Towards enabling fastboot

[transfuntioner]

edit: Kindle Fire fastboot working. Allows for reflashing ROMs and booting over USB.

Recommended that you have your kindle already opened so that you can get to the battery cable to hard reset if necessary.

Instructions to follow.

<posting here as i dont have access to devel forum yet>

Looking at the bootloader & the u-boot source, it looks like there's 2 ways to get to fastboot. The bootmode nvram setting, and a special usb cable.. I think I'll go the nvram route though I havent investigated how to set it yet.

Just to be prepared I'm going to add usb driver's inf.

%SingleBootLoaderInterface% = USB_Install, USB\VID_1949&PID_0FFF

So .. anyone else working on this?

 

[transfuntioner]

I dont have a gingerbread build handy, is there another dev that can build me a fastboot.exe to include 0x1949?

I think my fire is stuck in fastboot mode.

 

[transfuntioner]

I dont have a gingerbread build handy, is there another dev that can build me a fastboot.exe to include 0x1949?

I think my fire is stuck in fastboot mode.

NVM on the fastboot.exe request, I have a working one.

fastboot mode is confirmed .. i have a fastboot talking to the fire. It shows up in 'fastboot devices' (the id is 0123456789abcdef), and responds to reboot & boot commands.

Now trying to boot out of fb mode, I should have set the 'other' nvram bootmode

 

[transfuntioner]

NOTE: Instructions are terse and intended towards developers for now.

Standard disclaimer, I am not liable if you brick your fire.

Requisities:
- working adb, (on windows) with the additional %SingleBootLoaderInterface% entry mentioned
- working fastboot binary that recognizes / allows specifying the vendor id (0x1949)
- root. it may work without, but you probably want or have it already

Also recommended:
- boot.img from the latest sw update.

Procedure:
- get a adb shell
- use the '/system/bin/idme' command to set the bootmode. I suggest you first run 'idme ?' and write down your default, mine is "4000 0".
- if you set bootmode to 0x4002, the fire will stay in fastboot mode when it reboots
- if you set bootmode to 0x4003, it's supposed to timeout from fastboot mode, but I did not have much luck getting a normal boot after the timeout (did not play too much here).
- if you decide you dont want fastboot mode, run 'idme bootmode "4000 0"' to reset back to default for normal booting.

WARNING:
IF YOU REBOOT AT THIS POINT THE FIRE WILL BE IN THE FASTBOOT MODE. I HAVE NOT FOUND A WAY TO EXIT THIS MODE AND RETURN TO THE NORMAL OS WITHOUT A WORKING FASTBOOT CLIENT.

REPEAT:
YOU MAY BE BRICKED IF YOU DONT HAVE WORKING TOOLS.

When you boot into fastboot mode, it will show the "Kindle Fire" logo. The power button does not appear to do anything; therefore, if you boot a bad kernel/image it may get stuck and require a hard reset (pulling the battery cable).

You should now have access to the standard flashboot functionality (update, flash, usb boot, etc). Note that reboot-bootloader will bring you back to fastboot.

I currently use 'fastboot boot boot.img' (from the sw update) to get back to a working state. Once booted, use idme to disable fastboot.


Now, on to recovery's & custom roms!

 

[death2all110]

so any more information on the "special usb cable" like what size resistor on pin 4?

 

[transfuntioner]

so any more information on the "special usb cable" like what size resistor on pin 4?

I dont have hardware handy to determine this, but having a cable will definitely make things easier going forward.


Brief updates..

Unlike previously mentioned, it looks like long press power button typically should work.

The idme command is available in the bootloader. So you can set normal bootup mode from fastboot, then reboot. eg.

fastboot oem idme bootmode 4000
fastboot reboot

 

[mashi]

How to get latest update pack ?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using XDA Premium App

 

[death2all110]

any idea what tools i can use to check what amount of resistance i need? I may just go out to the garage and grab 3 100k resistors and try the numerous SGS2 methods (specifically 3 resistors twisted together and jumping pins 4 & 5

 

[srish2]

Stuck in fastboot

Hello,

I followed these steps including adding the %SingleBootLoaderInterface% line mentions to the usb inf. I was able to get the Kindle Fire to set bootmode to 0x4002.

I downloaded fastboot from here, 32-bit only?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=463627

Tried to get fastboot 64-bit via this route, no good:
http://rootzwiki.com/topic/4551-guide-making-fastboot-work-on-64-bit-windows-7-systems/

Now that it's in bootmode, neither my x64 PC or x86 Mac can see the device via a recent fastboot.exe and fastboot-mac application using a standard mini-USB cable. Suggestions? Is there a different fastboot.exe that I should be using?

NOTE: Instructions are terse and intended towards developers for now.

Standard disclaimer, I am not liable if you brick your fire.

Requisities:
- working adb, (on windows) with the additional %SingleBootLoaderInterface% entry mentioned
- working fastboot binary that recognizes / allows specifying the vendor id (0x1949)
- root. it may work without, but you probably want or have it already

Also recommended:
- boot.img from the latest sw update.

Procedure:
- get a adb shell
- use the '/system/bin/idme' command to set the bootmode. I suggest you first run 'idme ?' and write down your default, mine is "4000 0".
- if you set bootmode to 0x4002, the fire will stay in fastboot mode when it reboots
- if you set bootmode to 0x4003, it's supposed to timeout from fastboot mode, but I did not have much luck getting a normal boot after the timeout (did not play too much here).
- if you decide you dont want fastboot mode, run 'idme bootmode "4000 0"' to reset back to default for normal booting.

