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Corso85	2010-07-04 , 23:00
Posts: 278 \| Thanked: 209 times \| Joined on Dec 2009	#1

Yes. I know this has been asked before. But this time I'm dead serious. I just upgraded to 1.2 and it literally took me a week to configure everything again.

I want someone to write an application for Ubuntu or Windows that would assist in the process of making an exact replica of an N900s rootfs ready for re-flashing.

I'd like to restore my N900 to an exact condition without reliance on online repositories or dependencies.

Guides online such as the one in Hack-A-N900 are vague and incomplete.

I don't have the time or knowledge to do this, so I'm offering 65$ to 100$ US dollars (depending on quality) to whoever makes it. Wired via Paypal.

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RobbieThe1st	2010-07-05 , 01:47
Posts: 842 \| Thanked: 1,197 times \| Joined on May 2010	#2

Unless I'm mistaken, this will work(backup):
edit: THIS WILL NOT WORK.
This will backup everything to the SD card(need 2.5GB or so)

Code:

sudo gainroot
dd bs=1M if=/ of=/media/mmc1/backup-rootfs.dat
dd bs=1M if=/home/ of=/media/mmc1/backup-extrafiles.dat

Note: I haven't tried this. Worst case with these commands is that it won't backup right, so long as you type the command in right.
Also note that DD will not give you any info on the status of backup; it will just be done when its done. You can watch the output filesize to see approximate size.

To restore, we do it the other way around:

Code:

sudo gainroot
dd bs=1M of=/ if=/media/mmc1/backup-rootfs.dat
dd bs=1M of=/home/ if=/media/mmc1/backup-extrafiles.dat

Be careful with this, make sure you have a good backup before using this, or you will need to reflash your chip if you don't have a backup.

Hope that helps!

-Rob

Last edited by RobbieThe1st; 2010-07-05 at 11:32.

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Corso85	2010-07-05 , 10:28
Posts: 278 \| Thanked: 209 times \| Joined on Dec 2009	#3

Originally Posted by RobbieThe1st

Unless I'm mistaken, this will work(backup):
This will backup everything to the SD card(need 2.5GB or so)
Code:
sudo gainroot
dd bs=1M if=/ of=/media/mmc1/backup-rootfs.dat
dd bs=1M if=/home/ of=/media/mmc1/backup-extrafiles.dat
Note: I haven't tried this. Worst case with these commands is that it won't backup right, so long as you type the command in right.
Also note that DD will not give you any info on the status of backup; it will just be done when its done. You can watch the output filesize to see approximate size.

To restore, we do it the other way around:
Code:
sudo gainroot
dd bs=1M of=/ if=/media/mmc1/backup-rootfs.dat
dd bs=1M of=/home/ if=/media/mmc1/backup-extrafiles.dat
Be careful with this, make sure you have a good backup before using this, or you will need to reflash your chip if you don't have a backup.

Hope that helps!

-Rob

I'm no pro. but I can tell that it will not be effective. A backup from operation mode will be faulty. Files are being access and processes are running. Let alone a restore.

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	MohammadAG	2010-07-05 , 10:33
	Posts: 2,473 \| Thanked: 12,265 times \| Joined on Oct 2009 @ Jerusalem, PS/IL	#4

Using dd while the operating system is booted is a no no.
You can try to boot into Fedora, Ubuntu, or Mer (Ubuntu 8.04 with some custom improvements) and run dd if=/dev/mtd5 of=/image.bin

I've tried the above, flashing worked up to +55% percent, then it said unexpected EOF and flashing failed.
Could be a backup error though, so it may (or may not) work for you.

Fedora: http://wiki.maemo.org/User:Jebba/Fedora
Ubuntu: http://wiki.maemo.org/User:Mohammad7410/Ubuntu (no image yet).
Mer: http://wiki.maemo.org/Mer/Releases/0.17

I'd test it again, but I have way too much changes to / I'd rather not lose them.

