Image from Mi

This blog post is dedicated to Xiaomi Pad 5 codenamed “nabu”.

Time for Good ol’ Disclaimer.

We are not responsible for bricked devices, dead SD cards, thermonuclear war, or you getting fired because the alarm app failed. Please do some research if you have any concerns about features included in this ROM before flashing it! You are choosing to make these modifications, and if you point the finger at us for messing up your device, We will laugh at you.

Maintainers :- kubersharma001 and ganeshvarma

Donations

You can donate to me via PayPal | UPI: 001ks001@kotak

ArrowOS 13.0

ArrowOS 13.0 based on android-13 (Android-13.0.0) for nabu requires MIUI S firmware and includes a MIUI vendor. It uses OEM default encryption method i.e FBE v2 with metadata key encryption and supports f2fs userdata by default

Prerequisite

  • Same as arrow-12.1 (read below)

ArrowOS 12.1

ArrowOS 12.1 based on android-12L (Android-12.1.0) for nabu requires MIUI R firmware and includes a MIUI vendor. It uses OEM default encryption method i.e FBE v2 with metadata key encryption and supports f2fs userdata by default

Prerequisite

  • ArrowOS 12.1, you can download from official ArrowOS website - (Select arrow-12.1/arrow-13.0 and official - DO NOT SELECT EXPERIMENTAL)
  • Your region specific MIUI R or S firmware i.e MIUI based on Android 11 or Android 12.
  • Backup all your apps, pictures, videos, contacts etc to cloud or external storage
  • Unlocked bootloader and ArrowOS Recovery

Instructions on how to flash:

NOTE: This method will work on any rom, and you can flash any rom from ArrowOS Recovery. After flashing a ROM, on a A/B it will replace with it’s own recovery as recovery is stored inside boot.img.

FIRST TIME FLASHING While being on MIUI or another ROM:

  • reboot to fastboot (Remember to have latest fastboot tools, older versions may not properly support v_A/B devices)
  • Open terminal, type:
fastboot -w
  • This will properly wipe your data, metadata partitions
  • Now flash boot.img and vendor_boot.img downloaded from ArrowOS Recovery folder
fastboot flash boot boot.img
fastboot flash vendor_boot vendor_boot.img
fastboot reboot recovery
  • Xiaomi Pad 5’s recovery has an issue where panel doesn’t render the UI, but recovery works just fine.
adb devices
  • This should show your device, now reboot to sideload
adb reboot sideload
adb sideload *Drag and drop ArrowOS build for nabu*
  • This will take about 5-8 minutes, and in the end it may get stuck at 47% but THAT IS FINE, when the flash is done it will output: “xfer 1.00x”
  • That means it has been flashed! Now time to wipe data again via recovery.
adb shell
recovery --wipe_data
adb reboot

That is it! ENJOY :D

NOTE: If this still doesn’t boot I would recommand flash MIUI, booting it, rebooting to MIUI recovery and wipe data from there and then repeat all the steps from above except the “fastboot -w”

  • ENJOY!

HOW TO UPDATE FROM ONE BUILD TO ANOTHER?

  • reboot to recovery
  • Xiaomi Pad 5’s recovery has an issue where panel doesn’t render the UI, but recovery works just fine.
adb devices
  • This should show your device, now reboot to sideload
adb reboot sideload
adb sideload *Drag and drop ArrowOS build for nabu*
adb reboot

ENJOY!

Guide on how to pull a partition (like boot.img etc) from a currently flashed ROM?

First go to fastboot to find out the current active slot

fastboot getvar current-slot

Results: 
current-slot: b

Now reboot to recovery and open adb shell

fastboot reboot recovery
adb shell

Now pull a partition from current slot (because that’s what you are using right now), let’s pull boot.img and vendor_boot.img

dd if=/dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/boot_b of=/sdcard/boot.img
dd if=/dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/vendor_boot_b of=/sdcard/vendor_boot.img

Now these are pushed to /sdcard, how to get em on your computer? Exit adb shell

exit

Now, adb pull from sdcard, it will be stored where you Terminal is opened from

adb pull /sdcard/boot.img

You can also give it a path/to/copy. for example:

adb pull /sdcard/boot.img /Users/kubersharma001/nabu/images/

Common issues and solutions while sideloading:

Issue1. Sometimes adb sideload gets stucked at 47% for more than 10-15mins, that means it has hung and the installation may turn corrupted. Solution: Reflash boot.img, reboot to recovery and repeat flashing steps. Do not worry, your data is safe.

Issue2: Flashing MIUI firmware zip shows xfer 0.0. Solution: xfer 0.0 means it was not flashed, reboot to sideload and again try. Also look at Issue3.

Issue3: FLashing MIUI firmware or any addon like Magisk stuck at 0% Solution: Recovery prompts a signature verfication prompt so, it gets stuck at 0.

  1. Press Volume Down
  2. Press Power Button This will make adb progress to 47% and then xfer 1.0 = flashed succesfully.

Donations

You can donate to me via PayPal | UPI: 001ks001@kotak