Tutorial: Flashing a custom ROM on TF700T

[berndlb]

well, i pushed the big red button. thanks for the confirmation!! wiped, installed the new bootloader/twrp, rebooted, etc.. when i reboot back to my stock rom, my 'about tablet' still says JR.....10.4.4.25-20121228. i expected something different. I then powerdown, reboot, hit the power button + vol down, then i get in the upper left status of: "Key driver not found.. Booting 0S"
Android cardhu-user bootloader (1.00 e) released by "US_epad-10.6.1.14.1--20130801" A03. Is this right? it doesnt sound right to me, i expected to see 10.6.1.14 in the "settings > about tablet" section. if this is correct, then i should be able to wipe (again) and then install my new cromi rom?

On a stock rom your firmware version and bootloader version are identical. Not so on custom software. About Tablet now only gives you info about the firmware (Rom) and kernel you have installed. You only find your bootloader version in the bl menu. As long as you just forgot to write the 0 at the end of your "US_epad-10.6.1.14.1" post up there, everything is fine. You successfully flashed the 10.6.1.14.10 BL! Congratulations!
One more step to go!

Sent from my K00C using Tapatalk

 

[foppies]

HOT DANG!! thanks berndlib for the extra nudge of confidence!! installed, rebooted. i can tell right off the start that its so much smoother now than stock rom. what a huge difference already. just aWeSoME!!! thank you. very cool. i feel a bit relieved that all my due diligence finally paid off. i think this tab will last a lot longer now.
yay!

 

[berndlb]

HOT DANG!! thanks berndlib for the extra nudge of confidence!! installed, rebooted. i can tell right off the start that its so much smoother now than stock rom. what a huge difference already. just aWeSoME!!! thank you. very cool. i feel a bit relieved that all my due diligence finally paid off. i think this tab will last a lot longer now.
yay!

I'm happy for you! Very good!
Hate to tell you this, but your rom is outdated
sbdags released 5.3 yesterday and it's always worth it to move to the next one! But don't worry, for updates in versions you can usually dirty flash, meaning no wipes - just flash on top of your setup. Nothing gets lost, nothing needs to be set up.
Invest a few minutes every day to follow his thread. It is really worth it! I have learned almost everything I know about this device right there.
Oh, yes - fresh off the presses: In your app drawer you will find the Cromi Control app created by elesbb to change settings like dpi, volume steps etc. without having to reflash. For now: DO NOT USE IT.
There's something seriously wrong with it. A few guys corrupted their data partition and had to format. No biggie IF you have a recent nandroid. Always, always have a recent nandroid squared away!

Enjoy the tablet for a while and when you're ready for your next adventure let me know and I can direct you towards making your tablet unbrickable by creating your nvflash blobs )

 

[Eric Franchuk]

Thank you for making this great guide. Of the 5-6 I have read, this one was the easiest to follow!

I think the only side note that would be helpful for new people like me would be a mention of how to install the original Google apps again. I went with CM for my ROM and grabbed the gapps package here Google Apps - CyanogenMod and copied the zip to my sd card. Then I just selected it to install from my sd card in twrp and I was good to go.

 

[foppies]

wouldn't ya know... rebooted and cromi booted fine, everything runing good. angry birds Go! actually loaded and runs (installed later that night). i didnt install many things right away. after about 1.5 hr of mostly idle time, loaded a couple other standard android apps (weatherbug) and the tablet actually **blue screened** hmm... i'll let it run for awhile to see how it performs. other than that blue screen its been doing ok. the stock rom 10.4.4.25 had soooo many issues, not sure where to begin. cromi has just breathed much new life in this tablet. berndib. i'll have to go see what changes there are in 5.3

 

[berndlb]

Woha! I NEVER had that and never heard of anyone getting a BSD on CROMi-X... If you get it again and you can replicate it, capture a logcat in adb (just Google how to logcat) and post it!

