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Fixing a bricked Nexus S

I had a Vibrant before and flashed it constantly. I soft bricked it several time and it was easy just to Odin back to stock and try again. Before I begin to flash Roms on this phone I would like to know how one would fix a bricked Nexus S. I searched "bricked Nexus S" and didn't come up with much.
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App

Flash a stock img thru fastboot/adb. Just as painless as Odin was if not easier.
Sent from my Nexus S

Yeah I figured that much but I have never used ADB before. What are the commands to flash a stock img and where can I get a stock img? I already have ADB set up, serial # comes up when I enter - adb devices. I'm ready to root and flash but I want to be prepared for anything. I don't want to panic for ten minutes like I did the first time I bricked my Vibrant.
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App

You should be able to snag a stock image from the development section. As far as what adb commands to use check out any of the root tutorials in development.
Sent from my Nexus S

bricking the phone is not easy... everything can be wiped and reinstalled with ease. Recovery is your friend.

leyvatron said:
bricking the phone is not easy... everything can be wiped and reinstalled with ease. Recovery is your friend.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's why I love this phone. When I first rooted my wife's phone she was a nervous wreck about me ruining it. Now, she jokingly cheers when it boot loops or hangs on the google splash screen.

kenvan19 said:
That's why I love this phone. When I first rooted my wife's phone she was a nervous wreck about me ruining it. Now, she jokingly cheers when it boot loops or hangs on the google splash screen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Coolest wife ever? haha

risegeek said:
Coolest wife ever? haha
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hehe why'd'ya think I married her

Hi Everyone.
I have my Nexus S for a 3 days - it's brand new. Last night i turned it off. It was about 50% charged. Today i can't turn it on. Phone is dead. What's wrong? There is no any response, even during charging (black screen).
Phone wasn't rooted. It has Android 2.3.2 update.
What can I do?

Van_Dyke said:
Hi Everyone.
I have my Nexus S for a 3 days - it's brand new. Last night i turned it off. It was about 50% charged. Today i can't turn it on. Phone is dead. What's wrong? There is no any response, even during charging (black screen).
Phone wasn't rooted. It has Android 2.3.2 update.
What can I do?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
not enough information is present. you can attempt to get into bootloader / recovery, plug USB to the computer. When plugged, does the computer make a plugged in noise? if it does.. try turning it on, try using adb on it, etc.
as a last resort: if its not rooted or modified in any way, you can go back to best buy and exchange it since you said you've only had it for 3 days

Van_Dyke said:
Hi Everyone.
I have my Nexus S for a 3 days - it's brand new. Last night i turned it off. It was about 50% charged. Today i can't turn it on. Phone is dead. What's wrong? There is no any response, even during charging (black screen).
Phone wasn't rooted. It has Android 2.3.2 update.
What can I do?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First thing to do is pull the battery, let it sit a minute or two, then put the battery back in and try to boot.
Also, try booting into recovery or fastboot. With power off, press and hold volume up button, then press/hold power on switch. You should enter fastboot mode. From fastboot menu, select boot to recovery. The phone will reboot and you'll get to a screen with an "!" and an android robot on it. At that point you press hold power, then press/hold volume up (make note that this is the reverse of what you did earlier).
Once in Recovery, try wiping cache from the menu.
Reboot.
If still no good, then repeat the process but pick factory reset/wipe from the menu in recovery. Note that this will wipe all personal data and apps off the phone but it won't touch your sdcard contents.

The case with pull battery - not working.
I can't enter fastmode using 2 keys combination.
Computer don't recognize the phone. It's brick...

