4.4-r2 Live works, but installed one doesn't! Problem with android x86 on Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro

[Soheil Sh]

Hi.

Sorry for my bad english! :(

Im trying to install android on my Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro.

First i tried android-x86-4.4-RC2 iso and followed the tutorial from here: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/android-x86/D85Jq02cLrE/RhTWtOjH3H0J
(and downloaded the kitkat_install_package.zip in link above...)
non of these worked.

Then i tried android-x86-4.4-r2.img (.img; which is the efi version not the iso version because im using gpt and uefi and dual booting win8.1 and ubuntu 14.10 with grub...)
i booted live android and unlike the other 2 images i used before, the live acctually worked! :D so i did the instruction in this toturial:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/android-x86/GrPdnpa6XBM
i installed android on another usb with ext3 format and copied the files from that usb to a gpt 16gb ext2 partition on my hard drive (yoga 2 pro's ssd) , (also tried on ext3)

First i added these grub entries:
<b>
menuentry "Android KitKat" {
set root=(hd0,8)
linux /android-4.4-r2/kernel quiet root=/dev/ram0 androidboot.hardware=android_x86 SRC=/android-4.4-r2 DATA= video=-16
initrd /android-4.4-r2/initrd.img
}
</b>
It didn't worked; when i selected android entry from grub same codes that appear on live appeard ( :
...
A N D R O I D root@x86:/
)
then exept that android logo that shines appear, it gives me a black screen!

i tried a lot of grub entries (im not sure if this is what their name is)
including that codes in this link:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2703270

set root='(hd0,4)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root e1f9de05-8d18-48aa-8f08-f0377f663de3
linux androidx86/kernel root=UUID=e1f9de05-8d18-48aa-8f08-f0377f663de3 quiet androidboot.hardware=generic_x86 SRC=/androidx86 acpi_sleep=s3_bios,s3_mode
initrd androidx86/initrd.img

i tried the codes from the live android (from android usb, i pressed e in grub and write down it's codes) :

search --file --no-floppy --set=root /system.sfs
linuxefi /kernel root=/dev/ram0 androidboot.hardware=android_x86 sdhci.debug_quirks=0x8000 quiet DATA=
initrdefi /initrd.img

i even mixed all of these codes that i mentioned and IT DIDN'T WORKED! :(


I really want android on my yoga2p because working with it's 13inch touchscreen and its speedy cpu and ssd was really awesome! :D
i need your help guys, i would really appreciate it :)
thanks in advance.

[Soheil Sh]

I also posted my problem with better description in here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/android/help/trying-to-install-android-x86-lenovo-t3029659
if you didn't understand my bad english on the post above, read my thread in xda-developers...

[André Vitor]

This is what I'm using to my baytrail tablet.

set timeout=1 
 
menuentry 'Android-x86 4.4-r2 for Baytrail' --class android-x86 { 
set root=(hd0,gpt5)
linuxefi /android-2015-01-24/kernel androidboot.hardware=android_x86 quiet SDCARD=mmcblk0 HWACCEL= INSTALL= DEBUG=
initrdefi /android-2015-01-24/initrd.img
}

Change it to fit your device.

[Soheil Sh]

André Vitor, thanks for your reply.
i tried linuxefi and initrdefi and changed hd0,8 to hd0,gpt8 with my codes, didn't change anything!
SDCARD=mmcblk0 HWACCEL= INSTALL= DEBUG=
what are these codes for? should i use "SDCARD=mmcblk0" too?

I'm going to try the codes from ubuntu entry if yours didn't work. maybe they work because i think this problem is a gpu problem...

Why do you think live android works but installed android doesn't!?
i even tried booting the android that i installed on my usb (the one i copied it's files on my ssd's partition...) no luck, same thing happens!

[André Vitor]

SDCARD=mmcblk0 means that Android-x86 will see "/dev/block/mmcblk0" as the SD Card.

Why do you think live android works but installed android doesn't!?

I think there's a problem with the installer, something like it doesn't format ext3 correctly or something.

What I did to install Android-x86 manually was this:

I formatted my 8GB usb stick to ext4 in my ubuntu, I restarted and installed the Android-x86 into it.

After this, in Windows I opened MiniTool Partition and copied the partition of my usb stick to my SSD.   
Then I configured the grub.cfg as I said, restarted again, and android-x86 get working.

[Kris Schötz]

Hi,

i got android installed on a usb drive and boot the system from there.

I used the android-x86-4.4-r2.iso.

In the Bios i turned off Secure Boot, UEFI Boot to Legacy Boot and Legacy first.

Before installing i formated my stick to ext3. In the installation I did not format the Stick again, i just skiped that step.

Everything worked fine on my Lenova Yoga 2 Pro, but i could not dual boot. I just had to change the Bios everytime i want to change my OS.

