Possible root cause of 'bricking' desire when flashing new rom - Desire General

Hi,
New to the forum - since I've used so many of the threads to gather new ROMs and sort out problems on my desire, I've decided to share what I've learned. Don't know if this is old news but it's new for me.
Have a rooted Desire and have installed a few different ROMs (opendesire, leedroid, pinkolin's one etc.). Like others, I recently partitioned my SDCARD with one FAT32 and one ext3/4 partition (and a small swap partition) to allow storage of more apps without impacting phone mem too much. Don't ask about swap - old 'nix habits. This worked fine until I tried to install a new ROM recently (went through the Recovery/ClockworkMod method, not ROM Manager).
Thought I had bricked the phone as it booted but got stuck on the loading screen.
Tried wiping all caches/data. No change.
Tried to reflash old ROM and Radio - no luck. ROM installed but same problem.
Tried RUU (including PB99IMG.zip) - no luck. Got CID error.
Noticed that in ClockworkMod, when I tried to mount /sd-ext/ the phone didn't like it - couldn't find the device.
Put SDCARD into a reader and deleted the ext3/4 and swap partitions, then installed the ROM from the FAT32 partition. Phone booted no problem.
Have a hypothesis that, with ext partition present, when ROM is installed, it takes this into account and links the ext partition as a device which then tries to mount as /sd-ext/ which it can't do as it doesn't understand the filesystem until finished booting. Can't mount /sd-ext/ until full boot, can't boot unless /sd-ext/ mounted. Therefore, no booting properly.
With no ext partition present, has to create /sd-ext/ itself and then mounts it which allows full boot into Android.
Would suggest that anyone flashing a new ROM who has an ext partition present either hides or deletes the partition (after backing up apps) to ensure that android doesn't get confused.

