MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Bricked my Nookie then recovered it. Here's how.

Apoc · 02-05-2011, 01:46 PM

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.

02-05-2011, 01:46 PM	#1
Apoc Connoisseur Posts: 84 Karma: 822 Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Calgary, Canada Device: NookC with CM7 (eMMC)	Bricked my Nookie then recovered it. Here's how. 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. Last edited by Apoc; 02-05-2011 at 07:23 PM.