From nookDevs

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Contents 1 Discussion 1.1 Attempt to root 1.2 Section 4 clarification requests 1.3 Restoring 1.4 Password? 1.5 Installing... i mean uninstalling now 1.6 Writing Disk Images 1.7 Restore SD Card After Root in Windows 1.8 How likely is this to survive firmware updates? 1.9 Get rid of custom boot animation 1.10 Just Making Sure 1.11 Editing the colored sections 1.12 Adding Google Account 1.13 Hack after 1.1 update 1.14 Upgrading to 1.2 after 1.1 Rooted? 1.15 Rooting brand new update? 1.16 Rooting Nook Color Software Release 1.2.0 1.17 Successfully installed CM7! But how do I get my pc and nc to play nice together?? 1.18 software 1.3.0

Discussion

Attempt to root

In section 4, 'remove the card' occurs twice; one of these is patently not correct. Should the card be removed thirty second after the usb0 device comes online, while the nook is still on (but screen off)? Should it be removed after the device has been shut down and removed from usb connection to the host? Current instructions indicate both as being the case. I'd answer which was incorrect, but as I haven't yet stumbled on the magic correct combination to attain a sustained root, I don't know.

Adding to the fun, here's my experience: (for detail's sake: this is using nooter0.1, writing nooter_sdcard_40mb.img to an 8gb class 10 microsd via dd, and all done on a fairly recent vintage ubuntu box. Cord is that which came with the nook color, nook color's about 20 hours old, and hasn't had anything done to it beyond the initial activation to get past the nag screens.)

• with device fully off, unconnected to usb, insert card.
• Plug in usb. Cord LED glows green.
• cdc_acm device shows up; I wait until usb0 is connected.
• Wait 30 seconds beyond that.
  • During that time, I ssh in to 192.168.2.2 - this works, but nothing's mounted under /mnt. Fine, I'm not at that stage yet.
• Thirty seconds elapse; I hold down power for fifteen seconds.
  • During this time period, usb0 disconnects, cord LED goes from green to amber, and back to green. USB0 does not reconnect.
• At release of power button, usb0 remains disconnected, cord led continues showing green.
• Disconnect usb cable.
• Remove card.
• Plug in usb cable. usb0 connect, cord led shows green.
• As I've already gotten to this point before, I remove offending entry in known_hosts.
  • I'm able to sftp in, but there's still nothing under /mnt.
  • Attempts to ssh in just stall.
• Gnash teeth in frustration.

(Further action report)

• Hold down power button (this is a direct continuation from above; usb0 was connected, cord led green), this time release at approximately 8 seconds, during the period when the cord led went amber.
• disconnect usb
• start watching dmesg
• plug in usb
• watch helplessly as usb0 is nowhere to be found, but mass storage device rears its ugly head.
• I let it boot. Selected graceful shutdown.
• Further attempts at fifteen-second hold-downs / etc produce no usb0 connection. Always regular boots.
• Next attempt will be to start with card again, and call a reboot from ssh, hopefully yanking the card while it's down if my timing's good. Doubt it will be =(

Edit: Considering that I'm the first one to use the discussion page, I'm going to go ahead and make some notes by the two 'remove card' bullets. Should work to draw attention to it. Shoggot 17:12, 30 November 2010 (PST)

Section 4 clarification requests

• Here's a chunk of section 4, notes in bold (I think)

