PeterX wrote:
I have two questions regarding (ARM 64bit) tablet/smartphone:
1. Can I overwrite the flash memory of an Android Tablet/smartphone without rooting it?
2. Can I backup the contents of the flash memory? I've read some PROMMers can do that.
Greetings
Peter
In general, no. Booting non-official ROMs, including alternative recovery like CWM or TWRP, tend to require rooting to allow access to the FLASH and bootloader partitions.
It's frankly a shocking state of affairs, I suppose sort of mitigated by the fact it does make it very difficult for malware to be installed in the system software as well (that of course doesn't prevent malware apps being installed, but they're easy to wipe.) But any semblance of added security looks pretty thin when you're left with a phone with old, vulnerable system installation that cannot be updated because the phone has been abandoned by the manufacturer.