bootie mode allows image backup

[chejlava]

Update: just made a clean install of Ubuntu 10.04 on my netbook, and after allowing it to do the updates (but not installing any Palm SW) it sees the TP in bootie mode just fine. It looks like this is some sort of Ubuntu magic - NOT Palm novacomd on linux magic.

Still doesn't work on Win XP or 7 or OpenSuSE 11.4

Just stumbled across this useful tidbit:

If you get a TouchPad (or other webOS device) into 'bootie' mode, it will present the actual internal disk as a USB target (see attached pic).

In this case my TouchPad 32GB is connected to my Ubuntu system and shows up as /dev/sdc*. The webOS boot partition is selected - /dev/sdc13 - and can be backed up using 'sudo dd if=/dev/sdc13 of=tp_boot_backup_1 bs=64k'

The LVM2 partition is where everything else webOS lives. The first 11 partitions are used by the Qualcomm hardware so unless you're really dedicated you won't need to back those up. All of "your" stuff is in the last 2.

Recovery is the reverse: get TP in bootie mode & dd from file to device.

I haven't played with Windoze - I assume there are freeware tools to let you copy partitions and such.

The phones will not do this initially - you need to get them into a "mass storage mode" by holding the 'T' key on the keyboard while powering up. My one test of this left the phone (a Veer) stuck in MSM mode: I had to yank the battery to reset it.... To exit MSM mode hold the phone's power switch and toggle the 'mute' switch 4 or more times.

[rollerbabe]

How did you get this to work?

I installed Ubuntu 10.04 (32-bit), updated, put my touchpad into bootie mode, and it doesn't detect anything?

[henri_p]

Seems the info comes from here > Target Disk Mode - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wonder hot to get that on a TP... it would save a lot of trouble, did you ever manage to get a DD in this way ?

[TopTongueBarry]

Originally Posted by chejlava

Just stumbled across this useful tidbit:

If you get a TouchPad (or other webOS device) into 'bootie' mode, it will present the actual internal disk as a USB target (see attached pic).

In this case my TouchPad 32GB is connected to my Ubuntu system and shows up as /dev/sdc*. The webOS boot partition is selected - /dev/sdc13 - and can be backed up using 'sudo dd if=/dev/sdc13 of=tp_boot_backup_1 bs=64k'

The LVM2 partition is where everything else webOS lives. The first 11 partitions are used by the Qualcomm hardware so unless you're really dedicated you won't need to back those up. All of "your" stuff is in the last 2.

Recovery is the reverse: get TP in bootie mode & dd from file to device.

I haven't played with Windoze - I assume there are freeware tools to let you copy partitions and such.

The phones will not do this initially - you need to get them into a "mass storage mode" by holding the 'T' key on the keyboard while powering up. My one test of this left the phone (a Veer) stuck in MSM mode: I had to yank the battery to reset it.... To exit MSM mode hold the phone's power switch and toggle the 'mute' switch 4 or more times.

You actually need to backup p4, p8, p12, p13, and p14 (/dev/sdc4, /dev/sdc8, /dev/sdc12, /dev/sdc13, /dev/sdc14 to be able to do a restore including tokens, bootie and lvm partition information.
if doing from linux you can back up the entire disk in one shot for restoral later.

dd if=/dev/sdc of=/host/temp/dev_bu.bin bs=64M
(make sure you are using a device or mounted filesystem for the of with enough room to save the entire contents (16G, 32G, or 64G)

for restore the command would be similar to

dd if=/host/temp/dev_bu.bin of=/dev/sdc bs=512

ONLY USE THIS TO BACKUP AND RESTORE FROM/TO THE ORIGINAL SOURCE DEVICE

Don't use this to restore a backup made on one device to a different device. You will overwrite the tokens including the stored serial number with the Tokens from the original source device and that will cause you grief when trying to add the devices to Palm/HP profiles.

TTB

[roadtrip]

I've been searching around for a while to find a way to do a complete "disk image" backup of my touchpad before delving into the world of various multi-OS installations. I'm convinced that one day the HP servers will no longer supply restores.

Anyway, this thread is the closest I've found so far that lists what I'd like to do. I'm running on a Mac and the idea of connecting my touchpad, seeing the 14 partitions and then just doing a block by block copy to an image on my local hard disk seems ideal. What I haven't managed to accomplish is getting OSX to recognize the touchpad "disk" and its partitions when the touchpad is plugged into the USB port. I've tried connecting in recovery mode via the Power+volUp method (with the big USB logo onscreen), but there are no new devices showing up in my /dev directory.

I humbly request info on how to get OSX to see the whole disk of the touchpad. Do I need to run a novacom command to load a boot image first? The OP certainly suggests that's not the case.

It would be great to have an image saved before anything goes wrong. Luckily, I haven't bricked the thing yet, and it has served me well since the fire sale. Time to get CM9/CM10 running, though, and poke around at what this thing can really do.

Thanks in advance for any pointers - be they tips or links.
-MC

[GMMan]

I bet it's possible to use novacom get to ready from flash. If it can read arbitrary files I don't see why it wouldn't read a device.

[roadtrip]

Well, it looks like the answer is hiding in another thread... http://forums.webosnation.com/webos-...ml#post3304476

Apparently there is a debug version of bootie that is needed.
The original poster - chejlava - says on that post, "The best part about the debug bootie mode is that you can make a full image backup of your device or restore a full backup in case something....bad....happens... "

I wonder if debug bootie can be acquired.

[rollerbabe]

Yes I never did manage to find this debug version of bootie either

Can anyone help?

[GMMan]

It may be possible that the difference is only set with a flag. Of course, I don't know how to deal with blobs of executable code, so I can't tell you.

[TopTongueBarry]

It is set with a flag. Don't remember offhand which flag on which partition, (think p1) but the information is buried somewhere on rootzwiki.

Originally Posted by GMMan

It may be possible that the difference is only set with a flag. Of course, I don't know how to deal with blobs of executable code, so I can't tell you.