Motorola Droid X Clockwork Recover Available; Could Fix Your Android 2.2 Froyo Fumble

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So it turns out that so many people are willing to get Android 2.2 Froyo on the Motorola Droid X themselves and it turns out that most of them do it properly. But what happens if you mess up with your precious handset and get stuck into mobile hell? While Verizon might help you, depending on how loose the customer rep you talk to about the matter is, I wouldn’t guarantee they’d be happy to see what you did to the phone.

Is there a way out? Well a few days ago we were talking about a project meant to make Droid X recovery a lot easier, with the ultimate goal being installing custom Android ROMs on the device, and it looks like now we have some great news for you. The Clockwork recovery tool has been released and you can download it right now and see if it helps in any way solve your problems. This time around, make sure you do follow all the instructions and if hell brakes loose again, then I’ll remind you that you might not qualify for an upgrade for another subsidized Droid X unit just yet.

Here’s what this Clockwork recovery thingy should do for you, but notice how it isn’t foolproof yet and it might not work in certain situations:

Caveats:
This is not a *real* recovery. The way this recovery works is by hijacking portions of your boot process during system initialization and starting into recovery instead. So, if you hose your system *COMPLETELY* you will need to SBF. Specifically, if your logwrapper, logwrapper.bin, or hijack binary are missing from /system/bin, you will be screwed.

So can we now install custom ROMs?
Yes, but you can’t replace the kernel or boot image. But really, once you have access to /system, anything is possible. It will just take a little hackery.

How does this work?
When your device boots up, there is a init.rc script in your boot image that runs various components found in /system. The Droid X recovery bootstrap mimics the “logwrapper” binary. The hijacker then looks for “/data/.recovery_mode”, and if it finds it, it unmounts /system to prevent android from starting. It then starts up recovery instead.

How do I boot into recovery?
You can manually create the /data/.recovery_mode via a terminal file and simply reboot, and you will be in recovery. Or you can use the handy Droid X Recovery Bootstrap application to reboot into recovery.

What if my phone won’t boot? How do I get into recovery without the app?
When the hijacker runs, it will automatically create the “/data/.recovery_mode” file after it finishes. This tells the system that the next time it boots, it should boot into recovery. But, when the system starts, the Droid X Recovery Bootstrap will then delete that file when Android is fully started, to prevent you from booting into recovery. So what does this mean? If you fail to boot, simply pull your battery, and your next boot will be into recovery (unless your /system is *really* hosed, in which case you need to SBF).

Why does the Droid X Recovery Bootstrap start on boot?
As mentioned above, it needs to log that your phone booted successfully and recovery mode is not necessary. It also replaces your “adb daemon” with one that has root permissions, allowing for easier usage of the adb command.

Will this work with ROM Manager?
Yes, but not yet. I need to make some minor updates to ROM Manager first to support this recovery. Future recovery updates will come through ROM Manager.

Is this open source?
Yep.

Nice read there, wouldn’t you so (download links are available at the Via below, or you can find the app in Android Market for just $2)? And now all you have to do is wait for custom ROMs to arrive, which they will. They always do! In fact Android 2.2 Froyo, the unofficial release is one such custom ROM. Now about this Froyo update, remember how I was saying I’d still be an annoyed citizen with an Android 2.1 Motorola Droid X in my pocket (or so I’d like myself to believe) waiting for the official thing to hit? Well, wouldn’t you wish you waited for the real Froyo instead?