So I finally manage to recover my crashed dellvice, after flashing some recovery image and stock update ROM, but it's not that easy. I spent days of googling and reading various websites, and performed repetitive tasks, to no avail. With great help from my friend, Emil Juni, everything went smooth as expected.

Flashing, basic steps

Below is the basic steps (but intetionally lacks of some details) that I believe works across devices, across Android versions, and across platform (Windows/Linux/MacOS) from which the flashing is executed. But still, your mileage may vary. See the section on Other useful links below for more information.

1. Determine the update version you wish to install that suite your device then obtain an appropriate ROM. Copy the ROM file to SD card of your device and rename it Update.pkg.
2. Prepare the recovery tools that suit your workstation platform from which you are going to execute the flashing. The tools consist of an application called FastBoot, a recovery image to flash that matches the update ROM, and a cable data that should by standard come with your device.
3. Remove the battery and replace it back (the first part of repetitive tasks, if needs to be retried).
4. Boot your device into fastboot mode then connect it with your workstation using the data cable.
5. Execute the FastBoot application from your workstation.
6. Again, remove the battery and replace it back.
7. Turn the device on to apply Update.pkg and let it do its job. (this is last part of repetitive task, things can end happily here, or you need to start all over again).
8. After some reboot processing, you have your Android device with ROM of your choice.

DISLCAIMER: above is not a tutorial or how to per se, so do not consider it as one.

What I did

After some trial and error attempts, I decided to go back to Froyo 2.2 using stock ROM from Dell. Mine was ROM 315 build 12332 and downloaded it from here. I used MultiRecoveryFlash version 0.5 that has nice interactive menu and already includes FastBoot application along with various recovery images to choose.

After removing and replacing the battery, I went into fastboot mode by holding the camera button while turning my dellvice on. I connected the dellvice to my computer, and executed the command below.

Things can go wrong

• If you are on Windows, you need to install Google USB Driver so your computer is able to communicate with the connected device.
• If you are on Linux or MacOS, make sure to execute the fastboot command with superuser privilege. In my case I used sudo ./MultiRecoveryFlasher.sh. Otherwise, the flashing does not work and will just hanging there and telling us that it is,

< waiting for device >

• You really need to use the right combination of recovery image and update ROM, otherwise you may get error message on your device similiar to below message.

 

Other useful links

http://forum.xda-developers.com/wiki/index.php?title=Dell_Streak

http://android-dls.com/wiki/index.php?title=Fastboot

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=619153

http://elinux.org/Android_Fastboot

 

Just a few days after upgrading to Froyo 2.2.2, I did a little stupid mistake and causing my dellvice rendered unusable. It crashed. It started when I was thinking about changing the system font, searching the market, and found an apps I thought suitable for this job, Font Changer. So I launched the apps, picked a font, tapped OK. The dellvice went blank, then rebooted, showed the usual Dell logo, and stuck there. Well, I understood the risk. I knew the apps required rooted device to work as it need to changed at the system level. So I took this situation without blaming the apps and its author.

After waiting longer than the time it usually takes to finish rebooting, I took off the battery and replaced it again, and turned it on. The same thing happened. I took off the battery and replaced it again, performed factory reset by holding Volume Up and Volume Down buttons while turning on the dellvice. When the menu showed up, I chose 1. Factory reset and hit the camera button. It said it was doing factory reset, gone rebooting, and again, stuck at the Dell logo.

I tried above operations few times to no avail. A friend suggested that it could be the problem with SD card, better to test it. Following his guidance, I turned off the dellvice, took off the battery and replaced it again. I turned on the dellvice while holding the camera button until white screen showed up saying "Waiting for SD detect...." The next screen showed "Touch calibration" on the upper left, "FastBoot" on the upper right, and beneath it was a keypad. I entered *#301# and it presented a series of menu. I chose 10 SD & SIM Test and the result was PASS. So I tought as I'm here why don't just try all test menu.

Everything was OK except the test 03 LCD Color. There was a white screen showed in a fraction of second I could never catch well (I probably need to record it with video camera in order to catch it). It displayed 3-4 lines and if I'm correct I saw the word "Failed" among the lines. I continued the test and filled up the screen with RGB colors in equal space that looked like a flag of some nation. And it stuck there. So this is the end.

