Vacation time is great!
I went into Fry’s today and found they have the Coby 1042 (10.1″, Android 4.0.3) on sale. Normally I don’t pay much attention to the lower end tablets because they miss one or more features I think are pretty critical in a tablet:
- Capacitive display
- Fast CPUs
- SD card slots
- Ice Cream Sandwich
- The ability to easily mod/root/extend
The Coby device, however, meets all of these requirements!
And it comes with an HDMI port, full USB port to attach a keyboard and mouse, and a nice soft neoprene sleeve too.
Rooting
Requirements
- Install the Android SDK to get the
adbbinary - Download and decompress coby_root3.zip(I have a backup copy if this link stops working)
Rooting the device is beyond trivial.
In the coby_root3 directory is a data directory, which you need to push to your device and then run a few
adb
commands::
$> cd coby_root3 $> adb push data /data/local/tmp $> adb shell chmod 0777 /data/local/tmp/mempodroid $> adb shell /data/local/tmp/mempodroid 0xd7cc 0xad27 sh /data/local/tmp/root.sh
Congratulations! You now have root, and the Superuser app is installed!
Installing Google apps
I tried a variety of things to get Gapps working, most of which just didn’t work. I did manage to get things working with this relatively simple process though.
Go to http://goo.im/gapps/ and download and decompress the gapps-ics-20120429-signed.zip file.
Now copy all of the apk files in there to your tablet:
$> cd gapps-ics-20120429-signed $> adb push system/app /data/local/tmp $> adb shell adb> su - adb> mount -o remount,rw /system adb> busybox cp /data/local/tmp/app/* /system/app adb> exit
Reboot the tablet.
This was enough to get the Google Play store working and I could install Gmail and other apps.
If you have problems, shoot a message and I’ll be happy to try and help.
Thanks to you I got this tablet to run the Google Apps.
Since it’s running ICS, I’m pretty sure it can run Jelly Bean too, but I just wanted to know if you have found any roms for the tablet anywhere.
If not, maybe I’ll get to be the first one to have a JB rom for it, although it takes a lot of work.
Thanks again.
In theory it should be able to. I haven’t yet found any such ROMs, and apparently Coby aren’t very good at releasing new ROMs for existing tablets. But if you find one, please do let me know!
I am new to android if there is way to install jelly bean on my coby kyros mid 1042 please help me 🙂 I will be so gratefull if email me a way to get jelly bean on my tab at keninmg@gmail.com 🙂 waiting for your reply thanx. 🙂
Hi Kenin, unfortunately I don’t know any way to do that!
Does it work for Coby MID8042, Android 4.0?
Thanks.
Hi Ivan,
Unfortunately I don’t have a MID8042 so I haven’t been able to test this.
What do you do when push fails because the file system is read-only?
It worked for COBY KYROS MID7030. Genius! Thanks man.
Coby MID1042
all the commands work fine except ….
adb> busybox cp /data/local/tmp/app/* /system/app
after executing above command, system returns “write error: no space left on device”.
df command shows 16B space free on /system. i check my settings->storage->apps and there is about 4GB unused space.
how should I create sufficient space to copy gapps. thanks for your help.
I also have a Coby 1042 and have downloaded alll the files u mentioned above.
Im not a techy person and I dont where to start..
Can u give me a step by step process on how to root coby 1042 in a much easier method?
Thank u so much 😉
Will this work on mid7060?
When I open the “about tablet” the model number shows mid1045
I haven’t tested it, so I’m not sure 🙂 Try it at your own risk 🙂
/system/bin/sh: su: not found on coby 7030..what to do?
Unfortunately I don’t have a 7030 so I don’t know, but perhaps someone else does!
how to you “push” the data directory to the device
should i push the entire coby_root3 folder or just the data folder.
usually it comes device not found
i meant how do you
thanks it worked.i just had to install the driver.
Can u give me the easiest way on to install the google apps or google play on coby mid 1042…
Thanks
Hellow
I have the same problem as Kosmik… everything works perfect but the thing with “no space left on the device” … could be a problem with the remounting of /system as a writeble …thing .. ?
first i thought that i have too many apps installed, and I factory reset-it. after i had no app installed, only android. but the error is still there…
any ideeas?
That’s very odd – how much free space do you have? It should tell you on the “Storage” section in the settings menu.
On the storage I have two internal storages, the first one has a capacity of 1.97gb – free 1.78gb , and the other storage is 4.33gb -free 3,66gb …
I’v tried to copy them myself from a sdcard into the /system/app folder having superuser permissions to ES File Explorer, but ‘copy failed’
Sorry about the name its steel me, soare, I was thinking the space problem… soare is my nickname, sorin is my name…
Sorry I mixt up the name(sorin) with the nickname(soare) its steel me. Sorry.
Nevermind…. back to space problem.
Two internal storeges first has 1.7GB free, second 3.66GB free
Wow, I’m really stumped. Sorry Sorin, I’m not sure what could be causing that!
Hi, if anyone is still wondering about the space issue, the reason is simple. Your storage is split up in several partitions. The important one for apps is he system partition, which holds the builtin android apps, and the data partition (which holds user-installed apps). The “other” builtin storage is the “builtin sdcard”, the storage you see from apps for documents and such.
Now, the problem is you are trying to install Superuser.apk and such into the system partition, and it seems to have run out of space. You can create some space there by deleting unused parts. One option would be to delete Bluetooth.apk, as I presume your coby device does not have Bluetooth either.
Look around in /system/app/ for stuff that is *clearly* not relevant, and delete them. Another option would be to remove the E-Book app, as you can install that manually again (and it’ll go on the data partition then, where there’s lots of space).
Hope this helps!
hey dude, can you send me the tutorial in spanish?, or make a video?, i want to root but i don´t understand all de tutorial.
Hi Leo,
Unfortunately I don’t have time to do either. However I would encourage you to ask questions about the things you don’t understand. Use Google to try and answer the question yourself. If that doesn’t work, try one of the big forums like xda-developers or stackoverflow.
I have a 10″ coby that was a gift. It did not work well, slow and sometimes would not boot. Fixed that. I tried downloading apps and it asks for my account info. I entered it and it did not recognize it. Tried creating a new account and it keeps asking “are you sure that is your name” Of course it is but can not get passed that. That means I can not download any apps. When I go directly to Google Store, I can download apps, but I do not get an “open” prompt. It says “installed”, but it does not appear on the apps screen, and can not open them. What could the problem be? How do I fix it? Thanks
SilverWraith,
It looks like the coby_root3.zip link is no longer working. You mentioned in the post that you have a copy of this zip file in case the link stops working. Can you find that zip file and re-post it so I can download it?
Thanks,
-Ryan C.
Unfortunately I don’t think I have this any longer 🙁