OEMINFO collection

[Slavon-93]

Hello everyone. I have an idea: let's share our oeminfo?

What is oeminfo?
Oeminfo is a partition in Huawei devices that defines what regional settings will be applied on boot.

How does it work?
No one except Huawei knows what exactly this partition contains. It can't be mounted, most likely doesn't contain files and its format is undefined.
The only thing we know is that changing its content to the one from device of another country makes your device think it's from that country.
Also we know that the device somehow reads this partiton and decides what folder from cust partiton to read and link to.

What's all that for?
As we know, Chinese manufacturers often forget to update devices from countries other than China. It makes their owners frustrate and dream of new features they'll possibly never get.

How to know what oeminfo do i have?
First of all, go to "About device" and look at build number. For example, my Russian tablet has BTV-DL09C100B005 number. BTV-DL09 is model, C100 is region my firmware belongs to and B005 is version.
At this moment we can find the newest chinese firmware, which build number is BTV-DL09C233B026. C233 is Chinese region and this firmware brings some new features to EMUI like posibility to hide navigation bar, set screen density to apps etc. Of course if your region differs from C233, you won't see this update with Update menu.
Also, you can type *#*#2846579#*#* in dialer, go to Network Information Query and then to Vendor Country info. My device shows Vendor: hw, Country: ru.

How to backup oeminfo?
I know 3 ways:
1) With TWRP backup feature
2) With dd from TWRP adb shell
3) With ES Explorer.

1) Backup with TWRP is easy and doesn't need an explanation.
2) To backup with dd go to TWRP, connect your device to the computer, type adb shell in command line and you'll be in TWRP console.
Now type dd if=/dev/block/platrofm/hi_mci.0/by-name/oeminfo of=/sdcard/oeminfo.img and you'll get a byte-to-byte copy of oeminfo partition in internal storage.
3) To backup with ES Explorer, you'll need root access. If you have if, go to /dev/block/platrofm/hi_mci.0/by-name/ and copy oeminfo to another place.

I don't know which way is the most correct, but owners of another Huawei devices change oeminfo with ES Explorer and sometimes dd.

So, what do you, guys, think? If someone has Chinese DL09 with C233 region, please, share your oeminfo, so other people could get updates.

 

[lolo83560]

Wow, great post full of great info...
Just for the sake of trying, I successfully copied my oeminfo file as you advise from /dev/... to SDcard, using ES Explorer in root mode.
For everyone's info that's a mighty 64MB file... my case is vendor=hw, country=eu.

One innocent question: say we get a Chinese oeminfo somehow, how to be sure that swapping around those files in /dev/... directory won't brick the device? (or turn the display to unreadable pinyin characters...)

 

[Slavon-93]

Wow, great post full of great info...
One innocent question: say we get a Chinese oeminfo somehow, how to be sure that swapping around those files in /dev/... directory won't brick the device? (or turn the display to unreadable pinyin characters...)

Well, this method of switching regions is used on many huawei devices like Mate 8, Honor 6, P8 lite, Mediapad M2, Mediapad X2, etc. I can't garantee that it works on M3, but I don't think it's something completely different from other devices where this method works. Anyway, at this moment I want to collect these files from different regions and see if they're at least similar. Its size is really 64MB and it's OK. I also would make a dd backup just in case something goes wrong.

P.S. what's your build number? I'd like to know if other countries have more recent firmware than Russia, cause the reason of all this messing around is just getting as more updates as possible.

 

[lolo83560]

P.S. what's your build number? I'd like to know if other countries have more recent firmware than Russia, cause the reason of all this messing around is just getting as more updates as possible.

it's BTV-DL09C100B003
by the way I also uploaded my oeminfo file up there so you can play around.... (click the "Valider et telecharger le fichier" button in the middle).
Let us know how it goes...

 

[rling]

Got mine through a gray import, and looks like it is a Chinese version:
Model No: BTV-W09
Build No: BTV-W09C233B019

Device not rooted yet and waiting for availability of official recovery before installing TWRP.

