No OS installed... - Moto X Q&A

I have the dev edition on vzw.
I am trying to install ANY custom rom by wiping data/system/cache beforehand and installing zip.
when I go to reboot i am alerted that I don't have an OS installed..... feel like i am taking crazy pills. not sure what I am doing incorrectly...

couldn't wipe /system....
i assumed that flashing the zip would overwrite /system.
nothing to see here.

Related

[solved]

So I still run MIUI. I love it.
I flashed MIUI on my Dad's phone, but he doesn't like it at all.
So what I did was download a new ROM from rootzwiki, for the Fascinate.
Backed up everything, etc.
Put the .zip on the SDcard and proceeded to reboot into recovery.
Wiped cache, dalvik cache and all user data/factory reset.
With the MIUI ROM I used, it had a glitchv13 kernel embedded in it.
I flashed the new "AwesomeSauceEH09" rom..said it was successful, but when it reboots after flashing..the Glitchv13 kernel screen shows up..and I'm presented with a factory restore of MIUI...What am I doing wrong? Shouldn't this flash overwrite the ROM and install with the new one? D:
EDIT: NVM I found it myself. B|

[Q] Cannot install any other .zip than original CyanogenMod

I had a friend help me with my CyanogenMod 10 install and everything was working fine. Now knowing how to get the boot.img and .zip installed, I thought I would try a few other ROMs as I see there is already a 4.2.2 (I had installed 4.1.2).
I did a wipe of data, cache, d.cache, system
I flashed new boot.img of CM 10.1 (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2343586)
I went into recovery to install the .zip and I got "E:Can't open /sdcard/cm-xxxxxx.zip (bad)"
I thought, okay **** it I'll just go back to 4.1.2 and it installs perfectly fine - gets me back into the phone. I even tried a different ROM from SlimBean or whatever and I get the same "(bad)"
What gives?
Seems like my SD card needed to be swapped out -- not sure why but works fine on a different card. I'll try formatting the other one..
Which recovery are you using? Btw make sure you are flashing the correct version of gapps right after flashing the rom zip

[Q] Soft Brick can't mount /data

Had C-ROM installed, was going to install AOKP. I wiped, then installed the AOKP ROM, followed by GAPPS. It wouldn't go past LG screen, so I rebooted into recovery and now it won't let me do anything because I can't mount /data
I can boot into TWRP, but I can't flash or restore anything...
How can I install a fresh ROM, revert to one of my backups, or get back to stock at least. I saw this thread but I wasn't sure if that would fix my issue since it wasn't caused by accepting an OTA.
Any other info needed?
Not sure how exactly I was able to resolve this, but I have.
Through a series of reboots into recovery, /data eventually was mounted and I was able to complete a wipe and reinstall.

