Hello all
When I remove some of the system apps(pre installed stuff from my provider) using Titanium Backup with Temp Root(Visionary), they appear again after rebooting.
Conclusion: There is some special mechanism going on while booting. (Guess it's the same that makes perm root difficult)
I just couldn't find out what its doing at boot up?
Ofc, I could remove those apps from /system, but I want to make a backup of my DHD before hacking on it Also, there are already How-To's for backing it up, but I'd like to know what's going on.
Thanks in advance
Well apart from root, you also need some form of s-off on your phone otherwise the emmc lock will kick in and restore everything to default when you reboot. S-off disables the locks.
There are two types of s-off - radio and hboot. Radio is more permanent in that it can't be removed by any official update, but hboot allows you to use fastboot commands. Its quite safe to apply both types that way you're well covered. Just be aware to follow the hboot instructions very carefully otherwise you could brick your phone.
Some great tools are available to automate the process:
One click radio s-off
Easy hboot s-off
What's that emmc lock exactly?
Does it just restore stuff from /system? Like /system/apps?
I just can't find anything by googling...
EDIT: I think I found the answer. It restores from the SD Card. Please correct me if I am wrong.
The emmc, phone's internal memory, is write protected in S-ON phones. That means that any change made to the system will only affect the time your phone is booted. When you reboot, changes will disappear as they will not get written to write protected memory chip.
S-OFF disables that write protection, and makes the memory chip r/w (read + write).
Oh okay. Thanks you two.
Then I don't get why there is that system folder and system/apps on the sd...
Related
Hi All,
I'm trying to understand the boot process of my phone, HTC Hero, before i start rooting it and putting on different ROMS etc.
From reading, as best as I can tell, the Hero has its onboard persistent storage in 3 parts: boot, system and recovery.
Is this correct? are there any more?
Is this partitioning of the storage just implemented as 3 partitions in the onboard flash? or are they in physically different flash chips? Is it possible to write to all 3 partitions? or is, say, the boot partition read only?
[HOWTO] Remove the Hero's security and CID locks talks about removing 'security and CID locks'
As i understand it, a CID lock is a check the phone does to ensure the image in flash is approved by the carrier, is this correct? Which partition(s) does it check?
What is the additional 'security' that the phone has?
Thanks in Advance
think there is also..
DATA
SPLASH1
CACHE
I just got my new Desire a few days before. It works like a charm. The only 2 things I feel unsatisfied are: battery life and ROM capacity.
There is not much I can do on the battery side. I can put it aside and get used to that. But the ROM is really painful for me -- When I get the device, it had around 150MB free memory. But it is only 22MB left now!
I noticed that the Android 2.2 supported to install application on SD card. I used adb shell to setup the default installation to SD, and moved most of the programs to the SD card. However, it seems that internal memory was not free up as much as I was expected. Indeed, I did not have many software installed. And I am very suspicious if the cache of software (like mail, google maps, etc.) might always stay on internal memory.
I think one solution to solve the problem is to root my device and partition the SD card to increase the program storage. But I am worrying if it might bring security risk from malwares, or make the phone run slower and have bigger power consumption when use SD card more frequently.
Do you root your device for the app2sd? What's the pros and cons? I want to take your opinion before make the decision. Any suggestion will be very appreciated!
w162 said:
I just got my new Desire a few days before. It works like a charm. The only 2 things I feel unsatisfied are: battery life and ROM capacity.
There is not much I can do on the battery side. I can put it aside and get used to that. But the ROM is really painful for me -- When I get the device, it had around 150MB free memory. But it is only 22MB left now!
I noticed that the Android 2.2 supported to install application on SD card. I used adb shell to setup the default installation to SD, and moved most of the programs to the SD card. However, it seems that internal memory was not free up as much as I was expected. Indeed, I did not have many software installed. And I am very suspicious if the cache of software (like mail, google maps, etc.) might always stay on internal memory.
I think one solution to solve the problem is to root my device and partition the SD card to increase the program storage. But I am worrying if it might bring security risk from malwares, or make the phone run slower and have bigger power consumption when use SD card more frequently.
Do you root your device for the app2sd? What's the pros and cons? I want to take your opinion before make the decision. Any suggestion will be very appreciated!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Rooting , followed by alpha rev s-off n1 partitioning, is by far the best thing, so much fun.
