SBF to root and to unroot

[Tallica]

Hey Moto thanks again for all the help. So far I have tried the flashing process
on two different 32 bit xp machines. A dell comp and a asus netbook. I have never flashed anything on either of them. And it didnt work on either untill you wrote that awesome guide last night which is when I tried it on my netbook and it worked. After I was in SPrecovery finally i didnt really do much like make backup or anything. I just selected reboot phone. It then booted up as normal. And then when I saw Ochilly saying his sp was gone. I turned down my phone and turned it back on holding x and it went right back to the default recovery. Yeah I got my droid back in november and never flash/installed/rooted or did anything to it besides the over the air updates that have been sent out all the way till now 2.2. So i am currently on the over the air frg01b build that verizon/motorola pushed out over the last few days.

actually I also just noticed that my bootloader is 2c.7c like ochilly. This means we are doomed doesnt it for getting the ota 2.2. Go ahead tell me be honest I can take it hahahahhhaaa.

It seems to be the OTA that is giving the trouble for this .sbf.

You can always flash the 2.0.1.sbf then flash moto's .sbf and it should be fine

Warning, this will wipe your entire phone (excluding sdcard). If you're going to be installing a custom Rom you will be wiping anyway so it's not a big deal.

 

[BhamItGeek]

I have used RSDLITE a couple times I went from rooted to not with the 2.1 file..worked like a champ. I went and took the sbf file for spr as you mentioned and went through the same process. After it was finished I rebooted phone to go to recovery. power on hold x. and it goes to the original recovery. Any ideas? I have tried several times just to make sure and no dice.

First lets get RSD Lite installed on a windows based PC. (box option 01)

Download the following files:

RS-Files rds folder

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1. Install RSD Lite. Unzip the file and run the msi file
2. Install the drivers.

Now we have RSD Lite installed which when running will let us flash some SBF files.
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If you are on stock 2.1 and want to flash some of the roms you have read about. (box option 02)

Use sbf to flash SPRecovery onto your phone:

You will need to have RSD Lite installed to flash the SPRecovery sbf file


Download the following file:

video at droid-life.com[/I]

You now have the replacement boot-recovery app SPRecovery installed. You can use this tool to perform backups, restore those backups, apply update.zip updates, kernels, and flash full replacement roms.
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[/QUOTE]​

 

[MotoCache1]

It seems to be the OTA that is giving the trouble for this .sbf.

You can always flash the 2.0.1.sbf then flash moto's .sbf and it should be fine

Warning, this will wipe your entire phone (excluding sdcard). If you're going to be installing a custom Rom you will be wiping anyway so it's not a big deal.

Hard to say for sure. There's still a lot of options on the table. I need to build a stock ESE81 from SBF and then apply the 2.2 OTA to it. Then I can see if I can duplicate the issue. If I can duplicate it, then I can see what fixes it.

Hopefully it's not just an issue with their workstation being finicky and not doing the flash well. Either way I want to see the results of the investigation I'm doing.

So far, nothing I've done (no SBF I have) has changed the Bootloader version on my screen from 2c.6c to 2c.7c. In a way that's good because if that code is able to be overwritten by software that would make me worry. That's the only thing that stands between you and bricking if you get a bad flash. Hopefully it doesn't end up that 2c.7c is a permanent part of the phone *and* has some sort of "rewrite recovery on boot" "feature". I wish I had a 2c.7c phone to play with...

 

[Tallica]

It seems to be the OTA that is giving the trouble for this .sbf.

You can always flash the 2.0.1.sbf then flash moto's .sbf and it should be fine

Warning, this will wipe your entire phone (excluding sdcard). If you're going to be installing a custom Rom you will be wiping anyway so it's not a big deal.

Hard to say for sure. There's still a lot of options on the table. I need to build a stock ESE81 from SBF and then apply the 2.2 OTA to it. Then I can see if I can duplicate the issue. If I can duplicate it, then I can see what fixes it.

Hopefully it's not just an issue with their workstation being finicky and not doing the flash well. Either way I want to see the results of the investigation I'm doing.

