Everything seems to be going wrong with my Nook Color

Wulfie

Member
Jun 5, 2011
41
0
A couple weeks ago I bought a Nook Color on ebay. The first thing I did was turn it on and let it fully charge overnight. I noticed that it was in normal condition, but didn't bother going past the intro screen since an off the shelf Nook Color was not what I was interested in anyway.

The next day I flashed phiremod 6.2 on it with no problems (I have done this process successfully to two other Nook Color's by the way). I am able to connect to my wifi, setup my google account, and open the market. Life is good so far. Then I notice in ROM Manager that there is a phiremod 6.3 version out. I try to download phiremod 6.3 from ROM Manager for an entire day with no luck. The download just kept stalling on me. No problem I'll just download phiremod 6.3 onto my sdcard and flash it through clockwork recovery as normal (performing a full wipe first of course).

Then boot loop for no reason I can tell. Just a boot loop at "Touch the future of reading" with no way to get into recovery without restarting it with the sdcard.

So I put the sdcard back in and wipe and reflash phiremod 6.3 with the same results. Then I wipe and reflash phiremod 6.2...boot loop again. I repeat this process until my eyes start to bleed.

At this point I'm thinking, "There's no reason this should be happening. I wish I could just go back in time and start over." That's when I find this link: [RECOVERY][ZIP] Nook Color Restore to stock - xda-developers
Ok, I'll just restore everything back to stock. No clockwork, no phiremod, just Barnes and Noble software just like the day it was born. So I go down the road of restoring the device to stock and instead of bootlooping at "Touch the future of Reading" it bootloops at the "N" screen. I'm running out of ideas so I perform the 8x method, get the OTA install, and still bootlooping at the "N" screen. Oh yeah, and "power + n" wont take it into recovery of any kind.

Now that it seems that I've failed to restore the device to stock, I try to flash phiremod 6.3 again because this is really my end goal anyway. This time it is a success. I connect to my wifi. The device says I am connected and the wifi signal is strong, but I can't establish a reliable data connection with google, or open the market, or browse the web. I turn the wifi off and on, I tell it to forget my connection and add it again, but nothing seems to work until a day later when it suddenly establishes a connection.

So everything seemed like it might be ok at this point except strange things started happening with the device. Power + n doesn't take it into recovery, and never did at any time it has been in my possession. When I try to go into recovery from ROM Manager after flashing CWR I go into a bootloop. This is even after updating Rom Manager and doing things like rebooting after flashing CWR. Wifi always says it's strong and connected but any app with internet access is often times painfully slow to the point of being unusable or at least impractical. Downloading a single app from the market is like pulling teeth, and I regularly get the "retry or cancel" popup over and over again. Sometimes when I tell it to reboot or shut off, I get the "rebooting" or "shutting off" message and it just grinds away endlessly.

The device is currently in a bootloop after just telling it to reboot (normal reboot not reboot into recovery), and I know how to pop in my sdcard with CWR and get out of it. However, my problem is that this is a gift for my sister, and I just cant seem to get this device into a normal working state that I can give to her.

I know that there are plenty of threads answering all of the little problems I have outlined here, but none have resolved them for me nor have I found a single thread that deals with a whole host of problems like this device seems to have.

Thank you for your patience in reading this.
 

ShutterPeep

Senior Member
May 3, 2011
149
8
I'd do my best to get it back to stock first. Then check if all is well there before I'd root or install a custom rom. During my troubles, I got stuck at the colored "nook col.." screen I then used the remove-cwr.zip before doing the 8 reboot process to get it back to stock. Your post mentioned you did the OTA update, does that mean you were restored to stock successfully after the 8 reboot method?

I understand the frustration and hopefully we can help you with this.
 

Wulfie

Member
Jun 5, 2011
41
0
Thank you for the reply.

At no point in this debacle have I been able to successfully restore to stock. I have tried every file presented on this thread: [RECOVERY][ZIP] Nook Color Restore to stock - xda-developers and I just tried the two files to restore to stock 1.2 on this thread: [UPDATE ZIP] Stock 1.2 update.zip flashable from CWM - xda-developers. When I try to restore to stock I only make it to the "n" screen. When I performed the 8x reboot and received the OTA update, I was not able to restore to stock successfully and still only made it as far as the "n" screen.
 

