[HOW-TO] Change your Boot Splash + ZIPs + Online Generator + Warning Gone + Ville/C2

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LibertyMonger

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Mar 13, 2011
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Sure it wasn't 2.4.3.0 ? ?

Then that just underlines the necessity to refrain from using ANY recovery to flash hboots.
Tec tried to explain it to me but i didn't quite understand or else i would have explained it here on thread but flashing hboots from within recovery is dangerous.

I'm absolutely positive hers was 2.3.3 cause i checked it beforehand and I haven't updated her phone since Viper ICS. Mine is 2.4.2

---------- Post added at 08:21 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:10 PM ----------

You better flash it with a different method then and not with a recovery anymore...

Yeah thanks man, I'm all out of thanks or I would give you one lol. I'm enjoying no red warning on my device so I had a 50/50 chance of bricking it I guess lol.

---------- Post added at 08:24 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:21 PM ----------

I'm absolutely positive hers was 2.3.3 cause i checked it beforehand and I haven't updated her phone since Viper ICS. Mine is 2.4.2

---------- Post added at 08:21 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:10 PM ----------



Yeah thanks man, I'm all out of thanks or I would give you one lol. I'm enjoying no red warning on my device so I had a 50/50 chance of bricking it I guess lol.

Well I can't say i haven't updated it since ICS, I did but it was too early for JellyBean version she wanted to stick with ICS at the time cause of her theme. But it's been a long time since I messed with her phone. It's been since the initial release of s-off

PS... after flashing this hboot mod it flashed successful but went to black screen after reboot.
 
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Sneakyghost

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PS... after flashing this hboot mod it flashed successful but went to black screen after reboot.

You see, while flashing something, even hboot, everything operates in RAM. So you can write any bullsh!t to any partition except live partitions like /system while being booted and you can write to all partitions from recovery, even to the recovery partition (as that is opertional from RAM). This is provided your device is Security-OFF. If it was S-ON, certain partitions would have a write-protect to protect you from exactly what you did.

If you now write to the partition where the bootloader is and it screws up, the phone stays operational until you reboot, simply because the bootloader is not needed during normal operation, its sole task is to load any operating system into RAM from the initial press of the power button.
This of course is a simplified version of the internal ongoings.

This scenario also offers a minimal security if you know about it: since the phone won't brick instantly, you can still write back a healthy hboot with e.g. a "dd" command if you happen to notice that the flash screwed up. You only need to educate yourself on how to detect a failed hboot write, or at least get some intuition for these kinda things, so you keep yourself from hitting reboot if you get that odd feeling.
As long as your phone is live you can recover it.
 

LibertyMonger

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Mar 13, 2011
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I stayed up all night fixing her phone up, upgrading it to Viper 2.2 and making her an AOSP backup nandroid and went to bed around 4am without fixing all of her settings and stuff, then I was looking around in Themes and apps to see if I could find something she would like and then I seen this thread for the first time lol. So I tried it on my device first and then rushed to do hers before it was time for her to leave. I don't know the exact reason why it happened but I do know I need to be more careful. I should have left it alone til next weekend when I had more time. Everything in here is fairly simple and always extremely easy when I do things with my device, cause I am not under any pressure, but when I start fooling with someone elses device I always run into snags and it always takes me longer than usual. It's the pressure of being responsible for someone elses device I guess, I am sure we have all experienced it, where you talk your girlfriend or somebody into jackin up their phone, and you tell them how awesome and easy and how much better it is and it backfires and smacks you in the face Lmao. That is what happened to me. Maybe I should have used the same TWRP as I used for mine. Anyway, it is a step closer to more precautions I guess and I am proud to be the useful idiot Lol.
 

Sneakyghost

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maybe baby shoulda woulda been betta.... u never know n we all know that story n all it does it teaches u a painful lesson. mine was coupla hundred bucks a few times, well speaking new devices prices...

Important thing is to learn to closely observe whats going on when trying new things so in case something goes wrong you can tell the community and help others to avoid. Like this time you weren't exactly precise but had an idea what was going on so it was enough for Tec to repro it and that makes sure people will in future avoid this situation. If they're smart enough to read a bit here... So thanks for that dude.
 
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Sneakyghost

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I like to add that it worked for me on TWRP 2.3.3.0.

I like to repeat that Tecardo pointed out there is a technical problem with flashing hboots through Recovery which makes the Brick Risk increase a lot.

It has to do with bit-correct write operations which are not guaranteed from recovery. One flipped bit is enough to cause a brick. So this applies to stock hboots too. It is a general warning to flash hboots from recovery.