Van_Dyke said:
The case with pull battery - not working.
I can't enter fastmode using 2 keys combination.
Computer don't recognize the phone. It's brick...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Last option is to try to trick it into Samsung's Download Mode (see the Odin thread in Development section), but if the keys aren't recognized you can't soft boot into it so you'll need a dongle with a resistor to get there.
Sounds like it's truly a brick at this point. You'll probably have to return it, but I'm concerned about returning a phone that has your personal data on it without being able to wipe it. Doesn't seem like much way around that at this point if you can't get fastboot or download.

get the 301k resistor JIG and then you can go into the download mode even without the 2 keys + usb plug
you can always make your own JIG if you have the materials at home or a nearby Radio shack

Thx for all Your advices
Problem was with the dead battery. The battery died during the night - i don't know why. I think the system waren't able to boot up ant start charging process.
My solution:
I took 9V battery, 2 wires and charged dead battery for a while from 9V battery. Then a put it into phone and plug in to wall charger. Charging process started
Now everything is ok

That's pretty scary that it wouldnt take a charge if run down completelty. But hey handy to know incase it happens to any of us,
If you get any repeat i would take it back to get a fresh battery of course (only right to do so).
here's hoping you never need to though

Van_Dyke said:
Thx for all Your advices
Problem was with the dead battery. The battery died during the night - i don't know why. I think the system waren't able to boot up ant start charging process.
My solution:
I took 9V battery, 2 wires and charged dead battery for a while from 9V battery. Then a put it into phone and plug in to wall charger. Charging process started
Now everything is ok
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is scary......
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App

Bricked
Tried unlocking nexus s last night, now it appears bricked. Cannot connect to computer to reflash as it seems to have wiped the driver. Any ideas on how to bring it back from the dead? thanks
I have managed to see the phone with fastboot. I was hoping that fastboot update, would re-image the brick. Can anyone let me know the correct syntax. I am not able to copy an image onto the phone. Thanks again

Noob {MAC User}... Please be gentle
Greetings Everyone,
Okay, so I endeavoured to root my phone last night and was successful. I ran into trouble when the clockwork recovery and superuser permissions kept getting removed each time I reboot.
Now, I'm at the Google splash screen with no way to move forward. I'm a mac user and I don't really get the adb thing. Got adb to work with mac from a youtube video, but still not sure what commands to run.
What I've done so far:
- wiped cache
- wiped/factory data reset
- retraced my steps by using terminal to setup superuser permission from this post (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=927838)
What I think:
- maybe in all of my clicks I removed the ROM, so the phone doesn't have a ROM to work with.
This maybe a really infantile conclusion, but I know there's a solution (had a rooted G1 that I flashed all the time and thought I bricked once but was able to get it back to stock).
Eagerly waiting for a reply... no cell phone if this can't be fixed.
Tamara

warrenb said:
Tried unlocking nexus s last night, now it appears bricked. Cannot connect to computer to reflash as it seems to have wiped the driver. Any ideas on how to bring it back from the dead? thanks
I have managed to see the phone with fastboot. I was hoping that fastboot update, would re-image the brick. Can anyone let me know the correct syntax. I am not able to copy an image onto the phone. Thanks again
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It would be easier to help you if we knew exactly what you did that caused the problem. You said you tried to unlock it...you mean fastboot oem unlock or something else?
If you can get into fastboot, you're not totally lost, but the computer needs to see the phone to do it.
I'm working in a vacuum here on what your real problem is, but without further details, the things you can try are boot into recovery (from the fastboot mode select boot recovery)...if you're stock recovery, press/hold power, then volume up once you see the android "!". From there wipe cache and whatever else it will let you wipe. Try rebooting. IF that didn't work go back to recovery and try a factory reset of the phone (will delete all your apps and stuff on the phone, but not on the sdcard (pics and stuff).
If none of that works, you can still try getting Clockwork recovery on the phone via fastboot. Boot phone to fastboot and then on computer type the command "fastboot flash recovery <put file name of recovery version you're flashing here>"
Once in clockwork, you should have access to adb via the computer. On your computer go to the Development section here and download any of the various nandroid images posted there. Now you use clockwork mounts and storage menu to mount the sdcard. Then use adb to "adb push <insert path and filename of your nandroid image here> /sdcard"
Unmount the sdcard with the clockwork mounts and storage menu. Now go to the backup menu, select advanced restore and find the nandroid image and restore it.
With any luck, you should be able to boot into a fresh phone.