1. Section on writing microsd removed, it's fairly comprehensive and clear
2. Boot the nook with the microSD card.
   • Shut the nook down completely. Hold the power button for 15 seconds. From what starting state? What's being waited for? If the nook was initially already off, via the power-down prompt, is this still necessary? Is there an indication that this has been done correctly? Etc.
   • Put in the sd card
   • Plug the usb cable from your NC into your computer. The nook will attempt to boot. Perhaps remove the 'nook will attempt to boot', given that visually, nothing appears to happen unless you observe dmesg while this is occuring.
   • Nothing should appear to happen. If you're using the Nook cable, the charge LED might blink In my experience, initial connection will show amber for a second or two, then shift to green. No blinking. Is this indicative of anything? Is one preferable to the other?
   • In about a minute, your computer will see a new USB device. I see the device within ~ three seconds via dmesg. For the timings, should this be taken as when a connection to usb0 is fully established? This should be specified, if so.
     • In Windows, it will probably complain about missing drivers unless you have USB ethernet drivers installed (unlikely). If you are planning to use the ADB to install apps, then you will need the windows USB drivers which are a downloadable part of the Android SDK. See details here: http://developer.android.com/sdk/win-usb.html
     • In Linux it will show up as a CDC ethernet and serial combo device
   • Once the devices show up, wait another 30 seconds and remove the card (or possibly don't; note 3rd step down from here) Again: does this time period start after usb0 is connected? What if you wait longer? Should the card actually be removed at this stage? There's another step which claims it should be removed then. Removing the card on a running system is required?
   • Hold down the power button for 15 seconds again What indicators should be looked for? If it's held down for fifteen seconds (with the card in, as there's a step to remove it below, and given the choice of removing hardware from a running system versus a downed system, I chose the latter), usb0 disconnects, cord led shifts briefly to amber, and back to green. Is this what's desired?
   • Unplug the USB
   • remove the card (or possibly don't; note 3rd step up from here) See above. Is this the stage where it should be removed, or is the prior stage where it should be removed?
   • plug the usb back in. What should be looked for? Should the screen remain black, or should it boot nook-style? What should be seen in dmesg?

   At this point, the nook firmware has been modified to enable SSH and ADB connections. If you have installed the the Android SDK you can now install apps directly using the ADB program in the SDK once you add the Nook Color vendor ID to your adb setup.

   The NC vid is 0x2080

... Obviously, I'm a tad frustrated =(

Shoggot 17:32, 30 November 2010 (PST)

Fixed. Rboatright 09:36, 1 December 2010 (PST)

Restoring

It would be nice if it was noted whether or not one can restore their Nook Color to factor settings after rooting/attempting to root If it is possible, it should be explained, and if it isn't possible, there should be a warning up front that there is no turning back. Patch 20:59, 2 December 2010 (PST)

It is possible since the only real change made to the nook before installing other apps is turning on adb access. One character in one file. Of course, once you install apps and etc, its all on you. There is no current community procedure to reflash the rom. That may change.

Rboatright 21:24, 2 December 2010 (PST)

I tried the hard reset and I had no luck. Just booted normaly and I would like to unroot it. Any solution? I didn't want to use the "erase and deregister" and screw something up. Thanks in advance. Eric --Emoney007 16:40, 31 December 2010 (PST)

Password?

Whenever I try to SSH into my nook it almost always prompts for an unguessable password. Sometimes, depending on where I am, I get lucky and guess it, but as soon as I reboot after pulling out the SD card in the instructions I can ping it but it always prompts for pw. Also, ADB will not recognize the nc, even though I followed the instructions and tried copying the ini file into a bunch of different directories. 'adb devices' just reports the nook as '????????? - no permissions' GhostC10 7:50, 1 December 2010 (CST)

if you're getting ???? - no permissions, try running adb as sudo. Also, remember that you need to have done the other steps as sudo as well. The password is empty, just hit enter. Rboatright 07:30, 1 December 2010 (PST

Still no dice. As sudo or straight root I get the ????s from ADB, and I meant that the password doesn't seem to be empty, I press enter and it prompts again. Does SSHing and ADB only work when the dd'ed SD card is in? The instructions led me to believe that ADB should work, even when the nook is booted sans SD card. I've followed all instructions as intended. ADB has never worked, but I managed to SCP Angry Birds onto my nook (it won't play though, the screen just flickers and returns to Extras). On a related note, could one DD an image like this: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ARM/OMAPMaverickInstall onto an SD card and install it on the nook using the on-page instructions? Which OMAP3 is it? GhostC10 10:09, 1 December 2010 (CST)

SSH and SCP only work with the SD card is in. ADB only works when the sd card is OUT. The password is always empty, so there's nothing to guess. The rooting wiki page has an updated set of instructions about ssh'ing into the nook color, I suggest you review them. Also, pokey9000 has released nooter 0.2, and that changed the ethernet over usb type to a different type that may work better when the SD card is in. Please dd the new nooter 0.2 and try with that. Rboatright 09:35, 1 December 2010 (PST)

I have followed the updated instructions. Is this what I'm supposed to see?

