Root Cellcom Israel - nandroid backup of original firmware

[Shayko]

hey all,
i noticed a few people from israel who updated their firmware and wanted to return to the Cellcom original firmware and didn't know how or didn't have the original version to work with, so i made a clean Cellcom firmware nandroid backup which restores that firmware.

for those who don't know what i'm talking about, i'll try to explain:
Android doesn't support Right To Left languages (or BIDI) so Cellcom decided they'll make their own implementation of BIDI support, also adding menus in Hebrew and Arabic. problem is they implemented it on G8 firmware, which kinda sucks, and also didn't supply NPS to customers at all stating that the Samsung Galaxy will probably never get a firmware update in Israel. so people updated their firmware using Odin and to their surprise - no BIDI, Hebrew or Arabic!
reading Hebrew and Arabic is a small fix that requires updating the system\fonts directory with fonts that support Hebrew\Arabic (an explanation is here: http://androidforums.com/samsung-i7500/9696-locale-support-firmwares.html#post54424 . there's a link to a full guide in Hebrew, but i can translate it here if anybody wants to), and writing Hebrew or Arabic can be accomplished by installing AnyKeyboard app.
The BIDI and menus remain a problem, and that's why some people want to return to the old firmware (called GC, btw).

first a few warnings, just to get started:

WARNING: doing this restore will DELETE ALL YOUR DOWNLOADED APPS! it is a default clean firmware so it's like the way you got the phone from Cellcom! internal and external SD's shouldn't be harmed.

WARNING: i created the nandroid backup using V0.3. current version is V0.4.2. i'm not sure what are the consequences of doing a restore in V4 of a V3 backup.

yet another WARNING: I tested it and it worked, but i can't guarantee it will work for all. DO IT AT YOUR OWN RISK! and don't forget to BACKUP EVERYTHING YOU CAN BEFORE! i won't be held responsible if you break your phone.

so what do you need to do in order to restore you firmware?
first of all you need the android system recovery from drakaz at HDblog:
UPDATE 14/10 - V4.1! - ROOT/RECOVERY IMAGE update, wipe, backup and restore GALAXY - HDblog - Forum
do a backup, and then save it on your computer (you don't want to risk breaking your phone).

then you download this:
RapidShare: 1-CLICK Web hosting - Easy Filehosting
inside there's a directory called "nandroid". just throw it in your sdcard (if you're familiar with nandroid you'll know what to do).
in recovery mode do a restore backup.

in the Cellcom.rar you'll also find "build.prop". i noticed that nandroid doesn't backup or restore that file so i added it myself. after backing up your own build.prop (it's inside the system directory. you need adb for that) replace it with this one. i don't know if it really matters, but it couldn't hurt.

that's it. you should have a working, buggy, BIDI Hebrew and Arabic supported Galaxy yet again .
if you got any problems feel free to ask.

now to a question of my own
i guess there's a way to install BIDI, Hebrew menus etc on other firmwares using the files from the Cellcom one, but i couldn't find out how. if any of you guys can find it, i'll appreciate it very much .

 

[kivingorni]

I don't know what to tell you ???? really you are the best , you solved my problem by uploading this . . .
really really really thanks thanks thanks and from today you are one of our android senior even the forum didn't named you like that

Thanks very very very much i will test the rom as soon as possible (when i reach my home)

 

[Shayko]

I don't know what to tell you ???? really you are the best , you solved my problem by uploading this . . .
really really really thanks thanks thanks and from today you are one of our android senior even the forum didn't named you like that

Thanks very very very much i will test the rom as soon as possible (when i reach my home)

it feels great to be appreciated
but i would feel the same with only a smiley or two

i hope this works for you mate.

(i had to cut back some of your smilies because of a 30 images limit! LOL)

 

[kivingorni]

done done done after long time of working but i have one qustions :
the sound of the beginning was gone on cellcom logo?????

 

[Shayko]

as far as i know there should be a startup sound, but does it really matter?

 

[sagiya]

Hi Shay,

I was tring for days to restore my galaxy to my original orange rom. Using nandroid doesnt work.
Do you know if there is a way to create a rom from the nandroid backup so i can use it with the 4.2 recovery.

It seems that restore option doesn't work.

Ill appreciate your help. thanks.

 

[kam187]

Yeah it is a little broken actually. You need to use the same base firmware as your backup was from. You should wipe whatever firmware you have on it from recovery. Then use nandroid to restore - this will deal with your data partition for you.

If you don't have the same base firmware or its not working for you then you can unyaffs it manually: (still do the wipe and nandroid restore first)

- Find the .tar for the backup on your sdcard (it will be in /sdcard/nandroid somewhere), and extract the system.img out of it. Put that onto the root of your sdcard
^^ you can mount the sdcard to your computer and do all that

- Boot into recovery

- open an adb shell
# adb shell

- remount system read/write
# mount -o rw,remount -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock1 /system

- erase the system partition
# rm -rf /system/*

- Extract the system image:
# cd /system/
# unyaffs /sdcard/system.img

That should do it.

