How to dump boot

[Finless]

Ok I was studying a little on the differences with this A10 ROM and the RK stuff I know well. Very different.

Notpod dump some of his ROM using DD. I do not believe he got boot properly. I will be looking at the other files later.

Anyway I found this tutorial on dumping the boot loader

http://arpandeb.com/03/2012/android-how-to-guides/how-to-build-custom-rom-for-allwinner-a10-based-android-tablets-part-iii.html

Also this ROM is not setup the same way. The main parts needed to make a ROM are:
Root
System
Recovery
Boot

You do not need data or cache as these are created on first boot as user data and are not part of a ROM.

Also that post above lists all kinds of ROM tool for the A10 to make a ROM, assemble them, etc. The main jist of the 3 part instructions are to compile a kernel. You guys don't need that right now as we need a ROM.. Later that stuff can be tackled. But the info in here about the ROM and tools is for sure worthy.

Hope this helps

[Finless]

FYI what the partitions are:

nanda is bootloader area, vfat.
nandb is u-boot environment.
nandc is boot.img
nandd is /system
nande is /data
nandf is empty(maybe misc partition?)
nandg is recovery.img
nandh is /cache
nandi is internal NAND area (usually mounted as SD card on stock ROM)


Bob

[notpod]

nand blocks

I think that /cache is g and recovery h? Not sure ATM.

Anyway was boot.img not good?

I would use the maybe_boot_bs1k.img as I pulled it with 'bs=1024' in DD the other one was bs=4096. Output from DF said blocksize was 1024 so I re-pulled it (_bs1k). If not I will do it again till its right!

[Finless]

I think that /cache is g and recovery h? Not sure ATM.

Anyway was boot.img not good?

I would use the maybe_boot_bs1k.img as I pulled it with 'bs=1024' in DD the other one was bs=4096. Output from DF said blocksize was 1024 so I re-pulled it (_bs1k). If not I will do it again till its right!

Boot.img was perfect! It is a EXT4 image and mounts perfectly in linux!

You did well notpod!

I am ready to edit and customize those!


Bob

[sabercatpuck]

Going to look from a slightly different angle

I was looking through the link you posted and noticed one of it's methods of attack was to go through a rom that you downloaded from the net to set up to make your changes. Since by Tuesday whn I can even start to try and get to it I figure I would be playing serious catchup on learning how to do this on our tablet, so I thought I would use the aproach given to look at a copy of the 2.3.4 firmware for the Ondu VX610W I found. Figured it would at least give insight into how it works and might allow us to figure out the differences with the ICS roms they released. If not it will be educational at least, and working with a dowloaded from the net ROM wont take chances of bricking due to doing something wrong.

So to that end I downloaded a copy of Ubuntu 11.10 which I am hoping to set up as a dual boot on my newer machine at home (Not a screaming demon, but hopefully good enough for the project) and a couple versions of the 2.0.5 (AKA Android 2.3.4) firmware for the Onda.

Wish me luck

[notpod]

after much reading I decided on Ubuntu 10.04 for this type of work

I read somewhere in my searching, reading the 10.04 is the recommended version for doing android rom work.

Don't remember why right now however but before you go thru a whole install and what not maybe a couple google search could turn up the answer.

Or maybe someone can answer here why? or even why it does not matter.

[Finless]

Structurally, an ICS ROM should look no different in how the ROM is constructed than Honeycomb or Gingerbread. The differences are all just different framework files, system APK files, etc, and a kernel.

Bob