[KitKat] 4.4.4 System, Boot and FOTAKernel Images

DooMLoRD · Jun 29, 2014

As the title states here are the 4.4.4 GPE System, Boot, and FOTAKernel images. The System is prerooted with busybox installed

system
MD5HASH: 49aa7777a1c60fc6742f12c2a31f1cdf
Size: 481 MB
Type: disk dump (compressed 7z)

Boot Kernel
MD5HASH: 5e8f72fd24ad3ebd993d6be621423e90
Size: 20 MB
Type: disk dump (ELF)

FOTAKernel
MD5HASH: ce19ddc8ef9c269f431c6387ec769002
Size: 16 MB
Type: disk dump (ELF)

Disclaimer: I am not responsible if you use this and brick your device or if your device blows up, implodes, flames start shooting from it... It was the other guy... I swear.... Flash at your own risk

scrubber · Jun 30, 2014

DooMLoRD said:
As the title states here are the 4.4.4 GPE System, Boot, and FOTAKernel images. The System is prerooted with busybox installed

system [UPLOADING]
MD5HASH: 49aa7777a1c60fc6742f12c2a31f1cdf
Size: 481 MB
Type: disk dump (compressed 7z)

Boot Kernel
MD5HASH: 5e8f72fd24ad3ebd993d6be621423e90
Size: 20 MB
Type: disk dump (ELF)

FOTAKernel
MD5HASH: ce19ddc8ef9c269f431c6387ec769002
Size: 16 MB
Type: disk dump (ELF)

Disclaimer: I am not responsible if you use this and brick your device or if your device blows up, implodes, flames start shooting from it... It was the other guy... I swear.... Flash at your own risk

Hi DOOMLORD!
All users are waiting UPLOADING dump GPE 4.4.4 System!
P.S. Kernel now ported

DooMLoRD · Jun 30, 2014

scrubber said:
Hi DOOMLORD!
All users are waiting UPLOADING dump GPE 4.4.4 System!
P.S. Kernel now ported

stupid asymmetric ADSL speeds... get 4 MBPS download and only 256KBPS upload :crying::crying:

restarted uploaded twice yesterday...

will try again today

scrubber · Jun 30, 2014

DooMLoRD said:
stupid asymmetric ADSL speeds... get 4 MBPS download and only 256KBPS upload :crying::crying:

restarted uploaded twice yesterday...

will try again today

Ok. Will arrange topic

DooMLoRD · Jun 30, 2014

scrubber said:
Ok. Will arrange topic

ok i give up...

again twice today it (filezilla) restarted midway from upload :'(

let me try uploading it to mega.co.nz

scrubber · Jun 30, 2014

DooMLoRD said:
ok i give up...

again twice today it (filezilla) restarted midway from upload :'(

let me try uploading it to mega.co.nz

No problem, any source and can parts

joluke · Jun 30, 2014

DooMLoRD said:
ok i give up...

again twice today it (filezilla) restarted midway from upload :'(

let me try uploading it to mega.co.nz

We can wait

DooMLoRD · Jul 1, 2014

joluke said:
We can wait

scrubber said:
No problem, any source and can parts

done

https://mega.co.nz/#!4RNx0Jaa!trTgJIXt8bB9R8LW6z3IVejSRV0MfqNvviD769UUsDo

ekrunch · Jul 1, 2014

@DooMLoRD
Have you seen a XZU GPe get stuck and be unable to flash the boot partition? I get this every time I attempt to flash it.

Code:

[root@f20 4.4.4 Stock Rooted]# fastboot flash boot boot_4.4.4.img 
sending 'boot' (20480 KB)...
OKAY [  2.462s]
writing 'boot'...
FAILED (remote: image is not a boot image)
finished. total time: 2.466s

Now before we all start screaming bad download, here's the list of things that I've tried...

I've tried multiple boot images from various sources, validating md5 sums accordingly. I even tried the restoration procedure from your thread about restoring to stock.
I've tried to erase the partition using fastboot (which doesn't return an error) but I still can't flash after that.
I've tried using a different OS with fresh drivers. I normally run on a Fedora 20 box but I've tried on Windows 7 using Flashtool as well.
I've tried to wipe & clear cache. (Didn't think this would help, but what the hell?)

Anyway, I'm out of ideas. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

And thank you for all of your hard work on the Xperia line. I've appreciated all of the posts in this forum, the system images and tutorials, as well as the custom recoveries!

