Hello,
I want to share my experience with installing /e/OS on nabu, highlighting some missing or incorrect points from the official documentation (I hope this may also help you @mixi ).
DISCLAIMER: despite being a longtime computer enthusiast, I’m not an IT expert and this was my first time flashing a custom ROM on an Android device, so you should assume that there may be some mistakes here.
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Concerning the bootloader unlocking:
It’s clearly unnecessary to insert a SIM card in this case (that is required only for devices with a SIM slot).
It is often recommended to activate the Find Device function from the Xiaomi Cloud Services to perform the unlocking. In my experience this is unnecessary and potentially problematic, as it can trigger the Mi Account Lock (however this is not a big problem for the installation of /e/OS, see below).
The documentation talks about MIUI unlocking, while latest updates for this device upgraded the OS to HyperOS 1, which has introduced few more steps to achieve the goal. In particular you have to apply for bootloader unlocking in the official Xiaomi Community app, but this step seems to be almost impossible as designed by Xiaomi (only few users per day from all over the world can apply). Some users have developed a script to bypass this step, named HyperSploit (I’m absolutely NOT recommending an unauthorized tool, just saying for completeness
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Flashing partitions:
It shouldn’t be required to configure the device again and re-enable USB debugging after unlocking, as stated in the documentation. You can immediately enter fastboot mode and perform later steps.
This is the most confusing part of the documentation; it is stated that you should flash dtbo.img to dtbo, vendor_boot.img to vendor_boot and recovery.img to boot, but the recovery zipped folder contains no vendor_boot image and includes an additional boot img (boot.img doesn’t flash onto vendor_boot as it’s bigger than the partition).Below is the configuration I’ve found working (real filenames are slightly different):
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dtbo ← < dtbo >.img
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vendor_boot ← < recovery >.img
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boot ← < boot >.img
I strongly believe that the file recovery.img is supposed to be flashed to the vendor_boot partition as it perfectly matches the partition volume; however I’ve also tried to let the stock vendor_boot untouched and it also worked perfectly, with no noticeable problem. The only thing I’m sure about is that flashing recovery.img to the boot partition (following the device doc) doesn’t work, as it doesn’t load any custom recovery.
Additional notes:
- This device doesn’t have a GPS in it, so geolocation relies entirely on BeaconDB, that is much less precise than the stock geolocation service, especially in areas with a low density of wireless devices.
- If the device underwent a heavy deabloating, a factory reset may be required in order to bind your Mi Account to it.
- Activating Find Device can trigger the Mi Account Lock (“This device is locked” screen) during boot; in this scenario, unlocking the bootloader can potentially lead to the impossibility of log in to your Mi Account and bypass the lock. If you only care about flashing /e/OS, you can ignore this message and directly enter fastboot mode; otherwise, the only way to solve the problem is visiting i.mi.com and removing the Xiaomi Pad 5 specifically from the Find Device page (that is different from removing it from the “My Devices” section).
I hope this may be helpful, let me know if you find any inaccuracies!