[Q] Need help repairing my Nexus s I9020?

i brought the phone at launch, its a T-Mobile version Super AMOLED I9020, im in india though, using indian sim.
the phone was previously rooted, then unrooted, then rooted, then unrooted again. then filnally i was using unrooted nexus s, but with unlocked bootloader and stock recovery.
4-5 months after this, the phone started stucking on google logo.
it used to stuck at google logo at times but a quick battery pull would fix it, one day it didnt. since then it always stuck at the google logo on boot and never turned on, except some 1 out of 1 million times after connecting to computer.
i tired to format the whole phone using stock recovery, it was successful and the phone turned on, but next time when it switched off, same problem again but this time even formatting wont work, the formatting from stock recovery would just display an error that it failed to find a file and formatting aborted.
i tried everything, hundreds of stuff from google and XDA but nothing seems to be working.
today i managed to flash CWR to it. i tired to then erase sdcard but it says failed to mount /sdcard . i also tried other things like update from sd card(i have a ICS update.zip file in the memory) but still it said failed to mount sdcard, tried to wipe-> 'error mounting sdcard'
and now i dont know what ive done but when i boot the phone(normally) it doesnt even display the google logo, it enters bootloader by itself and says 'fastboot mode - no boot or recovery img'
bootloader is still unlocked, CWR is still there and accessible.
i took it to samsung service centre too, they said they will have to replace the motherboard(quoting me 400$ for it lol)
this is my last try really, ive been trying to fix this thing from ages!
is there anything that can be done?
going to sell it if i still cant fix it

I'm in about the same spot. If you have a Linux box available, you might try Adam Outler's "Unbrickable Resurrector." (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1397393) It's supposed to be a last gasp kind of thing before you give up. However... I ran it and it crashes -- not the phone, the software itself. Sigh.
I got here by making a backup, then unintentionally erasing everything on the phone, including the backup, the boot image, and the recovery image (the backup, presumably). That's what the message "no boot or recovery img" seems to be saying. Fastboot doesn't work either.
So here's my last gasp before I take it in for repair: apparently you can buy or build a micro-USB connector called a "USB jig" -- it's just a connector with a resistor connecting a pin that's usually not connected. This is supposed to put the phone into download mode, where you can copy a recovery image to the phone. Then you can use CWM to install a new image.
-Rod

It sounds like your mem is shot.
Sent from my Nexus S

I've had a similar problem to this and to solve it I just locked the boot loader and then unlocked it again and everything was back to normal for me. You could try that and see if it works
Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk

sell faulty nexus phone
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amity_coolin said:
HI
I am intrested in buying a faulty nexus s phone . If in case this is of no use to you then I am ready to buy this.
contact me at 7838448028
Regards
Amit
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
R u still interested in a faulty Nexus S?

Hi.
My solution may sound a bit strange but me too have the same problem.
Just heat the phone a bit and see if it boots.
Heat it from a hot air source such as laptop heatsink area.
Just get the cell phone warm and it may boit up.
I know it may sound strange but it has worked for me everytime.
Regards
Sent from my xperia TX via xda premium

Help installing GB rom. May be bricked.

I'm a noob and I wiped my phone before trying recovery! DERP. Not sure what to do next.
So... I need a little help. I've been looking around and havent been able to find a situation like mine. I've got a completely wiped/factory reset HTC Inspire 4g. SD card is good and reformatted to fat32. Heres the basics. When I press the power button I get 3 vibrate and orange light, when I press volume down and power I get 5 vibrates and green light. When I plug phone in with usb (to computer or charger) I get clockworkmod recovery v5.0.2.7. I am able to toggle through options, all works fine.
This is where I need help and I get easily confused. What do I do to get this phone back to stock settings? I've tried putting the stock pd98img.zip file onto the sd card, then installing via clockwork recovery. When I do this, I get failed installation EVERY time. I've also tried connecting through ace hack kit on my lap top and running the stock settings flash. Whenever it resets the phone it does the 3 vibrates/orange light and stops.
I would really appreciate someone with a little more experience to walk me through what I need to do to recover.
Update: When I try to download the zip from the sd card via clockworkmod I get the error E:Signature Verification Failed. I'm not sure what this means.
If someone can solve my problem I'll buy them lunch or coffee! Some kind of gift card to your favorite place? I'd really like my android back!

