Pocket Edge weird boot up with no recovery

[P-LOPZ]

Hello everyone,

I'm in quite a situation

I recently won a pocket edge on ebay and updated to ermine, used z4root, tried to get google apps to work (market gives server error, most likely I tried to put gtalkservices jar/odex from different device) but two days ago I started it up, and I would wait and I would get only three dots and the e ink would flash black to white for a bout a minute and then not respond. I tried the reset/shut off with a paperclip and the screen would show up as Initializing and immediatly shut off. I tried to downgrade but the MENU + ROTATE at startup gets no response, continues to try and boot up and freeze at three dots, and the strangest thing so far is that the logo is minimized to a quarter of the screen and when the blinking cursor goes away the logo is not only on 1/4 of the screen, it is now backwards/flipped/mirrored aka the text is weird.

also debugging was enabled long before this and now adb in windows shows the device as offline. I cannot push files or get into shell this way.

Any ideas on how badly I borked/goofed this up?

[ivanjt]

Rant on/
Why does everyone think they have to root their device - especially when the Ermine release is only a beta release? Doing that is asking for trouble in a big way if you aren't sure what you're doing.

Rant off/

Now to TRY and solve your problem.

First, check through the forum for what other have had to do to recover from similar disasters.

Then check you have the correct and a working golden update zip.
Next, use a USB stick about 1GB size and make sure it is formatted FAT or FAT32.
Make sure the golden update is in the roor of the USB stick and named update.zip - not update.zip.zip or anything else.
Then follow the instructions given in https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=148055
Hopefully that will clear the problems. If not get back and let us know and we'll see if it can be taken further.

[P-LOPZ]

Hello, I found something interesting,

I plug in a usb keyboard and if I wait for the cursor to blink the keyboard activates and I can press ctrl+alt+delete to reboot the device.

and I thought rooting it would be helpful if something were to happen, similar to enabling adb to push and fix things. guess not

all the flash drives I've tested and microsd cards I've tried seem to point in one direction in my mind:

I somehow mapped or disabled the menu rotate buttons so now I have no idea what to press to enable the updater

also the sd card was a 2 gb fat formatted and the usb were ranging from 2 to 16 gigs

[ivanjt]

With USB sticks and SD cards the rule of thumb seems to be the smaller the better. Try and get hold of a 1GB USB stick and use that.

The fact that it sees the USB keyboard means that it should see the USB stick. The other thing is to use a plane simple USB stick and also be aware not all USB sticke are created equal - I seem to remember someone reported they tried several until they found one that worked.

You might have changed the button mapping if you rooted about in the system files but I'm not sure that the remapping would apply that early in the boot process - if it does then you are looking at applying JTAG and some very careful reprogramming.

[P-LOPZ]

Hello again.

I've tried a 512 MB usb drive but still no go. I hold down menu+rotate and I get 1 dot. the screen turns off then on to the reverse image of the logo with 2 dots. it reads the usb drive light for less than a second and then proceeds to 3 dots and stops there. after 30 seconds or more the E-ink flashes black to white.

that's all I've got so far. trying to think up the possible button combos the eight face buttons I would have to try if I did remap the buttons.

also I tried to mount the device as rw to copy some files to fix the market right before this all happened.

*edit* also the speaker pops after the second dot

*edit 2* I also forgot to mention that I edited the update.sh to allow the downgrade to dingo I did when I was having problems with ermine. it worked up to when I flashed back to ermine. it still worked but I'm wondering is it possible to have updated to the big edge firmware by accident because I'm looking at the update.sh that I extracted from a dingo zip just to make sure

[vicinc]

it sound my issue. still no solution found. i am thinking kind of simulating ota upgrade but using custom server? anybody with an idea?

[toyz]

Originally Posted by P-LOPZ

Hello again.

I've tried a 512 MB usb drive but still no go. I hold down menu+rotate and I get 1 dot. the screen turns off then on to the reverse image of the logo with 2 dots. it reads the usb drive light for less than a second and then proceeds to 3 dots and stops there. after 30 seconds or more the E-ink flashes black to white.

that's all I've got so far. trying to think up the possible button combos the eight face buttons I would have to try if I did remap the buttons.

also I tried to mount the device as rw to copy some files to fix the market right before this all happened.

*edit* also the speaker pops after the second dot

*edit 2* I also forgot to mention that I edited the update.sh to allow the downgrade to dingo I did when I was having problems with ermine. it worked up to when I flashed back to ermine. it still worked but I'm wondering is it possible to have updated to the big edge firmware by accident because I'm looking at the update.sh that I extracted from a dingo zip just to make sure

Your description matches mine almost exactly. (great detail by the way) I'm 98% confident that I did flash the EE firmware onto my PE. It appears you and I sit in the same boat. Your idea that the buttons might be remapped is an intriguing one.