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RobbieThe1st	2010-07-05 , 11:31
Posts: 842 \| Thanked: 1,197 times \| Joined on May 2010	#5

That makes sense; I thought there was some glitch, but I figured it would be more in line with DD trying to read the mounted partitions too(recursion, etc). Nice to know that it won't work, thanks.

----

How about this?
(Information from Here and Here.

1. Open a terminal on your N900
2. Run these 6 lines:

Code:

wget http://www.daimi.au.dk/~cvm/bootmenu_1.6_armel.deb
sudo dpkg -i bootmenu_1.6_armel.deb
install_bootmenu
cd /
wget http://metalab.at/wiki/images/4/40/Bootmenu_n900usbrecov.patch
sudo patch -p0 < Bootmenu_n900usbrecov.patch

3. Now, on your PC, download the N900 Flasher(I assume you are using Windows), and run this command(Open up a CMD window, CD to the directory you downloaded flasher-3.5.exe to):

Code:

flasher-3.5.exe --set-rd-flags=no-omap-wd

It will say "Suitable device not found, waiting."
Now, with your N900 plugged in via USB, reboot. It should stop before rebooting fully, and the flasher.exe file will finish doing its thing.
Now, run these two commands, one after another:

Code:

flasher-3.5.exe --set-rd-flags=no-ext-wd
flasher-3.5.exe --enable-rd-mode

Now, unplug the usb cable, and reboot your N900 with the keyboard slide OUT.
You should get a boot menu. Press 'ctrl', to boot into 'recovery mode'.

When in recovery mode, open up a terminal and type:

Code:

sudo mkdir /mysdcard
sudo mount -t vfat /dev/mmcblk1p1 /mysdcard
sudo mount -o remount,ro /

Then, we can copy it:

Code:

dd bs=1M if=/dev/mtd5 of=/mysdcard/mybackuprootfs.img

Restoring is simple, it seems:
From your PC(assuming mybackuprootfs.img is in the same directory as flasher-3.5.exe):

Code:

flasher-3.5.exe -r mybackuprootfs.img -f -R

Disclaimer: This has not been tested, but it ought to work.
Could someone check my work? Its been translated as best I could from the two sites above, plus a bit of googling. Let me know if I missed something, please.

-rob

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	MohammadAG	2010-07-05 , 11:34
	Posts: 2,473 \| Thanked: 12,265 times \| Joined on Oct 2009 @ Jerusalem, PS/IL	#6

afaik that method mounts the rootfs, which puts you in the same situation above.

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Corso85	2010-07-05 , 14:59
Posts: 278 \| Thanked: 209 times \| Joined on Dec 2009	#7

Originally Posted by MohammadAG

afaik that method mounts the rootfs, which puts you in the same situation above.

The question is. where does recovery mode boot from? rootfs?

There has to be a way....How do they make FIASCO images? special N900 units?

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weißelstone	2010-07-05 , 15:12
Posts: 94 \| Thanked: 40 times \| Joined on Jun 2010 @ Germany	#8

Originally Posted by MohammadAG

afaik that method mounts the rootfs, which puts you in the same situation above.

It may be mounted but in recovery mode there are not dozens of background apps that write to it, in best case there is not even a single one (but I didn't test yet).

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	pelago	2010-07-05 , 15:34
	Posts: 2,121 \| Thanked: 1,540 times \| Joined on Mar 2008 @ Oxford, UK	#9

If this was a desktop PC, you would boot off a Linux Live CD or Live USB or similar, so that the filesystems you wanted to copy weren't mounted. I guess the equivalent on N900 is to boot off SD card then do the copying from there, but I've never tried that.

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joelteixeira	2010-07-05 , 16:35
Posts: 63 \| Thanked: 29 times \| Joined on May 2010	#10

I guess pelago is right. The ideal way would be boot from the sd card. Just like boot from clonezilla to clone your (desktop) rootfs.

Anyone knows about the viability to install and boot from another OS installed on SD card? I heard about some guys installed the new Meego UX image on sd card but I can't confirm this.

If we could install Meego UX on SD card, get root access and a shell should be just perfect. This would make some use for the (at this point) useless Maemo UX.