Boox Page adb / fastboot / recovery /edl walkthrough

[Anghirrim]

Originally Posted by Renate

If you have the space on your desktop, just do:

edl /r thirtytwogeefile

Then you have one-stop restore no matter what you do.

Yes, I was about to do it. But as I usually shrink the Windows partition to the bare minimum as I almost never use it, I only have 4 to 5gb left.

I'll have to check if I have a spare HDD to have a data partition.

Or maybe I can run your edl file from an external drive (I'll give it a try).


If I extract the super partition to get the system.img, would it be flashable under fastbootd (I already extracted a super partition for my Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE successfully)?

Having a flashable system.img, I could eventually have fun trying GSI's on the Page and then flash back the stock system.img under fastbootd.

I'll update the OP tomorrow to list what worked.

Thanks

[Renate]

Well if you save it all as one chunk you have the safety.
And if you need just one part of it you can just dd out that bit.
No need to have 70 files.

[Anghirrim]

Originally Posted by Renate

Well if you save it all as one chunk you have the safety.
And if you need just one part of it you can just dd out that bit.
No need to have 70 files.

Yep, you're right.

Side question, do you know any other mean to get into edl mode but with adb or an edl cable?

Like a button combo? The fastboot commands on your website unfortunately don't work on the Page.

I'm asking this if for example I get into a bootloop after messing up boot or system or anything else, how do I get into edl when I can't reach adb anymore?

That's why I'd like to have fastboot flashable img's. At least we can easily get into recovery with the buttons combo.

[Renate]

Have you tried an EDL cable? That works on my Poke5, but not my Poke3.
It's simple enough for the OEM to put a test in the abl for that.

Total failure of booting gets to EDL. If you want to live dangerously you can just erase the xbl. (Don't erase the abl, that will probably require EDL test points to work again.)

I have added magnetic reed switches across the EDL test points to both my Poke3 & Poke5 that can be activated by a magnet outside the case.

[Anghirrim]

Nope not yet. I have just bought a USB-A USB-C cable that I'll open.

We need to add a switch to enable/disable shortcut right?

[Renate]

Originally Posted by Anghirrim

We need to add a switch to enable/disable shortcut right?

Huh?

To make an EDL cable you'll need a switch.

I built a version that senses and does it automatically without a switch.

[Anghirrim]

Originally Posted by Renate

Huh?

To make an EDL cable you'll need a switch.

I built a version that senses and does it automatically without a switch.

Yeah that's what I meant. I mean, I don't have the skills to do the same as yours, but at least, I should be able to pull out the green and black wires, and bridge them with a switch to enable/disable shortcut.


BTW, use of your edl utility went smoothly on my other PC with W10, this one has a large data partition. So I did a backup, size 29,1*Go (31*331*450*880 octets). Guess it's correct?


I know that having a "fastbootd flashable" system.img is questionnable, but do you know if that would be doable if I extract the super.img and pull the system.img out of it?

Thanks,

Edit: Extracting super.img works.

[Renate]

Originally Posted by Anghirrim

So I did a backup, size 29,1*Go (31*331*450*880 octets). Guess it's correct?

Probably, but that factorization is arbitrary.
I don't even think it's correct.
That number is not divisible by 512 (block size)

My Poke3 backup is 31,268,536,320
That's divisible by 4,194,304 or 2^22, so certainly by 512
2^35 or 32GB minus 31,268,536,320 divided by 512 is 6,037,504
So that's how many pages get used for spares.
Let's call it 9%
But that would be presuming that they gave you 2^35 to begin with.

Originally Posted by Anghirrim

... pull the system.img out of it?

Yes, you can extract the system.img out of super, but you have to remake super to put it back in. You can't just flash it by itself.

[Anghirrim]

Originally Posted by Renate

Probably, but that factorization is arbitrary.
I don't even think it's correct.
That number is not divisible by 512 (block size)

Hmmm that's weird, my boot.img, vbmeta.img and recovery.img were all divisible by 512. Only the super.img isn't.

Is it still Ok though? Or the super.img backup is corrupted?

Originally Posted by Renate

Yes, you can extract the system.img out of super, but you have to remake super to put it back in. You can't just flash it by itself.

Ok, I actually did extract the system.img. I thought fastbootd was able to flash a system.img properly inside the super partition?

If not, what about the super.img? This one can be flashed with fastbootd if I fail getting into edl mode?



Thanks again for your patience!

PS ==> OP updated with latest successful steps.

[Renate]

There (should be) no way you should be able to read (or write) something that isn't 512 or 4096 quantized, depending on block size.

Yes fastbootd should be able to write it back, adjusting things.
In any case, "your system" nowadays is system and system_ext and product and oem and apex...

Presuming that they only have 32000000000 bytes of memory total so they can claim 32 "GB" that works out to 2.3% spare, which sounds more reasonable.

[Anghirrim]

Originally Posted by Renate

There (should be) no way you should be able to read (or write) something that isn't 512 or 4096 quantized, depending on block size.

Yes fastbootd should be able to write it back, adjusting things.
In any case, "your system" nowadays is system and system_ext and product and oem and apex...

Well, so you mean that the images obtained under edl "could" be flashed using fastbootd?

If fastbootd can flash super, happy with it.

I'll keep you posted on my DIY edl cable attempt.

Thanks!

[Anghirrim]

Root:

Boox Page rooted successfully using the instructions from @Renate ( https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=357269 ).

It worked like a charm using the boot.img backup done via EDL.

[theCrow]

Originally Posted by Anghirrim

Root:

Boox Page rooted successfully using the instructions from @Renate ( https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=357269 ).

It worked like a charm using the boot.img backup done via EDL.

Did you flash only the patched boot image or vbmeta as well?

In the Poke5 thread, these two commands are run in fastboot:

fastboot --disable-verity --disable-verification flash vbmeta_a vbmeta.img
fastboot flash boot_a magisk_patched-12345678.img

I was wondering how to do the vbmeta one in EDL since it needs parameters.

[Renate]

vbmeta etc is enforced by the kernel in the boot image.
I believe that Magisk'ed boot images have that disabled.
Generally, people don't have to futz with vbmeta when they are using Magisk.

[theCrow]

Originally Posted by Renate

vbmeta etc is enforced by the kernel in the boot image.
I believe that Magisk'ed boot images have that disabled.
Generally, people don't have to futz with vbmeta when they are using Magisk.

Thank you. So

edl.exe /w /pboot_a patched_boot.img

(or /pboot_b depending on the active slot) should be enough?