[Q] Questions before flashing custom ROM

I am planning to flash a custom rom on my phone (for the first time).
Model : Xperia SP(C5302)
Build : 12.1.A.1.205 (Stock) running JB 4.3 with LB
I have rooted my phone using the towelroot method and installed supersu. I have also installed custom recovery from here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2649923
I am planning to flash this custom rom http://forum.xda-developers.com/xperia-sp/development/cyanogenmod-11-locked-bootloader-users-t2868398
So I have a few questions that I am not clear about(even after searching the forums). And sorry if they are dumb. I really want to understand as much as possible before flashing roms.:fingers-crossed:
1. After reading the thread of my recovery, from what I understand, the recoveries are installed in /system. But on OP of the custom rom, I am about to install, there is an instruction to format /system before flashing the rom. So my question is if I format the /system partition, won’t my recoveries be removed (by the recoveries itself) before I even flash the rom?
2. Also will the recovery still be available to me if say I enter bootloop for some reason during flashing the rom?(asking for the same reason as above that is wiping my /system should also remove my recoveries)
3. Does CM 11 come with any inbuilt custom recovery? If not can I install the one I am already using (assuming installing a custom rom will remove my installed recoveries)?
4. Say I screw up during the flashing procedure. So if I want to rectify this I should first flash the stock .205 ftf, root, install a recovery again and then restore using the nandroid backup. Am I correct?
5. Is it necessary to wipe cache and dalvik cache before flashing rom? I see this instruction in some roms but not in others. And dalvik should be wiped after flashing rom and gapps, right?
6. Should I install supersu again after I flash the rom. I read in an article that it causes problems with CM. As far as I know CM11 comes pre-installed with superuser. But it also supposedly causes some problems.
7. Is it safe to restore user app+data, messages and contacts backed up using Titanium backup on a newly flashed rom? I have seen conflicted views on this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And that’s it for my questions (for now at least... ).
A Big Thanks in advance for all your helpful answers
Prat92 said:
I am planning to flash a custom rom on my phone (for the first time).
Model : Xperia SP(C5302)
Build : 12.1.A.1.205 (Stock) running JB 4.3 with LB
I have rooted my phone using the towelroot method and installed supersu. I have also installed custom recovery from here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2649923
I am planning to flash this custom rom http://forum.xda-developers.com/xperia-sp/development/cyanogenmod-11-locked-bootloader-users-t2868398
So I have a few questions that I am not clear about(even after searching the forums). And sorry if they are dumb. I really want to understand as much as possible before flashing roms.:fingers-crossed:
And that’s it for my questions (for now at least... ).
A Big Thanks in advance for all your helpful answers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First of all, I am only explaining the one I know about
1. Well, wiping the system will remove the recovery. That's why you'll have to flash the ROM after wiping the system. Do not ever reboot the phone after wiping the system but haven't yet flashed the ROM zip, else you'll have to do more work to flash the Stock ROM. This is due to the fact your phone does not have an OS to boot into! When flashing the ROM zip, the recovery will be automatically installed.
2. This is based on luck, most of time you'll end up unable to boot into anything. A fix is to flash the Stock ROM again.
3. Every ROM has recovery built with it (unless stated otherwise in the thread)! Upon flashing, it will be automatically installed too.
4. The methods you mentioned is correct. However, only restore the nandroid backup if you want to stay on stock. You could always retry to flash the ROM again. Nandroid backup is an image backup of your android. If you restore your nandroid backup, you'll end up with your previous version of android (like the way before you started flashing the ROM)
5. Wiping /cache and dalvik-cache is a really good practise! It doesn't really matter when you will need to wipe them, but personally I wipe them all before flashing the ROM. Wiping /data and performing a factory reset through recovery is recommended if you're coming from a different ROM. That's why backing up user apps through TiB (Titanium Backup) is recommended for you to easily get your installed apps back. Remember, nandroid backup and apps backup from TiB is different to each other.
6. No, this might cause extreme conflicts. No, I am using SuperUser as long as I have used CM. It never fails to give root permission at all despite the hatred I sense in some apps that overly-recommends SuperSU.
