Month: May 2015

  • Nabi 2 bricked

    I wanted to play with the Recovery and the Rom of my Nabi 2 and I ended with a bricked tablet. Trying to boot the OS, I was stuck for ever on the screen with a freezed Nabi logo. Trying to boot the Recovery, I was stuck on a screen with a dead android and an exclamation mark. Here is how to solve that situation.

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    Prerequisites

    First, be sure that the “Universal ADB Drivers” are installed. To be found here or here. the ADB command is available here. ADB documentation exists here. ADB won’t work if “USB debugging” was not enabled on the device. But it was, for sure, if as me your bricked it…

    Then, get a TWRP Recovery image from here that can be installed without the need for a previous version. I took the TWRP 2.2.2.1 which is the only one that works fine with my Nabi 2 due to a Calibration issue with the other versions. As not available anymore from the page mentioned above (with all versions for Nabi 2), I had to take it from the Auto-Installer mentioned here (from the subfolder twrp/old).

    Restore a Recovery

    Now, connect the Nabi 2 on the PC and reboot the Nabi 2 in “Fastboot” mode:

    • Press volume + and hold it while pressing also Power.
    • Use Volume – to select “Fastboot” and select it with Volume +

    Next, open a command prompt as admin on the PC and type:

    fastboot flash recovery.img

    Wait for the image to be loaded and reboot the device by pressing Volume + (to Select Bootloader) and next twice Volume – and once Volume + (to Select “Recovery Kernel”). The “Recovery” should now load (not be blocked anymore with a dead android) !

    Upgrade to the most recent Recovery

    One can now upgrade TWRP to a version which may only be installed on top of an existing one, such as the TWRP 2.8.5.0. I took the TWRP 2.8.5.0 v2 for KitKat here.

    I went again into the “FastBoot” mode and uploaded the new Recovery image (TWRP 2.8.5.0) before restarting to enter the new Recovery Kernel.

    Flash a stock Rom

    And once in TWRP, I did “Backup” it on the SD card!

    I moved next the SD card into my PC, I went to the folder \TWRP\BACKUPS\<id of my table>\<current date> and delete all the files in there.

    Then, I downloaded the stock Rom 3.0.13 for KitKat (3013stock.zip) here and did unzip it in the backup folder before moving the SD back into the tablet.

    I did reboot again the tablet in the Recovery and once there I did a “Restore” (keeping all items selected).

    Once flashed, I did reboot the System (without installing SuperSU). After ~1 minute, the Logo started to spin and after ~2 other minutes the system started to initialize. After ~5 minutes, it was asking me to pick a language and configure the Wifi.

    Et voilà FIXED !!!

    Android is now 4.4.2, Build Bumber KOT49H, Product Version 3.0-release-keys.

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  • TWRP v2.8.5.0 works fine on Nabi 2

    The only version of TWRP that was previously compatible with my tablet Fuhu Nabi 2 was TWRP 2.2.2.1 due to a calibration bug (See Here). But I just found that TWRP 2.8.5.0 works fine!

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    My tablet was running:

    • Fuhu Nabi 2-NV7A-US
    • Version Android 4.1.1
    • Kernel 3.1.10-g160ecc9-dirty
    • Build JRO03C
    • Product Version 2.3-release-keys

    As I still have Android 4.1.1 (Jelly Bean) on my Nabi 2, I did get the Jelly Bean version of TWRP 2.8.5.0 mentioned here as I still have Android 4.1.1 on my Nabi 2.

    Next, I took the Auto-Installer to be found here.

    Then, I did unzip the “Twrp-recovery-JBNV7AUS-285.zip” into the Auto-Installer’s subfolder “twrp\new” and renamed it from “twrp-recovery.img” into “recovery.img” (replacing the existing img file).

    Finally, I run RecoveryUpdater.bat and pick the option 1: “1. Install TWRP 2.3.3.0 for Nabi versions 1.9.37 (recommended)“.

    It pushed the image I just copied into the subfolder “twrp/new” on my Nabi 2 and Bingo 😉

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  • Root Access for Fuhu Nabi 2

    KingoRoot” also worked fine too root my Fuhu Nabi 2!

    See here how I previously used it to root my two Lenovo A5500-F.

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  • Root Access for Lenovo A5500-F

    I tried several tools to root my two tablets Lenovo A5500-F. I only succeeded “easily” with the free “KingoRoot“. Highly recommended 😉

    Lenovo A5500-F
    Lenovo A5500-F

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    My tablets are both:

    • Lenovo A5500-F
    • Version Android 4.4.2
    • Version Kernel 3.4.67
    • One with Build Number A5500F_A442_000_027_141207_ROW
    • One with Build Number A5500F_A442_000_029_150408_ROW

    Here is the procedure (described with images and further details everywhere on the web)

    First, configure the tablet to be able to connect onto it from the PC:

    • Enter the “Settings”
    • Select “About phone” (at the very bottom)
    • And press 7  times “Build number” to enable the developer mode
    • Go back to the “Settings”
    • Select “Developer Options” (now above “About phone”)
    • In the part titled “Debugging”, tick the option ‘USB Debugging’ and answer OK if prompted to confirm

    Now Plug the tablet into the PC and Run “Kingo Root” on the PC:

    • Kingo Root starts with the message “Not Connected”.
    • Then it immediately continues with “connecting…”
    • And finally it displays the name of the connected device “LENOVO A5500-F” with the messages “Mode Normal”, “Root Status : No”
    • On the tablet, you see a picture with “Kingo Root” and the message “USB connected”
    • If you have a prompt from the tablet to authorize the PC to connect on the tablet, accept it 😉

    You are ready to start rooting the tablet!

    • Press the Button “Root” in “Kingo Root”.
    • It starts to root the device. On the tablet, you see the message “Rooting…”
    • After a few minutes, the tablet will reboot automatically a first time (you will hear the sound of disconnection/re-connection on the PC). Wait until “Kingo Root” redetect the tablet. As soon as rededected, it will check that it’s well rooted. During that operation, the picture with “Kingo Root” reappears on the tablet.

    If you see a prompt from Google on the tablet, to check that the device has no security issue, just refuse it.

    After the first reboot, “Kingo Root” saw that my device was not yet rooted and it continued with installing more stuff… Soon later, the tablet rebooted again automatically and “Kingo Root” restarted the same process. Concretely, it did the same routine 5 times (I.e. it rebooted five times) before announcing that the device was successfully rooted.

    Something weird however… Although Kingo Root” pretended that the device was rooted, “Root Checker” told me it’s not the case ?!

    I did restart “Kingo Root” and pressed “Root Again”. It did some updates but didn’t reboot automatic and Bingo ! “Root Checker” now confirmed that it was rooted.

    NB.: you should be prompted to confirm that “Root Checker” may be granted Root Access by KingoUser.

    It took me a bit more than 30 minutes.

    NB.: Later, I did update the device with Build Number A5500F_A442_000_027_141207_ROW to Build Number A5500F_A442_000_029_150408_ROW and I had to re-root the device! It went fast and without any reboot. (NB.: I had to accept again to grant Root Access to Root Checker for KingoUser).

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