Neo Noogie, full backup/restore for Glow2, 3, 4

[Renate]

I just put up a new version of all three images (in the signature).
There is a minor change that makes them more resilient if you happened to have broken your NTX hwcfg.

Edit: The filesizes and MD5s are now directly on the download page.

 

[jun127]

Is there a step-by-step guide for using Neonoogie to create a backup of the Nook Glowlight Plus 7.8 (2019) prior to any modification, and later restoring to factory default software and settings from the backup?

 

[Renate]

For the 7.8" it's nnglow4.img.
You can either fastboot flash recovery nnglow4.img or else dd if=nnglow4.img of=/dev/block/mmcblk0p2
Then reboot recovery
Tell Windows not to format anything!
Now the lowest letter volume in Windows is the entire physical flash of your device.

There are many utilities that can copy from/to there, but I prefer my own sdcard.exe

C:\>sdcard /r G mybackup.img

If you want to restore (and verify), it's:

C:\>sdcard /w /v G mybackup.img

 

[jun127]

Just to be clear, this would include the stock recovery, and everything else that could be changed, modified or destroyed?

It looks like fastboot flash recovery nnglow4.img installs the compatible version of NN (nnglow4.img, available from your site) to the recovery, overwriting the stock recovery or TWRP. If so, how would you back up everything including the stock recovery?

Is it possible to create a true, "complete factory default" backup, assuming you ran Neo Noogie (NN) before using the device? Is there anything that isn't included in this method of backup that could potentially be destroyed or modified through things like user action or the OTA update process?

Is there any way to run "nnglow4.img" so that it does not modify the existing state of the device? In other words, after taking a backup, rebooting the device without modifying the drive will cause the Nook to return to normal as if NN had never been ran (not replacing the stock recovery)? Would simply fastboot boot nnglow4.img work for this?

Could you explain the syntax and use case of dd if=nnglow4.img of=/dev/block/mmcblk0p2?

Lastly, after the backup is taken (or restored), I assume you simply "remove device" and power off, then power on again? I assume if Windows formats (or somehow the mounted drive gets damaged), you're true-bricked without special hardware, access to the inside of the device (is it glued?) and having an existing NN backup to restore to.

 

[Renate]

Just to be clear, this would include the stock recovery, and everything else that could be changed, modified or destroyed?

NeoNoogie (like Noogie before it) serves the raw physical device /dev/block/mmcblk0 over UMS. If you sdcard.exe it, you've transferred every bit of memory.
You can't back up the stock recovery if you've flashed over it. The recovery images are in the update.zip if you want the originals.

Would simply fastboot boot nnglow4.img work for this?

Probably.

Could you explain the syntax and use case of dd if=nnglow4.img of=/dev/block/mmcblk0p2?

That's how you flash a partition in ADB shell instead of fastboot.

I assume if Windows formats (or somehow the mounted drive gets damaged), you're true-bricked without special hardware, access to the inside of the device (is it glued?) and having an existing NN backup to restore to.

An update.zip has a lot of stuff, but not all that's on your device. There is the partitioning, the S/N, the hwcfg, the ntxfw. If you trash that you'll have more work to do.
My imxlink.exe interacts with the ROM bootloader, so you can always get a device unbricked. It might be more trouble and you might need a UART if you really did bad things.

 

[jun127]

I just got my Nook and I'm attempting to use Fastboot to boot Neo Noogie. I can run ADB commands, and I'm able to see the device with adb devices and authorize it. However, when I enter adb reboot fastboot, nothing seems to happen. When I then run fastboot boot nnglow4.img I get < waiting for any device >.

I've tried this one two laptops. In both instances, I used minimal adb and fastboot available here: XDA-thread. On one computer I used the installer, and on the other I used the portable version.

