Help! OTT M8 Bad Flash Recovery using shorted Nand pins.

[Crows]

Thanks for the very comprehensive procedure, my issue is the PC doesn't detect my box, I can boot into recovery and in device manager there is no detection of my box that's why makes me think could be my cable...its a new one.
Is there a flash erase script i can execute via side load, becuase each time I try and flash firmware is hangs up at arounf 75-80% loading from recovery mode, or directly via tooth pick method

The USB port on the M8 box is a multi functional port, I found with the jumper off with my bricked box booted into TWRP on a bootable SD Card that the USB port nearest the HDMI port was detected as an ADB device without the Jumper on and when the Jumper was on it was detected as an OTG.

My situation was my box was dead red standby light and wouldn't boot into recovery, what I had to do was make a bootable SD scard using the Amlogic tools and I put TWRP with the recovery.img on an SD card.
I had to short pins 17+18 on the nand to get the device to boot from SD card, now in order to get get OTG I had the unti powered off, USB cable connected to Box and PC and the jumper next to the HDMI on, booted up tthe box with pins 17+18 shorted and the recovery button held in for 12 seconds or so, 7 seconds is to let the nand hack allow the boot from Sd card and then the 5 seconds for switching to OTG, I had a two folded issue no recovery and needing to get to OTG, normally if recovery works the box should take a few seconds to switch to OTG.....still with me on this?
Box booted with blue led but TWRP shouldn't start just a blank screen, PC detected an unknown device and I installed the USB Burn tool. It installed and loaded the world cup drivers. as part of the install.
I ran the USB Burn tool and it detected the Box on Hub1-2. I imported the Probox2 .img file and selected Force erase, below this box on the burn tool are various options for erasing the flash, what I found is in order to get my box past a 2% or 3% flash before it failed I had to deselect Erase Bootloader. The USB burn tool will fail at about 6%. This is the interesting thing once I managed to write 6% I rebooted the box left it with the red led showing but the box was detected by the PC and an OTG port, this is I think is the twist where I was going wrong.
Once you've flashed and got beyond 5% the box will be detected by the PC as an OTG port when its in standby, no need for trying to get to recovery or short the nand pins anymore. I just ran the USB Burn tool again with the unit in standby and the burn tool detected the unit as an OTG and completed a 100% flash. The trick seems to be to allow the burn tool to fail at 6% using the recovery method making sure you deselect erase bootloader in the USB burn tool or it fails at 2% which isnt enough of an erase to get u-boot sorted and repaired. Restart the box as if it's in standby run the Burn tool again and it should complete a full flash.

Crows you really need to establish whether your getting a connection, try booting to recovery, if you cant get to recovery you'll need to prepare a bootable SD card and short the nand pins 17+18 get into recovery with the USB Jumper off and see if your PC recognises the box as an ADB device, Moborobo should load drivers for a mobile ADB device. If you can establish ADB all your problem is is getting the USB port into OTG. Let me know if you can get ADB drivers installed first. No you don't need to mod the cable.

[Klinux]

Have you tried using TWRP recovery, that has advanced wipe options. I suspect if you have a corrupt partition then your only option might be via OTG but the fact you can run recovery and almost flash an image leads to me suspect that whatever the issue is you can mount the internal storage and system partitions so TWRP may work.

Have you tried both usb ports on your box the port nearest the HDMI worked on mine but I noticed on Finless Bobs post he used the usb port nearest the corner of the box casing though I'd have to go back and check that in his post. I'm not aware of any erase script but to be honest TWRP will give you the same options.

There are many variations of this box not sure I like the term clones since they are mass produced in schetzen china and re-branded, this makes each issue and symptom slightly varied and the solution different on the boxes.

My box is working great with the Probox2 firmware, I also prefer the GUI to the Mbox, I did an antutu benchmark and while this varies widely on S802 boxes even though the hardware is pretty much the same it came out at 40,000. Everything works without glitches and I sorted the remote config out.

Experiment with each USB port don't worry too much about the OTG jumper try and establish ADB without the jumper this will indicate that your box is connecting to the PC. Once you established ADB then we just need to work on getting the OTG method sorted.

[Zahir]

Congrats

Delighted to see that your determination and resourcefulness paid off. Well done!

[Klinux]

many thanks Zahir for your help and advice

[Zahir]

A number of us were rooting for you...groaning every time you hit another obstacle. I'd say your memory chips were pretty much fouled up..

Enjoy your Lazarus box. Let things bed in for a couple of days. Then consider installing Codesnake's Openelec for the best experience on the M8. If you do venture a zip flash ever again, I'd recommend using his first (Gotham) build. The update (Helix) can present some issues.

[SSThing]

This is fantastic work, well done!!!!!
Now, if you can write up a step by-step-guide, for those of us less techie than yourself, it would be amazing (please).

Bravo.