But otherwise, 2.3 should be OK. 2.4.3.0 is the one which is worst obviously. The version 2.4.4.0 hasn't had much feedback yet.
 

Darknites

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Jul 2, 2011
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I like to repeat that Tecardo pointed out there is a technical problem with flashing hboots through Recovery which makes the Brick Risk increase a lot.

It has to do with bit-correct write operations which are not guaranteed from recovery. One flipped bit is enough to cause a brick. So this applies to stock hboots too. It is a general warning to flash hboots from recovery.

But otherwise, 2.3 should be OK. 2.4.3.0 is the one which is worst obviously. The version 2.4.4.0 hasn't had much feedback yet.

Ya I'm in no rush to change it but do you think the manual way is better or just as risky.
 

Sneakyghost

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Ya I'm in no rush to change it but do you think the manual way is better or just as risky.

To be quite honest, i have forgotten how to change hboot without using dd.
Which is the same method as Recovery. I am also using dd all the time but i need to reconsider. Its very Late/Early here. nearly 5 AM. Will look into it tomorrow (flashing from fastboot).
 

Darknites

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Jul 2, 2011
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To be quite honest, i have forgotten how to change hboot without using dd.
Which is the same method as Recovery. I am also using dd all the time but i need to reconsider. Its very Late/Early here. nearly 5 AM. Will look into it tomorrow (flashing from fastboot).

Oh right, not really messed with Hboot other then the downgrade and S-Off and this mod so I think I stop there lol.
 

Tecardo

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Nov 22, 2011
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Changing Recovery: Get you a ota firmware.zip
Change the interneal partition (only let the hboot in there and replace it with the hboot you want) and flash how you normally flash a firmware.zip ;)
 
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Sneakyghost

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AW: [HOW-TO] Change your Boot Splash + Flashable ZIPs + Online Generator + Warning Go

Changing Recovery: Get you a ota firmware.zip
Change the interneal partition (only let the hboot in there and replace it with the hboot you want) and flash how you normally flash a firmware.zip ;)

Thanks. That was it. Now I remember.

Here's a step-by-step for n00bies or those who suffer from digital dementia like i do:

I. grab an empty OTA.zip.
II. insert your desired hboot in there just like tec said. You can use 7zip for that (just drag in your hboot and delete the original one)
III. put that into the folder where your ADB.exe and Fastboot.exe sit. Search it if you don't know that (hint hint i copied all adb and fastboot relevant files to C:\Android to have it easier with CMD commands). Once your zip is there, put phone to fastboot mode and then just open command and navigate to that folder (cd c:\android or whatever is your path).
IV. Now type:

1. fastboot oem lock (device should be relocked for this or else the ota.zip won't flash i think, just try without and see if it works)
2. Fastboot oem rebootRUU (this reboots into the RUU mode you usually see when you run a RUU)
3. fastboot flash zip [nameofyourzip].zip (this command can be typed again if it throws an error the first time)
4. fastboot reboot-bootloader (this command will bring you back to bootloader where you can see if your hboot changed)
Alternatively:
4.a. fastboot reboot (that will bring you straight back to your system).

[EDIT]
Numbers I. to IV. are bollocks, don't work like that. check Touch Of Jobo's follow-up post for ready-made zips. Sorry. I am humiliated :D
 
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touch of jobo

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Oct 21, 2008
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fastboot

Since it it now considered bad practice to flash hboot in recovery, I have repackaged all the zips to be fastboot flashable in RUU mode.

Recipe:


  • boot your Ville into fastboot mode,
    connect USB cable,
    on your PC open a terminal window / command prompt.

  • fastboot oem rebootRUU

    wait for black screen with white HTC text

  • fastboot flash zip modded_hboot_1.13.0000.zip
    (.. or whichever .zip you choose. It should say OKAY)

  • fastboot reboot-bootloader
    To reboot into fastboot mode using the new hboot.

orig_ = unmodified, straight from the RUU.
modded_ = red warning text edited out.


Edit: @Sneakyghost:
I was just typing that :p
Step I, II and III, are already done.
In step IV, you dont have to be bootloader locked. At least not if you're S-Off. I don't know about S-On.

Edit: Added hboot 2.16 - orig and modded.
 

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Sneakyghost

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Yeah mate you seriously ROCK!