Laptop 1:

• Used the "minimal adb and fastboot" installer
• Only USB 3.0 ports
• Win 10

Laptop 2:

• Used the "minimal adb and fastboot" portable version
• Both USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports
• Win 10

I ran the same commands and received the same error on both computers. Is there an easy solution?

 

[Renate]

Whenever you don't know which direction is up, do:

C:\>adb devices
C:\>fastboot devices

You may not have the Windows driver for fastboot installed.
You can also look in Device Manager (devmgmt.msc) for lost and homeless devices.

 

[jun127]

Whenever you don't know which direction is up, do:

C:\>adb devices
C:\>fastboot devices

You may not have the Windows driver for fastboot installed.
You can also look in Device Manager (devmgmt.msc) for lost and homeless devices.

Running both commands shows the device in adb, but not fastboot. BNRV700 shows up in universal serial bus devices, and the driver installed is the WinUSB device driver. I've also installed Android Studio and added Google's USB device driver through the SDK manager, however driver update does not detect it as a compatible driver for BNRV700 (WinUSB ADB device) under "universal serial bus devices", or Nook (E:/ when mass storage is disabled) which uses the WPD FileSytem Volume driver under "portable devices".

Update: Solved.

The solution was to install the google driver using adb installer here: xiaomi tools
Then, I was able to adb reboot fastboot, at which point the device appeared in the device manager under the proper location, "Android devices" with the Google's "Android ADB Interface" driver.

F:\>adb devices
List of devices attached
0000000000000000        device

F:\>adb reboot fastboot

F:\>fastboot devices
0000000000000000        fastboot

F:\adb>

Update2: I was not prepared for that level of terrifying prompts. Windows added about 8 inaccessible "USB drives", each one opening a window's explorer and a prompt alert saying innaccessible. Each one opened a format prompt, and Kaspersky antivirus started scanning each drive repeatedly, opening over 30-40 prompts. It was a desktop DDOS of alert prompts and drive scans with "format device" bombs randomly between them. Windows won't even let you right click and close all, because it's waiting for user input for each alert message.

I was able to initially close all the prompts as carefully as I could (the kaspersky ones needed to stop each scan individually), and I started the backup with the lowest drive letter, which in my case was E. I walked away from the computer at about 5% and when I came back, it had failed at 30% with an error reading SD card message. I tried running it again but this time it failed at 3% and the device started disconnecting and reconnecting rapidly, each time opening dozens of prompts which would redirect user input. I had no choice but to unplug the nook and hold power until it restarted.

I'd like to try again, but there must be something that can be done to mitigate the danger of Windows trying to nuke the device. It's insane Windows still doesn't have an option to disable this behavior. Maybe turning off autoplay (start >> autoplay settings >> off) would help?

 

[jun127]

I made another attempt at backing up with nnimage4.img, this time turning off autostart to stop so many popups. I was able to run the backup, which reached 100% and completed without issues. The backup image size is 7.26gb. But now the nook isn't starting. It's stuck on the animated loading screen, should I just let it run? It doesn't make a lot of sense as I definitely didn't hit format on any of the partitions. I haven't rooted the device yet. I still have adb access and I can reboot into recovery. Rebooting the bootloader just ends up on the loading screen forever. I have TWRP installed.

 

[Renate]

Hmm, I certainly hope that you didn't let Windows format anything.
Did you have ADB on before you started? Is it still there?
The boot animation running just means that Android doesn't have a home app to run.
The underlying Linux may still be 100% happy.

If you have ADB working, just install any kind of launcher and see if that works.

 

[jun127]

Hmm, I certainly hope that you didn't let Windows format anything.
Did you have ADB on before you started? Is it still there?
The boot animation running just means that Android doesn't have a home app to run.
The underlying Linux may still be 100% happy.

If you have ADB working, just install any kind of launcher and see if that works.