Sent from my K00C using Tapatalk

 

[Colin Twitchett]

Hi....I've been working on trying to fastboot by tablet using my macbook pro all night. Finally found your great guide....and managed to unlock my tf700t. The tablet says its in fastboot mode ( small print...starting fastboot usb download protocol at the top left hand corner ).
I have installed adb and fastboot on the mac as per instructions ( and watched a youtube to confirm ). However, no devices are listed.
I notice you say to use the original usb cable in your guide.
I have actually brought a male-A to male-A usb cable and I am using this.
should this make a difference?
I have the usb power cable at work, I'm suspecting that this is not the cable to use....correct?
Advice appreciated.

regard Colin

 

[putsometrebleinit]

Woha! I NEVER had that and never heard of anyone getting a BSD on CROMi-X... If you get it again and you can replicate it, capture a logcat in adb (just Google how to logcat) and post it!

Sent from my K00C using Tapatalk

I had it happen several versions back when I dirty flashed the ET version with hunds kernel. I believe it was fsync related but it blue screened twice on me and then failed to boot. Had to wipe everything and start fresh. Still not 100% sure what caused it but I think it was directed towards data corruption and fsync

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using Tapatalk

 

[berndlb]

Hi....I've been working on trying to fastboot by tablet using my macbook pro all night. Finally found your great guide....and managed to unlock my tf700t. The tablet says its in fastboot mode ( small print...starting fastboot usb download protocol at the top left hand corner ).
I have installed adb and fastboot on the mac as per instructions ( and watched a youtube to confirm ). However, no devices are listed.
I notice you say to use the original usb cable in your guide.
I have actually brought a male-A to male-A usb cable and I am using this.
should this make a difference?
I have the usb power cable at work, I'm suspecting that this is not the cable to use....correct?
Advice appreciated.

regard Colin

More than likely the cable is the issue. Try that first before you loose your hair trying to find working fastboot and adb drivers
Let us know if it solved your problem.

Sent from my DROID4 using Tapatalk

 

[Colin Twitchett]

Thanks...have been using the proprietary cable tonight....cannot get anything. I install android file transfer and when I ./adb devices ...I get a reference number. However the file transfer app then says my device is screen locked and to unlock and then reconnect the usb. With Android file transfer sort of on I still cant get anything from fastboot.
In the status window on the tablet if I connect the cable it detects it ...ie USB Debugging notification appears as does connected as a media device. This sort of tells me the cable is connected.
regards Colin

 

[Laureate]

Driver hassle in Windows is unfortunately one of the most common stumbling blocks.
Search for the "Google Universal Naked Drivers", go to Device Manager, uninstall the driver present (if any).
Then use Device Manager to manually update the driver. Just point it to the extracted Naked Drivers folder. Hopefully that will solve it...
If you are on Win8 you may have to disable Window's driver verification.

Sent from my DROID4 using Tapatalk

Thanks berndlb - not just for the advice on naked drivers (which was spot on), but for publishing this tutorial and giving me the confidence to flash a new rom on my very clunky ASUS! OK, it didn't go without a hitch, but I find that nothing worth doing ever does. The good news is that I am now typing this post on a machine which feels as if it is brand new (actually, I suspect it is now faster than it was straight our of the box 15 months ago...) Moreover, having been through the process I now know a great deal more about what makes my ASUS tick, which can't be a bad thing.

All I would add to those still contemplating doing it, is DO IT! You will not regret it. just make sure you enable USB debugging first - caused me no end of frustration until I realised that i hadn't done it.

All in all, a cracking way to get the full iPad beating machin that we all thought we were buying in the first place. Top Stuff!!!

 

[berndlb]

Thanks...have been using the proprietary cable tonight....cannot get anything. I install android file transfer and when I ./adb devices ...I get a reference number. However the file transfer app then says my device is screen locked and to unlock and then reconnect the usb. With Android file transfer sort of on I still cant get anything from fastboot.
In the status window on the tablet if I connect the cable it detects it ...ie USB Debugging notification appears as does connected as a media device. This sort of tells me the cable is connected.
regards Colin

USB debugging is selected in Settings, right?
You seem to have the adb driver working, but fastboot is a different protocol - and a different driver.
You use adb when Android is booted, you use fastboot when booted into the bootloader. To flash a recovery you cannot have Android running, so you need to figure out how to get fastboot working on a Mac.
Sorry that I cannot be of any help there, but I have zero experience with Macs.
Please post your solution here once you find it.

