Bricked my Nookie then recovered it. Here's how.

[Apoc]

And so, I bricked my NOOKc. I'm really not sure how it happened but it was after installing Clockwork Recovery. The details aren't important at the moment. Suffices to say that I found myself stuck at the 'n' stage, showing a Clockwork Recovery screen. Nothing would budge it from there. The 8 failed boots failsafe was no longer available. The Nook was hosed. Here I will recount my experience with reviving it and how. It's a little wordy but it just may save another newbie's bacon. It'll start describing the ordeal and finish up with all the steps that I took to recover.

After some hair-pulling and cursing I arrived at http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=919353 where I found the v1.0.0 stock images for the Nook. Salvation! The instructions there were fairly clear. Put Froyo on SD, put the images on the same SD, then boot Froyo, and replace the Clockwork Recovery images with the original Nook's. Simple, yes?

Well, sort of. First of all, this whole exercise assumes that there is a working ADB (Android Debug Bridge) system installed on the PC. The problem with my x64 system is that I was never able to get ADB working through USB, only through WiFi. At this point I didn't even want to deal with installing the WiFi App in Froyo, so I installed ADB on my laptop running 32-bit Windows 7. Miraculously, after pluggin in the Nook to USB, ADB reported that it could "see" it.

Now we're business, I thought. Ha! I had already burned an image of Froyo to a 4GB SD card and I plugged it into the PC to transfer the images. But other than the boot partition, the SD would show me nothing else. I could see the other partitions in Disk Management, but Windows would not let me assign a drive letter to the one I needed.

Did I mention that I'm an android newbie? I figured that there must be a way to plug in the Nook to the PC and then copy the images to the appropriate place but how? ADB again, that's how! A list of the commands showed me the way. Soon after I had the images transfered, and shortly after that I had the appropriate partitions flashed with the images. "Soon" and "shortly after" by the way are relative terms. The transfer and flashing are slow with no indication of what is happening. Only a hanging cursor to blink at me and for all I knew it could be hanging. It took 30-45 minutes for those operations to complete.

And so, now was the moment of truth. I started the 8 failed boot procedure. At the 8th failed boot, the familiar update icon came up but with a failed message. "Update failed" or somesuch. My hopes sank. Then I recalled reading in a message that the first time the procedure fails, then the second time it works. I don't remember that happening to me before, but hey... I was desperate, I'd have spent the whole day rebooting for a chance to save the Nookie. And so, I tried again and lo and behold, the familiar animation started. I was saved! I continued on and reset the data, re-registered, then started rooting from scratch.

I am saving the Froyo SD with the stock images on it in case I need it again. I intent to find out what happened with Clockwork Recovery and with the Froyo on hand I can be more bold in my exploration. I have flashed quite a few devices before, this is the first time I can say that a device is pretty much next to being unbrickable. The only uncertainty lies in getting ADB to work properly.

Restoring the Nookie. Good luck.
1. Go to http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=919353 and read the whole thread. That's pretty much all you need but if things are not clear and need specific steps, read on.
1a. Download http://www.mediafire.com/?5vbw33ue7pvod0g
1b. Download http://www.mediafire.com/?1zfj4334krqhs48
1c. Extract the .img files from the above, set aside for now.
2. Go to http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=883175 and download the Froyo image, then put it on a 2GB+ SD.
3. Install ADB. From what I read there is limited success in installing it in 64-bit Windows. It didn't work for me. This may be the most difficult step.
4. If you can see the /sdcard partition on the Froyo SD copy the two .img files there.
4a. Insert the Froyo SD Card into the Nook and boot. When it's ready start ADB and verify that it can communicate with the Nookie. (Type "ADB devices" in DOS window)
4b. If the .img files are on the sdcard already, go to step 5.
4c. Type "ADB push (path)/boot.img /sdcard/boot.img" without quotes and with appropriate source path. Wait until it's done.
4d. Type "ADB push (path)/system.img /sdcard/system.img" without quotes and with appropriate source path. Wait until it's done.
5. Type "ADB shell" without the quotes.
5a. Type "dd if=/sdcard/boot.img of=/dev/block/mmcblk0p1" without quotes. Wait until finished.
5b. Type "dd if=/sdcard/system.img of=/dev/block/mmcblk0p5" without quotes. Wait until finished.
6. Once done, turn off Nook and remove SD Card. Save it for another rainy day or put it back into circulation. I saved mine. Cheap insurance for $15.
7. Follow procedure at http://nookdevs.com/Flash_back_to_clean_stock_ROM to restore firmware and reset data.
8. Give thanks to the XDA-developers for all their hard work.