Related

[Q] Problems creating Ext partition

Hi all,
I have a big problem with my desire well my class 6 32gb kingston card I should say.
I don't seem to be able to create an ext partition, I tried rom manager, but it doesn't work because it doesn't create it. It actually creates a partition which can't be recognized by my pc, rom, clockword or amon recovery, neither clockword recovery no amon's recovery seem to be able to create a working one at the moment.
Then, I tried to do it via adb and parted but it says parted not found, I pushed parted to sbin via adb and i tried to do it there, it works fine for creating fat32 partitions but when it comes to ext3 it goes until the end and then says some bug has been found in parted.
Then, I used gparted, I created a fat32 partition and then a ext3 partition, it shows clearly that the partitions are there but neither my leodroid rom nor either of the recoveries can see it, when I try to wipe it, it says unable to format (file exists).
Then, I used minitools partition wizard but with no avail, neither the rom nor the recovery can read the ext partition.
Any help is appriciated.
shav4life said:
Hi all,
I have a big problem with my desire well my class 6 32gb kingston card I should say.
I don't seem to be able to create an ext partition, I tried rom manager, but it doesn't work because it doesn't create it. It actually creates a partition which can't be recognized by my pc, rom, clockword or amon recovery, neither clockword recovery no amon's recovery seem to be able to create a working one at the moment.
Then, I tried to do it via adb and parted but it says parted not found, I pushed parted to sbin via adb and i tried to do it there, it works fine for creating fat32 partitions but when it comes to ext3 it goes until the end and then says some bug has been found in parted.
Then, I used gparted, I created a fat32 partition and then a ext3 partition, it shows clearly that the partitions are there but neither my leodroid rom nor either of the recoveries can see it, when I try to wipe it, it says unable to format (file exists).
Then, I used minitools partition wizard but with no avail, neither the rom nor the recovery can read the ext partition.
Any help is appriciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
are you creating an ext 4 partition with gparted? i had the same problem with clockworkmod, the file exists error, so i tried with the unbuntu live cd (ext 4) and got the same error, i deleted the partition and this time created an ext 3 instead and all worked fine, maybe theres a problem with clockwork and ext 4 partitions
believe me i have tried 4, 3 and 2 and none of them seem to be readable. It's driving my crazy. Any idea why parted is not on my rom? or is it just my particular device having this issue?
Thanks,
I am having a similar problem, would appreciate if someone can help
in my case I tried to partition the stock 4 GB SD card that comes with the Desire into 480 MB EXT2 partition and the rest into FAT32, for this i tried:
- ROM Manager but if failed to create the partition after going to recovery
- used EASUS partition manager from my Windows Vista laptop, and it seemed that the partition were correctly created
Then I proceeded to try to flash a couple of ROMS that are using A2SD (Leedroid 2.2e and 2.2f , Modaco R9) and in each time I got stuck in splash screen. I tried for many times then I decided to try with a ROM not using A2SD (pre-rooted stock HTC Froyo) and my Desire came back to life again.
The problem is that after that point my SD card was not recognisable at all by the phone although I could use it on the Windows laptop
I wonder if someone can explain in details the best way to format a SD card to be able to work with A2SD or A2SD+, preferrably from the phone itself (clockwork recovery) or from Windows PC application
Thanks
Gam
gamgoum said:
I am having a similar problem, would appreciate if someone can help
in my case I tried to partition the stock 4 GB SD card that comes with the Desire into 480 MB EXT2 partition and the rest into FAT32, for this i tried:
- ROM Manager but if failed to create the partition after going to recovery
- used EASUS partition manager from my Windows Vista laptop, and it seemed that the partition were correctly created
Then I proceeded to try to flash a couple of ROMS that are using A2SD (Leedroid 2.2e and 2.2f , Modaco R9) and in each time I got stuck in splash screen. I tried for many times then I decided to try with a ROM not using A2SD (pre-rooted stock HTC Froyo) and my Desire came back to life again.
The problem is that after that point my SD card was not recognisable at all by the phone although I could use it on the Windows laptop
I wonder if someone can explain in details the best way to format a SD card to be able to work with A2SD or A2SD+, preferrably from the phone itself (clockwork recovery) or from Windows PC application
Thanks
Gam
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the same problem, can any one help??? I gave lots of money to buy that sd card but I cant use it the way I want :S
Take a Usb-stick.
! YOUR DATA FROM YOUR STICK WILL BE LOST, BACKUP BEFOR GPARTED INSTALL!
! BACKUP YOUR DATA FROM YOUR DESIRE SD-CARD, ALL DATA WIL BE LOST USING THIS METHOD!
Download gparted, install it using unetbootin.
start gparted form your usb-stick.
Remove all partitions in GParted from your desire sd-card.
create a new partition form about 1Gb ext-4.
then create a new partition (fat-32) that fils the rest of your sd-card.
Note: the ext-4 partition needs to be in front of the fat-32 partition.
restore your desire sd-card data.
I hope this helps!
Keon91 said:
Take a Usb-stick.
! YOUR DATA FROM YOUR STICK WILL BE LOST, BACKUP BEFOR GPARTED INSTALL!
! BACKUP YOUR DATA FROM YOUR DESIRE SD-CARD, ALL DATA WIL BE LOST USING THIS METHOD!
Download gparted, install it using unetbootin.
start gparted form your usb-stick.
Remove all partitions in GParted from your desire sd-card.
create a new partition form about 1Gb ext-4.
then create a new partition (fat-32) that fils the rest of your sd-card.
Note: the ext-4 partition needs to be in front of the fat-32 partition.
restore your desire sd-card data.
I hope this helps!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you Keon91. Gonna try this cos been having mega probs.
duryard said:
Thank you Keon91. Gonna try this cos been having mega probs.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you got it working?
Yes Thanks. All sorted now