So far, nothing I've done (no SBF I have) has changed the Bootloader version on my screen from 2c.6c to 2c.7c. In a way that's good because if that code is able to be overwritten by software that would make me worry. That's the only thing that stands between you and bricking if you get a bad flash. Hopefully it doesn't end up that 2c.7c is a permanent part of the phone *and* has some sort of "rewrite recovery on boot" "feature". I wish I had a 2c.7c phone to play with...

Do you think that maybe the OTA is upgrading the bootloader to 2c.7c?

 

[EMac]

I have used RSDLITE a couple times I went from rooted to not with the 2.1 file..worked like a champ. I went and took the sbf file for spr as you mentioned and went through the same process. After it was finished I rebooted phone to go to recovery. power on hold x. and it goes to the original recovery. Any ideas? I have tried several times just to make sure and no dice.

I am having the same issue here. I am currently running 2.2. Grabbed the new .sbf posted yesterday and ran it through RSD Lite. and it said it was done. I rebooted my phone holding X and got the same ol' recovery screen. My first time rooting but I have have been reading up on using SPRecovery enough to grasp it. Any ideas?

 

[Tallica]

I have used RSDLITE a couple times I went from rooted to not with the 2.1 file..worked like a champ. I went and took the sbf file for spr as you mentioned and went through the same process. After it was finished I rebooted phone to go to recovery. power on hold x. and it goes to the original recovery. Any ideas? I have tried several times just to make sure and no dice.

I am having the same issue here. I am currently running 2.2. Grabbed the new .sbf posted yesterday and ran it through RSD Lite. and it said it was done. I rebooted my phone holding X and got the same ol' recovery screen. My first time rooting but I have have been reading up on using SPRecovery enough to grasp it. Any ideas?

Probably need to flash back to 2.0.1 then flash the SPR.sbf

Option 1, then 4, then 2 in the OP

 

[MotoCache1]

I have used RSDLITE a couple times I went from rooted to not with the 2.1 file..worked like a champ. I went and took the sbf file for spr as you mentioned and went through the same process. After it was finished I rebooted phone to go to recovery. power on hold x. and it goes to the original recovery. Any ideas? I have tried several times just to make sure and no dice.

Interesting. A couple questions:

1. What version does your Bootloader say (upper left of the screen when you boot with dpad-up)? Something like 2c.6c, or 2c.7c.
2. Assuming you are still on 2.1, if you flash the ESE81 SPRecovery does it work/stick?

When I first discovered the kernel in the ESE81_SPRecovery SBF I postulated that it might be in there for a reason. I've just recently noticed something that makes me change my mind and believe that ESE81_SPRecovery.SBF is indeed an original file built by Motorola. It is signed. Also, I never noticed this, but on Pete's site, the file is posted with what looks like a legit Verizon/Motorola name: VZW_A855_ESE81_QSC6085BP_SPRECOVERY_UPDATE.sbf. I'd only ever seen it as ESE81_SPRecovery.sbf. I'm wondering if there may be a little magic hidden in the kernel code group of that original file?

 

[kaiya215]

how come now after i unrooted then tryed to root again its saying when i try to install something from the market that there is no space for install but its a freshly installed rom?

 

[Tallica]

how come now after i unrooted then tryed to root again its saying when i try to install something from the market that there is no space for install but its a freshly installed rom?

Have you installed a Rom since you rooted? What method did you use to gain root? What state is your phone in now? (2.1, 2.2).

 

[kaiya215]

how come now after i unrooted then tryed to root again its saying when i try to install something from the market that there is no space for install but its a freshly installed rom?

Have you installed a Rom since you rooted? What method did you use to gain root? What state is your phone in now? (2.1, 2.2).

yeah it only does that after i install a rom after rooting?

 

[kaiya215]

if i just keep it on a stock rom it works fine

 

[Tallica]

how come now after i unrooted then tryed to root again its saying when i try to install something from the market that there is no space for install but its a freshly installed rom?

Have you installed a Rom since you rooted? What method did you use to gain root? What state is your phone in now? (2.1, 2.2).

yeah it only does that after i install a rom after rooting?

try do clear cache in market, settings>app>manage app>all>market>clear cache, if grey, clear data

 

[0chilly]

...

and that's actually different than what I usually experience. Usually when holding the dpad up after the "rebooting your phone" step, you should come back into the bootloader, not into Recovery. So something is definitely not right there.

