Lg K8 - k350n - root, twrp

[gottlasz]

OS Android v6.0 (Marshmallow)
Chipset Mediatek MT6735
CPU Quad-core 1.3 GHz Cortex-A53
GPU Mali-T720
1.5GB of RAM
8GB ROM

Let's try to root this bastard!

Nothing like kingroot or any other one click method works - i read many forums and even tried myself.
So i was trying to flash a recovery in order to install supersu...

USB debuging and OEM unlock is enabled in developer options.

TWRP:
There is Cleopatra's tutorial ([Only registered and activated users can see links Click here to register] - thank you for that) to port a TWRP but it sais you need a scatter file.
No scatter files anywhere on the www.

MTK droid tool:
Recognizes the phone but can't see the scatter...

why not checking the stock recovery - on the web (many forums) you can find that lg's stock recovery is only a hard reset function after holding the vol- and the power button in a given order. There is nothing like an ordinary recovery. So i tried via ADB.

ADB:
i rebooted the phone into recovery via ADB - andy laying and saying "no command" (so it means maybe we are lucky and there is a recovery partition). There might be a combination of keys to get through "no command" and find the recovery menu. However i had to take the battery out to restart the phone caused me the loss of user data because after putting back the battery and the phone restarts its not booting up but asking for some pass code (you have 30 chances) a very long one i guess cause there is a huge space... only hard reset helps. I tried it twice, same result...
I also read somewhere that if one manages to flash a recovery on an lg phone these days then you can boot into recovery if you click "yes" on the hard reset menu and there'll be no hard reset but the recovery starts.

Anyways i built a recovery. I found this firmware: K350n10b_00_0420.kdz i'm not really sure if it's real but i took the recovery image from it and i mixed it with Acer z530 TWRP ([Only registered and activated users can see links Click here to register]) following Cleopatra's tutorial.
I tried to flash it via fastboot but no luck - some permission problems occured... naturally...

What i was thinking maybe we could use the scatter file from the acer z530 or z630 and try to flash TWRP via sp flashtool. I found that this acer phone might be the closest device to ours (i mean regarding to the specs...) and the size of the recovery image in both (z530 and z630) acer phones are the same (the begin adress and the end address are the same). So if there is a chance that Lg is using the same structure for the file system as Acer in case of MTK devices (so the begin address and the end address of the recovery is the same as in the Acer phones) maybe we could flash a TWRP using the scatter file of the Acers.
I just need more evidence to try it because i'm pretty much afraid of hard bricking this great phone...

Any ideas or information is appreciated!

[Cleopatra]

Hi gottlasz !

I have asked you to open a thread, and you have done it.
I tip my hat to you, very detailed description
I have some question to ask you :

How did you get the stock recovery.img ?
Do you have extracted the "K350n10b_00_0420.kdz" ?
Do you have used "WindowsLGFirmwareExtract-1.2.5.0-Release.zip" ?

Good choice the Acer Liquid z530, it seems compatible.
Maybe I have found a working TWRP for your LG K8 4G.
I did not make it :

[Only registered and activated users can see links Click here to register]

STEPS :

1) Install the ADB 1.4.2 (click YES at every question) :

[Only registered and activated users can see links Click here to register]

2) Install "LGMobileDriver_WHQL_Ver_4.0.4.exe" :

[Only registered and activated users can see links Click here to register]

3) Unlock OEM and enable USB debugging (Developer options).
4) Rename "twrp k8.img" into "recovery.img".
5) Copy & paste the recovery.img into the ADB 1.4.2 folder (in C).
6) Connect your phone to the pc with USB cable.
7) From inside the ADB folder, press Shift key and right-click the white background to open a new menu.
8) Click on the option "open a new command window".
9) Type "adb reboot bootloader" (without quotes) and press ENTER.
10) Type "fastboot flash recovery recovery.img" (without quotes) and press ENTER.

Looking forward for your kind response

[wahgrrr]

Tried it on my LG K8:

C:\adb>fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
target reported max download size of 134217728 bytes
sending 'recovery' (17712 KB)...
OKAY [ 0.585s]
writing 'recovery'...
FAILED (remote: size too large)
finished. total time: 0.600s

C:\adb>

[Cleopatra]

@wahgrrr :

It is not my fault that LG does not share the scatter file.
It is not my fault that LG make KDZ files instead roms flashable by SP Flash Tool.
The only way to flash recovery.img was by fastboot.

A possible solution might be to unpack kdz,
replace the original recovery.img with the custom recovery img,
repack all files into kdz.

Regards

[gottlasz]

Well... i managed to boot your recovery
i didn't flash it i was just using "fastboot boot recovery.img"
However first i had to unlock the bootloader - easily done by "fastboot oem unlock" command
The recovery is asking for a password to encrypt the data but you can format data and wipe all then it is not encrypted but lost. At least the recovery seems to work. Until you boot up again couse then there is an encryption again.
So before booting up...
try to install supersu (v2.78)...! I had no luck.
log:
*****************
SuperSU installer
*****************
- Mounting /system, /data and rootfs
- Extracting files
- Detecting system compatibility
- System-less mode, boot image support required
- Creating image
- Mounting image
- Creating paths
- Removing old files
- Placing files

******************
Boot image patcher
******************
- Finding boot image
--- Boot image: /dev/block/mmcblk0p4
- Extracting ramdisk
- Decompressing ramdisk
--- Failure, aborting
...

it seems maybe we need some patched boot.img
still working on it but i'm starting to lose my faith... let you know when i give up...

Thanks Cleopatra for the great recovery though!

[gottlasz]

so the twrp works as much as it has to... supersu could patch the boot image if it could patch any boot image compressed using "lz4" method. Unfortunately it can only patch boot images compressed by "gzip".
Maybe somehow we could tweak supersu to use "lz4" but i read someone tried - the boot image was uncompressed but it led to bootloop (it was an lg g3). However this might be a direction... or somehow tweaking the boot image on pc and flash it via fastboot...
Any ideas?

[icema50]

İ have lg k8 K350Z version and i need imei repair
Plase help me how can i change imei number of my lg k8

[gottlasz]

İ have lg k8 K350Z version and i need imei repair
Plase help me how can i change imei number of my lg k8

Did you try hard reset? I mean in case you lost your imei...

[gottlasz]

So if anyone is interested in the working root proccess i suffered through... check it out:
[Only registered and activated users can see links Click here to register]

[Albus666Dumbledore]

I also tried it inthe last days because i need more internal storage, hard piece of software, somehow LG managed to create a useless phone after all. No SD Adaption, No Root, Not even enough space to install one good game. If anybody knows a solution ????