Galaxy S T959 preliminary research to attempt replicant installation

Igor Almeida igor.contato at gmail.com
Fri Apr 10 14:46:53 UTC 2015


Hi,


On 04/10/2015 09:06 AM, A. F. Cano wrote:
> 
> Hello Brian, and everyone else...
> 
> On Mon, Aug 18, 2014 at 07:12:05PM -0400, Brian Kemp wrote:
>> ...
>> T959? Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh, the much maligned Samsung Vibrant.
>>
>> Start here. http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Install_CM_for_vibrantmtd
> 
> After almost 8 months I finally tried to do this...
> Luckily I didn't brick the phone, but I didn't get past the first
> step.  After downloading the required software (and installing more
> from debian packages), this is what I get:
> 
> After booting the phone in download mode (vol up & vol down + power on)
> this comes up on the screen:
> 
> Android system recovery <2e>
> 
> Samsung Recovery Utils
>            - for BML -
> 	   VOL  UP - up
> 	   VOL  DOWN - down
> 	   POWER - select item
> 
> 	   reboot system now
> 	   reinstall package
> 	   delete all user data
> 	   delete cache data
> 
> lsusb says:
> 
> Bus 001 Device 027: ID 04e8:681c Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd Galaxy
> Portal/Spica/S
> 
> So the phone is detected, but when I run: (as the above web page says)
> 
> heimdall flash --kernel zImage --no-reboot
> 
> comes back with
> 
> ERROR: Failed to detect compatible download-mode device.
> 
That's right. Heimdall is not to be used in recovery, only in this
so-called "download mode". On the Galaxy S (i9000) you'd get there
pressing Vol Down + Home + Power.

> If (on the phone) I select "reinstall package" it apparently goes
> looking for a file called update.zip in /sdcard but of course it's
> not there.
> 
> If I boot the existing Android 2.1 I can push files to /sdcard with adb.
> If I push cm-10.1-20140217-NIGHTLY-vibrantmtd.zip (the latest version
> available for this phone) and put it in /sdcard as update.zip and then
> run "reinstall package", will I risk bricking the device or is this the
> right thing to do? 
You might, and you might not. I remember doing this in my Galaxy S and
CM7 had to repartition my 2.1 (or something similar). So, the check for
and old
partition scheme *may* still be there, but if it isn't, the install
script may cancel early (likely) or fail later (unlikely, but possible).

> Heimdall seems to want to do some intermediate step
> before the real CM is installed.  Do I need to do this with the
> recovery firmware I have? 
The page explains that a bit: what you will extract from that .tar will
contain a recovery image embedded. So heimdall will flash it for you and a
reboot will get you to this new recovery version.

> Should I zip the zImage above that
> heimdall failed to install, call it update.zip and put it in /sdcard
> and then run "reinstall package"?
> 
No.

> Thanks for replying.  Any hints that would prevent me from making a
> brickable mistake will be much appreciated.
> 
If you can go back to download mode you are usually safe. I think there
is an option to do a more verbose logging so you can see where things
have failed. You can then try to go back to recovery mode and use adb to
extract a log file from your /sdcard.

> Augustine
> 
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-- 
Igor Almeida


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