I use defrost based on cyanogen mod, great support, and ota feature, with kernels galore, and the all important a2sd built in. As long as you have an ext partition on your sd card, all apps go straight into the ext partition with out you having to do anything.
Also remember is not jail breaking
Desire is the source of all suffering.
nitrox1 said:
Rooting , followed by alpha rev s-off n1 partitioning, is by far the best thing, so much fun.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What does alpha rev s-off allow you to do?
It basically provides full root access for your desire as opposed to soft root, where you could only r/w to the to the /system partition while in recovery mode.
What is S-OFF ? (Quotes from original AlphaRev website)
HTC implemented security on their new generation phones. This flag, called @secuflag, controls whether your phone has it's NAND or flash unlocked. Most noticibly S-ON (security on) will read-lock your /system and /recovery partition, to name a few. Also, controls whether zip files being flashed recovery or fastboot, are signed by HTC The now notorious S-OFF (security off) disable this NAND security. Since we are unable to access the Radio itself (where secuflag is stored), we turn attention to HBOOT.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
MasDroid said:
It basically provides full root access for your desire as opposed to soft root, where you could only r/w to the to the /system partition while in recovery mode.
What is S-OFF ? (Quotes from original AlphaRev website)
HTC implemented security on their new generation phones. This flag, called @secuflag, controls whether your phone has it's NAND or flash unlocked. Most noticibly S-ON (security on) will read-lock your /system and /recovery partition, to name a few. Also, controls whether zip files being flashed recovery or fastboot, are signed by HTC The now notorious S-OFF (security off) disable this NAND security. Since we are unable to access the Radio itself (where secuflag is stored), we turn attention to HBOOT.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What does it allow you to do that you can't do without it?
stats101 said:
What does it allow you to do that you can't do without it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It unlocks NAND so that you can write into /system partition. You can also flash radio, custom kernel, custom recovery, any unsigned ROM directly via fastboot without ClockWorks Rom Manager.
When you can write to /system, MetaMorph, AdFree and other apps that require access to this partition will just work. You don't need to reboot into recovery in order to delete/change/add files. Superuser will be able to update su binary automatically, Busybox Installer from Market will have no problems installing the most recent version directly into /system/bin or /system/xbin, etc.
While most users probably don't need it, it's very useful for developers. You can change system configs on the fly, add and load custom kernel modules without reboot and so on.
Basically, it will make your phone fully unlocked, just like the Nexus One developer phone.
nitrox1 said:
Desire is the source of all suffering.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can't agree with that any more now
Hi everyone
I know this thread might look like a dublicated thread, but its not
I searched the forum for similar threads but I couldnt find similar, so I posted it.
I've rooted my HTC desire and tried removing the original apps(like stock,footprint,...etc ) but I couldnt.
After rooting I tried the following apps and got those messages :
File Manager : No suffessient permission
Root Explorer : can't be deleted because the file system is read-ony.
Uninstaller for root : Root access is granted,Can't uninstall app, an unknown error occured.
Any Ideas or apps that could help me in getting rid of such apps
You need to be s-off to remove apps from the system partition while booted, you can however remove the apps in recovery with ADB. Also know that you won't gain any extra space in data because that are different partitions.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
TheGhost1233 said:
You need to be s-off to remove apps from the system partition while booted, you can however remove the apps in recovery with ADB. Also know that you won't gain any extra space in data because that are different partitions.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks alot
To be frank with you, I'm a newbie to android
I'm not that much aware of system commands or programming
so my question is : is it that much complicated using the ADB method or any biggner can do it
Follow this tutorial.
You can also modify the zip before flashing it no ?
Yes, which is also the better way but if you don't want to flash a custom rom that's not a option.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
I have flashed a custom Sense ROM that includes certain original apps, but now if I want to remove them can I just reflash the ROM but just removing the apk files before flashing?
Will I lose any data, settings, etc?
[EDIT: Nvm, found the answer]
TheGhost1233 said:
Follow this tutorial.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks a lot for the help
I'll give it a try and get back to you for the final result
Same problem here.
Seems like for HTC Desire, you need to have S-OFF and NAND unlocked.