 

[Alonzzo2]

Hi

i don't know why i didnt came across this question before, but i'll ask it:
when hacking your android phone - there is the ROM thing, and the FIRMWARE thing.

from my knowledge in electronics, the ROM contains the FIRMWARE.

what you're describing here, the system.img file, created by nandroid (that file is ~89MB in my backup... ), contains the firmware version of the phone, when i created the nandroid backup?
and the rest of the files (boot, data, dbdata, recovery, userdata) contains the OS (the android 1.5 or the galaxo or whatever it is)

IM CONFUSED!!

while writing this post i think the conclusion is that a rom (let's say galaxo) contains it all - OS and FIRMWARE. but that can't be true, cause i need to flash the II5 FIRMWARE prior to using the update.zip from the galaxo.

is there any way u can direct me to an article or a post or something that can set it right for me?

im asking this, cause i wanna install the galaxo rom, but it seems that i need to update the firmware to II5. but, i want a backup of my original firmware so that i wont void my provider warranty (so that i could go back to the old firmware and OS).

sorry for the long speach, i hope u can help me. thanks!

 

[sagiya]

Hi Kam,

Thanks for the information. I will try that.


BTW,

Do you know about the opengl fixing issue for the Galaxy?

I couldnt find proper instructions and the file to be put in my Galaxy.

 

[kam187]

ROM: Usually read only memory, so not flashable or changable

Firmware: Usually software for an embedded chip - eg for the chip on your modem, or BIOS of your computer.

Software update: Usually an update for the OS, or software running on the hardware. So like an update to windows.

Unfortunatly all these terms have been really badly used and confused when it comes to phones and PDA's.

Lets talk specficially about the galaxy..

Firmware update: We call this an update from samsung which contains a firmware update for the baseband - the phone part of the phone i.e. the modem. This also contains a system image, boot image and a recovery image; which gets flashed onto the FLASH inside the phone. These later images are not really firmware, as they are actually a new OS image. So in fact are a software update.

ROM: This is really stupididly used to describe the FLASH in the phone where the system partition is stored on an update. Its not ROM but flash and updatable. The total size of this dictates how big the core android OS can be. Most phones have at least 512mb

On boot the boot partition (which contains the kernel) is mounted and the kernel is loaded into RAM. That then loads the system partiton and starts the rest of android.

At the same time the baseband (phone part of the phone) boots and responds to androids requests to make calls etc.

Its pretty simple, but really confused terms which is quite sad. You should think of 'firmware' and 'software update' and ROM etc as flash and the software update that gets stored in it.

 

[kam187]

there's a thread about the opengl fix. Do a search. u need to download the ion build and grab the file from there. Instructions are in that post!

 

[Alonzzo2]

thanks kam

so one last question - i guess there isnt a way to backup my current firmware, right? just in case my provider claims that my warranty is void cause i updated the firmware... ?

 

[kam187]

nope u cant easily. But you can use the FUX downloader to grab a firmware update for your CSC version which you can apply later if you need waranty.

Type *#1234# into your dialer to get the values u need to plug into FUS

 

[Prot]

S.O.S
USIM Cellcom Israel
I had flash a phone without backup APN settings
Tried too many options over the net and no progress, what I've got is "not registered on network". Have no idea what to do
HELP PLEASE !!!

 

[sagiya]

you can find the information in that link:
http://iandroid.co.il/archives/608

 

[tsphere]

tell me if the settings in the link work for you. they're different than my cell phone and if they work I can give you different ones to try.

 

[Prot]

tell me if the settings in the link work for you. they're different than my cell phone and if they work I can give you different ones to try.

Three days without phone Still "not registered on network".
Appreciate if you could help me with that settings.

 

[Kouske]

The APN settings for Cellcom are just "internetg". It works for me. If you flashed your CSC file then you will have to flash a Cellcom CSC for it to work again..

 

[Prot]

where can I get Cellcom CSC or original ROM not a nandroid backup?

 

[Kouske]

I could extract my CSC if I knew how. :\

 

[tsphere]

I have it without csc and it works perfectly. are you talking about the apn or the network? the apn is just for edge/3g, the network is for calling/sms etc.
If you're not connected to network, go to settings->call settings->network operators
it will search for a minute or two and will let you choose - choose cellcom.

If your problem is 3g/edge and mms don't work (apn settings) then I have different settings for you which could work.

 

[Prot]

I can not calling/sms
when I choose cellcom I got "registered on network" but when i trying make call I got "not registered on network"

 

[tsphere]

I doubt csc will help. my best guess is sim problem. did it work with cellcom firmware?

 

[Prot]

yes it dos work

 

[tsphere]

which package did you flash. I flashed with odin without a csc at all (removed it from the tar) and it always works.