After I restored from a TWRP backup I was able to boot into the Nook again. I did previously install several launchers and never set a default launcher (I just selected the one I wanted to test at the moment, as I was trying to find a workable solution to wallpapers). It doesn't seem like it should prevent it from booting, but it seems plausible that installing multiple launchers could cause problems if it doesn't know which launcher to start. If that's the case, maybe it doesn't have anything to do with neo noogie and it was a coincidence, as I'm not sure if I tried rebooting after installing launchers. That's easy to test though and I might try it again later now that I know it's easy to recover from. Also, if that was the issue, it seems that uninstalling all the launchers with adb, asides from the original, could be a viable recovery option if it happens again.

After running the nnglow4.img backup I ran "adb reboot bootloader". After it rebooted into the loading screen to nowhere, I did an "adb reboot recovery" and then tried booting from twrp, which also didn't work. Ultimately I decided to restore from twrp backup, as I hadn't made too many changes. Oddly, TWRP gave a failed status, although it seemed to work anyway.

 

[Renate]

I believe that Windows still asks you HOW you want to format if you did say "yes", so I don't think that you did it without noticing.
NeoNoogie doesn't touch the flash itself, it just offers it on a platter to your desktop.
Of course, your desktop can do anything it wants to it.

 

[jun127]

I believe that Windows still asks you HOW you want to format if you did say "yes", so I don't think that you did it without noticing.
NeoNoogie doesn't touch the flash itself, it just offers it on a platter to your desktop.
Of course, your desktop can do anything it wants to it.

Yeah, I also tried turning off kaskpersky this time, but apparently Kaspersky doesn't listen because it started "scanning for viruses" on the removable disks anyway. That's one of the things I was afraid of, as who knows what is involved in checking disks. I tried to cancel all the scan attempts I could, but one of them did say "no virus found, 1 file scanned" presumably meaning it finished scanning one of the smaller partitions somehow before I could cancel it.

 

[jun127]

I believe that Windows still asks you HOW you want to format if you did say "yes", so I don't think that you did it without noticing.
NeoNoogie doesn't touch the flash itself, it just offers it on a platter to your desktop.
Of course, your desktop can do anything it wants to it.

Well, things took a disasterous turn for the worse. I found that the reason it wasn't booting was the loading animation and the "choose which launcher" popup have a conflict, and it just keeps loading until the Nook launcher is loaded, which... never happens. I found another post which said to rename the loading animation from loading animation to loadinganimation.bak, and that worked to bypass the loading screen once.

However, I kept getting "adb device offline" errors every time I tried to push install an app (it would reconnect when I unplugged and plugged it back in), so I tried restarting the device again and this time it went straight into a stock recovery bootloop. Apparently, when I restored from twrp backup, I restored the factory recovery as well and when twrp prompted to install when rebooting, it didn't actually install.

So, I'm in a stock recovery boot loop without adb connectivity. I eventually tried "resetting to factory defaults" because I forgot you also made imxlink.exe (thank god). After factory reset, I got to the sign-in screen and then when you tried logging in it says "uh oh, we're having trouble setting up your nook. Please shutdown the device and try again. .... D-AD8211".

Update 1: I was able to use imxlink.exe to get into fastboot (home button + power button) and boot into twrp and now it's connected to adb. Now I need to transfer my twrp backup and hope that works. The factory reset nuked my TWRP backup, but I think I saved it somewhere (need to copy it back to the device)

Update 2: I'm still getting the adb push errors. Device goes offline whenever I try pushing something.

F:\adb>adb push TWRP /sdcard/
adb: error: failed to read copy response3304/2022-09-28--01-06-58_KOT49H/boot.emmc.win: 100%
adb: error: failed to read copy response

Update 3: Looks like the adb push errors were on the laptop end. Restarting my computer resolved the error and I was able to push my backup back to the device.

Update 4: restoring the backup failed almost immediately with a "formatting device using make_ext4fs... Unable to wipe device." error.

Update 5: I was only able to restore the backup by going to settings > use rm -rf instead of formatting. I'm not sure why this is, hopefully this isn't due to somehow messing up partitions earlier.