Oh yes, the way to know you EE'd your PE for sure: The reversed logo says "enTourage eDGe" instead of "Pocket eDGe."

So there is a recovery partition on most (all?) Android devices. I wonder what ours looks like. I wonder if there is a way to boot it.

Similarly dead: P-LOPZ, vicinc, nikkie, toyz

[vicinc]

yeap we need recovery
or setting a fake over the air update server?

[Z36u86]

Originally Posted by toyz

Your description matches mine almost exactly. (great detail by the way) I'm 98% confident that I did flash the EE firmware onto my PE. It appears you and I sit in the same boat. Your idea that the buttons might be remapped is an intriguing one.

Oh yes, the way to know you EE'd your PE for sure: The reversed logo says "enTourage eDGe" instead of "Pocket eDGe."

So there is a recovery partition on most (all?) Android devices. I wonder what ours looks like. I wonder if there is a way to boot it.

Similarly dead: P-LOPZ, vicinc, nikkie, toyz

Hi,

I have done similar mods to my pocket edge to install gapps and then later wanted to use external sd card to store apps and tried to use Link2SD program with modifications in the fstab files. My PE stopped booting after a restart. I tried to install update (golden) but for some reason, the installation went halfway and stopped. I get the same reversed "Entourage Edge" logo on the screen which stays for ever. Probably I flashed the wrong software. I tried several times updating golden update software mentioned in the fourm, but to no success.
I am wondering how to use the adb method. Is it possible to connect the device to computer and change the required config files from command line? If so how to do it. Anybody had success with this?

Thanks.

Desperate to get back my PE to usable condition.

[nikkie]

toyz and I have fixed ours that had the same problem with the inverted logo via the serial method. It's described here. After you have the inverted logo, the buttons no longer work to reflash, so you have to instruct the device to reflash via the uboot menu from the serial console.

good luck!

[Z36u86]

Originally Posted by nikkie

toyz and I have fixed ours that had the same problem with the inverted logo via the serial method. It's described here. After you have the inverted logo, the buttons no longer work to reflash, so you have to instruct the device to reflash via the uboot menu from the serial console.

good luck!

Thank you nikkie,

This one is a big hope! I'll try.

[Z36u86]

Originally Posted by nikkie

toyz and I have fixed ours that had the same problem with the inverted logo via the serial method. It's described here. After you have the inverted logo, the buttons no longer work to reflash, so you have to instruct the device to reflash via the uboot menu from the serial console.

good luck!

nikkie,

I have checked the other thread, but wasn't sure where to ask these questions, as the thread started discussions on other things.
I have a few basic questions. Before going to buy the things needed:

Can I use a gameport to USB (I have an old spare one) in place of the serial to usb?
and
I am very much confused about the wiring codes. The flickr pictues show red, blue, green wires joined to the header pins but your post mentions, Red Brown Yellow. I do have a multimeter (I am just amateur electronic hobbyist and biologist), but what and how to use it for this project.
Can you send the whole wiring diagram from PE end to the computer?

Thank you,

[vicinc]

you can identify the pins with a paperclip, battery and torch bulb

[ivanjt]

Originally Posted by Z36u86

Can I use a gameport to USB (I have an old spare one) in place of the serial to usb?
and
I am very much confused about the wiring codes. The flickr pictues show red, blue, green wires joined to the header pins but your post mentions, Red Brown Yellow. I do have a multimeter (I am just amateur electronic hobbyist and biologist), but what and how to use it for this project.
Can you send the whole wiring diagram from PE end to the computer?

Thank you,

It needs a serial port - USB to serial if you don't have a serial port on your computer.

The colour of the wires does not matter it is what pins they are connected to that does.

On a 9 pin serial, pin 2 is Rx, pin 3 is Tx and pin 5 is signal ground. Those are the pins that need to be connected to the 3 pins on the PE.

If you use a serial cable with one end cut off - make sure you leave on the female socket to plug in to serial connector you are using - then all you have to do is identify those three pins and the wires that are attached to them. Those three wires are then soldered to the three pin socket as per nikkie's instructions. The remaining wires in the cable you have exposed can be cut back and taped up.

Wiring:
serial --> edge
pin 2 --> pin 1
pin 3 --> pin 3
pin 5 --> pin 2

[Z36u86]

Thanks for the suggestions. It's quite clear now. Will let you know results of my expt!