Complete SD Card Corruption with A2SD+

Hi,
Tonight I installed some updates for apps on my phone running Leedroid 2.2d A2SD+. Some of them stubbornly decided to stay on the SD card so I went to move them (I haven't managed to get pm setInstallLocation 1 to work, though I have yet to try it from ADB and that was the way I got setInstallLocation 2 to work before I rooted). I moved several at once and suddenly had the applications manager restart itself and found one of my games that was being moved (Cordy) was no longer working and couldn't be moved either to or from the phone (said move failed). So I tried restarting the phone incase that would fix it.
The phone wouldn't get past the HTC logo so I thought it might be a corrupt A2SD partition, but since it was ext3 that I could probably just get fsck on the computer to replay the journal. Upon putting the card in the computer (using an SD adapter) and booting into Ubuntu 10.10 I tried running disk utility with 'check filesystem' and it reported an error and that the filesystem was not clean and changed the partition to unknown. The same thing happend for the FAT32 partition and I couldn't mount that either. I tried running fsck from a terminal and it said something along the lines of 'Bad superblock or possible short write' and was unable to check the partitions and exited immediately (sorry I have since rebooted and assumed the same error would occur next time so didn't write it down specifically).
I restarted into Windows 7 to see if it could fix the FAT32 partition so I could get my Nandroid backup I made yesterday and it worked fine and said the partition was fine! Usefully Nandroid makes an md5 checksum of the backup so I was able to confirm at least that was intact and make a copy (I didn't really have anything else not backed up on the card as I only rooted a week ago).
I then rebooted back into Ubuntu and it now reports the FAT32 partition as clean, and actually makes some attempt at repairing the EXT3 partition but reports huge quantities of nasty errors like multiply allocated blocks and allocated blocks marked as free and an error with the journal when I run from terminal using 'fsck -t ext3 /dev/sdb2'. I don't really have any experience with fsck as I mostly use windows but there were a lot of errors that sounded pretty unresolvable (from memories of my couple of lectures on ext at university).
Yesterday I flashed an UOT theme using (ClockworkMod 2.5.0.7 as installed by Unrevoked3) install from zip for battery percentage and some icon changes, I chose Leedroid 2.3d from the file list. I had also installed DSPManager using the flashable zip on the Leedroid site.
My card was partitioned using GParted with FAT32 first followed by a 512MB EXT3 partition as recommended on the Leedroid site. I was sure to create the EXT3 partition second as I noticed adding it first at the end made it the first partition in the table. The card had been made a goldcard (though this might be gone as I erased the card with disk utilities Format drive button which may have deleted the MBR, I'm not really sure).
I'm guessing somehow Android tried to do multiple writes at once but I was under the impression these kinds of issues were solved by putting the partitions in the correct order, besides, shouldn't Andorid work correctly with its built-in support for ext anyway like any other version of linux? If this is a known, common problem with A2SD+ why doesn't every ROM have a big warning about this like Data2SD ROMS generally have about SD wear and being able to persist system settings?
PS: I realise there are some other threads on this but they are fairly old and seem to all involve connecting the phone to the computer or after a reboot.

fix "can't mount /dev/block/mmcblk0p2 (File exists) error mounting /sd-ext/!.