What I mean is nothing I could to revive the dellvice without playing with flashing some ROM, something I've avoided since the first time. It sounds funny, even for me, actually. Why buying Android device if you don't want to play with it, experiencing some level of tweaking? Yes, I do intend to do that, but I'm waiting for the second Android device. Now, given the situation, I guess I can say, "it's time!".

Stay tuned for update :)

OK, here is the update on how I recovered my dellvice

I got notification on 24th April, failed to download in two attempts. I finally got it installed on the next day, effectively disabling root. Retrying to root with Z4Root without success, the same failure when I tried to root again using Androot after upgrading from 1.6 (donut) to 2.2 (froyo).

After googling around I managed to root my Dell Streak using GingerBreak (http://goo.gl/M2oEo).

it's cool, it's fun, and it's free to play scrabble with Wordfeud (http://market.android.com/details?id=com.hbwares.wordfeud.free).

you can play by inviting friends via email or by nickname. you can even play with random strangers. if you have something else todo, just leave the board for a while. get back to the game when you're ready. don't take too long though, say more than 72 hours on your turn. unless, you like to be automatically resigned and lose the game.

with notification feature, you can know when it's your turn to play your tiles. have no idea of word to play? shuffle the tiles. got bad ones? swap them. not sure what to do? just pass your turn. of course, when you swap tiles or pass turn you give opportunity to your opponent to move.

so you have nothing else to do, you're on fire to play, but your opponent has not moved yet. it's been minutes or even hours since your last move and now you're bored. don't be! just create a new game and open another board. we can have 30 simultaneous boards to play.

speaking of board, there's an alternative one with random layout of the bonus squares. so expect the unexpected. i once gained 162 points you can never get on the normal board. are you capable of other languages? just pick the language you want from the available list and wait for your opponent to face your challenge.

and guess what? you can chat with your opponents. say hello, or talk about the game, or even, talk about yourselves, whatever suits you both. now, in case you'd like to invite me, my nickname on Wordfeud is topgan.

next features i'd like to have are built-in AI to play againts, and multiple players.

enjoy!

one way to post to posterous is using Posterous application downloadable from the market (http://market.android.com/details?id=com.Posterous). this application also lets you see and manage some aspects of your site. it has internal browser to view your writing or visit your autopost sites if you configure it. just open Posterous to create new post, add your text, attach some image or video, and put some relevant tags. it can be triggered from share button in other application, such image viewer. so you only need to pour some text. or, you might come from text or note application.

we can also use Gmail apps that comes, AFAIK, with every android. either manually composing new email or triggered by share button, just fill in the to field with post@posterous.com and the from field with whatever email address you register to post from. the rests are subject for the title, email body for the actual content, and attacment as you see fit. that's what Posterous apps does under the hood anyway.

one drawback in Posterous apps is it can't save draft. I hope it adds support in some future release. in Gmail apps, draft is a standard integrated feature. another drawback is image attachment. if you come from an image viewer with share action, the image is not attached automatically in the posting form. you need to attach manually. so I hope this one gets fixed as well.

enjoy!

since I owned a dell streak, i've experienced a lot new things I like to share. about dell streak itself, android at general, or about insteresting applications.

however, i'm reluctant to create new account or new blog, and I don't existing blog I have doesn't it my purpose. fortunately, I remember once i created an account here at posterous.

posterous makes us easy to post content, with or without image. it's even easier now with the ways provided in android to share everything. so it all fits. all I want is to quickly post a little note, without deep coverage. if I eventually post a long writing, it will be posted on my primary blog at http://hasant.wordpress.com with link to a particular post here.

so, enjoy!

...on this particular blogging platform for quite a long time, probably since, well, I created my account. And one day I bought a cool Android device called Dell Streak. It didn't take me long to try every aspect I could think of. Setting this and that, installing various applications from the market, experiencing seemingly unlimited possibilities of this emerging mobile platform.

So I got these notes of what I already tried, the result, and occasionally my own thought I'd like to post here. That's an ugly screenshot from the first day I purchased the device, still donut (1.6). It's been more than two weeks since I upgraded to froyo (2.2).

Has been heard this for a few weeks, now it got my attention to
finally try it out myself.
How's it gonna be?