Device did have a lot of Chinese app (since uninstalled) but no real issue switching language to English on first boot up. Had to select English (UK) before I can use Australia as region. Selecting English (US) did not give Australia as a country as an option.

Have also replaced the EMUI with stock standard Google interface.

 

[gotchi]

I am not rooting mine yet but my

Modelnumber: BTV-W09
Build Number: BTF-W09C100B003

bought mine officially in Austria

 

[Slavon-93]

Got mine through a gray import, and looks like it is a Chinese version:
Model No: BTV-W09
Build No: BTV-W09C233B019

What's different from DL09? Wi-Fi only, no SIM? Is there anything interesting in Settings? Does it see any OTA?

 

[lolo83560]

Hi,
from Huawei's specifications page, indeed seems only two models have been released: DL09 (L as LTE) and W09 (W as WIFI).
DL being the same as W with cellphone "Network" features added, i.e. GSM, UMTS, LTE, etc.
Availability of the LTE seems to depend on region, whereas the (cheaper) WIFI model is available everywhere.
eg. in EU we have both, whereas it seems they only get the W in the US.

 

[nospherato]

BTV-DL09
BTV-DL09C100B003

Bought in Germany (LTE Version).

 

[rling]

What's different from DL09? Wi-Fi only, no SIM? Is there anything interesting in Settings? Does it see any OTA?

WiFi only. Only had one OTA and that was when I first turned it on. No current update in settings.

 

[meghd00t]

This is important stuff since it may help us unlock the 5 GHz WiFi which is disabled in the US versions.

I have been searching and I have found https://pan.baidu.com/s/1nuUWTo1 contains the fastboot roms for the chinese versions this has 4 files boot recovery cust and system

in my preliminary analysis I see that boot and recovery are signed and the signature block is 4K

 

[lolo83560]

Looks a good start ... but it's all in Chinese characters. Google translate does a great job but eventually downloading bigger files need the "BaiduNetDisk" utility to be installed, which is all in pinyin too ... unreadable for non-asians and google translate cannot be used to help it.

Any chance you could retrieve this all and upload it for us to another place?
Essentially these two big 1.4GB files cannot be downloaded w/o the utility :
华为_BTV-W09_BTV-W09C233B017_中国(China)_6.0.zip
华为_BTV-W09_BTV-W09C233B010_中国(China)_6.0.zip

and beware, the file MiFlash工具教程.zip is reported by Firefox to contain a virus or malware. Might be true or not, but at least MSE does not flag it as dangerous.

 

[Slavon-93]

Looks a good start ... but it's all in Chinese characters. Google translate does a great job but eventually downloading bigger files need the "BaiduNetDisk" utility to be installed, which is all in pinyin too ... unreadable for non-asians and google translate cannot be used to help it.

Any chance you could retrieve this all and upload it for us to another place?
Essentially these two big 1.4GB files cannot be downloaded w/o the utility :
华为_BTV-W09_BTV-W09C233B017_ä¸*国(China)_6.0.zip
华为_BTV-W09_BTV-W09C233B010_ä¸*国(China)_6.0.zip

and beware, the file MiFlash工具教程.zip is reported by Firefox to contain a virus or malware. Might be true or not, but at least MSE does not flag it as dangerous.

Don't know why, but I can mark these files, press 下载 button and files are being downloaded. The problem is it's very slow.

Also, I have a link to Full OTA firmware for BTV-W09C233B019:

http://update.hicloud.com:8180/TDS/data/files/p3/s15/G1224/g490/v67974/f1/full/update.zip