So maybe there is a way to get that Partion on ur internal Disk and use Grub 2 to get a dualboot system? I didnt tryed it. Maybe u will get succeed.

So let me know if u have any solution :)

[Soheil Sh]

SDCARD=mmcblk0 means that Android-x86 will see "/dev/block/mmcblk0" as the SD Card.

I know, i meant should i use it too or not? i don't have any sdcard...

I think there's a problem with the installer, something like it doesn't format ext3 correctly or something.

Yeah! but im not sure if its installer's problem, because when i format either my 8gb usb stick or yoga's android partition to ext2or3,4 with gparted, i cant create a new directory or paste anything on it! but with ntfs this problem doesn't exist! i followed instructions in post #3 of this topic to make it writable:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2114220&p=12500946#post12500946
then i copied android files from installed usb on yoga's ext partition...

Everything worked fine on my Lenova Yoga 2 Pro, but i could not dual boot. I just had to change the Bios everytime i want to change my OS.

 So let me know if u have any solution :)

Of course that will work! but i don't want that! :D ok man i'll let you know if i had any luck...

[André Vitor]

Install Android into your usb stick with ext4 partition, then use the Copy method from MiniTool Partition, it will clone the entire partition from the usb stick to your SSD.

[Massimo D'Anna]

how to use .img file?  with .iso 4.4  i use universal usb installer to make a bootable usb, but i don't know what to do with 4.4 r2 .img

which program have i to use to makie it bootable?

[Antony Stone]

It's an EFI image. If you don't need that, there's an ISO of 4.4r2 at
http://www.android-x86.org/download which is bootable from CD or USB - just
copy onto the raw device.

Regards,


Antony.

--
Anything that improbable is effectively impossible.

- Murray Gell-Mann, Nobel Prizewinner in Physics

Please reply to the list;
please *don't* CC me.

[Massimo D'Anna]

i want to try on a lenovo yoga tablet 2, 8 inch with windows 8.1

how to use the .img file?  i need efi

[Antony Stone]

On Saturday 14 Feb 2015 at 12:14, Massimo D'Anna wrote:

> i want to try on a lenovo yoga tablet 2, 8 inch with windows 8.1
>
> how to use the .img file? i need efi

Well, according to http://www.android-x86.org/releases/releasenote-4-4-r2 you
just copy the inage file onto the USB device, and boot from it.

I'm not speaking from experience (I don't have any UEFI machines), but that's
what I got from a Google search for "android-x86 boot efi img" :)


Hope that helps,


Antony.

--
The lottery is a tax for people who can't do maths.

[Vaidotas]

You will need an empty USB flash drive. Use this tool http://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager/ to copy contents from img file to your flash drive. All existing content in flash drive will be overwritten, so make backups first.

[Massimo D'Anna]

thank you, i have tried but with no luck. it doesn't start. i have a black screen. 

[Soheil Sh]

how to use .img file?

I'm not sure if your device is efi! it's a tablet, why do you what to install android x86 on it? doesn't it already have android?
my device is diffrent from yours, mine is a Yoga 2 Pro laptop, not a Yoga tablet 2.
Anyway, if you want to use the .img, on windows you can write it to a usb with  http://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager/
on gnu/linux: dd if=/path/to/file.img of=/dev/sdx bs=4M

---

I finally got android x86 working on y2p, i'm gonna post how i did it soon... :)

[Massimo D'Anna]

i wrote before, it's the version with windows 8.1   i have preferred this one for my personal use, but i was however curious about having also android on it.

[Fajar A. Nugraha]

On Sat, Feb 14, 2015 at 8:14 PM, Massimo D'Anna <ergh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> i wrote before, it's the version with windows 8.1 i have preferred this
> one for my personal use, but i was however curious about having also android
> on it.

(1) Please spend some time to know your environment, and describe it
clearly. For example:
- if it runs efi, can you disable secure boot
- does it use 32bit or 64bit EFI
- can it boot from usb drive
- have you TESTED it to boot from usb drive

Personally I (like probably many others) does not know or care what
kind of device "Yoga 2 Pro" or "Yoga tablet 2" is. Nor do I want to
waste my time finding out about those, when you (as the owner) should
know about it, either from documentation, experiment result, or
google. Once you have the answers to those questions, others can help
(or at least try to help) you.

(2) Be clear on what your problem is

"I have a black screen" is not particularly helpful. What was your
computer doing at that time?
- can you configure it to boot from USB?
- have you able to get boot selection device menu (or whatever it is
called) to appear? Can you choose your USB drive from there?
- do you have android's grub menu showing?
- were you able to select the android menu, but it shows nothing after
you press enter?
- did it get stuck on "detecting android"?
- did it get stuck on android logo?

