Tutorial: Flashing a custom ROM on TF700T

[berndlb]

I have tried plenty of browsers but I'm sticking with Chrome mainly for the synchronization of my bookmarks which is more difficult with the other browsers.

Not that I want to start an argument here, but ....
I use Chrome on all my computers and like it, but the stock browser also syncs the Chrome bookmarks seamlessly. So much so, that when I was installing Linux as dual boot on my laptop lately and didn't pay attention to one little dialog box popping up when I set up Chrome on that installation, all the sudden ALL my bookmarks were gone across ALL my devices!
And Chrome doesn't really keep a backup. If you close it once - poof - the backup is identical with the browser and everything is gone.
Luckily I could boot into the Windows installation on the laptop (with WiFi off!) and grab the bookmark file from there.
Gotta find a better solution......

 

[belledonne]

What you said about Chrome got me thinking and I tried out the stock browser. You are completely right: it's even better for the bookmarks than Chrome, it's faster and unlike Chrome, its display covers the whole width of the screen. Thanks a lot for the tip!

 

[AstronomerDaz]

Just wanted to add my thanks for this thread - managed to get my tablet rooted and ROMed with no real problems....

Incidentally, I flashed with the tablet connected to the Dock and it seemed fine. The only thing I had trouble with was the initial download of TWRP - it only seemed to be 4k in size - a redownload sorted that...

Have installed the CROMi-X ROM and am very pleased with the result! All the ASUS apps gone, but my installed ones were still there! Speed and usability have returned!!

 

[jagged78]

berndlb,

What do you recommend for a document and pdf reader? Polaris seems to be giving me problems with Cromi-X.

 

[berndlb]

berndlb,

What do you recommend for a document and pdf reader? Polaris seems to be giving me problems with Cromi-X.

I never liked Polaris. I have to work with spreadsheets on the tablet and so far Office Suite 7 pro is the best to handle that task. It's pretty good for PDFs too.
Or try ezPDF if you need to annotate them.

 

[highantics]

Many thanks!

Spent ages trying to get my head round installing a custom recovery onto my tablet. So much information but not much help until I stumbled across your post. You made the process easy. Now to install CROMi.

 

[GreetingsHuman]

Hi berndlb,

First, let me just say thanks for writing all this up in a clear and easy to read way. As you mentioned, a lot of information on the web for this this is fragmented or out of date. In fact, I didn't even know half the stuff I had read was outdated until I came across your thread.

So, I got all the way to issuing the 'fastboot reboot' command without any problems, but my device is not actually rebooting. Here's what I'm seeing in the fastboot command window:

C:\Minimal ADB and Fastboot>fastboot devices
[I]<alpha-numeric string>[/I]             fastboot

C:\Minimal ADB and Fastboot>fastboot -i 0x05B0 flash recovery twrp.blob
sending 'recovery' (0 KB)...
OKAY [  0.060s]
writing 'recovery'...
OKAY [ 2.877s]
finished. total time: 2.939s

C:\Minimal ADB and Fastboot>fastboot reboot
rebooting...

finished. total time: 0.550s

But my device never actually reboots. It stays on the (bootloader?) screen with RCK / Android / Wipe Data. It appears to be stuck, as the RCK is no longer flashing and pressing down volume does not advance what is highlighted. If I restart the device by holding the power button and select RCK from the bootloader screen, I get the Android on his back.

I've tried this a few times and I've noticed that the RCK icon actually stops flashing after I issue this command:
> fastboot -i 0x05B0 flash recovery twrp.blob

If I try a 'fastboot reboot' without issuing the command above, my device will reboot. Also, if I try a 'fastboot devices' after the command above, the response I get is:

???????????? fastboot

I tried a couple TWRP blobs (2.6.3.1 and 2.6.3.2) thinking that may be the case, but received the same result.

Any ideas? I haven't been able to find anything on the web, partly because it's hard to construct an effective search string for this issue.

 

[berndlb]

Hi berndlb,

First, let me just say thanks for writing all this up in a clear and easy to read way. As you mentioned, a lot of information on the web for this this is fragmented or out of date. In fact, I didn't even know half the stuff I had read was outdated until I came across your thread.