7. Of course it is very safe to restore them backups with TiB. However, based on my experience, messages and contacts were unable to be restored due to the difference in ROM version. I don't know if anyone else faces the same problem as mine. As of this, I really recommend your contacts to be synced with Google.
Heads up!
Based on this post, the dev of the ROM you wanted to flash, MrSteve555, recommends PhilZ when flashing the ROM.
TechnoSparks said:
First of all, I am only explaining the one I know about
1. Well, wiping the system will remove the recovery. That's why you'll have to flash the ROM after wiping the system. Do not ever reboot the phone after wiping the system but haven't yet flashed the ROM zip, else you'll have to do more work to flash the Stock ROM. This is due to the fact your phone does not have an OS to boot into! When flashing the ROM zip, the recovery will be automatically installed.
2. This is based on luck, most of time you'll end up unable to boot into anything. A fix is to flash the Stock ROM again.
3. Every ROM has recovery built with it (unless stated otherwise in the thread)! Upon flashing, it will be automatically installed too.
4. The methods you mentioned is correct. However, only restore the nandroid backup if you want to stay on stock. You could always retry to flash the ROM again. Nandroid backup is an image backup of your android. If you restore your nandroid backup, you'll end up with your previous version of android (like the way before you started flashing the ROM)
5. Wiping /cache and dalvik-cache is a really good practise! It doesn't really matter when you will need to wipe them, but personally I wipe them all before flashing the ROM. Wiping /data and performing a factory reset through recovery is recommended if you're coming from a different ROM. That's why backing up user apps through TiB (Titanium Backup) is recommended for you to easily get your installed apps back. Remember, nandroid backup and apps backup from TiB is different to each other.
6. No, this might cause extreme conflicts. No, I am using SuperUser as long as I have used CM. It never fails to give root permission at all despite the hatred I sense in some apps that overly-recommends SuperSU.
7. Of course it is very safe to restore them backups with TiB. However, based on my experience, messages and contacts were unable to be restored due to the difference in ROM version. I don't know if anyone else faces the same problem as mine. As of this, I really recommend your contacts to be synced with Google.
Heads up!
Based on this post, the dev of the ROM you wanted to flash, MrSteve555, recommends PhilZ when flashing the ROM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for such detailed answers. That cleared most of my doubts
Just some last few questions(promise!)
1. If wiping /system does remove the recovery before I install the rom, how is it possible to access it even to flash the rom? Shouldn't it like just close right when I wipe /system. Or does it not work like that?
2. Just to be sure the nandroid backup I made on my stock rom won't work if I later try to flash it through recovery while using CM,right?
Prat92 said:
Thanks for such detailed answers. That cleared most of my doubts
Just some last few questions(promise!)
1. If wiping /system does remove the recovery before I install the rom, how is it possible to access it even to flash the rom? Shouldn't it like just close right when I wipe /system. Or does it not work like that?
2. Just to be sure the nandroid backup I made on my stock rom won't work if I later try to flash it through recovery while using CM,right?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. Wiping system wont close the recovery at all. It still runs and you can still navigate within it. But remember do not reboot unless you've flashed the ROM! The mechanism of how the magic works is yet to be acknowledged. So I can't tell why it doesn't closes upon wipe. My best guess here is that the recovery might be running on a temporary partition perhaps. I hope a developer see this post and explains the magic.
2. Nandroid backup works all the time (if they are no errors when you are creating them). Nandroid backup is simply a backup of your whole device. If you're on CM, restoring nandroid backup will get your phone back to the way when you attempted the nandroid backup (stock ROM, rooted, and triple recoveries installed). Nandroid backup is useful when you're about to try something that may damage your ROM, without doing so much work to restore your device.
Say, you created a nandroid backup in cwm in which Cyanogenmod was installed. And then you flashed something afterwards. If that "something" damages the ROM and gives you bootloop, you can simply flash Stock ROM, root it again, install recoveries again, and restore the nandroid backup. Then, voilà, cyanogenmod is back. This will simplify your work rather than flash CM again, then gapps, then restore your apps and all those other things that will consume so much time
So a new nandroid backup will backup the whole device, in a form of an image.