root:~# adb devices

List of devices attached

2004650142112008 device

GhostC10 12:03, 1 December 2010 (CST)

Yes, exactly, you're done. You can now do adb install xxxxx.apk or adb shell and type commands or whatever. It is now finished, and everything worked. Rboatright 10:58, 1 December 2010 (PST)

Thank you very much for putting up with my android newbishness, Rboatright. I now have Angry Birds running and am looking for other applications to install. Do any of the following applications exist for android? (VNC viewer of some kind, text editor, ssh client/terminal emulator) Thanks again for donating your time to help me out! :) GhostC10 05:06, 2 December 2010 (PST)

Installing... i mean uninstalling now

Thankyou for the helping in advance, I starting the rooting task earlier today and now i'm stuck. I'm at the very last spot installing specific programs.

When I enter: adb install xxxx.apk

i get a command not found. I've tried cd

I don't understand what you mean by using ADB program, being it only opens in my command prompt. As a Completed Process.

__________________ Scratch this I solved the problem

ended up using ./adb

Now.... how do I uninstall. I used ./adb uninstall xxxxx.apk but what I get in return is Failure please help, i don't want to have to sort through bad choices =(

BDQ

SystemIdleProcess 12:57, 4 December 2010 (PST) To uninstall you have to use the package name of the application. ex. adb uninstall com.rovio.angrybirds

(OneShotMemtok 14:13, 9 December 2010 (PST)) Excellent point. One more thing that might prove helpful: the full list of installed apps appears in /data/data/ so just ls /data/data/ to find the right com.abc.xyz name to use in the adb uninstall process.

Writing Disk Images

The instructions for writing Disk Images in Mac are unclear for someone who has not done it before. Perhaps someone can offer an expanded explanation?

http://www.thelinuxdaily.com/2010/01/writing-images-to-disk-on-mac-osx-with-dd/

Step 4, here is what happens for me:

sh-3.2# diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk2
Unmount of all volumes on disk2 was successful
sh-3.2# dd if=nooter_sdcard_40mb of=/dev/disk2
dd: nooter_sdcard_40mb: No such file or directory
sh-3.2# 

I'm following the instructions exactly as I see them, so I must be missing something critical, but I can't figure out what.

Is the fine called nooter_sdcard_40mb or is it called nooter_sdcard_40mb.img  ???? Is the file there? If you do an ls do you see it? Rboatright 07:49, 10 December 2010 (PST)

That was a typo on my part; the file name is nooter_sdcard_40mb.img. I don't know what "do an ls" means; this is all new to me. The file is saved on my desktop. I'm running an iMac with OS X 10.6.5. lngwstx 16:28, 10 December 2010 (PST)

I'm still stuck at the same place. Anyone have any idea how to help me? I did the ls command and it shows the path as Desktop/nooter_sdcard_40mb.img, exactly as I typed it in. What am I missing??

In the command, where it says

sh-3.2# dd if=nooter_sdcard_40mb of=/dev/disk2

the if is the "Input File" you need to add the path to the input file like Desktop/nooter_sdcard_40mb.img you did NOT include "Desktop" Rboatright 06:52, 14 December 2010 (PST)

Restore SD Card After Root in Windows

So you, like me, have rooted your NC. Now your 8GB (or whatever size) bootable SD card has 2 partitions, but your amazing Windows OS won't let you delete the tiny bootable partition on the SD card so you can use it in the NC as storage. The solution? Use Uwe Sieber's brute force tool: http://www.uwe-sieber.de/files/diskerase.zip (be sure to pick the correct partition, this will process will PERMANENTLY REMOVE whatever partition you pick!). Right-click on the partition and choose "Erase MBR". WARNING: Again, be sure you pick the correct Disc! If you erase the master boot record of your local HDD you will be sad. Then you can use the "Erase" button in the tool, but the MBR delete is the key. Remove and reattach the SD to your computer. Now when go into Windows Disk Management you can create and formate a single partition.

Read all about why you can't use any "native" Windows tools to accomplish this on Uwe's page.

How likely is this to survive firmware updates?

Any thoughts on how likely is it that Barnes & Nobel will kill rooting come the next Nook Color firmware update?

