[Q] Complete wipe through ADB

[steelforce]

OK, here's the deal. My i777 was running SlimROM, updated, and now my power button is inop. Flashed back to stock ICS, but I forgot to do one critical step - a complete wipe before installing. Now my phone gets stuck at the "Rethink Possible" screen, and I can't do anything else.

I've booted into 3e recovery and tried recovery --wipe_data through adb, but it still hangs. (as suggested here). I've got a jig, forced it into download mode, and tried flashing another ROM, but I still get stuck on the Rethink Possible screen.

Is there a way that I can basically nuke all the contents of the phone so I can use it again? I've read through most of the documentation for adb, but I don't see an option.

 

[Caligula36]

OK, here's the deal. My i777 was running SlimROM, updated, and now my power button is inop. Flashed back to stock ICS, but I forgot to do one critical step - a complete wipe before installing. Now my phone gets stuck at the "Rethink Possible" screen, and I can't do anything else.

I've booted into 3e recovery and tried recovery --wipe_data through adb, but it still hangs. (as suggested here). I've got a jig, forced it into download mode, and tried flashing another ROM, but I still get stuck on the Rethink Possible screen.

Is there a way that I can basically nuke all the contents of the phone so I can use it again? I've read through most of the documentation for adb, but I don't see an option.

Id wait until a dev chimes in, but my understanding is that as you can still get into DL mode, ODIN would be your best bet. Id flash one of the all in one ODIN ICS packages that also contain boot loaders (LL6 would be most recent). As a last resort you can also flash the stock .pit file and repartition the whole phone, BUT BE SURE TO BACKUP YOUR EFS FOLDER if possible. I say this as I did not do this and now have a generic IMEI on my phone, hindering some aps from working.

ADB is able to reformat and flash ROM packages as far as i know, though it should be unnecessary as long as you can still use ODIN. The only reason i used ADB was to resurrect a S2 i bought of someone that flashed a ROM from a i9100.

 

[creepyncrawly]

OK, here's the deal. My i777 was running SlimROM, updated, and now my power button is inop. Flashed back to stock ICS, but I forgot to do one critical step - a complete wipe before installing. Now my phone gets stuck at the "Rethink Possible" screen, and I can't do anything else.

I've booted into 3e recovery and tried recovery --wipe_data through adb, but it still hangs. (as suggested here). I've got a jig, forced it into download mode, and tried flashing another ROM, but I still get stuck on the Rethink Possible screen.

Is there a way that I can basically nuke all the contents of the phone so I can use it again? I've read through most of the documentation for adb, but I don't see an option.

You need root access to format the data partition. I don't use adb a lot, but I think you can boot into recovery, then "adb shell", then "format data." You might have to type "su." If that doesn't get you out of the Rethink Possible screen, the I would format data, format system, and format cache. Then turn the phone off, by pulling the battery if necessary, and enter download mode and flash the full stock distribution. As the previous poster suggested, UCLL6 would be a good choice. You can get it from the download repository. See the link in my signature.

 

[steelforce]

You need root access to format the data partition. I don't use adb a lot, but I think you can boot into recovery, then "adb shell", then "format data." You might have to type "su." If that doesn't get you out of the Rethink Possible screen, the I would format data, format system, and format cache. Then turn the phone off, by pulling the battery if necessary, and enter download mode and flash the full stock distribution. As the previous poster suggested, UCLL6 would be a good choice. You can get it from the download repository. See the link in my signature.

Thanks. I forgot to grab the phone before I left for the office this morning, so I'll try it when I get home later tonight.

 

[steelforce]

Thanks. I forgot to grab the phone before I left for the office this morning, so I'll try it when I get home later tonight.

So, home with my phone. When I get into the shell, format isn't a valid command:

[email protected]:/ $ format
format
/system/bin/sh: format: not found

Trying to su ends up segfaulting, so I don't think it's a permissions issue. Other sources suggest using fastboot, but as I understand it, the i777 doesn't support it.