PLEASE, BE VERY CAREFUL IF YOU WANT TO INSTALL IT

How-to:
1) Download this file.
2) Open it and assure that it has META-INF folder and UPDATE.APP file inside.
3) Find some kind of Huawei firmware extractor and open UPDATE.APP with it.
4) Extract cust.img and verlist.img
5) Open verlist.img with notepad or any other text editor and assure it has BTV-W09Cxxx inside, where xxx is a number.
6) Find ext4 extractor and extract cust.img. Somewhere in dualcu/cn/prop you will find local.prop. Open it and assure it has ro.build.display_id=BTV-DL09C233B019 inside.
7) Boot into TWRP and make a backup, transfer in to the PC.
8) Make a backup of all partitions with dd from adb shell (still it TWRP):

for f in 3rdmodem 3rdmodemnvm 3rdmodemnvmbkp boot cache cust dfx dts fastboot frp fw_hifi fw_lpm3 hisitest0 hisitest1 hisitest2 misc modem modem_dsp modem_dtb modem_om modemnvm_backup modemnvm_factory modemnvm_img modemnvm_system modemnvm_update nvme oeminfo persist recovery recovery2 reserved1 reserved2 secure_storage sensorhub splash splash2 system teeos trustfirmware vrl vrl_backup ; do echo "Copying $f"; dd if=$f of=/sdcard/$f.img; done

Please, edit it according to partitions you have, because this script is for BTV-DL09. The easiest way to do it is launch "ls -1" command, copy its output to notepad, delete userdata from the list and put everything in one line.
9) Copy img files to your computer.
10) put update.zip to your tablet's memory and install it with TWRP, just like any other zip file.
11) You will loose TWRP, so boot into fastboot and reinstall it.

I'm not responsible if anything goes wrong. I don't have W09 tablet, but all these have been done by me on a DL09 variant with Chinese C233B026 firmware.

Also, I will try to download these zip files and put them to another site.

Added links to those Chinese ROMS. Please, tell me if you can't download them or can't undestand how to.
Link to Chinese firmware files

 

[mrSpuddy]

BTV-W09
BTV-W09C100B003

European (WiFi Version).

 

[Slavon-93]

So, well, thanks to all. As I see, there's really no great need in changing OemInfo at this moment.
Here're the reasons:
1) You want OTA -> you don't modify the system. Otherwise it won't install.
2) If you have root and did some modifications, it's better to install Chinese firmware than wait for an OTA which may come or not.
3) This tablet is not a cheap one and still there was no person who'd like to try changing OEMINFO to some other, so we don't know if it can be done at all.
4) Chinese firmware can be successfully installed with TWRP and if you backup your cust partition and restore your original folder structure there after installation, you won't have any problems. Moreover your tablet will behave just like it's from your country, not China.
5) Nobody knows how to manually install OTA updates, because old ways don't work and new ones are not discovered.

 

[bejam]

Could somebody post a TWRP backup of the Chinese version of oeminfo for the BTV-DL09C233.

 

[KorAdvocat]

TWRP backup image of BTV-DL09C233 (Chinese LTE Version) OEMinfo

Could somebody post a TWRP backup of the Chinese version of oeminfo for the BTV-DL09C233.

Hello all, I'm relatively new to this forum but I'd like to make a contribution.
Recently I rebranded my Mediapad M3, changing the oeminfo from C233 to C100.

I made a backup before this change and would like to share it.

Of course, I wouldn't recommend the C233 unless you are Chinese. Because of the Chinese gov't ban on Google products, it removes most standard Google features and replaces them with Chinese versions.
While there are workarounds (installing Google Play) I feel that it significantly alters the Android experience.

I can confirm that changing from C233(China) to C100(Europe) works well, however I am not sure if the same can be said of the converse situation.

Anyway, enjoy!
mega.nz/#!9QFFALgT!ugaSQooJBIRlnHHMq7Abrf6lru3SjLcgnvbV3hglPok
Since I'm a new user I can't post a direct link right now

 

[trd_jzx100]

thanks for the oem info.is there much bloatware on the chinese version

 

[KorAdvocat]

Chinese bloatware

thanks for the oem info.is there much bloatware on the chinese version

There are maybe about 10 apps in place of google apps, but most of them can be uninstalled. A few can only be disabled

 

[tmihai20]

I bought mine in Romania, it has Vendor: hw, Country: eu. The sticker on the back, with the MAC and S/N says Huawei Technologies Netherlands BV. I have a W09C100 version, with Nougat B301 on it right now.