problems getting image dumped with rkdump

[noromamai]

ok, so i've decided to do something with the turd tablet i bought, now that my htc flyer (which i am very satisfied about) does what i want it to (i.e. making giant phone calls). maybe i can turn this woow! tab 7 rockchip 2818 tablet into a shiny turd, which of course is a lot better than a not so shiny turd.

- used z4root to get temp root
- installed superuser.apk, su.apk
- pushed/copied rkdump onto the sdcard
- could not copy rkdump to /data because there is no 'cp' command
- could not move rkdump to /data with 'mv' because it gives a cross-device link error
- so i used 'dd' to copy it (dd if=/sdcard/rkdump of=/data/rkdump)
- used rkdump to dump boot,system,recovery,kernel to the sdcard

and here's where i get stuck. rkdump doesn't want to dump backup (mtdblock5) or misc (mtdblock0) block device, it gives and error: unknown image (00 00 00 00).
i tried to use dd to dump it to the sdcard, but the file was getting bigger and bigger, so i stopped it when it reached 1.5gb. can't be good. and no idea how i'd use that image to flash the device again.

without a proper backup.img i am of course not going to try and flash something onto the device, because it's still a $180 non shiny turd.

woow! digital are asshats, i've mailed asking for an image to reflash my device, but they never answered. which was to be expected after exepriencing their customer support first hand for fixing battery drain, hangs and re-experiencing it again after they 'fixed' it and borked the sdcard reader. so that's a dead end.

so, does anyone know of a way to make a backup of the backup partition? i've searched the net, but to no avail. there was one post somewhere where someone managed to dump it with rkdump after it failed, but didn't explain how or why.

i'm on linux, but can boot to windows to get things done. any help would be appreciated.

 

[noromamai]

and just when i have given up, i bump into this little piece of information...

The size of mtd5 partition (backup) is 0x3a000 hex units, which is equal to 237568 decimal units (of 512 bytes).
The command on the device wil then be:
# dd if=/dev/block/mtdblock5 of=/sdcard/backup.dump count=237568

The size of the original update.img of the A7HT Version 2 for the original 1.0.0. firmware is 55111684 bytes
By using dd, now on your MacOSX/linux/windows box, you can create the update.img by issueing the command:
$ dd if=backup.dump of=update.img bs=55111684 count=1

but since i don't know the size of my original update.img because i don't have one, i still can't make a working recovery image....

 

[fun]

as rkdump reported, there is no update.img in backup partition on your tablet.

 

[noromamai]

ok. that kind of explains. just checked the file i dumped with dd, and it is indeed empty after a while.
then what does it use when i do a 'reset to defaults'? since there is no backup image to restore from? i was going to test it, but the battery drained itselft again while on standby, so i am waiting for it to get charged at least halfway through before trying that.

 

[noromamai]

Just reset the tablet to defaults and works just fine, so i guess the backup partition isn't used at all. weird. guess i can now try to flash it knowing there isn't any more precautions i could have taken in case i brick it.

 

[noromamai]

fun, found your thread with cyanogenmod7 rom. interesting read, learned a few more things.

tried flashing cyanogenmod7 boot.img and system.img (found on fun's thread) with the kernel.img and recovery.img (that i got using rkdump) with rkandroidtool.exe, but got an error. probably because i don't have bootloader files and maybe other files still needed. can't build my own update.img, because i don't have an original one to work with. so still at square one. next strategy, nagging woow! digital every day for an update image, although i don't think that will get me anywhere. so this tablet will probably end up as a digital photo frame that is connected to the mains outlet at all times.

if i succeed in getting an update.img from woow! will post results here.

 

[fun]

fun, found your thread with cyanogenmod7 rom. interesting read, learned a few more things.

tried flashing cyanogenmod7 boot.img and system.img (found on fun's thread) with the kernel.img and recovery.img (that i got using rkdump) with rkandroidtool.exe, but got an error. probably because i don't have bootloader files and maybe other files still needed. can't build my own update.img, because i don't have an original one to work with. so still at square one. next strategy, nagging woow! digital every day for an update image, although i don't think that will get me anywhere. so this tablet will probably end up as a digital photo frame that is connected to the mains outlet at all times.

if i succeed in getting an update.img from woow! will post results here.

to use my CM7, complete update.img is not needed. just flashing boot.img and system.img is enough.

but you need to set correct offset in RKAndroidTool yourself. you also need to wipe/factory reset(it can be started by flashing misc.img from other rom) for CM7 1st install.

why I explain only about flashing update.img with RKAndroidBatchUpgrade is because RKAndroidTool is bit difficult.