Drdandy said:
I'm a noob and I wiped my phone before trying recovery! DERP. Not sure what to do next.
So... I need a little help. I've been looking around and havent been able to find a situation like mine. I've got a completely wiped/factory reset HTC Inspire 4g. SD card is good and reformatted to fat32. Heres the basics. When I press the power button I get 3 vibrate and orange light, when I press volume down and power I get 5 vibrates and green light. When I plug phone in with usb (to computer or charger) I get clockworkmod recovery v5.0.2.7. I am able to toggle through options, all works fine.
This is where I need help and I get easily confused. What do I do to get this phone back to stock settings? I've tried putting the stock pd98img.zip file onto the sd card, then installing via clockwork recovery. When I do this, I get failed installation EVERY time. I've also tried connecting through ace hack kit on my lap top and running the stock settings flash. Whenever it resets the phone it does the 3 vibrates/orange light and stops.
I would really appreciate someone with a little more experience to walk me through what I need to do to recover.
Update: When I try to download the zip from the sd card via clockworkmod I get the error E:Signature Verification Failed. I'm not sure what this means.
If someone can solve my problem I'll buy them lunch or coffee! Some kind of gift card to your favorite place? I'd really like my android back!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You only flash pd98 files from fast boot not from CWM recovery. Boot in bootloader and it will find it

I am going to come off as the biggest noob here, but its got to be done. How do you boot in bootloader?
EDIT: Alright. So Bootloader is Volume down and power. My phone won't boot into bootloader. Phone vibrate 5 times and green led comes on. Screen stays black the whole time.

Drdandy said:
I am going to come off as the biggest noob here, but its got to be done. How do you boot in bootloader?
EDIT: Alright. So Bootloader is Volume down and power. My phone won't boot into bootloader. Phone vibrate 5 times and green led comes on. Screen stays black the whole time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok i dont use CWM but there maybe an option in there to reboot into bootloader. Try holding volume up and power. Could be confusing devices on that though

zelendel said:
Ok i dont use CWM but there maybe an option in there to reboot into bootloader. Try holding volume up and power. Could be confusing devices on that though
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nah, no other combo's work for getting into bootloader or rebooting it. From what I've read on other forums, if I can't get into bootloader, I'm bricked. Do you think since the phone is wiped back to factory settings that HTC would replace it under the warranty?

Since you can boot into recovery, adb should still work. Enter recovery then plug in your phone to PC and run adb reboot bootloader
Have you tried reflashing a rom in recovery aswell?

Drdandy said:
Nah, no other combo's work for getting into bootloader or rebooting it. From what I've read on other forums, if I can't get into bootloader, I'm bricked. Do you think since the phone is wiped back to factory settings that HTC would replace it under the warranty?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you are booting into CWM your not back to factory. As stated above you can use adb to boot into bootloader

Just making sure I'm doing this right as its the first time I've ever use adb commands to me phone. Do I need to downloand Android SDK to write commands to the phone?

Okay. I've learned how to use the adb commands. That was cool. haha. So I popped the battery out, then back in to get to CWM. With phone connected to computer I tried adb reboot bootloader. My phone rebooted itself, but it did the 3 vibrates with a flashing orange LED. Adb reboot recovery does the same thing.
For being in recovery. Are you guys talking about the volume down power combination, when I do this and connect the phone to the pc, the pc doesn't detect the phone. So there is no abd commands/flashing roms to it in recovery.

Drdandy said:
Okay. I've learned how to use the adb commands. That was cool. haha. So I popped the battery out, then back in to get to CWM. With phone connected to computer I tried adb reboot bootloader. My phone rebooted itself, but it did the 3 vibrates with a flashing orange LED. Adb reboot recovery does the same thing.
For being in recovery. Are you guys talking about the volume down power combination, when I do this and connect the phone to the pc, the pc doesn't detect the phone. So there is no abd commands/flashing roms to it in recovery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK looks like your bootloader is messed up. Go to the ace hack kit thread. There you will find a link foe the IRC chat room. Go there and tell them what you did. They maybe able to help you.