I sit here since half an hour taking apart the 3.16 OTA zip and try to reconfigure the updater-script and also try to modify the firmware.zip and i fail.
:banghead:

I now hate myself. I am going to flash a modified hboot to my head with the wrong recovery. I will brick my head. :( :laugh:

[EDIT]
Is that really all there is? An Android-Info.txt plus the hboot-file?
I was looking at the OTA structure and its quite complex due to the included system update. I was trying to take that out for one and secondly i attempted to edit the firmware.zip in there. The updater script has a write_firmware_package command i also had never seen before so i assumed for the whole thing to work i would need to leave the ota.zip structure mostly intact and just edit it according to our needs.
I was totally unaware of the fact that the firmware-package doesn't need to be included into an ota.zip but can rather be flashed straight as is.
Then: how did you manage to edit that firmware.zip? All my archivers where throwing errors????
 
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touch of jobo

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Oct 21, 2008
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Is that really all there is? An Android-Info.txt plus the hboot-file?
Uhm .. apparently ;) ... it works for me. I've tested them on my own device.

I was totally unaware of the fact that the firmware-package doesn't need to be included into an ota.zip but can rather be flashed straight as is.
But then I guess you're flashing firmware in recovery, which is frowned upon. Except that in the case of an OTA it's supposed to be the stock recovery, and trusted to be safe.

Then: how did you manage to edit that firmware.zip? All my archivers where throwing errors????
I didn't edit any zip file. I just zipped up those 2 files together. Like:
jobuntu:~ jobo$ zip modded_hboot_1.06.0000.zip android-info.txt hboot.nb0
 
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Sneakyghost

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Uhm .. apparently ;) ... it works for me. I've tested them on my own device.


But then I guess you're flashing firmware in recovery, which is frowned upon. Except that in the case of an OTA it's supposed to be the stock recovery, and trusted to be safe.


I didn't edit any zip file. I just zipped up those 2 files together. Like:
jobuntu:~ jobo$ zip modded_hboot_1.06.0000.zip android-info.txt hboot.nb0


Yea second mistake of mine: the original OTA Zip flashes some stuff through recovery, although the updater-script looks like its not flashing the actual firmware-zip through recovery, but also not sure. Not very good at reading that code.

Touch, i got an Android-Tasker script (CMD) which i once wrote for myself to accomplish all those bothersome command tasks. I am now editing it to offer a selection of hboots and flash the selected one with a one-click style action.
You OK with that? I'd post it here, just as an additional service. I do that mainly for learning stuff.

[EDIT]
I am having trouble flashing the edited hboots this way. The original hboots flash fine but not the modified ones, not sure where the error is yet.
 
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touch of jobo

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You OK with that? I'd post it here, just as an additional service. I do that mainly for learning stuff.

I'm OK with you posting stuff in here, but a couple of thoughts to consider:

* Flashing hboots doesnt need to be easy but it does need to be safe. It's not something that people would (or should!!) do often. Maybe once to get rid of the red text and once to get back to stock. There is no known advantage of one hboot over another on S-Off anyway.
Also, flashing while booted in android may be somewhat safer from a kernel point of view, but there is so much other stuff going on that the whole environment is less predictable (than in recovery or especially fastboot/RUU mode).

* This thread was supposed to be about boot screen modding. (Yes, I know we took a bit of left turn..)

So it could make more sense to edit your script to convert and flash splashes than hboots, (Writing to p14 is totally safe any time. You can literally dump garbage into it and you get color-noise as a splash.) or open a thread on learning stuff about how to write android tasker commands to mod and manipulate the device.



But again, you're welcome to post anything in here that you feel is appropriate and maybe even useful.

-Jobo


[EDIT]
I am having trouble flashing the edited hboots this way. The original hboots flash fine but not the modified ones, not sure where the error is yet.
Which one? What error message do you get?
 
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touch of jobo

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Tec tried to explain it to me but i didn't quite understand or else i would have explained it here on thread but flashing hboots from within recovery is dangerous.
If your recovery is good, it is safer than while booted, because less other stuff is going on. I guess what it comes down to is that kernels used in recoveries are under less scrutiny than those used in full roms, so there is a higher chance of issues slipping through unnoticed. (Unnoticed until someone does something different and bricks.)

I will most definitely be using that when I get my new replacement and trying this again lol.
Ha! You dont have to be polite if you think its cheesy (I do .. my scrapbooking skillz). But you said peace and pink so I figured rainbow. :eek: If you do like it, here is the gimp file so you can change the text.
 

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Sneakyghost

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Hboot Flasher batch script

Read your post too late. Work done so i will post it. Took me ages because when scripting fastboot oem rebootRUU with a flash zip command in succession, it always fails and it took me ages to figure out there needs to be a wait inbetween because fastboot oem rebootRUU doesn't seem to wait whereas the normal fastboot reboot contains a wait for device function somehow.

