Lenovo Tab 2 Partition Layout

Question

I own a Lenovo Tab 2 A7-20f.

When I try cat /proc/emmc:

partno:    start_sect   nr_sects  partition_name
emmc_p1: 00000400 00000002 "ebr1"
emmc_p2: 00004800 00005000 "protect_f"
emmc_p3: 00009800 00005000 "protect_s"
emmc_p4: 0001ec00 00003000 "sec_ro"
emmc_p5: 0002e800 00300000 "android"
emmc_p6: 0032e800 0003f000 "cache"
emmc_p7: 0036d800 00b18000 "usrdata"

And when I use cat /proc/partitions:

major minor  #blocks  name

   7        0       9570 loop0
 253        0     524288 zram0
 179        0    7613440 mmcblk0
 179        1          1 mmcblk0p1
 179        2      10240 mmcblk0p2
 179        3      10240 mmcblk0p3
 179        4       6144 mmcblk0p4
 179        5    1572864 mmcblk0p5
 179        6     129024 mmcblk0p6
 179        7    5816320 mmcblk0p7
 179       64       4096 mmcblk0boot1
 179       32       4096 mmcblk0boot0

I don't think this is the typical Android Partition Layout. Any Idea which one is the Recovery and the Boot partition? Or how to find it out?

Update:
When I lookup /proc/dumchar_info I get

Part_Name  Size    StartAddr   Type    MapTo   Region
preloader    0x0000000000040000   0x0000000000000000   2   /dev/misc-sd     BOOT_1
mbr          0x0000000000080000   0x0000000000000000   2   /dev/block/mmcblk0     USER
ebr1         0x0000000000080000   0x0000000000080000   2   /dev/block/mmcblk0p1   USER
pro_info     0x0000000000300000   0x0000000000100000   2   /dev/block/mmcblk0     USER
nvram        0x0000000000500000   0x0000000000400000   2   /dev/block/mmcblk0     USER
protect_f    0x0000000000a00000   0x0000000000900000   2   /dev/block/mmcblk0p2   USER
protect_s    0x0000000000a00000   0x0000000001300000   2   /dev/block/mmcblk0p3   USER
seccfg       0x0000000000020000   0x0000000001d00000   2   /dev/block/mmcblk0     USER
uboot        0x0000000000060000   0x0000000001d20000   2   /dev/block/mmcblk0     USER
bootimg      0x0000000001000000   0x0000000001d80000   2   /dev/block/mmcblk0     USER
recovery     0x0000000001000000   0x0000000002d80000   2   /dev/block/mmcblk0     USER
sec_ro       0x0000000000600000   0x0000000003d80000   2   /dev/block/mmcblk0p4   USER
misc         0x0000000000080000   0x0000000004380000   2   /dev/block/mmcblk0     USER
logo         0x0000000000300000   0x0000000004400000   2   /dev/block/mmcblk0     USER
expdb        0x0000000000a00000   0x0000000004700000   2   /dev/block/mmcblk0     USER
tee1         0x0000000000500000   0x0000000005100000   2   /dev/block/mmcblk0     USER
tee2         0x0000000000500000   0x0000000005600000   2   /dev/block/mmcblk0     USER
kb           0x0000000000100000   0x0000000005b00000   2   /dev/block/mmcblk0     USER
dkb          0x0000000000100000   0x0000000005c00000   2   /dev/block/mmcblk0     USER
android      0x0000000060000000   0x0000000005d00000   2   /dev/block/mmcblk0p5   USER
cache        0x0000000007e00000   0x0000000065d00000   2   /dev/block/mmcblk0p6   USER
usrdata      0x0000000163000000   0x000000006db00000   2   /dev/block/mmcblk0p7   USER
bmtpool      0x0000000001500000   0x00000000ffff00a8   2   /dev/block/mmcblk0     USER
Part_Name:Partition name you should open;
Size:size of partition
StartAddr:Start Address of partition;
Type:Type of partition(MTD=1,EMMC=2)
MapTo:actual device you operate

Now how can I found out which one is the system partition and why are Boot and Recovery one partition?

Answer 1

Why are Boot and Recovery one partition?

This you can find answered in a Wiki entry at Github. Quoting the relevant part:

Since MTK devices use the uboot mechanism, partitions including boot and recovery, are not revealed as separate partitions, but rather accessed sequencially by size and start parameters.

You can see that reflected in your output of /proc/dumchar_info: size is the second column, start sector the third. Think of it like "disk images stored on a raw medium" (not an exact description, but easier to visualize).

Which one is the system partition?

My first guess (by the name) was sec_ro (as system is "ro", read only). But that's not exact enough. To find out, you'd need the sector size and the size of your /system partition, then you can do the maths: /proc/emmc gives you the "number of sectors" each partition occupies, in HEX. sec_ro accordingly occupies 0x3000 sectors, that would be 12288 in decimal. At a sector size of 512 bytes¹ that would be 6 MB – too small :) A better guess probably is p5 named "android", which sums up to 1.5 GB – that seems to be the correct size. cache is /cache and usrdata will be the /data partition.

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^{1: according to Understanding MTK’s MBR/EBR File Format}