Help me Flash Recovery and / or root my Nexus...

August 10, 2012 9:07 AM

Help rooting and/or flashing Recovery on a Galaxy Nexus (Jelly Bean) on a Mac? I'm stuck. So I followed these instructions / video and all seemed to be going well until I got to Step 7.

I tried to enter Bootloader Mode and choose Recovery but then my phone just gives me a sad Android with a red triangle and a ! in the middle of it.

I emailed the person who wrote those instructions and he wrote back "If you can’t get into recovery, try re-flashing recovery then go straight into recovery. What happens is that stock Android OS has a security measure that overwrites your custom recovery upon reboot. If this happens to you, simply re-flash recoery and boot into recovery right away without reboot."

I have no idea what he's talking about. I tried to google reflash recovery and was not comfortable with the instructions I found which made even less sense than the email.

Suggestions?

posted by You Should See the Other Guy to Technology (9 answers total)

I'm not familiar with the Mac version of the process, but it looks like just repeating step 6.
posted by zombieflanders at 9:19 AM on August 10, 2012

Best answer: I also found this:

If when you boot into recovery you get a dead android with a red exclamation point, you need to change a file in your system folder. However to do this you have to be rooted which if you are stuck here you aren't rooted yet.

Fix:
Reboot into bootloader install the recovery again but this time DO NOT reboot the phone. Now go directly to recovery mode and follow the instructions on how to flash SU binary. Now you need to change the name of a file in your system, to do this download Root Explorer (ES File may work but I'm not sure.) Navigate to the system directory and mount it as R/W. Find the recovery-from-boot.p rename the file to recovery-from-boot.p.bak. Now reboot into bootloader and install the recovery again it should now stick.

Note that the directions are for the Sprint version of the GN (toroplus) rather than the international GSM (maguro) or Verizon LTE (toro), but it should just be a case of different files rather than the process itself.
posted by zombieflanders at 9:24 AM on August 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Sorry, zombieflanders, but I still do not understand.

I tried to refollow the steps up until 6 but I can no longer get passed 6 and I don't think any of the previous 5 steps can be skipped.

So, I type the stuff in step 4.

I plug my phone in in step 5 and hold the buttons till I feel a vibration...

But the screen that pops up in #6 (here in the video) does not appear on my screen. I get the sad Android guy.
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 9:47 AM on August 10, 2012

Yeah, by re-flashing the recovery image, the author simply means to repeat the process of flashing the recovery image by using

./fastboot-mac flash recovery GSM_recovery-clockwork-touch-5.8.0.2-maguro.img

Or whatever equivalent network you are on.

Anyway, once you flash that, what happens on your phone? IIRC, it should just dump you back at the bootloader screen. Is that what happens? And then you select Recovery and it gives you the error screen?
posted by InsanePenguin at 11:07 AM on August 10, 2012

Response by poster: Okay, I figured it out.

I skipped all the steps and just went to #6 directly then skipped the reboot and everything then worked.

Thanks!
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 11:15 AM on August 10, 2012

Great! Enjoy your newly rooted GN, it's pretty cool. You should look through the Android posts on AskMe for cool stuff to do with it.
posted by zombieflanders at 11:18 AM on August 10, 2012

Response by poster: Thanks. Another question if you don't mind. If I click "wipe and reset to factory settings" does that unroot it or is it safe to erase and such as I please and once rooted it's rooted?
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 11:19 AM on August 10, 2012

I'm assuming you're using ClockWorkMod Recovery, and the screen looks something like this, yes? If so, then that doesn't unroot it. It basically sets your OS back to stock settings and wipes all of your apps while keeping your "sdcard" (it's virtual on the GN) intact. This is why the Titanium Backup app is so important, because it backs up apps (and their data if you want) and settings. Here's an excellent guide on how to do that, including easily saving your entire call history, all of your text messages, any Wifi you've connected to, and more.

FWIW, a factory reset is pretty much necessary when installing new or modified versions of the OS (i.e. ROMs like CyanogenMod or AOKP). The makers of the ROMs will usually provide all of the steps, and if they've made any big changes they'll strongly suggest you wipe data/factory reset. If it's just minor bugfixes or functionality changes, and you're feeling carefree, you can get by with a "dirty flash" by wiping the cache and Dalvik before and after flashing the ROM and Google Apps package (aka GApps) and then booting normally.
posted by zombieflanders at 11:37 AM on August 10, 2012 [2 favorites]

For future flashing reference, the "sad Android with a red triangle and a ! in the middle of it" is Android's default recovery. To access the menu there, you'd press volume-up + power.
posted by healthytext at 12:24 PM on August 13, 2012