I rooted my Nook when it had version 1.0.0 and it has since got a 1.0.1 firmware update and many of the apps I installed now fail to work. I will try again with the new rooter. Bajangerry 04:30, 29 December 2010 (PST)

Get rid of custom boot animation

How would I get rid of the custom boot animation installed by auto-nooter-2.12.25? the rooting page claims that it is removable. the reason why is i just do not like it and like the stock one better. --Bigbodysmallbrain 17:20, 26 December 2010 (PST)

simply delete the bootanimation.zip file::::

Just Making Sure

So I just got a nook color and I think I want to root it. Both me and my father have some concerns that this will totally destroy/mess up my NK. A few questions:

1. Is this legal? 2. Can I totally restore/uninstall everything I have downloaded as far as the rooting and android market goes? 3. is there any change that my nook will just die(brick) if I follow all of the steps correctly?

Thanks :)

Editing the colored sections

I think the teal section needs to be edited. Since it starts out as being Mac instructions it should only list Mac insructions. Currently it lists those then at the point labeled "After you have burned the uSD card" it goes into the instructions for all systems. That section should be white and left-aligned to continue the previous steps. I looked at the code and see the opening and closing tags for the section so someone with more coding experience than I have needs to look at. Plus I don't have my nook yet so I am loathe to make any changes.

Whoever did the color breakdown was awesome though. Helps a lot. --Sempf 18:43, 4 March 2011 (PST)

Adding Google Account

When going through Rooting, Folowup, is it really necessary to jump around between youtube/gmail etc? Instead I just tried to add my Google account at the "Set up your Google Account" page, which failed, went back and then clicked the skip button. This seemed to work fine, gmail and the market work properly, and is much simpler. This also appears to fix whatever problem was stopping Google Books from working properly.
Nicholas Smith 19:03, 6 January 2011 (PST)

I noted the same thing. It kept rejecting my password, so I skipped it and encountered no problems. MikeDM, 2/3/2011

Hack after 1.1 update

Hey guys, can I still root the NC even though I have updated to version 1.1?

From MikeDM: I had originally rooted my NC after updating to 1.0.1. Then I restored it to original settings, updated to 1.1.0, and tried to root it. No dice; it (or I) screwed up. I then went back to 1.0.1, rooted it again, and will wait until someone who knows what they're doing posts a way to root with 1.1.0

Upgrading to 1.2 after 1.1 Rooted?

I tried the instructions on the B&N Website to copy their 1.2 Zipfile down to the root of the device, wait, and magically have the device upgraded to 1.2. Unfortunately nothing happens. Has determining how to upgrade a rooted device via the mechanism described here been worked out? (In the meantime I'm going to remove that zip file from my device!)

Jwhjwhjwh 10:54, 27 April 2011 (PDT)

Rooting brand new update?

I just got the BRAND new update for the Nook Color which is now a 1.2 version so is there going to be a way for me to root with the new update that B&N just came out with? Before that I had the 1.1 version.

Also I was wondering if a microSD HC card will work with comp and NC? As far as getting a class 6 that seems to me all that is available is the HC in the class 6.

Thanks for any help!

Rooting Nook Color Software Release 1.2.0

Software release 1.2.0 is now being shipped on new Nook Color from B&N.

Is there a new set of instructions and an updated rooter img file or whatever files may now be required to root the new NC using 1.2.0?

For Windows can we continue to use the image writer win32diskimager-RELEASE-0.3-r27-binary?

If it is of any value the serial number on my unit is greater than 2011 and my PC is Vista.

Thanks in advance for any assistance you can offer.

Smr07 18:05, 8 May 2011 (PDT)

Successfully installed CM7! But how do I get my pc and nc to play nice together??

Hi! Just got my brand new nook color and put cm7 on it. Works great. yay! Now trying to put a book on it from my pc and when I connect the nc to my pc (windows vista) it can't find the drivers, thus I can't put any books on it:( I've tried different ports and a different pc and got the same results. It does show up in 'my computer' as removable disk g and removable disk h. On my nc it show this little thing in the notification bar and if I slide down the screen it says 'usb debugging connected'. I an doing this without an sdcard in my nook, if that makes a difference. What am I doing wrong to get these connected? Thanks:)

software 1.3.0

Will the latest software update from B&N (1.3.0) update the same as the 1.2.0 version? Paul a 09:59, 3 September 2011 (PDT)