Unable To Flash Lenovo A3300 Custom ROMs On Lenovo A3000 Using Twrp

[rupeshforu3]

Hi I am Rupesh from India and I have lenovo a 3000 H tab and due to various reasons like viruses i have flashed stock rom with Android version 4.4.2 and build number: A3000H_A442_V3.0.0 and also with twrp recovery manager.

I want to install cyanogenMod on my tablet and so I visited XDA forums related to Lenovo a3000H and downloaded custom ROMS related to A3300 they are
1) [ROM][6.0.1] Resurrection Remix v5.7.4 for A3300
2) [ROM][UNOFFICIAL][MARSHMALLOW][Lenovo A3300]CM13 for A3300
3) [ROM][GUIDE][A3300-H/HV] Cyanogen Mod 12.1 Android 5.1.1 Lenovo Tablet

In twrp recovery manager I tried to flash the above ROMS using install zip option by selecting the ROMS which are stored in external memory card of my device. Before flashing the above ROMS I have done factory reset, erased cache, DATA, System partitions in twrp recovery manager. For the above mentioned three ROMS I am getting errors such as
1) zip verification failed
2) no data present in zip file
3) MD5 mismatch etc…

Upon getting the above errors I have re downloaded the above mentioned ROMS and tried to flash but even no use I mean I am getting same errors.

Before flashing the above mentioned ROMS I have made full system backup in twrp recovery manager to external sd card. As the system is not even unable to boot after the above failures I have made restore in twrp recovery manager.

I have tried to download the custom ROM related to A3000H but failed I mean failed to download the ROM from its download page. The ROM I tried to download from XDA forum is
[ROM][4.4.4] CyanogenMod 11.0 for A3000-H [23/10/2015]

Actually I want to use my tablet mainly to read ebooks and rarely to browse internet.Currently my tablet is not working properly so please suggest how to flash ROM called [ROM][4.4.4] CyanogenMod 11.0 for A3000-H [23/10/2015] and if not possible try to suggest how to flash custom ROM related to A3300. If none of the ROMS specified in XDA forum is not suitable for my tablet then please try to suggest any other custom ROM which is suitable to my tablet.

Regards,
Rupesh.

 

[Traveller]

Well, the first thing to do is get your tablet working properly before attempting anything else, because repeatedly attempting to flash the wrong ROM could cause other issues down the road. So I recommend flashing the stock ROM to your device first, so that you are at a known working state. Only after getting the device working properly should you then attempt to install a custom ROM. However, you cannot install an A3300 ROM on the A3000 due to hardware differences. This is why you are getting the errors you are seeing. Worse, there are no Android 5.x or later ROMs available for the A3000.

Fortunately, the A3000 has a ROM you can use, here. It's AOSP (Android 4.4.2), not Cyanogenmod, but is apparently bug free and has everything working.

 

[rupeshforu3]

At present the aosp ROM is installed but the problem is the device performance is very poor. As something goes wrong in future I have made full system backup including all the partitions in twrp recovery manager.

Actually aosp ROM or stock ROM takes more system resources while cyanogen mod takes less system resources because unnecessary blotware is not installed.

In XDA forum they specified that we can flash custom ROM of A3300 on A3000 because both have similar hardware and so I tried to flash a3300 custom ROMs.

In XDA forum they specified a download link of cyanogen custom ROM for lenovo a3000 but unfortunately the link is not working and the link is

[ROM][4.4.4] CyanogenMod 11.0 for A3000-H [23/10/2015].

Sent from my Redmi Note 4 using Tapatalk

 

[Traveller]

Clearly you don't know what you're talking about here. AOSP is Android without the Google Apps, and is built straight from the source. Any additions to it are from the developer. For example, on my Nexus 6, the most popular Android ROM was Pure Nexus, an AOSP ROM. To the base AOSP ROM the developer added some useful features not found in AOSP. Compared to my roommate's Moto X Style running LineageOS - the successor to Cyanogenmod - Pure Nexus runs far more efficiently despite her device having 4GB of RAM compared to my 3GB and a 64-bit Snapdragon 808 instead of a 32-bit Snapdragon 805. This is because of the biggest issue with LineageOS: none of the code following the creation of Cyanogen, Inc. was ever tested.

From the moment the Cyanogenmod team incorporated as Cyanogen, Inc., the code that was added to the Cyanogenmod base was not tested on devices. At all. As a result, bugs that should have been caught were left to fester in the ROM, and in some cases the bug would go back years. This is why I do not run Cyanogenmod or LineageOS on my devices. The only reason my roommate has it on her device are that there is virtually no custom ROM support for her device other than LineageOS.