Here's the Flasher packed in a self extracting WinRAR archive:

LINK to HBOOT Flasher

13th of may 2013
- Added option 16: open CMD Prompt (to be able to quickly change CID when the zips refuse to flash...)

05th of may 2013:
-corrected an error in the script.
-inserted a confirm for S-OFF and Product at launch-time

If i understand this right, the RUU mode can also flash to p14 as splash, can't it? i mean the RUU would also update that part wouldn't it? So actually i can just adapt this script to flash the respective splash files but i would need to know how to name them correctly so its not flashing the p14 to p12 or some evil sh!t like that :laugh:
would you know how that would look like correctly done?

[EDIT]
The Hboot files all contain HTC__001 in the Android-info.txt file. I just had one user who could not flash them on his HTC__102 device.
If you happen to get error 42 wrong customer ID and get stuck in RUU Mode, please just run this command in CMD: "fastboot oem writecid HTC__001" and then repeat the hboot flash. It will be good then. Avoid rebooting the phone, just leave it stuck where it is and do the writecid command, then repeat the hboot flash. I updated the script so that option 16 opens a command prompt for you in the right place.

Also i forgot to point out this: the flasher script does NOT reboot the phone when its finished to give u a chance to see if everything worked good. You have to pick option 14 (reboot to bootloader) or 15 (reboot to system) afterwards to reboot. The green progress-bar on the phone will stop at about 3/4 of the way. That is normal! It only moves on when you do the reboot command!
It basically is to hold it there in case anything went wrong. If i had done the reboot automatically and say, the hboot got erased but not flashed, it would brick instantly. This way, you can catch errors and then decide to reboot if all went well.
 
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  • 80
    You can have your own custom boot splash. (This is the very first picture you see when you boot up the device. Before the boot animation. The one you also see when booting into recovery.)

    Upload a picture here. (It should be 540x960 pixels. If it's not, it gets resized without preserving proportions.) It generates a .zip that you can flash in recovery.
    Or pick one from the list at the bottom of this post.

    You must be on hboot 1.06 or 1.09 for this to work. If you're not, here is how to downgrade your hboot.
    If you're S-Off, this will work on any hboot version. If you're not, here is how to get S-Off.

    Flashing a new boot splash does not get rid of the red "This build is for development only.." warning text. (Edit: Now that we have S-Off, you can edit out the warning text in the hboot image. I tried it. It works. But it's a dangerous thing to do if you don't do everything exactly correct.)

    If you create one that you feel is especially nice, feel free to post it in this thread. ("Pics and zips please.")

    /!\ So far there are (at least) 2 reports where the flashable zip did not work, but manually dd'ing the raw 565 file into mmcblk0p14 did work. If someone can point out what the update script in the zip does not do that is required to successfully flash the splash, I'd be very interested.



    You can also get rid of the red warning text overlay. (If you're S-Off)

    I modified a couple of hboots to edit out the warning text, and made flashable zips for them. See post #148. <-- You must be S-Off for this. If you're not you can get bricked.
    (A side effect of flashing the 1.14.0004 hboot is that your ** TAMPERED ** flag is gone, even when flashing different ones afterwards.)


    -Jobo






    Original post, from before it was so easy...
    If you have a 540x960px image, save/convert it to raw rgb565 (The resulting file should be 1036800 bytes.. 540x960x2) and dd it into /dev/block/mmcblk0p14.

    I tested with this attached one. (That zip is not flashable. Just unzip it and dd the raw 565 file. You dont need to be in recovery, you can do it while booted.) I'm sure others can do better but this was good enough to see that it works, and I like a dark splash better than the light one.

    You will still get the red 'This build is for development only' stuff overlaid tho.
    That overlay text sits in mmcblk0p12:0xBD700 by the way but I dont dare poke into that partition.


    Update 2012/7/19: See post #8 to make it flashable from recovery.
    Update 2012/7/25: Looks like this will only for for hboot-1.06 and 1.09, not for 1.13 and up.
    (Unless you're S-Off)
    Update 2012/9/20: Collected all boot splashes here.
    Update 2012/10/1: Made a php thingy to generate flashable zips from a web form. See post #115.
    Update 2013/1/2: Redid this post to point at the online zip generator.
    Update 2013/2/22: Made some additions/edits regarding S-Off
    Update 2013/2/23: Added some flashable edited hboots. See post #148.
    Update 2013/3/16: Added fastboot-flashable zips, as it is now discouraged to flash hboot in recovery. See post #274
    Update 2013/6/11: Minor php script update in the online generator because I added a version for the One-M7
    Update 2013/11/22: Confirmed to work on VilleC2 as well.
    Update 2014/05/31: Added support for the Desire X
    Update 2014/07/15: Added support for the One M8
    Update 2014/07/17: Hmmm... So it turns out that the zips for the M7 also work for the Butterfly S. I had no idea.