Google it and let me know if you made any progress, I'm trying too.
Hi there. You do not need to be S-Off-ed to remove system apps. You need to have write permissions for the system partition. A lot of apps can do that for you as long as you have superuser installed and you have granted access to the application. Personally when I was removing my sys apps i used Sysapp remover. I have even done it with titanium backup but I am not sure if it had the option to give you write permission for the system partition. Just check a some sysremoving apps and at least a couple will have that option.
COOLBGT said:
Hi there. You do not need to be S-Off-ed to remove system apps. You need to have write permissions for the system partition. A lot of apps can do that for you as long as you have superuser installed and you have granted access to the application. Personally when I was removing my sys apps i used Sysapp remover. I have even done it with titanium backup but I am not sure if it had the option to give you write permission for the system partition. Just check a some sysremoving apps and at least a couple will have that option.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
AFAIK, not for the Desire. I was checking some sys app remover programs - all of them stated you need to be S-OFF if you have a Desire.
But It is true, you can remove apps even if you are S-ON. Using ADB.
davebugyi said:
AFAIK, not for the Desire. I was checking some sys app remover programs - all of them stated you need to be S-OFF if you have a Desire.
But It is true, you can remove apps even if you are S-ON. Using ADB.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I never S-Offed my Desire and also I do not know how to use ADB but still as I said some apps offer you to gain write permissions on the system partition and they will do the trick. I can guarantee you that because this is how I did it
What program was it?
RootUninstaller
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.danesh.system.app.remover
These did not work, when I was S-ON.
personally i've used 3 methods:
adb: works but is such a faff to type in all the apk names exactly!
delete from .zip: easiest way so they're never flashed in the first place. remember not to unzip the ROM, just delete them directly in winzip or similar program before flashing.
if you're S-OFF: i recently took the plunge, was scared of bricking but turned out to be much easier than i thought. then used root explorer to directly delete fancy widget after flashing Leedroid no-sense patch.
Do the s-off procedure at alpharev.nl - this takes less time than rooting (or it did for me) and then you can just delete the apps using Ti Backup or root explorer.
You might also want to flash one of the custom partition tables at this site to give yourself more room for apps. I have about 250mb free (internal) and nothing on SD - this means apps run faster and is apparently better for the battery!
I have a theory if someone is willing to try I think this might give root not sure I'm not home to try it till tomorrow but if someone wants to try and post feedback let me know .. I have two ways I'm going to try this
1. Download one click root and try to root through that.
2. Do the temp root method then run one click root.. I'm thinking this will work not positive.
Also this is my first time on any incredible device...
Make sure after you do it restart and download terminal type Su and see if it stuck.
It won't work.
Sent from my thunderbolt
It does not work.
Elaboration: These one click systems are generally for gaining root. We have no problem gaining root. Our problem is disabling write protection on the eMMC controller. This has been broken on the Tbolt, but not yet on the I2.
Couldn't there be a way to temp root then remount internal sd r/w and edit permissions on system files from there? or when u reboot does it just undo everything?
Question the fascinate uses odin to reformat system. I know inc2 has write protection but could there be something like to modify or change system to gain perm root. I only ask because i'm coming to inc2 in couple days and right now on fascinate when you flash cm7 rom you have to use odin to repartition because cm7 changes to yaffs2 and have to go back to rfs. Also to gain root you flash recovery with odin the apply a s.u. Bussy box which once you flash a kernel it gains perm root if it didnt it reflashes its own recovery back to stock. Just throwing couple things out there.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA Premium App
I personally hate odin..but if thats what it takes then so be it.
Sent from my ADR6350 using XDA Premium App
Just a suggestion. If any of the problems they are having are like the fascinate reflashing its self then a similar approach may work whether its gaining root then repartition or flash to gain perm root like fascinate. Sounds like the problem is gaining access to emmc so not sure if its similar or will work. I'm not a dev but sure someone could try something with this.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA Premium App
Weselers said:
Couldn't there be a way to temp root then remount internal sd r/w and edit permissions on system files from there? or when u reboot does it just undo everything?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The write protection is at the hardware level.
Have you noticed full size secure digital cards (SD) have a switch? If you set this switch to lock, and your card reader follows standards, then there is no amount of remounting that will make it writable.