I'm looking at the mounts - is there documentation on which of the /dev/block/mmcblk0pX partitions map to the mount points? I'm familiar with Linux (at least enough to get me in trouble), but I'm lost on where to go next.

 

[creepyncrawly]

You have to have root access to do the format command. Requires the # prompt, like this:

adb shell
$ su
# format data
# exit
$ exit

Probably, cache is mounted but system and data are not mounted. It shouldn't make any difference though, if I remember right.

If you can't get the su command to give you the # prompt, then maybe adb is not connected to the daemon correctly?

Edit:

I have never used adb in recovery before, so for my own interest, I decided to do a little experimentation. First of all, to get a hash prompt in shell try

adb root

followed by

adb shell

From reading, it seems some people say both wipe and format commands should work in shell in recovery, but I couldn't get them to work. I would get "/sbin/sh: format: not found" error. So the work around is this:

adb shell
~ # mount /data
~ # rm -rf /data/*
~ # reboot

This will recursively force the removal of the contents of the data directory. I did not test this, but I did test "rm -rf /cache/*" and successfully removed the contents of the cache directory, so I know it should work.

If your system still doesn't boot, you could wipe cache and system as well as data and then reboot into download mode and flash the full stock tar

adb shell
~ # mount /data
~ # mount /system
~ # rm -rf /cache/*
~ # rm -rf /data/*
~ # rm -rf /system/*
~ # reboot download

 

[steelforce]

Edit:

I have never used adb in recovery before, so for my own interest, I decided to do a little experimentation. First of all, to get a hash prompt in shell try

adb root

followed by

adb shell

Ugh - adb root fails with the following error:

D:\adt-bundle-windows-x86_64-20130219\sdk\platform-tools>adb root
adbd cannot run as root in production builds

Looks like it's because the build that I have flashed doesn't have root. Wicked catch-22, since I can't root the phone until I wipe the cache to actually boot.

 

[creepyncrawly]

Ugh - adb root fails with the following error:

D:\adt-bundle-windows-x86_64-20130219\sdk\platform-tools>adb root
adbd cannot run as root in production builds

Looks like it's because the build that I have flashed doesn't have root. Wicked catch-22, since I can't root the phone until I wipe the cache to actually boot.

Well, yes, you need root. You could flash one of the stock plus root packages, probably Entropy512's original uckh7 plus root since it has busybox, with odin, see links in my sig. I didn't see anything in your original posts that indicate the flash would fail.

 

[steelforce]

Well, yes, you need root. You could flash one of the stock plus root packages, probably Entropy512's original uckh7 plus root since it has busybox, with odin, see links in my sig. I didn't see anything in your original posts that indicate the flash would fail.

The flash doesn't fail, but it's never able to boot past the AT&T "Rethink Possible" splash screen. I've tried flashing a couple of different packages, but i'll try some more tonight.

 

[creepyncrawly]

The flash doesn't fail, but it's never able to boot past the AT&T "Rethink Possible" splash screen. I've tried flashing a couple of different packages, but i'll try some more tonight.

Flash the rooted package and you will then have root. Whether the phone boots or not, the system will then contain the superuser.apk and the su binary. I suggested Entropy512's package because I'm not sure but I think you need busybox to use the unix commands in adb in recovery. My stock plus root packages don't have busybox, and if you can't boot, you can install it from the play store. Once you have root in the system, then adb root should succeed.

 

[steelforce]

Flash the rooted package and you will then have root. Whether the phone boots or not, the system will then contain the superuser.apk and the su binary. I suggested Entropy512's package because I'm not sure but I think you need busybox to use the unix commands in adb in recovery. My stock plus root packages don't have busybox, and if you can't boot, you can install it from the play store. Once you have root in the system, then adb root should succeed.

I tried both of Entropy512's packages from here. Flashed them and tried to boot, both hung at the Rethink Possible screen. Rebooted into recovery, was able to connect to it via adb - but adb root failed on both.

I'm getting closer and closer to punting and picking up a Nexus 4 after this....