Despite its former problems, when the ICS update started rolling out to the Transformer Prime earlier this month, users were elated. However, some users were immediately hit with a problem while trying to update: serial number not found. This error, as simple as it sounds, completely prevents the Prime from being able to perform any sort of update, be it manual or OTA.
ASUS is aware of the issue an working on a fix, but in the meantime, our beloved dev community has been cooking up something of their own, and it looks like it's ready to go. The fix is called Ratchet and it basically rewrites the configuration partition, allowing the user to manually enter serial number. Another bloody brilliant idea brought to us by some of the best minds in Android development.
On ASUS devices, the configuration partition is a central location that stores device-specific info, such as the UUID, sensor calibration, MAC addresses, and, of course, the serial number. According to the dev team behind Ratchet, this is how it works:
This tool will recreate this partition to a state that will have correct UUID and serial number. The other information on the partition (sensor calibration / MAC addresses) is not vital to normal system operation. To clarify, the MAC addresses just default to the vendor burned-in MAC addresses (Azurewave/Broadcom), so this is not an issue.
So, what do you need to do? Once you download the Ratchet file, there are actually two methods of making this work: one for rooted users, and one for non-rooted users.
To perform this fix, you must have ADB installed on your computer.
For Rooted Users
- Unzip the archive.
- Make sure the USB drivers for the Transformer Prime are installed, as well as ADB (Android SDK).
- adb push ratchet /data/local/
- adb shell (You’ll now see a shell@android:/ $ prompt)
- su (You should now see a shell@android:/ # prompt)
- chmod 755 /data/local/ratchet
- /data/local/ratchet (This is where the magic happens. Make sure you enter your serial number correctly, in all caps!)
- Reboot your device.
- Done!
For Non-Rooted Users
This method gives you a temp root shell using the recently discovered "mempodroid" root exploit.
- Unzip the archive.
- Make sure the USB drivers for the Transformer Prime are installed, as well as ADB (Android SDK).
- adb push mempodroid /data/local/
- adb push ratchet /data/local/
- adb shell (You’ll now see a shell@android:/ $ prompt)
- chmod 755 /data/local/mempodroid /data/local/ratchet
- /data/local/mempodroid 0xd9ec 0xaf47 /data/local/ratchet (This is where the magic happens. Make sure you enter your serial number correctly, in all caps!)
- Reboot your device.
- Done!
After that, you should be able to head into Settings > About tablet > Status and verify your serial number. Once you confirm that the serial is in correct, update away!