FWIW, you should be able to use the ISO image to boot on EFI system if
you copy its contents to a FAT partition on your usb drive. The img
file has 64bit kernel, but it might not matter to you if you only have
<= 2GB of memory anyway.

Installed system should behave nearly the same as live. In fact, if
you do NOT select system rw during installation (or copy system.sfs on
manual install), the only real differences should be:
- what device/partition your android runs from
- whether your data is persistent accross reboots and where it is located.

Feature-wise, it should be almost identical. As in, if something does
not work on live system, then most likely it will not work on
installed system either.

--
Fajar

[Massimo D'Anna]

Il giorno sabato 14 febbraio 2015 15:11:48 UTC+1, Fajar A. Nugraha ha scritto:

On Sat, Feb 14, 2015 at 8:14 PM, Massimo D'Anna <ergh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> i wrote before, it's the version with windows 8.1   i have preferred this
> one for my personal use, but i was however curious about having also android
> on it.


(1) Please spend some time to know your environment, and describe it
clearly. For example:
- if it runs efi, can you disable secure boot
- does it use 32bit or 64bit EFI
- can it boot from usb drive
- have you TESTED it to boot from usb drive

i have disabled secure boot from bios (which doesn't have so many option, very poor)
from what i have found googling about it, it should be a 32 bit efi, although intel z3745 is a 64 bit
it boot from usb, it sees it, but it stucks on a black screen. only once time it went on, but it was extremely slow and than everything stucked, so that i had to reboot.
of this tablet there is a version with android 4.4, so i'm sure that is able to run it, but i don't know how.
 

[Fajar A. Nugraha]

On Sat, Feb 14, 2015 at 9:22 PM, Massimo D'Anna <ergh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Il giorno sabato 14 febbraio 2015 15:11:48 UTC+1, Fajar A. Nugraha ha
> scritto:
>>
>> On Sat, Feb 14, 2015 at 8:14 PM, Massimo D'Anna <ergh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > i wrote before, it's the version with windows 8.1 i have preferred
>> > this
>> > one for my personal use, but i was however curious about having also
>> > android
>> > on it.
>>
>>
>> (1) Please spend some time to know your environment, and describe it
>> clearly. For example:
>> - if it runs efi, can you disable secure boot
>> - does it use 32bit or 64bit EFI
>> - can it boot from usb drive
>> - have you TESTED it to boot from usb drive
>>
> i have disabled secure boot from bios (which doesn't have so many option,
> very poor)
> from what i have found googling about it, it should be a 32 bit efi,
> although intel z3745 is a 64 bit
> it boot from usb, it sees it, but it stucks on a black screen. only once
> time it went on, but it was extremely slow and than everything stucked, so
> that i had to reboot.

You didn't answer (2)

If it stuck on black screen BEFORE grub menu is displayed, most likely
it's grub bug. Try renaming the original "efi" directory on your USB
drive to something else, and replace it with
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzJrniucvUn3Mkl5aTUxRzdFTzQ&authuser=0
(extract the zip file so that both EFI and grub directory is on the
root of your usb drive)

If it's stuck AFTER the grub menu is shown and you select an entry,
then short version is the default android-4.4-r2 kernel does not work
for your system. You might need some special config, or it simply does
not work yet (e.g. because even latest vanilla kernel does not support
a device in your system). In that case your best bet is probably to
use somekind of android-vm on top of windows, like amiduos.

> of this tablet there is a version with android 4.4, so i'm sure that is able
> to run it, but i don't know how.

Don't be so sure.

Asus T100 and TF103C seems similar (as in TF103 seems like
android-version of T100), but the inside peripherals are different.

--
Fajar

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[Massimo D'Anna]

yeah, the second is my situation. i see the grub, (very different from the one i see for example on my laptop, i press to try live mode, then black screen.
 

[Kris Schötz]

Very nice! I just get to install it on USB Stick an run it with EFI. But if i copy it to HDD it desnt work. So im very interested in this tutorial! :)

[Fajar A. Nugraha]

On Sat, Feb 14, 2015 at 9:58 PM, Massimo D'Anna <ergh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> If it's stuck AFTER the grub menu is shown and you select an entry,
>> then short version is the default android-4.4-r2 kernel does not work
>> for your system. You might need some special config, or it simply does
>> not work yet (e.g. because even latest vanilla kernel does not support
>> a device in your system). In that case your best bet is probably to
>> use somekind of android-vm on top of windows, like amiduos.
>>
> yeah, the second is my situation. i see the grub, (very different from the
> one i see for example on my laptop, i press to try live mode, then black
> screen.

Short sugestion? Don't bother with android-x86 for now. My GUESS is
that your graphic system is incompatible. One of the older atoms with
powervx-based GPU, perhaps?

There are some tests that you can do (e.g. with vesa mode), but it
wont give you a usable system since kitkat uses 3d everywhere.