[hanyh2o]

thank you all
my box now working after a day of trying and reading
it was not easy
but finally all OK great !!!!
i just have a little question
how to make remote work again ?
why YouTube seems laggy ?
i mean all videos work OK with xbmc no lag at all but YouTube i fell people moving in 10 fps !!!
why is that ?

[Klinux]

Hers the remote file m8_original_remote.zip i couldn't find the link to the original upload thread but you just need to put this file on an SD card go to the update page on the M8 where you would normally update ROMs OTA and apply the update or boot into recovery and run this update it will automatically install the modified remote config.

I've been running the Probox2 on my M8 for a couple of weeks now, overall the box is working really well the issue that I've had and it's a minor one is the box won't come out of standby when I power it off with the remote anditseems that the USB port that acts as an OTG port isnt working now but I think that I may need to put the jumper back on to get it to work, thats just a weird theory I've got. But no other issue than that.
I replaced the internal wifi antenna with an external one while I had the box open with one just as the probox2 has for better coverage. I will post a guide as to how I got this box unbricked though I think that the steps may slightly vary.

What I found was once I got the box recognised as an OTG device on my pc using the Nand pins 17+18 method and booting into recover with a bootable SD card I made I got OTG established but could only get the USB burn software to get a far as 5/6% and before it failed, this is where the subtlety comes in, once the box had failed at 5/6% when I restarted the box with the bootable SD card removed and the Nand pins removed the M8 was still stuck in standby as before but the box was recognised as an OTG device by my PC without using the method of shorting the nand pins and using a bootable sd card. When I ran the USB burn software again with the box in standby it flashed the image all the way without any errors. I haven't ventured into trying to update to other ROM's I don't really wanna push my luck, at the end of the day the box does what I want it to so im happy. The probox2 GUI is pretty good and everything works. I do want to try the Openelec Linux Rom, I may try that later, at the end of the day I have figured how to recover my box from the worse case senario but I'm just happy to be enjoying my box at the moment, I've got it attached to a projector showing on a 90" motorised screen, its a really nice setup.

I think there are various extremes of bricking of these boxes looking over various posts some seem to still enable booting into recovery but have corrupt partitions, some can be repaired using TWRP some need to have the ROM image pushed on via OTG.

My M8 needed me to use the Nand pin shorting method along with the bootable SD card in order to get to recovery, the internal Nand was corrupt and therefore unable to mount itself so I couldn't run ROM flashes or erase the Nand to repair the corrupt partition table so the only way was using the USB Burn software via OTG, my M8 was also missing the OTG jumper pins on the PCB, the solder points were there just no pins so I had to solder some pins on the board. Luckily I had some ready made jumper pins and the skills to solder the pins in place. Some of these boxes have the pins just missing the jumper some don't.
I guess depending on the level of bricking the recovery method will vary, if the nand partition is corrupt ultimately the nand won't be mountable so you have to use the OTG method be able to repair it, adding to this the different hardware in these boxes will present different issues in unbricking. The most apparent thing is that the M8 box does have an OTG USB port, one of the USB ports acts as a multi functional port with it's function being set by the Jumper. Jumper off = ADB Jumper on = OTG. I did note from Finless Bobs post that he used the port nearest the corner of his box, I used the port nearest the HDMI once again slight hardware differences. The other thing noted is while there are genuine and clone boxes the hardware quality seems to vary and no doubt much of the issue's with bricking these are lightly down to these variations. I work with electronics and particularily PCB's, this apparent clone is very well manufactured, good surface mounting of the components, it has been noted on my box that the PSU is 12v 1AMP rather than 5v 1AMP for the genuine boxes. It has been discussed here that you need more than 1amp to drive addtional drives ect but it's also important to have voltage to drive this stuff and I feel that 12v supply has been a good idea on this box, I only use a flash drive and a remote mouse/keyboard so 1amp is fine, if you were gonna drive external HDD's then 1amp might not be enough.

[hanyh2o]

Hers the remote file [ATTACH]9009[/ATTACH] i couldn't find the link to the original upload thread but you just need to put this file on an SD card go to the update page on the M8 where you would normally update ROMs OTA and apply the update or boot into recovery and run this update it will automatically install the modified remote config.

I've been running the Probox2 on my M8 for a couple of weeks now, overall the box is working really well the issue that I've had and it's a minor one is the box won't come out of standby when I power it off with the remote anditseems that the USB port that acts as an OTG port isnt working now but I think that I may need to put the jumper back on to get it to work, thats just a weird theory I've got. But no other issue than that.
I replaced the internal wifi antenna with an external one while I had the box open with one just as the probox2 has for better coverage. I will post a guide as to how I got this box unbricked though I think that the steps may slightly vary.