    splash-(lcambriz)-google.zip
    splash-(pagantek)-motherboard.zip
    splash-(randomnoob83)-supergirl.zip
    splash-(Stroid01)-napoli-flame-effect.zip
    splash-(Stroid01)-napoli.zip
    splash-(Stroid01)-realmadrid.zip
    splash-(TramainM)-rings.zip
    splash-black.zip
    splash-blue.zip
    splash-stock.zip
    splash-tampered.zip
    splash-viper.zip
    splash-(Orical)-aktion.zip
    splash-(ChaseMDuffin)-thc.zip
    splash-ragnarokmk2.zip
    splash-(essentialmindz)-OneS.zip
    splash-(Sneakyghost)-venomOne.zip
    54
    fastboot

    Since it it now considered bad practice to flash hboot in recovery, I have repackaged all the zips to be fastboot flashable in RUU mode.

    Recipe:


    • boot your Ville into fastboot mode,
      connect USB cable,
      on your PC open a terminal window / command prompt.

    • fastboot oem rebootRUU

      wait for black screen with white HTC text

    • fastboot flash zip modded_hboot_1.13.0000.zip
      (.. or whichever .zip you choose. It should say OKAY)

    • fastboot reboot-bootloader
      To reboot into fastboot mode using the new hboot.

    orig_ = unmodified, straight from the RUU.
    modded_ = red warning text edited out.


    Edit: @Sneakyghost:
    I was just typing that :p
    Step I, II and III, are already done.
    In step IV, you dont have to be bootloader locked. At least not if you're S-Off. I don't know about S-On.

    Edit: Added hboot 2.16 - orig and modded.
    40
    Get rid of red warning text overlay

    UPDATE:

    SINCE IT IS NO LONGER CONSIDERED SAFE TO FLASH HBOOT IN RECOVERY,

    I HAVE PACKAGED UP ALL IMAGES AS FASTBOOT FLASHABLE ZIPS

    AND POSTED THOSE UP IN POST#274




    Original post:
    Now that we have S-Off, (..and ONLY if you have S-Off!!) we can get rid of the red warning text overlay that has defaced our boot splashes until now.

    This build is for
    development purposes only
    Do not distribute outside of HTC
    without HTC's written permission.
    Failure to comply may
    lead to legal action.​

    Using the same recipe as for the flashable splash zips, these are flashable hboot zips. They were modified to edit out the warning text; no other modifications.
    Enjoy clean custom splash. A side-effect of hboot-1.14.0004 is that it clears the ** TAMPERED ** flag, even if you flash a different one afterwards.

    I tested all 4 (edit: 7) of these on my own device. But as always, flash at own risk. You're writing to a critical part of your phone. If anything goes wrong along the way, you might be bricked.

    -Jobo




    Update: added 1.14.0005 (by cat2115).
    Update: added 1.09.0000
    Update: DO NOT FLASH THESE IF YOU'RE NOT S-OFF!!
    Update: Also posted flashable zips with the original unmodified hboots. See post #212.
    Update: /!\ [2013-03-15] We have a BRICK on an S-OFF device!! ("flash at own risk" is no longer just a phrase..)
    Lately there has been a series of TWRP recoveries that have issues flashing (some?) ROMs. It's possible that this brick is related to flashing an hboot image with it. I don't know this for a fact, but for now I don't recommend flashing hboot images using any TWRP version higher than 2.3.3.0 (until I know more).
    Update: fastboot flashable zips now available in post#274. Those are recommended over the ones from this post.
    9
    Does the name have to be the same..
    The name doesn't matter, but the contents must be raw rgb565 data.
    Just put the file on your sdcard, and then from an adb shell, dd it into mmcblk0p14.
    -Jobo


    Edit: Attachment is flashable in recovery. You can just replace the file in /cache/
    Edit: To work around the 20 attachment limit, I use this post to 'host' flashable zips to link to from post #1.
    8
    original unmodified hboots as recovery-flashable zips

    Update: Instead of flashing hboot in recovery, it is recommended to flash via fastboot. See post#274 for fastboot flashable zips with modded and original hboots.


    Original post:
    These are the original unmodified hboots as recovery-flashable zips. For all except 1.14.0005. that's the one that cat2115 made and I don't have the RUU or OTA it comes from.
    All of them tested on my own device before posting. Must be S-Off.​