Wulfie

Member
Jun 5, 2011
41
0
No I don't know which partition setup I have. This is a little embarrassing, but I'm not sure I really understand partitioning. How do I know which partition setup from the the thread you suggested to use? What should I expect it to do?
 

LocalStain

Senior Member
Feb 10, 2011
528
46
No I don't know which partition setup I have. This is a little embarrassing, but I'm not sure I really understand partitioning. How do I know which partition setup from the the thread you suggested to use? What should I expect it to do?

You don't need to know which configuration you are on you need to restore to the 1gb/5gb partitioning.

Different ROMS divide the internal memory(eMMCMultiMediaCard - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) into sections(partitions)The 1gb is for the ROM and the rest is for media or vice versa idk how the new stock eMMC is laid out.

The problem arises in that certain custom ROMs and more importantly, certain early builds of ROMs formatted these partitions differently. If you flashed from one to the next you may have formatted a needed partition in a way that that ROM can't write to, ergo B00T L00P5.

Not sure where you are at but that xda thread and the uninstall Clockwork and restore to stock are your best bet to get you back to a usable flashable state.

Hope this helps.

LS
 

Wulfie

Member
Jun 5, 2011
41
0
Just to be clear on the process process here:
1) Format system
2) Format data
3) Flash B&N v1.1 "old" 1GB "/data", 5+GB "/media" partitioning zip
4) Flash Stock 1.2 update.zip
5) Unmount sdcard
6) Reboot
Fin
 

LocalStain

Senior Member
Feb 10, 2011
528
46
Just make sure you follow the instruction but yes..

Just to be clear on the process process here:
1) Format system
2) Format data
3) Flash B&N v1.1 "old" 1GB "/data", 5+GB "/media" partitioning zip
4) Flash Stock 1.2 update.zip
5) Unmount sdcard
6) Reboot
Fin

That would seem to be it.
 

Wulfie

Member
Jun 5, 2011
41
0
Alright so here's what I just did:
1) Format system
2) Format data
3) Flash B&N v1.1 "old" 1GB "/data", 5+GB "/media" partitioning zip
4) Reboot
5) Flash Stock 1.2 update.zip
6) Unmount sdcard
7) Reboot8)Still stuck at the "n" screen of doom.
 

ShutterPeep

Senior Member
May 3, 2011
149
8
Alright so here's what I just did:
1) Format system
2) Format data
3) Flash B&N v1.1 "old" 1GB "/data", 5+GB "/media" partitioning zip
4) Reboot
5) Flash Stock 1.2 update.zip
6) Unmount sdcard
7) Reboot
8)Still stuck at the "n" screen of doom.

Did you boot into stock 1.1 first and check it out before upgrading to B&N 1.2?
 

J515OP

Super Moderator
Staff member
Jan 6, 2011
5,172
899
Alright so here's what I just did:
1) Format system
2) Format data
3) Flash B&N v1.1 "old" 1GB "/data", 5+GB "/media" partitioning zip
4) Reboot
5) Flash Stock 1.2 update.zip
6) Unmount sdcard
7) Reboot8)Still stuck at the "n" screen of doom.

8) You must finish the 8 boots by using the power + n button to avoid getting stuck at the n.
 

Wulfie

Member
Jun 5, 2011
41
0
I performed the 8 reboots, and my Nook did a factory reset and OTA update. Now it boots into stock v1.1.0. I see the pretty lady, there's a video, I get to accept a B&N agreement, I connect to either of my wireless connections, but after I enter my account name and password it always says "Error sorry we're having trouble setting up your Nookcolor. Please shutdown the device and try again...." It gives me a number to call so I do. After a long bewildering conversation with tech support, I'm told that my device was once registered to someone else (which I already suspected having purchased it on ebay). I'm told that in order to fix the problem they are going remove the old account from the device, and that when I restart it in an hour I will be one with the Nookcolor universe. It has been many hours, and I am still getting same error message.

Should I continue down this path with customer service (who are failing to inspire me), take it into the Barnes and Noble store this weekend (I don't have a receipt but it at least it boots into stock now), or just go ahead and load phiremod 6.3 (which is my end goal, but I want to make sure I don't take one step forward and then two steps back now that I've gotten this far)?
 
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