What I found was once I got the box recognised as an OTG device on my pc using the Nand pins 17+18 method and booting into recover with a bootable SD card I made I got OTG established but could only get the USB burn software to get a far as 5/6% and before it failed, this is where the subtlety comes in, once the box had failed at 5/6% when I restarted the box with the bootable SD card removed and the Nand pins removed the M8 was still stuck in standby as before but the box was recognised as an OTG device by my PC without using the method of shorting the nand pins and using a bootable sd card. When I ran the USB burn software again with the box in standby it flashed the image all the way without any errors. I haven't ventured into trying to update to other ROM's I don't really wanna push my luck, at the end of the day the box does what I want it to so im happy. The probox2 GUI is pretty good and everything works. I do want to try the Openelec Linux Rom, I may try that later, at the end of the day I have figured how to recover my box from the worse case senario but I'm just happy to be enjoying my box at the moment, I've got it attached to a projector showing on a 90" motorised screen, its a really nice setup.

I think there are various extremes of bricking of these boxes looking over various posts some seem to still enable booting into recovery but have corrupt partitions, some can be repaired using TWRP some need to have the ROM image pushed on via OTG.

My M8 needed me to use the Nand pin shorting method along with the bootable SD card in order to get to recovery, the internal Nand was corrupt and therefore unable to mount itself so I couldn't run ROM flashes or erase the Nand to repair the corrupt partition table so the only way was using the USB Burn software via OTG, my M8 was also missing the OTG jumper pins on the PCB, the solder points were there just no pins so I had to solder some pins on the board. Luckily I had some ready made jumper pins and the skills to solder the pins in place. Some of these boxes have the pins just missing the jumper some don't.
I guess depending on the level of bricking the recovery method will vary, if the nand partition is corrupt ultimately the nand won't be mountable so you have to use the OTG method be able to repair it, adding to this the different hardware in these boxes will present different issues in unbricking. The most apparent thing is that the M8 box does have an OTG USB port, one of the USB ports acts as a multi functional port with it's function being set by the Jumper. Jumper off = ADB Jumper on = OTG. I did note from Finless Bobs post that he used the port nearest the corner of his box, I used the port nearest the HDMI once again slight hardware differences. The other thing noted is while there are genuine and clone boxes the hardware quality seems to vary and no doubt much of the issue's with bricking these are lightly down to these variations. I work with electronics and particularily PCB's, this apparent clone is very well manufactured, good surface mounting of the components, it has been noted on my box that the PSU is 12v 1AMP rather than 5v 1AMP for the genuine boxes. It has been discussed here that you need more than 1amp to drive addtional drives ect but it's also important to have voltage to drive this stuff and I feel that 12v supply has been a good idea on this box, I only use a flash drive and a remote mouse/keyboard so 1amp is fine, if you were gonna drive external HDD's then 1amp might not be enough.

thanks man
very helpful replay

[Klinux]

lets us know how you get on with the probox Rom on the M8, but your welcome.

[Bellusa]

Same problem

Hello Klinux i have the same exact M8 box with the same exact problem you had with your box. I've been trying to do your method but i can not manage because I do not have the files you used. Can you please send me a link to the files you used because the links provided here are no longer available.

Thanks

[avara]

1. Download my backup from here:

https://mega.co.nz/#!gcV1HbBa!minhIVv6dj3cMqI25bbZE6tQMPY8KiaBkKjFfp2moMU

!

Can you please upload your TWRP backup one more time. Link already expired. Thank you.

[mahsidi]

Can you just clarify my steps. Im going total worse case scenario

SD CARD PREP
1. create SDcard boot with U-boot.ini
2. once created add [chinese writing].wps & boot.ini to the sd card
3. eject and place into m8

m8 HArdware prep
1. short pins 17-18
2. Jumper pins between HDMI and USB

PC Prep
1. Install AMLogic Flash with drivers

Stage one
1. Put male-male USB from M8 to PC
2.While holding recovery (AV) put power in, hold recovery for atleast 15secs
3. hopefully the pc recognises the USB
4. add probox image
5. uncheck erase boot
6. let it flash - may crash at 6%


if it crashes at 6%
7. remove power
8.remove shorting
9. ????????????????? take off jumper????????????????????????????
10. put power in
11. re-flash

- hopefully done??

[Klinux]

That's right mahsidi. Persistence is the thing with these boxes when they go wrong. My box is working great still with openelec on it and now residing in my bedroom. I've since upgraded my living room cinema setup and added a Gigabyte Brix mini pc with both windows 8 and openelec running. But the m8 is still going great. Id highly recommend putting openelec on it. The only downside is openelec is purely an xbmc ROM. The box boots directly into xbmc, going back to android is possible. If your not familiar with openelec it is a really smooth running version of xbmc and usbt buggy like some if the ROMs. Fingers crossed for your box.

[mahsidi]

Hi

I have tried a few things but I'm a totally amateur with this. i was wondering if anyone could help me out.

Id be happy to post out the box

pcb : m8 m9 v0.92

I think its hard bricked, I'm not sure. Ive tried to short pins with a home made A-A cable. tried a few options.
(also my IR Led blew some time ago. I am yet to replace it so i can tell if the light is on or off )

i am happy to post it out with return parcel or travel near berkshire/london.

pm me if your available