So, I got all the way to issuing the 'fastboot reboot' command without any problems, but my device is not actually rebooting. Here's what I'm seeing in the fastboot command window:

C:\Minimal ADB and Fastboot>fastboot devices
[I][/I]             fastboot

C:\Minimal ADB and Fastboot>fastboot -i 0x05B0 flash recovery twrp.blob
sending 'recovery' (0 KB)...
OKAY [  0.060s]
writing 'recovery'...
OKAY [ 2.877s]
finished. total time: 2.939s

C:\Minimal ADB and Fastboot>fastboot reboot
rebooting...

finished. total time: 0.550s

But my device never actually reboots. It stays on the (bootloader?) screen with RCK / Android / Wipe Data. It appears to be stuck, as the RCK is no longer flashing and pressing down volume does not advance what is highlighted. If I restart the device by holding the power button and select RCK from the bootloader screen, I get the Android on his back.

I've tried this a few times and I've noticed that the RCK icon actually stops flashing after I issue this command:
> fastboot -i 0x05B0 flash recovery twrp.blob

If I try a 'fastboot reboot' without issuing the command above, my device will reboot. Also, if I try a 'fastboot devices' after the command above, the response I get is:

???????????? fastboot

I tried a couple TWRP blobs (2.6.3.1 and 2.6.3.2) thinking that may be the case, but received the same result.

Any ideas? I haven't been able to find anything on the web, partly because it's hard to construct an effective search string for this issue.

Well, if you look at you commands and the output - when you issue

...flash recovery twrp.blob

the return is "sending 'recovery' (0 Kb)" - 0 Kb! That is an empty file!
The fact that you get a working stock recovery (Android on his back) supports this.
Fastboot recognizes the file, flashes it, but there's nothing in it!

First of all: You are 150% sure that you downloaded the TWRP 2.6.3.1 or .2 for the TF700? Yes?
If yes, you have to re-examine how you download, copy and rename the file. It's not large - but larger than 0 KB

 

[GreetingsHuman]

Well, if you look at you commands and the output - when you issue

...flash recovery twrp.blob

the return is "sending 'recovery' (0 Kb)" - 0 Kb! That is an empty file!
The fact that you get a working stock recovery (Android on his back) supports this.
Fastboot recognizes the file, flashes it, but there's nothing in it!

First of all: You are 150% sure that you downloaded the TWRP 2.6.3.1 or .2 for the TF700? Yes?
If yes, you have to re-examine how you download, copy and rename the file. It's not large - but larger than 0 KB

Thanks berndlb, I see what I did wrong now. The TWRP downloads I was getting from the link in your instructions were 71bytes. I had reasoned that maybe this was why I was seeing the 0Kb output message in the fastboot command window. Maybe it was rounding down?

But after reading your reply, I double checked and it turns out my NoScript addon was preventing the whole download dialog from occurring on the TWRP download page. With NoScript on, nothing happens when you load that page, so like an ***** I just clicked on whatever was clickable on the page. Namely, the 'Click to download the md5' link, which I now know downloads...er, something other than what I needed (I have no idea what an md5 is).

In any event, all is good now and I have CROMi-X installed. My first custom rom! And no brick!

Thanks again!

 

[berndlb]

Thanks berndlb, I see what I did wrong now. The TWRP downloads I was getting from the link in your instructions were 71bytes. I had reasoned that maybe this was why I was seeing the 0Kb output message in the fastboot command window. Maybe it was rounding down?

But after reading your reply, I double checked and it turns out my NoScript addon was preventing the whole download dialog from occurring on the TWRP download page. With NoScript on, nothing happens when you load that page, so like an ***** I just clicked on whatever was clickable on the page. Namely, the 'Click to download the md5' link, which I now know downloads...er, something other than what I needed (I have no idea what an md5 is).

In any event, all is good now and I have CROMi-X installed. My first custom rom! And no brick!

Thanks again!

I thought it would be a SNAFU like that.......
md5 is a hash file. You can use it to check the integrity of a download. You would need a tiny program on your PC or app on your tablet. HashTab is one, Hash Droid another..... If you download a signed zip like sbdags roms you don't need MD5. Instead you turn on "signature verification" in your recovery. That does the same thing: Verifies that the file is not corrupted.
:GOOD: Glad you got it working!