I flashed a Leedroid 3.0 and it was just stuck in the boot screen. So tried to clear data and all thru recovery and i got this error "can't mount /dev/block/mmcblk0p2 (File exists) error mounting /sd-ext/!.
I downloaded gparted to repartition my 8gb sd card. I did a ext3 partition. When i plug back the sd card, the error still comes out in recovery mode. Any rom i flash gets stuck in Bootscreen still. I tried partitioning my 4gb sd card but it also gave the same error in the recovery.
please help. Been trying the whole day and still nothing is happening
Have you tried partitioning it through recovery? (If you have that option available)
I'd begin with reflashing a cwm recovery, cause maybe the problem is not your sd. In "mounts and storage" did you try to mount/amount sd-ext ?
Sent from my Desire using LeeDrOiD 2.4.1
I cant also mount/unmount sd ext. It says the same thing. can't mount /dev/block/mmcblk0p2 (File exists) error mounting /sd-ext/!. should i just buy a fresh new memory card?
What exactly is your recovery ?
Sent from my Desire using LeeDrOiD 2.4.1
flash clockworkmod recovery 2.5.0.7 . Im using a sd card now without partition. It seems to work with the rom. Using Leedroid 2.4.1 . If i use the original SD card and reboot it with it, its just stuck in HTC boot screen.
So you should just use parted again with your stock sd to make it work ...
Sent from my Desire using LeeDrOiD 2.4.1
can't mount /dev/block/mmcblk0p2 (File exists) error mounting /sd-ext/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Common error when card is not partitioned or wrongly partitioned. First make Fat, then make EXT.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=7279872&postcount=3
Thanks man. I was able to repartition. I made a wrong partition in gparted. Made a fat32 primary then the second one extended partition. From your post i made it primary also the second one. Now my rom reads the sd card. Thanks again.
Hmmm I had this exact same problem with LeeDroid 3.0.2... Trying to flash without wiping, had about 80 apps on my EXT3 partition... Got stuck on the white HTC screen for about 2 hours, gave up, pulled the battery, tried to flash the alignment zip, still stuck... tried to restore nandroid backup but then started getting this same error as you.
Thankfully was able to rescue all files from my SD card, format and partition again, then flashed LeeDroid 3.0.2 and restored a Titanium backup... everything running smoothly again! Phew...
streetdaddy said:
[..]
Thankfully was able to rescue all files from my SD card, format and partition again, then flashed LeeDroid 3.0.2 and restored a Titanium backup... everything running smoothly again! Phew...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
May I ask how did you manage to do that?
EDIT:
Ok. Apart from the backup/restore issues that depend on having a healthy ext partition as I figure, the "can't mount [..] error mounting /sd-ext/!" problem is responsible for the "green HTC logo on the white screen freeze" also. So I've been trying to make it work all evening and this is what I found:
The Error (at least in my case) and the freaking "green HTC logo" freezez were generated because the Ext partition got corrupted in some bizarre and mysterious way. I have no idea how that could have happened, but I guess a small role in this ballet got played by the ROM itself and maybe even the nandroid backup built into the CWM (ClockWorkMod). It started right after I finished installing a fresh copy of the LeeDroid 2.4.1 and all my favourite apps (which worked flawlessly), rebooted into bootloader > CWM > nandroid and made the full backup of the system. Rebooting the device afterwards got me into the above mentioned freeze.
I tried many things, among which were flashing different ROMs and Radio images (without wiping though), but none worked. I just wanted to roll back to the previous state (because i've spent quite some time configuring and installing the 2.4.1) and it seemed impossible at that point. Browsing the recovery options got me into the Mount and storage section where I noticed the listed error with the ext partition. I thought maybe formatting will help - well, it didn't. After a couple of weird things I had tried, I've decided I should delete the ext partition (leaving just the fat32 intact). Creating a new ext partition from scratch seemed to solve the error. However this didn't solve the freezing. And the reason had to be the fact that when it created the nandroid backup images, the ext was already corrupt (or however unreadable), so the relative image was not written because it didn't see the source.
I doubt there is any way to fully restore my previously installed ROM with all of it's apps in place and in a functioning order, because the ext partition had data on it and now it's missing (hence the freeze).
Therefore the question: what could have gone so badly wrong to compromise the ext partition?
And another one: is the LeeDroid 2.4.1 ROM or the 2.5.0.7 ClockworkMod Recovery the culprit?
Sorry for the looong post. I look further to hearing from Lee, if his busy schedule allows it and thank him in advance.
Cheers!
streetdaddy said:
Hmmm I had this exact same problem with LeeDroid 3.0.2... Trying to flash without wiping, had about 80 apps on my EXT3 partition... Got stuck on the white HTC screen for about 2 hours, gave up, pulled the battery, tried to flash the alignment zip, still stuck... tried to restore nandroid backup but then started getting this same error as you.
Thankfully was able to rescue all files from my SD card, format and partition again, then flashed LeeDroid 3.0.2 and restored a Titanium backup... everything running smoothly again! Phew...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hi! having the same exact problem right now... could you please help me how did you rescue all of your sd-card and sd-ext partitions? Thank you very much!
same problem on my N1, reparition to resolved
hi..
i got this problem too
i have clockworkmod recovery. pvt4.
cyanogenmod 7.1.
didn't make any partitions,
everything is by default as i got with cyanogenmod
s-on.
sd - 8gb, class2
yesterday my desire freezed.so i had to pull out the battery. but i couldn't turn it on till' i didn't wipe cache and dalvik cache.
When i selected wipe dalvik cache i got this
E: can't mount /dev/ block/mmcblk0p2
(file exists)
but it wiped it and my phone worked.
this appears even without sd card
it freezed after a week again but after a couple of reboots it works again but the error still exists.
i am newbie so i don't know what to do?
So I flashed a ROM which stuffed up my partitions somehow (also became S-ON, WTH?!).
I got 'can't open /dev/block/mmcblk0 (or /dev/block/mmcblk0p1) (invalid argument)' when trying to mount /sdcard.
I also got the aforementioned 'can't open /dev/block/mmcblk0p2 (file exists)' when trying to mount /sd-ext.
After literally 16 hours of head banging, I realised when I partitioned the SD card again that they were logical instead of primary. Partitioned using minitool partition wizard home edition.
Rundown:
I'm using LeeDroid v3.3.3 with clockworkmod recovery 2.5.0.7
Make sure you partition FAT32 first as primary, then ext3 as primary. LeeDroid says to partition ext3 1GB after FAT32, so e.g. my SD card is 16GB, I have ~13.8GB FAT32 | 1GB ext3
This fixed the 'can't mount /dev/block/mmcblk0' error, /sdcard is mountable.
You can now run .zip files from recovery (yay!). Throw alignment_ext3.zip on there and run it. You should now be able to mount /sd-ext.
Do a full wipe + Dalvik cache wipe (to test /sd-ext accessibility). For me it was back to normal and I'm currently doing a restore.
Always do a backup.

