Part3: Disaster recovery
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1. Recovery options
The ClockworkMod Recovery provides a number
of recovery and restore features that can help reset and fix problems. Access
it from the Moboot boot-loader using the [Volume Button] and [Home] button to
select. Options that can fix locking and freeze issues include: Wipe Cache
Partition, Advanced > Wipe Dalvik Cache and Wipe User Data. The last one
will reset Android to factory defaults.
2. Refresh Android
Within ClockworkMod Recovery you're also
able to reset CyanogenMod Android by effectively getting it to reinstall
Android on top of itself. Boot into WebOS, mount it as a drive and copy the CM7
full of bugs ZIP file to the root. Eject and reboot the TouchPad and start
ClockworkMod Recovery. Choose the 'Install zip' from sd card option and select
the Zip from the root.
3. Android begone
If you decide Android's not for you the
good news is that an uninstaller is available. We can see this being automated
in the future but even in the alpha stage it's nothing you've not already done.
Download and extract the Uninstaller Zip file from the RootzWiki TouchPad
website. Open a command prompt, change the directory to the Desktop and type:
novacom boot mem:// < ACMEUninstaller.
4. lt's all gone wrong
The above step takes a few minutes for
anything to happen but will restore your device to its pre-Android state,
recovering partition space. There is one last recovery option with WebOS Doctor
found at http://bit.ly/rHpgsG. You'll need your HP WebOS account details, at
least five per cent charge and Java installed. The entire reset process
shouldn't take more than half an hour.
Android on Android fun
As we've explored there are many reasons
to install Android onto a wide range of devices, some are more obvious than
others, and CyanogenMod provides cutting-edge builds of Android for a wide
range of Android mobile phones and tablets. A big reason is that many people
like to be at the cutting-edge of development and many manufacturers tend to
either not bother at all, or trail point releases by many months.
For example we have an HTC WildFire
officially released with version Android 2.1 and eventually updated to
Android 2.2, and we don’t expect any more updates. CyanogenMod offers a
customised build of the latest Gingerbread 2.3.7 release with all the bells
and whistles. This sounds like it should be straightforward, however our
experience showed that while it was simple to flash the new supposedly stable
build following the wiki, what wasn't easy was stamping out two massive bugs.
Bug crushing
The first deal-breaking bug was constant
crashes, it turns out the SystemUl.apk had to be replaced. This is a process
that's easier said than done but it was achieved by copying the .APK to the
SD card, opening the terminal app on the phone and entering: su, mount -o
remount,rw /system, cp /sdcard/ SystemUl.apk /system/app and then
rebooting.
A further deal-breaking issue was no GPS,
down to the radio driver. Using Android Flasher - it doesn't list the
WildFire, don't worry that's only for boot screen changes - from XDA
Developers (http://bit.ly/ v6bjOP) and the various radio drivers from the
CyanogenMod WildFire wiki, this last issue was also easily fixed. All of
these various issues show that even a supposedly 'stable' build can be
anything but, even so the results are well worth the struggle if you have the
time to play around with them.