WARNING:
IF YOU REBOOT AT THIS POINT THE FIRE WILL BE IN THE FASTBOOT MODE. I HAVE NOT FOUND A WAY TO EXIT THIS MODE AND RETURN TO THE NORMAL OS WITHOUT A WORKING FASTBOOT CLIENT.

REPEAT:
YOU MAY BE BRICKED IF YOU DONT HAVE WORKING TOOLS.

When you boot into fastboot mode, it will show the "Kindle Fire" logo. The power button does not appear to do anything; therefore, if you boot a bad kernel/image it may get stuck and require a hard reset (pulling the battery cable).

You should now have access to the standard flashboot functionality (update, flash, usb boot, etc). Note that reboot-bootloader will bring you back to fastboot.

I currently use 'fastboot boot boot.img' (from the sw update) to get back to a working state. Once booted, use idme to disable fastboot.


Now, on to recovery's & custom roms!

 

[death2all110]

I had the same issue....but i fixed it!

fastboot -i 0x1949 oem idme bootmode 0x4000
fastbooot -i 0x1949 reboot

 

[richardg42]

Played with the 0x4003 fastboot "countdown" mode a bit. Seems like it is timing out of fastboot, but not continuing to boot up the rest of the way. After a few seconds the kindle fire logo goes away and the device no longer responds to fastboot commands. Waited maybe a minute or so after it left fastboot and it didn't boot. Though since you found that we can set the bootmode value from fastboot it doesn't really matter.

Also have been playing around with attempting to get my fire to boot a modified boot image. So far I've simply extracted the kernel/initrd from the 6.1 update boot.img and repacked it without modifications. Unfortunately the Fire refused to boot the resulting image.

Going to continue fiddling.

 

[richardg42]

Well managed to successfully repack a boot.img.

The problem i was facing was caused by 2 issues while running mkbootimg.

1) Derped and didn't specify the correct page size (4096)
2) Needed to include a base address of 0x80000000.

 

[JackpotClavin]

wait i'm stuck in the phase where it times out after the kindle logo and it doesn't respond to fastboot commands... what did you do to get out of that?

any help would be GREATLY appreciated before my battery dies. i have my clockwork port saved on the sdcard!

or if somebody can upload their fastboot binary

edit: got it, i needed to specify the vendor id as mentioned on the bottom of page one

thanks to those who were trying to help me (although probably nobody as it's 3am...)

 

[richardg42]

wait i'm stuck in the phase where it times out after the kindle logo and it doesn't respond to fastboot commands... what did you do to get out of that?

any help would be GREATLY appreciated before my battery dies. i have my clockwork port saved on the sdcard!

or if somebody can upload their fastboot binary

I did a long press of the power button and it turned off. Then before turning it back on i ran:

fastboot oem idme bootmode 4000

Let it sit in "waiting for device" and powered the kindle back on.

Attached my fastboot binary for linux if it's useful for you. It's compiled from AOSP with the 0x1949 vendorid added in.

 

[srish2]

I don't have the -i option on my version of fastboot. Could you post a windows version of the one you're using?

Edit: found version of fastboot.exe that supports -i in SDK_r07.
I can't post outside links yet, but here's the URL:
code.google.com/p/softy-warely/downloads/detail?name=android-sdk_r07-windows.zip&can=2&q=

Thanks death2all110. Got it to reboot to break out of the fastboot cycle.


New question:
I did fastboot -i 0x1949 boot recovery.img (from the Kindle 6.1 update) and now I can't fastboot back in to break out of the fastboot cycle again:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools>fastboot -i 0x1949 oem idme bootmode 4000
< waiting for device >

 

[JackpotClavin]

I'm giving CM7 a shot right now. Gonna fastboot flash the system.img generated as well as the boot.img although I doubt this will work

 

[transfuntioner]

any idea what tools i can use to check what amount of resistance i need? I may just go out to the garage and grab 3 100k resistors and try the numerous SGS2 methods (specifically 3 resistors twisted together and jumping pins 4 & 5

I dont think it'll hurt to try.. FWIW I didnt see anythign obvious in the source or from quick googling for the specs. Didnt spend a lot of effort on it though.

 

[transfuntioner]

I'm giving CM7 a shot right now. Gonna fastboot flash the system.img generated as well as the boot.img although I doubt this will work

Yeah I am going to play with existing gingerbread builds as well because I dont think ICS will ever finish building on my machine!

I am planning on just flashing system.img and then usb boot with the stock kindle kernel / boot.img.

 

[death2all110]

It didnt do anything, I found a Micro USB for LG Devices with selectable resistance. But I might buy an actual USB jig for the SGS2 but i dont want to waste my money on it if it doesn't work...

Hmm. Theres gotta be a way...

 

[transfuntioner]

careful flashing

This may be known to experienced android devs but I thought I'd mention as I am not & just ran into it.

When you flash an individual partition you're limited by the ram, in this case the image size needs to be less than the value reported.

fastboot getvar downloadsize
downloadsize: 1d0000000

So around 486 megs.. just some extras steps needed if you're working with the 512M system partition.