMail to work (and thus Market), to no avail.

At one point, I edited the ACCOUNTS.DB file to change old owner's email addresses to mine, hoping it would then ask me to re-enter the password.
However, upon waking it from sleep after that, it gave me an Authorization error and rebooted. It was lacking the various changes I'd made (home page image, some apps, etc), but it still seemed to be a Rooted Nook, 1.1.0. (At first, I thought it had been brought back to factory (B&N) ROM, but upon closer look, I think it was still rooted.)


I went into Clockwork Recovery and recovered to the earlier backup.
I re-edited the ACCOUNTS.DB file and ACCOUNTS.XML file, this time to add my GMail account info, leaving the old owner's accounts in there as well. (I also edited the Permissions of the revised files so they matched the originals...)
Restarted.

Seemed like the GMail app was not on there anymore...
I couldn't get a newly-downloaded GMail APK to re-install... it thought the app was already installed (even though I couldn't find it anywhere.)

Eventually, I decided to do a factory reset.

I rebooted into ClockworkMod Recovery. Selected Wipe Cache Partition, then Wiped Dalvik Cache (under Advanced menu).
It froze up, so I forced a reboot, it gave me a rooted version.

I went into ClockworkMod Recovery again, and selected Wipe Data/Factory Reset. (Only took a minute for it to process that.) I rebooted.

It gave me the LogicPD Zoom2 android screen at start-up. I entered my GMail account, and signed in. Gave me the "You don't have a network connection" message. I tried signing in again, with same result.

I went Back, and Skipped the sign-in this time.
Was back at Version 1.0.1. Looked like I might still be at a Rooted Nook... (I thought I'd be unrooted. Maybe the ClockworkMod Recovery backup that it used was the Rooted.)

So I removed ClockworkMod Recovery, using the fileCWR-removal.zip.

I took the SD card out before powering it up, and it just stayed at the "Touch the future of reading" screen. I waited 7+ minutes, then powered it down.
Put the SD card back in, and powered it up. Same thing, stuck at "Touch the future" screen.

Followed Rico2001's suggestion at http://www.androidtablets.net/forum/nook/5927-am-i-stuck.html -- (Hold power and "n" button at same time at start up to get into CWR. Once in, clear your cache and dalvik cache, then reboot. See if that helps.)
But it didn't move past the "Touch the future" screen.

I tried to do the 8-failed reboots process, but it doesn't listen to me when I try to power down after the 2nd or 3rd reboot.
I am holding the power button down consistently for each reboot; it seems like it will power off during reboot one time, sometimes 2, but not more than that. Then as it stalls at the "Touch the future" screen, I have to release the power button and then hold it down for a very long time in order to get it to power down the device.

Any suggestions for getting me running again? I started to follow the steps from http://legacyschool.us.to/nookdev/clockwork/rootpack-instructions.html to create a bootable Clockwork Recovery SD card, but I couldn't get Win32diskimager to make a backup ISO of my SD card first. (Error 8, can't get a handle on the file.) I didn't think it wise to risk wiping out the SD card with a CWR bootable without having an ISO copy of the card first, so I stopped there. (I only have one micro-SD card.)

Thanks in advance for any help! This has been a very long process and I'm getting pretty discouraged now... Is this what a "brick" looks like?

Thank you!
John

 

[rico2001]

Ahh... I really wish people would just ask on the forum about their small problems before just wiping and uninstalling items. Without the understanding, it usually just makes things much worst. If your NC was working, most small problems of any kind can usually be worked out.

Bricked means if you device does not come on anymore and all ties to powering the device on are no longer working.

Again if your NC boots, in any fashion, it's not bricked.

First you shouldn't have: "I went into ClockworkMod Recovery again, and selected Wipe Data/Factory Reset." This will screw up your root and try to install the stock recovery, which is bad b/c you had CWR installed.

Second, you uninstalled ClockworkMod Recovery so you can't get back into it since it's no longer there. Your stock recovery should be restore and you should be able to complete the two step factory reset.