 

[berndlb]

Thanks berndlb - not just for the advice on naked drivers (which was spot on), but for publishing this tutorial and giving me the confidence to flash a new rom on my very clunky ASUS! OK, it didn't go without a hitch, but I find that nothing worth doing ever does. The good news is that I am now typing this post on a machine which feels as if it is brand new (actually, I suspect it is now faster than it was straight our of the box 15 months ago...) Moreover, having been through the process I now know a great deal more about what makes my ASUS tick, which can't be a bad thing.

All I would add to those still contemplating doing it, is DO IT! You will not regret it. just make sure you enable USB debugging first - caused me no end of frustration until I realised that i hadn't done it.

All in all, a cracking way to get the full iPad beating machin that we all thought we were buying in the first place. Top Stuff!!!

Doesn't it feel grand when you boot the new machine?
Like getting a new tablet for free (except for your efforts)....
Good point about USB debugging - will add it to the OP. Thanks

 

[michaelbl_01]

berndlb - Thanks for the writeup, it's great to find a distilled version of all this stuff I've been reading (and re-reading, and re-re-...) over on xda-developers for the last several months. I've gotten most of the way through your steps, right now I am at the point where I'm ready to flash a new custom ROM (I'm going with CROMi-X, I'm currently on stock Asus JB) onto my TF700.

One thing I'd been looking at & reading about is the Flatline/NvFlash/unbrickable tablet tool, but I'm a little confused about whether and when to actually do this. As I understand it, using that tool and going through the guide put out by the AndroidRoot.Mobi team will generate the nvflash binary blobs needed to un-brick the tablet, should they every be needed (which again as I understand it is extremely rare).

My question is, is that something you do & recommend? If so, is it better to do it now, while I'm still on stock ROM? Or wait until after I'm on CROMi-X and stable? I don't really plan on messing around with flashing any ROMs other than CROMi-X, all I'm really after here is to mitigate the usual stuttering & lagginess of the TF700 on stock ROM.

I've been reading & studying all this stuff very carefully, taking the slow & cautious approach; but there's still a lot of this that's new for me, and it's difficult to sort out exactly what's vital and when to do it (or whether...).

Thanks again for putting such a great resource out here - looking forward to my newly re-vitalized TF700!

 

[belledonne]

Hi Berndlb,
Being totally disgusted with the absolute "lagginess" of my Asus Transformer Pad (yes, like someone else on the thread, I've felt like chugging it out of the window too!!), I'm thinking about flashing my device and installing CROMi-X. Unfortunately, I'm no expert and sbdag's tutorial on the XDA site is slightly too complicated for a newbie like me. That's when I stumbled onto your thread and your tutorial seems much easier to follow. The only problem is: I have a TF300T and not a TF700T! Can I follow your tutorial up to the step where you install the custom ROM and then choose the CROMi-Xenogenesis 5.3 DEODEX([ROM]★●[TF300T/G/L/201/301][CROMi-X 5.3][ROM2SD | ODEX/DEODEX 10.6.1.27.5][01/18]●★ - xda-developers) developed by sbdag and compatible with the TF300T?
Thanks in advance for helping me out.

 

[berndlb]

berndlb - Thanks for the writeup, it's great to find a distilled version of all this stuff I've been reading (and re-reading, and re-re-...) over on xda-developers for the last several months. I've gotten most of the way through your steps, right now I am at the point where I'm ready to flash a new custom ROM (I'm going with CROMi-X, I'm currently on stock Asus JB) onto my TF700.