 

[gplayer12]

I've made it all the way to the fastboot part and every time I enter fastboot -i 0x05B0 flash recovery twrp.blob . gives this message

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Program Files (x86)\Minimal ADB and Fastboot>fastboot devices
000000000000 fastboot

C:\Program Files (x86)\Minimal ADB and Fastboot>fastboot -i 0x05B0 flash recover
y twrp.blob
sending 'recovery' (6948 KB)...
FAILED (command write failed (No such device or address))
finished. total time: 0.006s

I'm not sure what I am doing wrong..My device is unlocked and running 4.2.1



PROBLEM SOLVED

 

[Burner101]

PROBLEM SOLVED

I got this problem too, unfortunately you haven't posted a solution. To me the solution was rebooting the tablet. So if anyone else will get this problem you can try that.

I want to thank berndlb a lot for this tutorial! The whole process didn't took a lot of time. And I'm not in a state anymore of throwing my tablet through the window because all of the lag! So thanks for making me happy with my tf700t again!

 

[berndlb]

Yes! @gplayer12 let us know how you solved it, please. It may help other users solve a problem or avoid it.

 

[fa01]

Thank you very much. Thanks to you, I got the "guts" to unlock the bootloader and flashy thingy this crap toad tablet that is the stock Asus TF700T to transform it into what it should have been in the first place: a really good one. Special thanks to cromi-x and its developer. To whomever is hesitating: don't... I bought my tablet not even a month ago and it nearly became a flying tablet before I flashed cromi-x. Now it's perfect. Screw Asus' warranty and their support service who is decried by everybody anyway!

 

[gplayer12]

Sorry for taking so long to reply, busy week with classes.
Well I ended up taking a little more complicated route since the way you had listed was not working for me with anything I tried.Instead I went and downloaded Scott's TF700T Recovery Install Tool from [ROM]★★[JB 4.2.1][CROMi-X 5.3a][DATA2SD/ROM2SD | ODEX/DEODEX 10.6.1.27.5][FEB 05]★★ - xda-developers. After that was downloaded there is a file called recovery.blob in the "Install Recovery" folder, which I deleated. Instead of using the default recovery.blob I downloaded 2.6.3.1 from your recommendation, and then changed its name to recovery.blob replacing the outdated one. Then with the tablet booted up and running I ran his recovery tool which took it to recovery mode and everything went through without a problem. If you have any questions or want a better description, just let me know!

Since installing the CROMi-X it is like I have a whole new tablet, thank you @berndlb for the tutorial, it was extremely helpful!

 

[hegemnon]

Hallo all here. I am using cromi-x some months but still got some problems on tf700
Sometimes I can not start again my device. What kind of kernel are you guys using?
"Hunds" or "that"? I am very tired of so many versions of roms and kernels.

 

[berndlb]

Hallo all here. I am using cromi-x some months but still got some problems on tf700
Sometimes I can not start again my device. What kind of kernel are you guys using?
"Hunds" or "that"? I am very tired of so many versions of roms and kernels.

If you are looking for stability go with _that v4. But why do you think it's the kernel that is giving you problems?
Maybe it's time for a clean install

 

[hegemnon]

. Thanks for help berndlb. What do you mean clean install? I always do that. Cleaning all data and starting with new rom without any old files. I am on that v7 now. Hope its more stable than Hunds beta. l think that was problem - beta. Unstable.

 

[berndlb]

. Thanks for help berndlb. What do you mean clean install? I always do that. Cleaning all data and starting with new rom without any old files. I am on that v7 now. Hope its more stable than Hunds beta. l think that was problem - beta. Unstable.

A clean install is when you wipe data before you install the new rom, so you erase all apps and their data and then reinstall. The opposite is called a "dirty flash" during which you would only wipe cache and Dalvic (system and boot partitions get formatted during installation anyway).

 

[rhauer]

So I have been reading this log for a few months and am ready to give it a try. My Tablet is virtually unusable at the moment. It hangs up ALL of the time, and nothing seems to work.

First thank you for this tutorial. Now my problem.

I have read through everything but I am stuck on loading Fastboot Devices.

When I type in Fastboot Devices, it just says waiting for device but that's it. It never finds the device. It does say unlocked in upper left corner before it boots and I am using the original USB plug and checked USB Debugging. Does this have to do with a Windows driver??? I figured Id get stumped at some point, just not this early. Thank you.