Fastboot Waiting for Device - TWRP Installation

[msx.asdf]

Hello, folks.

I'm still new to all this and I'm completely stuck trying to get TWRP installed. Gone through all the steps, and everything I could find on Google as well, yet fastboot won't do anything for me.

What I've been trying is: adb devices shows device, reboot bootloader boots into download mode, fastboot devices returns nothing, fastboot flash recovery twrp.img(4.4, hopefully the right one?) returns waiting for any device.

Rooted and bootloader is unlocked, twrp file is in same folder as adb and fastboot which is where admin cmd prompt is open to.
I've downloaded the samsung and google drivers.
Confirmed device is recognized in device manager.
Tried different USB ports.
Tried installing via the TWRP manager app, get an error installing any version.

Feels like I must be missing something stupid. Just trying to get a new ROM to hopefully speed this thing up.
Thanks for any advice!

 

[bftb0]

EDIT - skip to bottom

The use of fastboot to interact with bootloader firmware is NOT universal among Android handset makers.

In particular, Samsung. Fastboot hasn't worked with Samsung android devices for a long time (it possibly never did).

The nearest analagous equivalent is Samsung's "Odin" software (for Windows PCs).

There is also "heimdal" for *nix machines which attempts to replicate the behaviors of Odin.

The handset boot mode most closely corresponding to "fastboot" is Samsung's "Download" (or "Odin") mode. On the Note 3 you enter that mode from a cold start with a three-finger salute: Vol-Down+Home+Power. A splash screen will show up allowing you to "Cancel" (normal boot) or "Download" mode.

It is harmless to enter that mode if you want to look at what the screen looks like, but you might have to pull the battery to get out of it if you don't use Odin.

Search XDA for "Odin" ( or heimdal), you will find plenty of posts



Flashing TWRP:

The TWRP images are not filesystems, but just a large (bootable) binary blob file (containing a kernel, ramdisk, and device tree).

That means you can simply use the "dd" command (as the root user) to write the .img blob into the recovery partition, using a shell/ terminal. Could be using either adb or a terminal emulator app. You just need to have a root prompt.

Obviously you need to be cautious about this, making sure you are blasting bits into the correct partition (the recovery partition).

e.g. see

ls -ld /dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/*

 

[msx.asdf]

EDIT - skip to bottom

The use of fastboot to interact with bootloader firmware is NOT universal among Android handset makers.

In particular, Samsung. Fastboot hasn't worked with Samsung android devices for a long time (it possibly never did).

The nearest analagous equivalent is Samsung's "Odin" software (for Windows PCs).

There is also "heimdal" for *nix machines which attempts to replicate the behaviors of Odin.

The handset boot mode most closely corresponding to "fastboot" is Samsung's "Download" (or "Odin") mode. On the Note 3 you enter that mode from a cold start with a three-finger salute: Vol-Down+Home+Power. A splash screen will show up allowing you to "Cancel" (normal boot) or "Download" mode.

It is harmless to enter that mode if you want to look at what the screen looks like, but you might have to pull the battery to get out of it if you don't use Odin.

Search XDA for "Odin" ( or heimdal), you will find plenty of posts



Flashing TWRP:

The TWRP images are not filesystems, but just a large (bootable) binary blob file (containing a kernel, ramdisk, and device tree).

That means you can simply use the "dd" command (as the root user) to write the .img blob into the recovery partition, using a shell/ terminal. Could be using either adb or a terminal emulator app. You just need to have a root prompt.

Obviously you need to be cautious about this, making sure you are blasting bits into the correct partition (the recovery partition).

e.g. see

ls -ld /dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/*

Took some further research, but I now have TWRP successfully installed!

Thank you kindly


Few notes for future searchers: from your adb folder run 'adb shell' then 'su' to get the root prompt, then enter the above command. Also the /sdcard/ folder is internal storage, actual sdcard path is /storage/extsdcard/