Nexus 7 – install old android version 4


Our Nexus 7 (first version) was super slow since it was updated to android version 5.x so I decided to install version 4.4.4 which is the latest version before version 5. I tried to downgrade by the instructions supported by Google but it did not work and I have to call some additional commands. See solution section.

Hopefully the tablet is a little bit faster with version 4.4.4.

Before I started I have to enable USB-Debuging in the Developertools on my device.

Link to the Google factory images: https://developers.google.com/android/images#instructions

Problem

I called the following command as recommended in the instructions:

./flash-all.sh

Result (quite long but it failed):

(bootloader) Bootloader is already unlocked
OKAY [  0.017s]
finished. total time: 0.017s
erasing 'boot'...
OKAY [  0.041s]
finished. total time: 0.041s
******** Did you mean to fastboot format this ext4 partition?
erasing 'cache'...
OKAY [  0.100s]
finished. total time: 0.100s
erasing 'recovery'...
OKAY [  0.034s]
finished. total time: 0.034s
******** Did you mean to fastboot format this ext4 partition?
erasing 'system'...
OKAY [  0.126s]
finished. total time: 0.126s
******** Did you mean to fastboot format this ext4 partition?
erasing 'userdata'...
OKAY [  4.993s]
finished. total time: 4.993s
target didn't report max-download-size
sending 'bootloader' (2100 KB)...
OKAY [  0.259s]
writing 'bootloader'...
OKAY [  1.228s]
finished. total time: 1.487s
rebooting into bootloader...
OKAY [  0.024s]
finished. total time: 0.093s
target didn't report max-download-size
sending 'radio' (16384 KB)...
OKAY [  2.003s]
writing 'radio'...
FAILED (remote: (BadParameter))
finished. total time: 2.024s
rebooting into bootloader...
OKAY [  0.024s]
finished. total time: 0.075s
target didn't report max-download-size
archive does not contain 'boot.sig'
archive does not contain 'recovery.sig'
archive does not contain 'system.sig'
archive does not contain 'vendor.img'
wiping userdata...
Creating filesystem with parameters:
    Size: 30080499712
    Block size: 4096
    Blocks per group: 32768
    Inodes per group: 8160
    Inode size: 256
    Journal blocks: 32768
    Label: 
    Blocks: 7343872
    Block groups: 225
    Reserved block group size: 1024
Created filesystem with 11/1836000 inodes and 159268/7343872 blocks
wiping cache...
Creating filesystem with parameters:
    Size: 464519168
    Block size: 4096
    Blocks per group: 32768
    Inodes per group: 7088
    Inode size: 256
    Journal blocks: 1772
    Label: 
    Blocks: 113408
    Block groups: 4
    Reserved block group size: 31
Created filesystem with 11/28352 inodes and 3654/113408 blocks
--------------------------------------------
Bootloader Version...: 4.23
Baseband Version.....: N/A
Serial Number........: 015d4a8224542009
--------------------------------------------
checking product...
OKAY [  0.030s]
checking version-bootloader...
OKAY [  0.021s]
checking version-baseband...
FAILED

Device version-baseband is 'N/A'.
Update requires '1231_0.18.0_0409'.

finished. total time: 0.180s

 

Solution

This first command failed as you can see above. After this i unziped the following file image-nakasig-ktu84p.zip which contains the four files boot.img, system.img, recovery.img and userdata.img. Which have to be flashed seperatly:

fastboot flash boot boot.img
fastboot flash system system.img
fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
fastboot flash userdata userdata.img

After I called these commands I restarted the Device and it worked.

 

Here is a description how to disable the update notifications if you use a old android version:

https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/100991/how-do-i-skip-an-android-system-update-and-stop-its-notifications

 

Source of the featured image: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_%28Betriebssystem%29#/media/File:Android_logo_%282014%29.svg


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