Third, you are holding the power button too long. To do the 8 boot interrupts you need to press the power button for 4-5 seconds just to tell the NC to come on. If you constantly hold the power button the NC will just turn back off, but that is not an interrupt. Once the NC comes on and you see "Touch the..." wait about 2-3 seconds then repress the power button until the NC turns back off. Repeat this process 8 times, then you should boot into the re-imaging flash from recovery. Once complete perform step 2, go into device settings and "erase and de-register" or if you'd like, with the NC powered off, press and hold the power and "n" at the same until you see the data reformat flash screen.

Then you should be good to go... well to start all over updating and rooting.

 

[darmeen]

Okay...you don't need to create a backup iso of your sd card...simply copy the files from your sd card to a new folder on your computer.

After your SD card data is backed up on your computer, click the link in my signature that will walk you step by step through resetting your nook, removing any CWR remnants, and making it fresh out of the box clean again.

After you are fully reset with my instructions, my advice would be to register your nook at that point and go through the steps of setting it up for the first time. Then installing the 1.1 update...Finally after all that is done, Use the autonooter 3.0 for version 1.1 and setup up your rooted nook, going through all those steps. Should take about 15-20 minutes.

 

[johntee]

Thanks for your quick response!

I know, I know... (re: asking for help before messing it up). But I was trying to follow the "collected wisdom" from previous postings (since alot of my issues with Market and GMail and Talk seemed like pretty common issues for people). I didn't want to be that guy who asks the same question that's already been answered 10 times before, because he's too lazy to read the forum...

I had held the Power button down consistently for each reboot attempt (not constantly). (I wanted to be sure, in case my Power button was weirdly sensitive, or if it didn't consider it pressed if I was pressing on one side of the button versus the middle, etc.)

I had chosen the Wipe Data/Factory Reset in ClockworkMod Recovery when I was following post #2 (your post from 1/15/11) at
http://www.androidtablets.net/forum...6-great-nook-color-restore-defaults-tool.html
"...although CWR will do this for you as well. In the main menu, the "wipe data and factory reset" will take you back to unrooted 1.0.0 or 1.0.1, which ever version you had installed last."
At that point, since it seemed that going back to stock and re-rooting was such a well-traveled path, I'd have good odds of getting Market to work if I just started from scratch. So it seemed like doing the CWR Wipe/Factory Reset would do exactly what I wanted.


So, I just tried doing the 8x interrupted boot method. This time it recognized my shut-down request each time. (I think waiting the 2-3 seconds after the "Touch the future" message comes up was the key... Some earlier post had said to shut-down as soon as you see the message, which didn't work consistently for me.)
But as I completed the 8th interrupt cycle, nothing happened; #8 shut down same as all the other ones did. It didn't give me any flash messages...

So I powered on for the 9th time, and let it go (I didn't interrupt it)... It just sits at the "Touch the future" screen.

Is it supposed to start showing me the factory flash process as the 8th shut-down happens?

Thanks!

 

[rico2001]

I had chosen the Wipe Data/Factory Reset in ClockworkMod Recovery when I was following post #2 (your post from 1/15/11) at
http://www.androidtablets.net/forum...6-great-nook-color-restore-defaults-tool.html
"...although CWR will do this for you as well. In the main menu, the "wipe data and factory reset" will take you back to unrooted 1.0.0 or 1.0.1, which ever version you had installed last."
At that point, since it seemed that going back to stock and re-rooting was such a well-traveled path, I'd have good odds of getting Market to work if I just started from scratch. So it seemed like doing the CWR Wipe/Factory Reset would do exactly what I wanted.

So I powered on for the 9th time, and let it go (I didn't interrupt it)... It just sits at the "Touch the future" screen.

Is it supposed to start showing me the factory flash process as the 8th shut-down happens?

Thanks!

