How to reflash the OUYA firmware on your OUYA

Tutorials
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How to Flash Your OUYA

I should have been more careful. Now I know for next time. Always remember that when you overwrite the super user binary, set permissions so that it can still be used… Well, tonight, I had the chance to flash my OUYA for the first time ever (due to deleting the su binary). Its actually pretty easy!

Prerequisites

You’ll need this stuff to do the work:

  • TV/Monitor
  • Usb keyboard
  • USB to USB-Micro cable
  • Android Debugging Bridge (ADB) - Extract the files to a folder and note that location - You can use linux/mac instead if preferred
  • OUYA Firmware - I’ve linked the last OUYA firmware release that OUYA made, but you can flash any OUYA firmware. Yes, it has to be OUYA firmware due to a signature check.

Connecting Everything and Getting Setup

  • Plug everything in:
    • Keyboard to OUYA
    • OUYA to your computer
    • Power to OUYA
    • OUYA to TV/Monitor
  • Boot up your OUYA
  • Open a terminal window (such as PowerShell or cmd) and cd into where you have adb
  • Check if your OUYA is recognized:
    • Powershell: .\adb devices
    • Command Prompt (cmd): adb devices
    • Note: I will use .\adb through the rest of this guide. Skip the .\ if using cmd

Accessing Recovery Mode

  1. From your terminal windows, run this command to tell the OUYA to reboot into recovery mode: .\adb reboot recovery
  2. Once the OUYA has rebooted, it will show a warning exclmation mark
  3. Hit “Home” on your OUYA keyboard

Pushing the Firmware

Scroll down to “adb sideload” and hit enter. The run from your computer: adb sideload $ENV:USERPROFILE\Downloads\RC-OUYA-1.2.1427-r1_ota.zip

Finishing the Sideload

Incredibly important!!! Always wipe your data!!! “We want to wipe all data off of our Ouya. Not for security reasons but for sanity reasons! You see, whenever you reload an Android OS it’s assuming that there are no user profiles, no data, nothing that could get in the way of its startup-script. Arrow down to “wipe data/factory reset” and press “enter” to continue.” “Finally, we arrow down to “wipe cache partition” and press “enter.”” Select “Reboot now” DONE

Credits: https://www.s-config.com/section-5-restoring-you-ouya-firmware/

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