Trouble flashing some roms

So I am able to flash dynamickat, hyperdrive, & jovy's deodex stock perfectly fine and they boot up normal and everything. However, when I try darthstalker or skyfall I get bootloops on both. They flash fine but I never make it past the boot animation. It'll be on for a few minutes and then reboot itself. I tried wiping data afterwards but nothing happens. I've downloaded the roms on different pcs, my phone, the md5 was correct, I flashed from my internal sd & external, I formatted everything (even my internal sd to see if that would help for some odd reason), I flashed a different kernel & I also odin'd back to stock and I still have no luck. I am on a t-mobile note 4 & twrp 2.8.1.1. I have no clue what to do anymore & this is becoming pretty frustrating
re: try this
xoxo_xdagirl91 said:
So I am able to flash dynamickat, hyperdrive, & jovy's deodex stock perfectly fine and they boot up normal and everything. However, when I try darthstalker or skyfall I get bootloops on both. They flash fine but I never make it past the boot animation. It'll be on for a few minutes and then reboot itself. I tried wiping data afterwards but nothing happens. I've downloaded the roms on different pcs, my phone, the md5 was correct, I flashed from my internal sd & external, I formatted everything (even my internal sd to see if that would help for some odd reason), I flashed a different kernel & I also odin'd back to stock and I still have no luck. I am on a t-mobile note 4 & twrp 2.8.1.1. I have no clue what to do anymore & this is becoming pretty frustrating
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have read your posts in the development thread about the issue you are having.
Give this a try
#1: Do a full wipe including Wipe System, Data, Cache, Dalvik and
last but not least to a factory reset in twrp recovery.
#2: Flash Jovy23's, stock rooted deodexed rom again.
#3: Copy Darthstalker zip file rom to your computer's desktop.
#4: Open Darthstalker zip file rom and remove/delete "boot.img"
from the zip file using winrar or winzip (or other archiver).
#5: Once "boot.img" is no longer in the Darthstalker zip file rom
copy it back to your phone's internal sdcard.
#6: Flash the Darthstalker zip file rom but do NOT wipe anything this time.
If this works for you then that means that for whatever reason your
phone has issues with the original kernel file (boot.img) which was in
the darthstalker zip file before you removed/deleted it,.
Doing it using the above step by step you will be using the kernel (boot.img)
from jov23's stock rooted rom.
If it works for you can open jovy23's stock rooted zip file rom and copy
the boot.img from it to your desktop then close the zip file.
Then open darthstalker zip file rom and copy jovy23's stock boot.img
from your desktop into darthstalker zip file rom.
The darthstalker zip file rom which has no boot.img in it since you have
already deleted and removed it.
Then copy the modified darthstalker zip file rom into your internal sdcard
over-writing the one already there.
Then if you like you can do a full wipe again and flash the modified
darthstalker zip file rom which has jovy23's kernel (boot.img) in it
and it should work fine.
Good luck!
xoxo_xdagirl91 said:
So I am able to flash dynamickat, hyperdrive, & jovy's deodex stock perfectly fine and they boot up normal and everything. However, when I try darthstalker or skyfall I get bootloops on both. They flash fine but I never make it past the boot animation. It'll be on for a few minutes and then reboot itself. I tried wiping data afterwards but nothing happens. I've downloaded the roms on different pcs, my phone, the md5 was correct, I flashed from my internal sd & external, I formatted everything (even my internal sd to see if that would help for some odd reason), I flashed a different kernel & I also odin'd back to stock and I still have no luck. I am on a t-mobile note 4 & twrp 2.8.1.1. I have no clue what to do anymore & this is becoming pretty frustrating
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When I built the N4 rom, I was having serious qmg boot animation issues, I disabled them, and the rom booted normal, we may have a issue with the new roms and the animations. Just a thought.
re:
AxAtAx said:
When I built the N4 rom, I was having serious qmg boot animation issues, I disabled them, and the rom booted normal, we may have a issue with the new roms and the animations. Just a thought.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If that's the case then perhaps it might be a good idea for her to
remove all the qmg files in the system/media folder just to see
if it resolves her bootloop issues before trying anything else.
(I have not had any bootloop issues)
But then why don't all the users of the rom have the bootloop issue?
Misterjunky said:
If that's the case then perhaps it might be a good idea for her to
remove all the qmg files in the system/media folder just to see
if it resolves her bootloop issues before trying anything else.
(I have not had any bootloop issues)
But then why don't all the users of the rom have the bootloop issue?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for trying to help! I did what you said and flashed the stock rom but got an error when flashing darthstalker afterwards when I removed the boot.img but I still went ahead and added the boot.img from the stock rom to to the darthstalker zip and that didn't work. Still bootloops. And that's what I don't understand how it works fine on everyone else's phone and not mine I mean it's not all roms but it's still very weird and I want to know why it's happening. On another note when I do flash the stockrom, hyperdrive, & dynamickat right before it boots I get android system upgrading.. optimizing app 200 out of 200 or so, does that happen with anyone else? is that suppose to happen? does that happen on darthstalker or skyfall?
re: updating apps
xoxo_xdagirl91 said:
Thanks for trying to help! I did what you said and flashed the stock rom but got an error when flashing darthstalker afterwards when I removed the boot.img but I still went ahead and added the boot.img from the stock rom to to the darthstalker zip and that didn't work. Still bootloops. And that's what I don't understand how it works fine on everyone else's phone and not mine I mean it's not all roms but it's still very weird and I want to know why it's happening. On another note when I do flash the stockrom, hyperdrive, & dynamickat right before it boots I get android system upgrading.. optimizing app 200 out of 200 or so, does that happen with anyone else? is that suppose to happen? does that happen on darthstalker or skyfall?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The upgrading apps is NOT supposed to happen or appear at all unless you have NOT done a FULL
and complete wipe before flashing.
It's normal for it to upgrade a lot of apps during boot if you decided or have not done a full and
complete wipe which includes Factory Reset, Wipe System, Data, Cache and Dalvik cache.
In your case you need to do a full and complete clean flash and the only way to do that is by doing
a full and complete wipe.
If you keep seeing the "updating apps" after flashing any rom it means you have not done a full wipe.
When you have finally done a full and complete wipe before flashing you will no longer see the
phone doing the "upgrading apps" counting the number of apps to be upgraded during bootup
at all when the phone is actually wiped clean before flashing any roms.
(I am assuming that you're using twrp recovery to wipe and flash roms).
Good luck!
Misterjunky said:
The upgrading apps is NOT supposed to happen or appear at all unless you have NOT done a FULL
and complete wipe before flashing.
It's normal for it to upgrade a lot of apps if you decided or have not done a full and complete wipe
including Factory Reset, Wipe System, Data, Cache and Dalvik cache.
In your case you need to do a full and complete clean flash and the only way to do that is by doing
a full and complete wipe.
If you keep seeing the "updating apps" after flashing any rom it means you have not done a full wipe.
When you have finally done a full and complete wipe before flashing you will no longer see the
phone doing the "upgrading apps" counting the number of apps to be upgraded during bootup
at all when the phone is actually wiped clean.
Good luck!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am doing a full wipe though?

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