Hey guys. I need some help. I have an android phone Alcatel OT 908, aka TCT Move.

I wanted to completely get off the grid with it and I still want that, but I am in a bit of a pickle.

I deleted the contents of custpack folder from my android and now the system doesn't boot. It stays at my service provider splash screen.

Can't find a way to recognize it with adb when I plug it in but fastboot recognizes it as "? fastboot" if I boot it while holding vol-.

I can't seem to find a good update.zip that will work, because most of them seem incomplete. fastboot is asking for android-info.txt, android-product.txt and a bunch more(I tried to put 2 empty .txt files with those names into update.zip and asked me for another 3 files that were missing).

Thank you greatly if you can help me with this.

I want to unlock everything on it. Hope it isn't bricked at this point.

Tell me what to do, thanks.


Edit: I would love if I could reinstall everything on it just like on a pc. I roll both Ubuntu and Windows btw.

did you make a nandroid backup? I hope so.

handiest thing is to mount your sdcard in a normal box, and make symlinks in /sdcard to the backup you want to restore from /sdcard/nandroid/some-very-long-and-stupid-subdir/, or else just copy them to /sdcard. Then you can restore them with

flash data data.img
flash system system.img
Correct the syntax errors but you get the idea.

Rooting involves loading a boot loader which will allow you to install less than (or more than 'kosher' signed zips. If the bootloader stage goes OK, you should be safe, as it's difficult to brick it then. Check out xda-developers.com for your exact phone, and you may find links, instructions etc. Be certain to have a backup.

My experience (HTC G1 type) was that there are 20 sets of instructions for every one that is hassle free. Read ahead well.

I have a backup I found on the web from a some guy. I booted in bootloader mode with the the contents of the archive from that guy on the sd card and it does nothing, except showing me the logo of the manufacturer Alcatel One touch. That's it. Can you guide me through the rest plz ? xd


Edit: I figured how to do what needs to be done to my phone, the only problem is that I can't find an Android installer or something. Like a Windows cd that boots from CD/Dvd writer. Can I ask alcatel to provide such a thing? Do you guys know anything about something like this? Or do you have any other solutions ? Thanks


Edit 2: One more thing. I could write the files manually with fastboot flash command, but I tried to put them in .zip format since I don't have any .img creator installed but it gives me error
"writing 'custpack'...
FAILED (remote: flash write failure)
finished. total time: 0.023s"

On Edit2, you need .img. Not just any .img either. I don't have 'file' on my android, so I can't check for you. .img is usually a cpio archive gzipped. But there could even be an endian issue between arm and x86. (i.e. one might be big endian, the other little endian). Seem to remember hitting it before.

On Edit, you need a bootloader from somewhere. You may be able to get onto alcatel and get your original software with help to get it on. Otherwise try xda-developer.com

I need some questions answered.

1. Android is a Linux environment right ? It has kernel, system and apps. That's the basic skeleton right ?

2. Do these phones actually have a ROM (read-only memory) aside from what you can delete while root? Or if you force delete files from your file system, you fuck up the recovery?

1. Android is a SMALL linux environment, correct, using busybox which is an executable pretending to be all the gnu suite of programs. Shortcuts are necessary and are taken. Also, google kindly omitted programs like 'su' :-/. Rooted systems have it put in.

2. My phone has the following memory backups, treated as separate devices ("disks"): I am taking the following guesses at their usage.
/boot - which has the bootloader program, probably kernel, and fastboot
/cache - has downloads
/system which is mounted on / or is chrooted into.
/system/xbin is also mounted, but it's a loop mount of some file.
/data has my downloaded apps, and some system stuff.
I also have a recovery.img and misc.img in the backup, but don't know where I got them.

Now I have a question: My 5 minutes showed me there seems to be a problem rooting your phone. What did you get from alcatel? BTW, I'm sending on some arm stuff privately that may help you with the img format.

I rooted my phone with gingerbreak and it worked. That's how I managed to delete custpack. In custpack/app I had all the apps that came with the phone. I used a terminal emulator app. And I wanted to view a normal splash screen at boot or none at all and I figured I should delete the whole custpack folder. And so I did. And that's where the problems come from. Anyway, it's been long since I did that and I modified my phone quite a bit since then. I am now thinking that the only solution is to reinstall the whole system. I probably can't do that on my own and so I will go with it to a certified service in hopes for the best.

I received the files you sent me but excuse me for being a noob. I have no idea how I could use those constructively. xd

Thanks for the help anyway. :P


I do hope that people look more into Alcatel MOVE even though it's an android for the budget segment. It's fairly new also and maybe people haven't had the chance to look into it as much as other android phones.

I posted a request on that guy's page which said that he managed to get some leaked software form alcatel but no response yet. Anyway he posted that in november last year or something.xd