[Q] Installed ICS Sense 4.0 Rom, stuck on HTC boot screen.

I have scoured the forums and can't seem to find a solved situation similar to mine, so decided to ask this question.
I flashed this Rom http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1653537 in clockworkmod and did a typical install on it. Once installed, it loaded up the HTC one screen and simply stayed on it for as long as I waited.
I am using stock H-boot and my SD should be partitioned to 4GB and 12GB partitions, so I shouldn't have any problems in that respect.
So my question is, is there any way of checking the size of my partitions, and could there be other reasons as to why it is doing this? Any help would be much appreciated.
You can check the size of your partition using a partition manager (e.g. GParted, MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition) and an USB card reader.
If you do not have an usb card reader, most recovery propose to use your phone as an USB card reader.
If i were you i would not use this ROM. Check the NOT Working section :
Audio(Main issue causes major error under the hood)
3G
Gps
Bluetooth
USB Mount
SD Card (FAT32)
More...
Are you still able to get in to recovery?
I dont know about CWM since I havent used it in a while, but in 4EXT recovery there is option for INFO which gives you complete details of partition spaces on your internal and external memory.
PS: the ROM that you linked is pretty much 'alpha' so I wouldnt recommend running except for curiosity. also 4GB is way too much for a SD-EXT partition. 2GB I suppose is the max and I only have 1GB and never ran out of space.
nothing works with that rom yet lol ur ext4 partition is supposed to be 1gb as stated and most devs would recommend no more than 1gb - 1.5gb ext4. i would boot recovery, wipe/factory reset, clear cache, clear dalvik etc etc and flash a different rom, atleast untill shaky releases next update.
Sent from my HTC Desire
Thank-you, you have all been very helpful, especially in telling me that I should have no more than a 1gig partition for it to work.
Also I am having no trouble getting into recovery, so there's no need to worry about that.
Thanks again.

[HELP!!?!!?] SD Card and Recovery Problems

Here's a lovely and vague one for you all to try wrap your heads around...
Okay, so I started having trouble with my SD card about a year ago after my mate added a partition so I could flash A2SD ROMs (I believe - I was stuck and asked him to sort it and from what I can gather, that's what he did). It was fine for a while, then suddenly it became nigh on unresponsive to Android: I couldn't take photos, install apps to SD, basically any data transfer between the device and the SD storage was not happening. I think this was after I tried to delete some things to make room for videos and **** but I was stuck on about 300MB of the ~2GB available (this may have been my first attempt to delete after the partition, I'm not sure).
That was the birth of a problem I am still yet to fix. My dad needed a new phone and I wasn't using my Desire anymore. He's 53, and so the Sense UI was less than intuitive to him which lead to me offering to make it a bit simpler for him (flash a stock ROM and use a more information-centric launcher). The device badly needed updating anyways as I hadn't done so since my mate partitioned my SD card and some bugs had began to develop on the ROM I was using. So, I downloaded the latest CM build and set about reformatting the storage to see if I could solve some of the issues. In attempting to do so I think I performed a data, cache and dalvik cache wipe which removed the ROM I was currently using. The partitioning was successful, so I transferred the new ROM and attempted to flash - BOOM! Error message. Tried again, same thing. Now I have a phone that'll only boot into a recovery that's 5 full versions old (CM Recovery v2.5.0.7) without a way to flash an update img. I've tried on many different occasions to try and sort the problem and spent relentless hours trying to research a solution to the numerous different error messages this produces. Every error I can remember was a problem with read/write on the SD card, so I purchased a new one to no avail.
The phone CAN'T be bricked, surely. I still have access to things like USB mounting (which works absolutely fine), and most importantly, access to the recovery. Please don't tell me she won't live on, this is my baby and she's going down fighting! :'(
TL;DR SD card read/write issues. I only have access to recovery. I can mount the SD card via USB in CM Recovery, but every time I try to flash a new ROM I get numerous different read/write errors.
Go here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1408936
There you can download 4ext recovery that can be flashed via fastboot or using some flasher.
When you flash it repartition your sd card, choose only one sd-ext partition (not bigger than 1,5gb), no swap and fat32 for thevrest of your card.
After repartitioning try to flash some rom and see how it will work.

Categories

Resources