Rooting my A81H - Honeybreak 1.20

fatmanwalking

Member
Mar 26, 2011
38
4
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Please note!!! I originally called the program Honeybreak in my title.
I made a very stupid error!
The actual name is Gingerbreak. My sincere apologies for confusing all who read my post.
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After heavily using my A81H for three months, I finally experienced a crash that seemed to put my Wits away to that place where Android tablet go to expire. A thirds of my apps quit working. I tried deleting and reloading them, but most would not reload.

When I attempted to flash my A81H to A81H+ (from 2.2 to 2.3) my device simply would not go into update mode. I checked in with merimobiles.com on their US repair faucility, but learned that the US company only did hardware repairs. So I contacted merimobies and sent them an email with my tales of woe. They repiled several times, but when I told them the steps I took to try to get my A81 to start the update from the microsd card but still would not flash, they quietly dropped off and stopped correspondence with me. Sigh, looked like I was on my own.

So I've been hacking on computer hardware and to some extent software since 1980. (My first was a TRS-80 Model I). In my old age, I'd promised myself that I would refrain from dinking around with my Witstech. But circumstances have caused me to revise my thinking.

I decided to try to figure out what had happened to mine. I'm still not 100% sure, but I suspect that my internal storage experienced a checksum error that messed things up for me. Also, the file "su" was not to be found anywhere when I ran a root checking app.

Seeing that I was on my own with support, I decided to try rooting my device. I tried Z4Root, SuperOneClick and Universal AndRoot with no success. I even downloaded the SDK and tried using a USB cable connection and ADB to get into my tablet. Again, no dice. I read on a thread that Froyo users were having a tough time rooting their devices.

Finally I ran across a thread about Gingerbreak. What have I got to lose, right? So I find it (version 1.20) and side load it onto my tablet. Surprise, surprise, it worked beautifully! The root checking app now confirmed that my tablet was rooted. Programs like Superuser are now working.

Nearly all of my non-reloadable apps were now reinstalled and working again. Some, like Google Earth remain brain dead. Oh well!

The one thing that I haven't tried is flashing my device to 2.3. Not sure that I want to go there as my tablet is running good enough for me today. Maybe next year when I can get more retirement money to buy another device.
 
Last edited:

fatmanwalking

Member
Mar 26, 2011
38
4
Follow up to my previous post.

I kept getting a cannot write to /data error message on Google Earth. I ended up deleting the cache and the program Google Earth from my MID. No longer available on Android Market, I was still able to find an apk of it on the web and side load it. So I've got Google Earth back on and having fun checking out the world.

Google Earth was originally installed on the internal storage. I suspect that in my early exuberance over using my Witstech, I may have used up all the space on the internal storage and caused a memory fault. My Witstech runs quickly again as I now diligently monitor internal storage and try to install programs that can be moved to the sdcard.
 
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