Update : flashing boot.img from CM11 works fine. Clearly I'm missing something about how to flash the boot partition on this device. Apparently not all boot.img files are created equal...
Update 2 : I can flash the Advanced Stock Kernel with Dual Recovery without issue, so I'm going to flash my way back to 4.4.3 and go from there.

Fixed! : In the end, it was because I was using an ELF image and fastboot didn't like flashing it for some reason. I reverted my phone back to 4.4.3 using the stock system.img and FOTAKernel.img, then used the Advanced Stock Kernel with Dual Recovery, since they were all flashable via fastboot. Once the system was up, I used adb to push the 4.4.3 stock boot.img to the device and the did an adb shell, su'ed to root, and dd'it onto the boot device. Rebooted, OTA'ed it to 4.4.4. Done.

What a night. This is what I get for starting this project late...

ddslee · Jul 1, 2014

Has anyone with a broken camera tried flashing this image?
Does the camera work in 4.4.4 after the flash?

pudgewack · Jul 1, 2014

Sorry for the newbie question, but what is the proper way to flash these files?

This is what I tried:
fastboot flash system <system.img>
fastboot flash boot <boot.img>
fastboot flash FOTAKernel <FOTAKernel.img>

I got an error for the boot.img (same error as ekrunch), but system and FOTAKernel successfully flash.

This is my first Sony device, so not too familiar with flashing this type of phone.

Thanks,
Matt

ekrunch · Jul 2, 2014

pudgewack said:
Sorry for the newbie question, but what is the proper way to flash these files?

This is what I tried:
fastboot flash system <system.img>
fastboot flash boot <boot.img>
fastboot flash FOTAKernel <FOTAKernel.img>

I got an error for the boot.img (same error as ekrunch), but system and FOTAKernel successfully flash.

This is my first Sony device, so not too familiar with flashing this type of phone.

Thanks,
Matt

Forgive the long post, I'm sure some of this is repetitive, just trying to be complete for those who don't.

Sounds like you have the same exact problem as mine. Something about restoring an ELF image to the boot partition via Fastboot isn't working. Weird.

Alright, get ready to have some fun!

Get your device working again. I recommend using the 4.4.3 system.img/FOTAKernel.img and DooMLord's Advanced Stock Kernel with Dual Recovery. Worked like a charm for me. Get the 4.4.3 images from here and the kernel from here. Use "fastboot flash" accordingly for these 3 images. Note: The reason I use the custom kernel is b/c the 4.4.3 boot.img didn't flash correctly either.
Now you're running on 4.4.3 again, rooted. If you wiped data, don't bother signing in to your Google account, we're going to wipe again.
Now on to 4.4.4...

Okay so what we're going to do now is flash the boot.img for 4.4.4 on your running 4.4.3. Once you do this, the device probably won't boot Android again without some flashing in the boot loader, so brace yourself. :laugh:

First up, push the boot image to your device. You can do that with an ADB push, or ES File Explorer's handy FTP server, or just download the image with the phone. I used the 4.4.4 images from here. Get the boot-4.4.4.img on your device somehow and leave the system-4.4.4.img and FOTAKernel-4.4.4.img on your PC.

Code:

## [I](Not sure if you need the full path, I didn't push it this way)[/I]
adb push boot-4.4.4.img /storage/sdcard0/Download

Get a shell going

Code:

adb shell

Now that you're in the shell on your device, change to the right directory on the device, and copy the ELF image to the raw device using DD. (Everybody get your UNIX party hat out, we're going old school...)

Code:

su -
cd /storage/sdcard0/Download
dd if=boot4.4.4.img of=/dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/boot

Alright, you have a 4.4.4 boot image. Now get back to the boot loader.

Code:

adb reboot-bootloader

And now it's time to get those 4.4.4 images onto the system. I'd highly recommend a good wipe of data/cache while you're at it. ("fastboot -w" will do this for you.)

Code:

fastboot flash FOTAKernel FOTAKernel-4.4.4.img
fastboot flash system system-4.4.4.img

That should do it. Reboot, lock on to your Google account, then fire up the developer's menu and crank up ART, then enjoy your device on 4.4.4. (BTW, this still didn't fix my camera. :crying: )

Good luck everyone! Hope this helps someone out. And would somebody please chime in with the simple command that I'm missing that fixes this problem and avoids all of this foolery?

blueether · Jul 2, 2014

ekrunch said:
Forgive the long post

Nice, well explained post.