[zartemis]

Actually, you should be able to recover without ADB if you need to. Your method will do the stock image restore for you, which is nice.

If you just want to get a working 8-failed-boot recovery option working again, here is a method that will cover 99% of cases(*):

There is a rootpack (with instructions) that can make a bootable SD with clockworkmod. Make one. (I know the page says that 1.0.0 and 1.1 aren't supported --that only applies if you are using the rootpack to root, it doesn't apply if you are just using it to repair recovery which will work on any Nook).

Then power off your Nook, put the SD in, and power it on and:

1. From the Clockwork Recovery home screen use the volume buttons to navigate to “Install Package from SD Card” and press the home (“n” button) to select it.
2. Select “Browse for Package”
3. Navigate to optional/ then select RemoveClockwork.zip
4. Select “Yes”, then wait for the process to complete.
5. Power off, remove the SD card and use the 8-boot restore to rewrite the stock OS and the factory restore to wipe data if you need it completely clean.

If you have a valid clockworkmod nandroid backup and just want to repair a bad clockwork install and restore your last working nandroid backup, instead of RemoveClockwork.zip in the above, choose InstallClockwork.zip.

* What's the 1% that this won't work for? When you've damaged the initial partitions. Then you need a repartition boot (that's another thread), in which case neither Apoc's method, nor the method I listed will work (since there isn't a valid partition to either dd image to or install zip to).

[Rayn]

Hello, I hope you can be able to help me.

I rooted my 1.1.0 NookColor with the help of this thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=942424

Everything was working fine.

I then downloaded Rom Manager and let it install ClockworkMod for me. I made a backup to my microSD card and now it seems my NookColor is "stuck" after the "Touch the Future of Reading" screen. It is stuck on the ClockworkMod Recovery v.3.0.0.5 page with the different options in orange text. I choose "reboot system now" and hit the "n" key and it goes into reboot, but after the "Touch the Future of Reading" screen I am back on the same page with the same orange text.

Will I have to follow Zartemis instructions because I got a bad install of ClockworkMod?

[zartemis]

Originally Posted by Rayn

Hello, I hope you can be able to help me.

I rooted my 1.1.0 NookColor with the help of this thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=942424

Everything was working fine.

I then downloaded Rom Manager and let it install ClockworkMod for me. I made a backup to my microSD card and now it seems my NookColor is "stuck" after the "Touch the Future of Reading" screen. It is stuck on the ClockworkMod Recovery v.3.0.0.5 page with the different options in orange text. I choose "reboot system now" and hit the "n" key and it goes into reboot, but after the "Touch the Future of Reading" screen I am back on the same page with the same orange text.

Will I have to follow Zartemis instructions because I got a bad install of ClockworkMod?

Not necessarily.

A couple questions:

After rooting you removed the SD card right?

When you later installed Rom Manager and installed clockwork mod and made a backup to the SD card, was it a fresh SD card, or the SD card from the rooting process? If it was from the rooting process, did you format it first?

[Rayn]

Originally Posted by zartemis

A couple questions:

After rooting you removed the SD card right?

When you later installed Rom Manager and installed clockwork mod and made a backup to the SD card, was it a fresh SD card, or the SD card from the rooting process? If it was from the rooting process, did you format it first?

I used the SD card from my rooting process, but I do not remember if I formatted it or not.