--
Fajar

[Fajar A. Nugraha]

On Sat, Feb 14, 2015 at 10:01 PM, Kris Schötz
<kris.s...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> Very nice! I just get to install it on USB Stick an run it with EFI. But if i copy it to HDD it desnt work. So im very interested in this tutorial! :)

Doesn't work how? Can't boot to Grub? Stuck on "detecting android-x86"?
How do you "copy to HDD", exactly? Clone the partition? Copy the files
to windows drive?

--
Fajar

[Soheil Sh]

i wrote before, it's the version with windows 8.1   i have preferred this one for my personal use, but i was however curious about having also android on it.

Well, i think (i'm not sure!) since its a tablet, and you prefered windows version of it by yourself, you can also install a normal android on it (not x86) i'm kind of a noob in android, but i think its possible since its originally a tablet! if you have lenovo stores or support in the country you are in, you can ask them... unfortunately where i am have no real (official) lenovo store or support...

Personally I (like probably many others) does not know or care what
kind of device "Yoga 2 Pro" or "Yoga tablet 2" is. Nor do I want to
waste my time finding out about those

I recommend you to search about yoga 2 pro, it's one of the best convertibales (laptop,tablet) that exist! :D i got Ubuntu, Windows 8.1, Android x86 and Chromium OS working on it :D it has a 3200×1800 QHD IPS touchscreen...

[Soheil Sh]

With André Vitor's help, i finnaly got Android x86 working on Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro...
Here's how i did it:


I write android-x86-4.4-r2.img to my 16gb usb using http://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager/

Format my other 8gb usb stick to ext4 to install android on it.

Emptied some space (created unallocated space) from y2p's (yoga2pro) ssd. (if the usb that your going to installing android on is 8gb, the free space must be 8gb, if you free up 10gb the other 2gb will not be used... so if you want more space for your android partition, you have to install android on a bigger usb, like a 16gb usb...)

Disabled secure boot and set the boot device to my 16gb "efi usb boot device" from bios.

I booted from it and tried anroid live to make sure it wasn't written corrupted on my usb (becuase something like this happend before for chromium os...) i succesfully booted in android live and everything was fine.

So i reboot and go to install android, selected my 8gb usb stick that i formatted to ext4 earlier and choose "Do not format", choose yes for grub install, yes for /system rw, and installation was done, then i select reboot.

I go to windows and using Minitool partition wizard 8 i copied installed android ext4 usb partition to the unallocated space i created before on y2p's ssd. when its done you should see the exact same partition that was on your usb on your y2p's ssd... if size was 8gb and used space was 760mb, it should be exactly like this...

Then i boot in my ubuntu and added android's boot entry to grub...

Open a terminal and using command lsblk remember your android's partition name like /dev/sdaX , mine was /dev/sda8. so for grub, it will be hd0,gpt8
Then using command blkid copy your partition's uuid.
Then using command:

sudo nano /etc/grub.d/40_custom

At the end of the file i added these codes:

set timeout=1

menuentry "Android KitKat" --class android-x86 {
set root=(hd0,gpt8)
linuxefi /android-4.4-r2/kernel root=UUID=xxx androidboot.hardware=android_x86 quiet SDCARD=mmcblk0 HWACCEL= INSTALL= DEBUG= DATA=
initrdefi /android-4.4-r2/initrd.img
}

for " set root=(hd0,gpt8) " add your partition name instead, if it was /dev/sda6 then it will be hd0,gpt6
and for " root=UUID=xxx " xxx is your partition's UUID that you copied with command blkid earlier...

when your done, press ctrl + x and hit y, then enter, and then press enter again to save the 40_custom file...
then update grub using this command:
sudo update-grub
(before you run the command above, remove any usb sticks attached...)

Then reboot and enjoy your android x86! :)

[Massimo D'Anna]

i'd like to try this step on my lenovo yoga tablet 2, but it has only windows 8.1, so i can't follow last part of your guide. there you used ubuntu.
my device shoulnd't be so different from yours (as hardware), and i really would like to use android on it (although i want to keep win 8.1).

could you help me in some way?

[Soheil Sh]

Dude, sorry to disappoint you, but "Yoga 2 Pro" and "Yoga Tablet 2" are two entirely different devices! You should've googled before saying this: "my device shoulnd't be so different from yours (as hardware)"
Becuase as i said, they are "ENTIRELY" different! :D only things they have in common are that Lenovo is their manufacturer and the word "Yoga" from lenovo's yoga series, and the number "2" in their model names.
Proof:
http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/tablets/lenovo/yoga-tablet-series/yoga-tablet-2-pro/
http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/lenovo/yoga-laptop-series/yoga-laptop-2-pro/

[Massimo D'Anna]

yeah you're right. i saw a totally different device.  my fault