DooMLoRD · Jul 2, 2014

ekrunch said:
@DooMLoRD
Have you seen a XZU GPe get stuck and be unable to flash the boot partition? I get this every time I attempt to flash it.

Code:

[root@f20 4.4.4 Stock Rooted]# fastboot flash boot boot_4.4.4.img sending 'boot' (20480 KB)... OKAY [ 2.462s] writing 'boot'... FAILED (remote: image is not a boot image) finished. total time: 2.466s

Now before we all start screaming bad download, here's the list of things that I've tried...

I've tried multiple boot images from various sources, validating md5 sums accordingly. I even tried the restoration procedure from your thread about restoring to stock.

I've tried to erase the partition using fastboot (which doesn't return an error) but I still can't flash after that.

I've tried using a different OS with fresh drivers. I normally run on a Fedora 20 box but I've tried on Windows 7 using Flashtool as well.

I've tried to wipe & clear cache. (Didn't think this would help, but what the hell?)

Anyway, I'm out of ideas. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

And thank you for all of your hard work on the Xperia line. I've appreciated all of the posts in this forum, the system images and tutorials, as well as the custom recoveries!

Update : flashing boot.img from CM11 works fine. Clearly I'm missing something about how to flash the boot partition on this device. Apparently not all boot.img files are created equal...
Update 2 : I can flash the Advanced Stock Kernel with Dual Recovery without issue, so I'm going to flash my way back to 4.4.3 and go from there.

Fixed! : In the end, it was because I was using an ELF image and fastboot didn't like flashing it for some reason. I reverted my phone back to 4.4.3 using the stock system.img and FOTAKernel.img, then used the Advanced Stock Kernel with Dual Recovery, since they were all flashable via fastboot. Once the system was up, I used adb to push the 4.4.3 stock boot.img to the device and the did an adb shell, su'ed to root, and dd'it onto the boot device. Rebooted, OTA'ed it to 4.4.4. Done.

What a night. This is what I get for starting this project late...

you should read the "TYPE" mentioned in the OP

you cant flash ELF images using fastboot on newer s1 bootloaders

ddslee said:
Has anyone with a broken camera tried flashing this image?
Does the camera work in 4.4.4 after the flash?

my camera was working fine (could take pics in 4.4.3)...

after flashing to 4.4.4 i can no longer "take pics" using the camera app... though the camera preview is coming...

ekrunch said:
Forgive the long post, I'm sure some of this is repetitive, just trying to be complete for those who don't.

Sounds like you have the same exact problem as mine. Something about restoring an ELF image to the boot partition via Fastboot isn't working. Weird.

Alright, get ready to have some fun!

Get your device working again. I recommend using the 4.4.3 system.img/FOTAKernel.img and DooMLord's Advanced Stock Kernel with Dual Recovery. Worked like a charm for me. Get the 4.4.3 images from here and the kernel from here. Use "fastboot flash" accordingly for these 3 images. Note: The reason I use the custom kernel is b/c the 4.4.3 boot.img didn't flash correctly either.

Now you're running on 4.4.3 again, rooted. If you wiped data, don't bother signing in to your Google account, we're going to wipe again.

Now on to 4.4.4...

Okay so what we're going to do now is flash the boot.img for 4.4.4 on your running 4.4.3. Once you do this, the device probably won't boot Android again without some flashing in the boot loader, so brace yourself. :laugh:

First up, push the boot image to your device. You can do that with an ADB push, or ES File Explorer's handy FTP server, or just download the image with the phone. I used the 4.4.4 images from here. Get the boot-4.4.4.img on your device somehow and leave the system-4.4.4.img and FOTAKernel-4.4.4.img on your PC.

Code:

## [I](Not sure if you need the full path, I didn't push it this way)[/I] adb push boot-4.4.4.img /storage/sdcard0/Download

Get a shell going

Code:

adb shell

Now that you're in the shell on your device, change to the right directory on the device, and copy the ELF image to the raw device using DD. (Everybody get your UNIX party hat out, we're going old school...)

Code:

su - cd /storage/sdcard0/Download dd if=boot4.4.4.img of=/dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/boot

Alright, you have a 4.4.4 boot image. Now get back to the boot loader.