I used your method of fixing my NookColor and now I'm back to my rooted NookColor before I used ClockworkMod. Should I reformat my SD card and try to use ClockWorkMod again (since not formatting the card may have been my problem)? Sorry for all the questions. While I like to think I can use computers fairly well this is the first time I've rooted a device.

[zartemis]

Originally Posted by Rayn

I used the SD card from my rooting process, but I do not remember if I formatted it or not.

I used your method of fixing my NookColor and now I'm back to my rooted NookColor before I used ClockworkMod. Should I reformat my SD card and try to use ClockWorkMod again (since not formatting the card may have been my problem)?

Yes, that was the problem. You might not have needed to fix your nook -- it was actually just booting up off your SD card repeatedly -- you just needed to take the card out or format it.

And yes, right now, before you reboot again, before you install clockwork, format your SD card using your Nook (use your Nook because the image you put on it made a mini partition and your PC probably won't format it to full size unless you use a special utility).

Then fully test out your Nook, make sure shop works, gmail works, market works, sound works, wifi works, etc. reboot once or twice.

Then install clockworkmod, insert your freshly formated SD with at least 1G of free space, and make your backup.

[jasoraso]

I too ran into problems of an eternal Clockwork Mod recovery boot after installed it following rooting w/ autonooter 3.0 on bn ver 1.1. I wonder if something in that process prevents CMR from installing properly ...

The second go around, I used autonooter 2.15.25 on 1.0.1 and then install CMR and sideloaded the rooted 1.1 ... no problems so far. After 1 day of stability; I updated yesterday to the 1ghz kernel - still very stable.

[zartemis]

Originally Posted by jasoraso

I too ran into problems of an eternal Clockwork Mod recovery boot after installed it following rooting w/ autonooter 3.0 on bn ver 1.1. I wonder if something in that process prevents CMR from installing properly

Realistically, the only way CWM can run from a simple boot or power-on without being explicitly launched with n+power (or from an app designed to launch it directly) is for it to be launching from the SD card. The Nook has boot priority for the SD card. This means that if there is an SD card with a bootable partition it will ignore what is on your Nook and boot from the SD card. Rooting images often rely on CWM under the hood.

Any chance you did the same as Rayn and re-used a rooting image SD without formating it first?

If CWM is installed improperly, it just won't run. You'll see an error like Volwrath got: stuck at 'Touch the Future of Reading' when you try to do a recovery boot by hold n+power. You won't get to the orange CWM menu.

[jasoraso]

It is possible I had the sd card clockwork image in my NC, but I really don't think so. It has been 2 days ... but I had booted up into the normal NC Eclair 1.1 image; so I don't think I had a SD card version of Clockwork. It could be that CWR messed up wiping dalvick / caches after flashing the kernel. I have seen other instances where wiping dalvik doesn't finish cleanly. In fact, I remember now that it DIDN'T wipe dalvik cleanly; so after waiting 2 minutes, I forced a hard reboot ... and began an endless cycle of booting into cwr

[zartemis]

Originally Posted by jasoraso

It could be that CWR messed up wiping dalvick / caches after flashing the kernel. I have seen other instances where wiping dalvik doesn't finish cleanly. In fact, I remember now that it DIDN'T wipe dalvik cleanly; so after waiting 2 minutes, I forced a hard reboot ... and began an endless cycle of booting into cwr

Well, there IS a bug in the current CWM that can cause it to fail after wiping cache, requiring a hardboot (yes, it has happened for me, too -- although it was my understanding that it is able to wipe the cache, just that CWM doesn't continue to run after doing so without a hard boot). It should, (and in my case, does) then boot up to whatever OS is on your Nook (assuming there is no bootable partition on your SD).

It would be shocking to me if a working (menu nav and all) CWM was fully in dalvik cache and that is what runs on a reboot. I don't think it works quite like that. Dalvik cache is a bytecode optimizer (which is why first boot on a new ROM is slower and why you wipe it for a new ROM -- the dependency tree would be all wrong otherwise).