In the case of the HTC eMMC, you can actually remount rw and it would appear you are making changes to the filesystems if you delete, add, or change files. However, with how this eMMC works, the changes are not written to the storage, they are buffered and then lost on reboot.
It is not reflashing the filesystems. It's simply just throwing out the changes.
The cool thing about the lock in the HTC eMMC is it is software controlled, not a hardware toggle switch. This means we just need to figure out how to flip this switch, which is being worked on. Once we can flip this switch, we can make more permanent changes, such as converting our temp root to a permanent root. This would, then, allow us to write bootloaders that don't do signature changes (ie: engineering hboot), and then load custom roms.
Gotcha now. The better explanation helps when I read some where it was write protected was sure exactly what was ment by that but when I get mine I will poke as much as I could. Not that experience but every little helps. I do know alot about electronics though went to school for it and know what emmc is so maybe I can help a little or I hope atleast. Good luck to all off us. Keep up the good work appreciate it.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA Premium App
nimdae said:
The write protection is at the hardware level.
Have you noticed full size secure digital cards (SD) have a switch? If you set this switch to lock, and your card reader follows standards, then there is no amount of remounting that will make it writable.
In the case of the HTC eMMC, you can actually remount rw and it would appear you are making changes to the filesystems if you delete, add, or change files. However, with how this eMMC works, the changes are not written to the storage, they are buffered and then lost on reboot.
It is not reflashing the filesystems. It's simply just throwing out the changes.
The cool thing about the lock in the HTC eMMC is it is software controlled, not a hardware toggle switch. This means we just need to figure out how to flip this switch, which is being worked on. Once we can flip this switch, we can make more permanent changes, such as converting our temp root to a permanent root. This would, then, allow us to write bootloaders that don't do signature changes (ie: engineering hboot), and then load custom roms.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
EXCELLENT explanation. Thanks!
nimdae said:
The write protection is at the hardware level.
Have you noticed full size secure digital cards (SD) have a switch? If you set this switch to lock, and your card reader follows standards, then there is no amount of remounting that will make it writable.
In the case of the HTC eMMC, you can actually remount rw and it would appear you are making changes to the filesystems if you delete, add, or change files. However, with how this eMMC works, the changes are not written to the storage, they are buffered and then lost on reboot.
It is not reflashing the filesystems. It's simply just throwing out the changes.
The cool thing about the lock in the HTC eMMC is it is software controlled, not a hardware toggle switch. This means we just need to figure out how to flip this switch, which is being worked on. Once we can flip this switch, we can make more permanent changes, such as converting our temp root to a permanent root. This would, then, allow us to write bootloaders that don't do signature changes (ie: engineering hboot), and then load custom roms.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So where should we be looking for such a switch if we're looking to help?
Read the stickies, questions are posted...where ...yes...in general
Hi,
I was using PSFreedom PS3 jailbreaker app, which messes with the bootloader. After first reboot it was fine, I disabled it and after that reboot it was fine again.
Third time however, it went directly into the bootloader. I rebooted again and back into the white screen bootloader. It gives the option of FASTBOOT and RECOVERY etc, which I can get into fine.
I am assuming I can just reflash CM7 and fix this?
Also, is it possible for me to perform some sort of ADB command to fix this WITHOUT reflashing? The reason I ask is coz I have some save games on it that I havent backed up that I wanna keep. Or is there even a way I can back up an app from Amon-Ras recovery menu??
Thanks.
I'm actually just gonna try using ADB pull to backup the /data/data/com*.* directory of the specific games I want.
Does someone know if I do that, will it work? Coz I've installed that patch that installs APPS to the partition on the SD card, giving me more space on my phone. So do I need to "adb pull" from that other partition too?
Well usually the a2sd scripts will, not move the data-folder, so you'll only need to pull /data/data/* to backup. This will work for most apps, however some might check for this and disallow it, but it shouldn't be a problem.
And yes backing up and reflashing is the most suitable solution.
Additionally i'd like to correct you. No the ps3 bjailbreak does not mess with the bootloader. It uses a custom kernel(/boot) and activates a feature in there. Whereas the hboot is something entirely different, which the system cannot mess with in any way.