I will always recommend AOSP over LineageOS. Not just because of the unfixed bugs in Lineage, but also because AOSP consumes far fewer resources than Lineage. This can be demonstrably proven using the tools provided in Android itself. As to AOSP's performance, that does depend on the apps being run as well as the widgets being used. For example, on an AOSP ROM if you want Google apps you have to download a Google Apps package from The Open GApps Project . Downloading a stock package and installing it will provide you with more Google apps, but will also consume more resources as several of the included apps run at start and cannot be disabled.

As to downloading the particular ROM you linked to, clearly the developer no longer maintains his work and has allowed the site hosting the ROM to expire. I know you made an XDA account as I saw you ask this same question over there. If you really want this developer's work, you're going to have to send him a PM and ask for it.

 

[rupeshforu3]

Finally I bow my head to all the people who has criticized me that I doing wrong and still doing same thing.

Many of you criticized me that I don't know anything and pretending that I know and yes I agree with you.

One year back I heard about custom ROM that it offers superior performance than original ROM and also I trusted XDA forum because they may be professionals and so whatever they suggested in their forum I have blindly followed.

I have tried to root my tab ie., lenovo a3000 and flash all the custom ROMs and aosp ROMs they specified under lenovo a3000 section of XDA forum. I have tried flash up to 5 to six such ROMs 50 times. I have tried in various ways such as sp flash tool, recovery manager's etc.,. Unfortunately none worked fine.

When I have rooted my device all the problems started one by one such as very slow performance, virus attacks etc.,. I can't digest why those happened. I have tried to flash so many times because performance is very slow etc.,.

Upto now I have trusted free and open source software a lot but those custom ROMs troubled me a lot. As custom ROMs are not working properly I am getting doubts such as does all the Foss software behave same etc.,.

As I have spent enormous amount of time and money but still my tab is not working a lot of sad.

At present I don't want to flash any other ROM and root my device etc., but I want to make my device work same as when I brought it on March 2014.

At present my tab have no os except twrp recovery manager. I have tried to flash original ROM using twrp recovery manager but it is unable to detect it.The link from I downloaded is
Lenovo A3000 Stock Firmware[Flash Files] Download Here – SmartFirmwares

Please suggest how to flash stock ROM using lenovo tools such as lenovo moto smart assistant, lenovo because I think at least these tools will not fail as flash tool,custom ROMs etc.,. If you suggest correctly I am not going to raise another question related to ROMs.

Regards,
Rupesh.

Sent from my Redmi Note 4 using Tapatalk

 

[Traveller]

Rupesh, did you do any research prior to trying to upgrade your devices? While I'm not trying to be hard on you here you have to understand that what you're doing could lead to a permanently useless device unless you not only do some research, but understand what you're doing. Most of the developers and long-time users on XDA are not professionals, but hobbyists.

Over on XDA I am a senior member. I've been there since 2010, and have tweaked my devices mercilessly. My ancient Dell Streak I tweaked past the point of obsolescence, using it for eighteen months after everyone else on that device transitioned over to newer devices with Android 4.0 on them. In those eighteen months I did everything I could development-wise to keep the device going, until I could finally change devices. I'm not a professional, but a hobbyist. I did the things I needed to do with my Dell Streak not because I wanted to, but because I had to. I returned the favor by releasing my work so everyone else could benefit.

Today, with my Nexus 6, I'm not really having to do much development work. In fact the only thing I did in the last two years was modify pre-malware copies of ES File Explorer so they would understand systemless root solutions. But like my Dell Streak I did that not because I wanted to, but because I needed to. And like I did with my Dell Streak I released my work so everyone else could benefit.

I'm getting a little bit off topic here, but in the Coby Kyros forums I did what I could to make those devices better. I had a fair amount of help from another hobbyist developer, but I digress. The one thing I made clear in my threads related to the improvements I offered was that you not only had to read what you were doing but to understand it as well. Because if you don't understand it, how are you going to fix it when something goes wrong?