Ochilly - I know you said you're on Windows Vista 64 bit. I can't ascertain from your post - have you ever flashed with this computer before? Do you have access to try it from an XP machine?

...

One thing you share in common, other than that you're both using the new SBF, is that you're both "stock OTA 2.2". I assume that means you actually got FRG01B over the air, not that you applied the FRG01B SBF. I'll flash the ESE81 SBF onto my phone, and then apply the OTA update.zip so I've then got basically the same phone as you. One difference will be that your phone (Chilly) is Bootloader version 2c.7c whereas both of my phones are 2c.6c. I'm thinking that there's something there of interest.

1. yes that is correct - when i held dpad-up when rsd lite rebooted my phone, it brought me to SPRecovery, not to the normal boot loader 2c.7c screen.

2. i have not flashed any phones from this pc but i have flashed other things like BIOS updates and (not really "official" ipod touch updates hehe) with no problems. i do have a win xp sp3 32bit machine here that i can try, but it seems like from the other posts, more and more people are seeing the same issues, so im not sure if doing it on xp32 will help much. going forward though, i think i will build a win32 dual boot on my main machines just for stuff like this

3. your assumptions are correct, for me at least. i got the phone when it had 2.01 on it right from verizon. from there, i got the OTA 2.1 update (not flashed), and then last week i got the OTA 2.2 update (not flashed). the only flashing thing i've done was last night, with the sprecovery sbf.

on a side note, last night after all this stuff, i was playing poker on my phone. i left it running in the background and opened a browser. hit options to show my running windows (browser tabs/pages) and the phone locked up hard. i've never seen this before. holding the power button didnt do anything, multiple presses of power didnt do anything, and i tried a few combinations that ive seen around like camera/volume up and whatever, nothing helped. i pulled the battery and booted back up, and it's been stable ever since. not sure it's related to anything but i figured i'd toss it up here just in case

 

[christim]

I may roll back the instructions to the previous one.
rescue.macleod-web.net still has the ese81 sprecovery sbf file

I've got some errands I need to do before stuff closes though.
I'll catch up on the various posts and get things reworked in the OP by tomorrow at the latest. visitors tonight at the house.

The removed instructions were:

Don't boot the phone up while using a 2.1 kernel and an 2.2 OS.

if using ese81 sprecovery either put the rom of your choice as update.zip on the root of your card before using rsd lite, or use SPRecovery to mount your card from within SPrecovery and get your 2.2 rom on the root of your card that way, then use SPRecovery to allow and apply the update.zip file.

 

[MotoCache1]

1. yes that is correct - when i held dpad-up when rsd lite rebooted my phone, it brought me to SPRecovery, not to the normal boot loader 2c.7c screen.

Yep, that's odd.

i do have a win xp sp3 32bit machine here that i can try, but it seems like from the other posts, more and more people are seeing the same issues, so im not sure if doing it on xp32 will help much.

Maybe not, but it would rule it out the workstation out. Now that one other person who has flashed before has reported the issue (so presumably his workstation is not suspect), it kind of takes the focus off the workstation. I'll be interested to see what version of the bootloader he says he has.

i got the phone when it had 2.01 on it right from verizon. from there, i got the OTA 2.1 update (not flashed), and then last week i got the OTA 2.2 update (not flashed). the only flashing thing i've done was last night, with the sprecovery sbf.

That is very helpful information. That tells me that your bootloader got updated to 2c.7c by the 2.2 OTA. My phone must be a good bit newer than yours because it came with 2.1 on it from the factory (new) and it has 2c.6c. I see code in the updater-script of the 2.2 OTA that uses a proprietary call (sholes.update_cdma_bp) to rewrite the RAM downloader. Since neither of my phones has ever installed an OTA, my phones are both still at 2c.6c.

One of the Rescue Squad guys has a refurb. phone that's got 2c.7c on it and has never been flashed, etc. We're going to do a little testing tomorrow when he's freed up and see what we see.