Code:

adb reboot-bootloader

And now it's time to get those 4.4.4 images onto the system. I'd highly recommend a good wipe of data/cache while you're at it. ("fastboot -w" will do this for you.)

Code:

fastboot flash FOTAKernel FOTAKernel-4.4.4.img fastboot flash system system-4.4.4.img

That should do it. Reboot, lock on to your Google account, then fire up the developer's menu and crank up ART, then enjoy your device on 4.4.4. (BTW, this still didn't fix my camera. :crying: )

Good luck everyone! Hope this helps someone out. And would somebody please chime in with the simple command that I'm missing that fixes this problem and avoids all of this foolery?

thanks for creating it

i was lazy to write all this

egzthunder1 · Jul 2, 2014

DooMLoRD said:
....

my camera was working fine (could take pics in 4.4.3)...

after flashing to 4.4.4 i can no longer "take pics" using the camera app... though the camera preview is coming...
...

Preview comes out ok as the hardware does initialize. The issue is, from what I have seen and other who may have corroborated this, is the AF on the camera. You see, photosphere actually works well, just not the regular camera. Someone else mentioned that apps using infinity focus work as well.

My guess is that something in 4.4.3 and 4.4.4 (maybe in the kernel?) is looking for the missing DRM keys from devices with unlocked BL. Several people have already stated that they have no issues with their cameras, with the only difference being the locked bootloader in their devices. Considering that Sony had done something similar with the Z1 last year, I would not be surprised if it was the case here as well. Not sure why this would be the case for a GPE unit as it has no proprietary software (other than X-Reality)...

As I said, nothing but a guess albeit it does make sense (to me anyways).

wyvernwaddell · Jul 3, 2014

Finally!!

Finally got my GPE to update using ekrunches excellent post..it took a little fiddling, (WIPE!! REALLY!!) but everything else went quite smoothly. I did find that fastboot -w didn't format partitions on cache and data and ended up in stock recovery to do a full wipe, after which things worked perfectly. Before that it was bootlooping on me. Didn't fix the camera though. I may leave this sucker mostly stock until someone fixes the camera...and on that note-I unlocked my bootloader immediately on getting the phone, before any updates ran. I've been considering the idea that if you unlocked before 4.4.2, that might be what's messing the camera up. I don't have any evidence for this though, it's just a guess.

ekrunch · Jul 3, 2014

DooMLoRD said:
you should read the "TYPE" mentioned in the OP

you cant flash ELF images using fastboot on newer s1 bootloaders

hahahaha I did. But it's the same for the boot and FOTAKernel images.

What kept throwing me was one working while the other didn't but they were both the same type of file. How nice of Sony to do this... *cough cough*

DooMLoRD said:
Boot Kernel
MD5HASH: 5e8f72fd24ad3ebd993d6be621423e90
Size: 20 MB
Type: disk dump (ELF)

FOTAKernel
MD5HASH: ce19ddc8ef9c269f431c6387ec769002
Size: 16 MB
Type: disk dump (ELF)

So is there a better way to flash that boot image or is this it?

DooMLoRD said:
thanks for creating it i was lazy to write all this

You're quite welcome. Thank you for all of the dumps, kernels, write ups, etc. It is much appreciated. I've been leeching information from this forum for years with no contribution other than some donations so I'm glad to help out. I was beating my head up against the wall when I wrote that first post as it was driving me crazy that I couldn't flash that boot image. I've been spoiled by Nexus devices.

Pallavgarg10 · Jul 6, 2014

Do i need to flash BootKernel and FOTAKernel as well or will simply flashing the system image work ?

blueether · Jul 6, 2014

Pallavgarg10 said:
Do i need to flash BootKernel and FOTAKernel as well or will simply flashing the system image work ?

Depends what you are trying to achieve?

Fully update your new GPe ZU?
From 4.4.2 to 4.4.4?

Already rooted or not, if not I would just flash the OTAs

Pallavgarg10 · Jul 6, 2014

I just want to update to 4.4.4 with as little modification as possible

[KitKat] 4.4.4 System, Boot and FOTAKernel Images

Inactive Recognized Developer

Senior Member

Inactive Recognized Developer

Senior Member

Inactive Recognized Developer

Senior Member

Senior Member

Inactive Recognized Developer

Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Member

Senior Member

Inactive Recognized Developer

Admin Emeritus - Spirit of XDA

Senior Member

Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Similar threads

Top Liked Posts