Let's take this very thread. You asked for help and my answer to you was to, in order, return to stock and then install the custom ROM I provided a link to. I did this because even though the hardware for the A3300 is similar to the A3000, similar is not good enough in the Android world. Without the right drivers in the kernel you can end up with a whole host of problems ranging from video upside down, an upside-down display, or a completely non-functional touchscreen. The worst is a touchscreen that when pressed registers the touch as occurring in a completely different section of the display, e.g. pressing the lower left corner and the touch registers in the upper right corner. The Coby Kyros devices I dealt with all encountered these issues and more. If you don't understand what you are doing, on some devices you could end up permanently destroying the device due to the PC software used. Again, the Coby Kyros could be rendered completely dead simply by trying to use Google's Android Debug Bridge on a device that had been partitioned using software called Livesuite. The aforementioned Dell Streak could be permanently destroyed by issuing the command "fastboot -erase" due to a bug in the Dell bootloader.

Because of the issues you are having, you need to go back to the stock ROM. If you have a nandroid backup of the stock ROM, which you should have taken before you started, restore that through TWRP. Otherwise, find the stock ROM and the tools to flash it, and then do just that. Only, once you do flash it, stay there for a while. Use the time to read up and learn how to do things correctly, so you don't end up with problems. Only when you are truly comfortable in the process should you attempt to flash a custom ROM.

One last thing. Always check the manufacturer's website for the latest firmware. In this case, Lenovo only provided instructions - not very good ones - on how to upgrade, and did not provide the firmware. Here is a link that not only has the firmware, but instructions on how to flash it. Something the Lenovo forum you registered to in order to ask how to flash the stock ROM hasn't yet gotten around to telling you.

 

[rupeshforu3]

I have read two books thoroughly which are downloaded from XDA website and one of them is

XDA-Developers Book for Android Users!

In those books they specified word's such as " don't become panic if anything goes wrong ", "custom ROMs are perfectly suitable for your device as they allow overlooking, unnecessary blotware is not going to be installed" etc.,. They have also rooting procedures, flashing etc.,.

I tried to follow the suggestions given in those books regarding rooting but failed and so I have rooted using iroot which is popular Chinese rooting app.

Those days I have requested help from various forums but most of the threads are not answered and so I made experiments on my own by reading books, visiting website's. Even now on some other forum they are simply saying that search web for " restore factory ROM " and follow those material.

After some days of buying the device I have tried to nandroid backup using mtk droid tools Windows application but failed and even I tried to nandroid backup using recovery manager but again failed. Four days back I have taken the device to an unknown technician and he flashed aosp ROM which is specific for my device with twrp recovery manager. After that in twrp recovery manager I have taken full system backup including nvram and also I have taken full system backup in mtk droid tools and those backup's are stored on my system harddisk,external SD card.

You have asked a question " do you know what are you doing " and my answer is I have only tried to follow what books and websites suggested. In many sites they suggested to use sp flash tool first they suggested to open it and open scatter file which is located in the firmware folder after that connect the device to PC by removing battery if possible and after that choose all the entries in sp flash tool and click download button then sp flash tool displays progress and finally OK will be displayed. I followed the above procedure but no progress is displayed even after one hour. I have tried to follow the procedure specified in the following link

How to Download and Flash Lenovo A3000 Stock Rom (flash file)

As they suggested I have downloaded and extracted all the zip files and after that I have installed Qualcomm driver then I opened Qcomloader and then opened the firmware folder using load button then clicked on start but the Qcomloader displayed message's as "unable to locate raw file", " please check if it exists". I have even tried lenovo moto smart assistant even no use.

As sp flash tool, recovery manager's, lenovo smart assistant, lenovo downloder are not working properly can you suggest how to flash ROM images files contained in the firmware folder using fastboot. In Linux when I issue the command fastboot devices I am able to see my device.

At present I am requesting help from you and if you give right suggestions my problems will be solved.

Sent from my Redmi Note 4 using Tapatalk

 

[Traveller]

And I gave you an answer. Follow the link in the last paragraph of my post (second sentence, click on the word "Here") and follow the instructions within it to the letter.

 

[rupeshforu3]

I have followed all the instructions given in the link specified by you on post 6.

The problem in the above procedure is after loading scatter file in sp flash tool and by clicking download there is no progress at all. Normally the flash process should be completed with in one hour but unfortunately even I have waited for one hour and still there is no progress.

Sent from my Redmi Note 4 using Tapatalk

 

[Traveller]

Then I don't know what to tell you. I don't have your tablet, so I wouldn't have any idea which way to go next.

 

[rupeshforu3]

Thanks for your patience. As my tab is not working properly I am going to keep it in rack and I am not going to use it and also I am stopping all the work related to lenovo a3000.