One thing I'd been looking at & reading about is the Flatline/NvFlash/unbrickable tablet tool, but I'm a little confused about whether and when to actually do this. As I understand it, using that tool and going through the guide put out by the AndroidRoot.Mobi team will generate the nvflash binary blobs needed to un-brick the tablet, should they every be needed (which again as I understand it is extremely rare).

My question is, is that something you do & recommend? If so, is it better to do it now, while I'm still on stock ROM? Or wait until after I'm on CROMi-X and stable? I don't really plan on messing around with flashing any ROMs other than CROMi-X, all I'm really after here is to mitigate the usual stuttering & lagginess of the TF700 on stock ROM.

I've been reading & studying all this stuff very carefully, taking the slow & cautious approach; but there's still a lot of this that's new for me, and it's difficult to sort out exactly what's vital and when to do it (or whether...).

Thanks again for putting such a great resource out here - looking forward to my newly re-vitalized TF700!

I like your approach! :GOOD:
About NVflash: I have been on XDA for more than a year now, following the CROMI-X and CM threads, and there is some heavy flashing going on
I have yet to read about someone using his NVflash blobs.
On the other hand I constantly read about users bricking their tablets who could have been saved if they had had the blobs.
My conclusion: Those who need them don't bother to generate them, those who do bother, don't need them

And actually - this does make sense. Generating the blobs is a fairly advanced procedure, most likely inexperienced users shy away from it. And this group at the same time is prone to make mistakes that lead to a brick.
With your cautious and methodical approach it is unlikely (but not impossible) that you'll ever need them.
But: Something can go wrong at any time... For anybody...
I had been flashing for 6 months before I tackled NVflash - before I felt confident enough to try it.

It doesn't matter when you do it. This is independent from the rom you are running.
I would say: Flash a few times, maybe learn some ADB and fastboot commands, become familiar with using the command prompt to interact with the tablet and re-visit this question in a few months.

Sent from my DROID4 using Tapatalk

 

[berndlb]

Hi Berndlb,
Being totally disgusted with the absolute "lagginess" of my Asus Transformer Pad (yes, like someone else on the thread, I've felt like chugging it out of the window too!!), I'm thinking about flashing my device and installing CROMi-X. Unfortunately, I'm no expert and sbdag's tutorial on the XDA site is slightly too complicated for a newbie like me. That's when I stumbled onto your thread and your tutorial seems much easier to follow. The only problem is: I have a TF300T and not a TF700T! Can I follow your tutorial up to the step where you install the custom ROM and then choose the CROMi-Xenogenesis 5.3 DEODEX([ROM]★●[TF300T/G/L/201/301][CROMi-X 5.3][ROM2SD | ODEX/DEODEX 10.6.1.27.5][01/18]●★ - xda-developers) developed by sbdag and compatible with the TF300T?
Thanks in advance for helping me out.

Generally the procedure is exactly the same. Except for the bootloader/recovery requirements!
I'm pretty sure sbdags spelled those out clearly. I'll check later.
So if you replace the BL and recovery version numbers in my guide with those needed for the TF300, you can follow it completely (but never blind folded)

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[belledonne]

Thanks a lot berndlb for your quick reply. Glad to know that I can stick to your tutorial as long as I choose the correct bootloader and recovery versions. I'll get to it as soon as I find the time and most importantly the COURAGE . (I'm afraid I might be be needing your advice again when I'm psychologically ready to take the plunge!)

 

[michaelbl_01]

Perfect! Just the advice/guidance I was looking for. Yeah I agree with you - I'm a lot more intimidated by the nvflash process than I am by the ROM-flashing (of course I've been reading up about flashing on the XDA forums for nearly a year now - I've found that multiple readings with generous breaks in between are about the only way to avoid feeling overwhelmed...). I'll proceed with getting onto CROMi-X and then revisit the nvflash stuff later if/when I start getting "adventurous" again. Thanks again!

 

[jagged78]

Does anyone know how long the "fastboot -i 0x05B0 flash recovery twrp.blob" command should take using TWRP?