If you following the store, you'll see I ended up messing up my NC by the data wipe in CWR and I won't use it again until we are on a full 2.1 or 2.2 rom. Anyway I'd try the interrupt a few more time. When I do mine I don't even count, just keep doing it until the flash starts.

reference: Flash back to clean stock ROM - nookDevs

 

[faceman]

I was able to get out of the Touch loop by loading up a Froyo bootable SD; installed Clockwork via ADB into the Froyo; launching ROM manager; Flashing Clockwork Recovery; powering down; pulling SD card out; booting with the N+Power method to get into Clockwork. Once I was there I was able to restore my backup.

I am not sure if you have a backup to restore from though. But try to boot to a bootable sd image and let us know if you can at least get that to work.

 

[johntee]

I was able to get out of the Touch loop by loading up a Froyo bootable SD; installed Clockwork via ADB into the Froyo; launching ROM manager; Flashing Clockwork Recovery; powering down; pulling SD card out; booting with the N+Power method to get into Clockwork. Once I was there I was able to restore my backup.

Wanted to let you know that I did the above steps and was able to get back to my earlier restore! Thanks!!

Got caught up for multiple hours on several (probably stupid) things.
And I started to wipe cache partition and Dalvik cache because I was following the instructions from that guy's post. Then luckily I remembered those wipes had messed Rico up, so I stopped before I actually wiped Davik.

But I am now back to the (mostly-functional) restore; now I have to figure out what pieces don't work (I remember Market didn't work, possibly GMail, and possibly Talk too), and seek a way of fixing them without breaking it all again.

Thanks alot for all your help, guys!!

 

[faceman]

Wanted to let you know that I did the above steps and was able to get back to my earlier restore! Thanks!!

Got caught up for multiple hours on several (probably stupid) things.
And I started to wipe cache partition and Dalvik cache because I was following the instructions from that guy's post. Then luckily I remembered those wipes had messed Rico up, so I stopped before I actually wiped Davik.

But I am now back to the (mostly-functional) restore; now I have to figure out what pieces don't work (I remember Market didn't work, possibly GMail, and possibly Talk too), and seek a way of fixing them without breaking it all again.

Thanks alot for all your help, guys!!

Glad to hear it! (That's what the "Thanks" button is for)

I feel your position right now and I am working on a solution for everyone to the issue of dealing with the "Thank god i'm not bricked, now what do i do cause im scared of breaking it again" syndrome... in the meantime, you might want to consider following one of the methods for a clean restore and start from the beginning. This way you know you are working with clean setup and data. If you need specific threads, let me know.

 

[johntee]

I feel your position right now and I am working on a solution for everyone to the issue of dealing with the "Thank god i'm not bricked, now what do i do cause im scared of breaking it again" syndrome...

Actually, I feel almost the reverse... Now that I've gotten it back from the brink, I'm not scared of the restore process.


But it's started breaking down again... The backup I restored to was version 1.0.1. I turned on Wifi to test out the market, and after I'd fooled around in the Market for a few minutes, I got the "Due to an authorization problem, the device needs to be reset." error, and it rebooted back to B&N stock.

So I restored to the v1.0.1 backup again, and upgraded it to v1.1.0, and made a new Nandroid backup of the v1.1.0 for future restores.

I turned on Wifi. As I watched it connect to my network (I was waiting to see if I had to re-enter my network password), within a second or 2 of connecting to the network, it gave me the "Due to an Authorization problem, needs to be reset" error again...
I swear it was almost instantly, which doesn't make sense to me... How did it connect so fast to decide that.


Or is something else wrong that's triggering it?

Perhaps you could post the links to the clean restore info?

Thanks!

UPDATE: I started to follow the "Uninstall Clockwork Recovery and revert to a stock image" instructions in Darmeen's signature , but I couldn't do the 2nd step --
1. Write the bootable Clockwork image to your SD card. [DONE; WORKED FINE]
2. When your image writer software is complete, open the drive on your computer and copy the stock image (either 1.0.0 or 1.0.1) into the root of your SD card. [COULDN'T DO IT; WINDOWS EXPLORER SAID THE DISK IS NOT FORMATTED WHEN I CLICKED ON IT... USING WIN XP.]