[Q] Nexus S 4G issues accessing \sdcard\ no bootup

Hello, before I call Samsung in hopes they might give me a RMA, I need help.
I had unlocked the bootloader in the past and had recently installed the IMM26D official stock rom that was not rooted. This worked fine for a month or so then yesterday the phone would not boot up anymore, just sitting at "GOOGLE' across the screen with the unlocked padlock on the bottom. So here is what I have tried ;
I was able to load CWM on it, but once in there, I could not do anything that pointed to the sdcard (mount, mount usb, format, wipe and erase). The minute I tried this, the log would show "Error mounting \sdcard\".
I then tried ODIN to see if I could reload the IMM26D, It would start and get only about 5% of the way and just stop for eternity. I tried the same cable I used before when this worked, and a different one.
And at the last step (Stupidly), I tried doing a fastboot oem lock and it locked it. Now when I go back in and do a fastboot oem unlock, the options come up on the screen and when choosing Yes to unlock, the phone just locks up.
Could this be a corrupted or damaged SDcard in the phone (now I wish it wasn't internal and rather a external one) ?
Is there ANYTHING I can do at this point? Is there a .PIT file specific for this phone that I can try loading with ODIN ?
I would love to somehow load the "stock" recovery back on it but since I can't unlock the bootloader, seems that idea is toast. It would be a lot easier to take to Sprint or send to Samsung if it didn't have CMW on it.
Sorry for the long post, but thanks in advance ..

what happened with this issue? Was it resolved, did you have it swapped with another phone?
Sent from my Nexus S 4G using Tapatalk 2

Ended up calling Samsung and sending it in, luckily it was still under warranty. Looks like they fixed it and waiting for it to return. There was nothing I could do on my end at the time, it was a corrupted internal SD card.

Oneplus One Freezing On Startup

He there, just recently my phone had an update and i said yes to it. After the update completed It rebooted but never started back up.
When turned on, it just get up to the OnePlus One logo screen and stays there. I have tried a factory reset as I can access the recovery menu but the factory reset doesn't seem to do anything. I let the battery drain until the phone died and then charged it but it still will not start. Plugging it into my PC lets it charge but it does not let you access the storage. Its not a driver problem as it was working fine before the update.
I have tried fast boot but it just gets stuck on the fast boot screen.
I tried using OnePlus One Toolkit but it cant find the phone
I have read that I need to flash it but it would seem I need to transfer a file onto the phone but nothing recognizes the phone to transfer it to.
Can anyone help?
Thanks in advance,

Zastarx said:
He there, just recently my phone had an update and i said yes to it. After the update completed It rebooted but never started back up.
When turned on, it just get up to the OnePlus One logo screen and stays there. I have tried a factory reset as I can access the recovery menu but the factory reset doesn't seem to do anything. I let the battery drain until the phone died and then charged it but it still will not start. Plugging it into my PC lets it charge but it does not let you access the storage. Its not a driver problem as it was working fine before the update.
I have tried fast boot but it just gets stuck on the fast boot screen.
I tried using OnePlus One Toolkit but it cant find the phone
I have read that I need to flash it but it would seem I need to transfer a file onto the phone but nothing recognizes the phone to transfer it to.
Can anyone help?
Thanks in advance,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your persist partition might be corrupt. Grab this:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B98G0KTJwnBFUnJCNldodGs2dE0/view?usp=docslist_api
Then do this with fastboot:
Code:
fastboot erase persist
fastboot flash persist persist.img

Didn't work sadly. Maybe I should just flash everything?

Zastarx said:
Didn't work sadly. Maybe I should just flash everything?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, it's worth a shot. You can find full instructions in section 8 of my guide here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2839471

Yay!
It worked, thanks a lot!