Update 6: I installed ap15 launcher and set it to always load. The Nook app is somewhat different from Nook home it seems. Oh well... This allows the Nook to not hang on boot at least.

 

[Renate]

There was some silliness how B&N hacked the bootanimation.
Normally there is a property set that causes the bootanimation to stop.
On more modern devices it's service.bootanim.exit
$ getprop|grep boot.*exit
B&N did some silliness with using their own properties.

I think in some versions of the Glow I had to patch the bootanimation binary to use the right property.
Eventually that got resolved?

 

[jun127]

There was some silliness how B&N hacked the bootanimation.
Normally there is a property set that causes the bootanimation to stop.
On more modern devices it's service.bootanim.exit
$ getprop|grep boot.*exit
B&N did some silliness with using their own properties.

I think in some versions of the Glow I had to patch the bootanimation binary to use the right property.
Eventually that got resolved?

I'm on the latest firmware from B&N, so it looks like they never fixed it. Maybe they don't consider it a problem, just like they determined to take away the ability to set your own screensaver/background. You would think B&N would be less hostile considering the longevity and reputation of the NST is almost entirely due to aftermarket development.

My Nook now works fine for now with a default launcher set, although I haven't been able to find a launcher that isn't buggy. ap15 is the nicest text-based launcher I've found so far. The first time I restarted, it was just a black screen because the font color reverted to black, the same as the background color and the menus to change the font color were also unreadable. I've also tried Nova launcher, ADW launcher, KK launcher, RelaunchX, Zeam Launcher, and a couple others. Zeam is the only launcher that actually displays a background, but the background is just the screensaver with "press U to unlock".

Would you mind uploading your patched boot animation? Would be curious to try it.

 

[Renate]

Hmm, well, I don't know.
Apparently there were only two versions of bootanimation

Old version x-45 MD5 = 02e9bf1c37f118073ac564514075324d
New version x-47 MD5 = 5b480ed4280bb271f734f71386ffd2ef
Both are 21,776 bytes

I don't see any patched version over here.

I run custom launchers and I don't seem to be doing anything special.

 

[nmyshkin]

I'm on the latest firmware from B&N, so it looks like they never fixed it. Maybe they don't consider it a problem, just like they determined to take away the ability to set your own screensaver/background. You would think B&N would be less hostile considering the longevity and reputation of the NST is almost entirely due to aftermarket development.

My Nook now works fine for now with a default launcher set, although I haven't been able to find a launcher that isn't buggy. ap15 is the nicest text-based launcher I've found so far.

Have you tried this: https://bitbucket.org/dsimbiriatin/simple-ink-launcher/wiki/Home

That's the launcher that comes with the custom firmware for the Glow series.

 

[jun127]

Hmm, well, I don't know.
Apparently there were only two versions of bootanimation

Old version x-45 MD5 = 02e9bf1c37f118073ac564514075324d
New version x-47 MD5 = 5b480ed4280bb271f734f71386ffd2ef
Both are 21,776 bytes

I don't see any patched version over here.

I run custom launchers and I don't seem to be doing anything special.

Interesting, I'll check the MD5 of the one I have later.

Have you tried this: https://bitbucket.org/dsimbiriatin/simple-ink-launcher/wiki/Home

That's the launcher that comes with the custom firmware for the Glow series.

I saw that but haven't tried it yet. It looks pretty solid, the only thing is the GLP7.8 is so big, the icons would be huge if it's scaled (but maybe it isn't?). I'll try it out.

AP15 is the most feature-poor and incompatible I've tried, but the desktop is simple and functional so that's why I settled on it temporarily. The apps you run most often are largest and I'm mostly interested in KOReader at this point so it essentially just turns the launcher into a giant link to whatever you use the most. It's a pretty good concept for an ereader launcher, it's a shame the compatibility isn't great though.