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Recover Bricked Magic

I have a google ion and plan to load some roms on to it to try out. I am worried about trying things that may go horribly wrong and might leave me with a bricked phone.
My question is, is it always possible to recover a bricked/partially bricked phone? Has anyone heard of a android phone being permanently unusable after screwing around with the software like this?
Thanks in advance.

nirvanaxp said:
I have a google ion and plan to load some roms on to it to try out. I am worried about trying things that may go horribly wrong and might leave me with a bricked phone.
My question is, is it always possible to recover a bricked/partially bricked phone? Has anyone heard of a android phone being permanently unusable after screwing around with the software like this?
Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As long as you can get into fastboot you can always recover. When you cant get into fastboot your device is a brick that we cant recover anymore.

bricked
Once it is bricked, is it not technically feasible even for HTC guys to revive the phone?
Or
HTC will deliberately refuse to fix it saying "Warranty void due to rooting/reflashing" ?
I am under the impression that once it is bricked while reflashing, one can go to HTC customer care center and get it reflashed back to factory settings.
Please correct me if I am wrong.

It's pretty hard to brick a smartphone... if you do something wrong (like invalid themes, apps, wrong board firmware) it will just bootloop and you can fix it by flashing your nandroid backup (Make a recovery before starting your flash!).

[email protected] said:
Once it is bricked, is it not technically feasible even for HTC guys to revive the phone?
Or
HTC will deliberately refuse to fix it saying "Warranty void due to rooting/reflashing" ?
I am under the impression that once it is bricked while reflashing, one can go to HTC customer care center and get it reflashed back to factory settings.
Please correct me if I am wrong.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, it's possible but I think they have to replace the flash memory chip. Dunno if every technican does that..I work my self as a technican (not for htc thouh)

so SPL data is recorded in special chip? so if you screw SPL only way to restore is by changing "SPL chip"?

thank you. I feel a bit safer about hacking my phone. I guess things are pretty safe if I follow the guides that are out there.

Stop flashing until usb problem is fixed...

Hi everyone,
Just a word of advice: Rooting + Flashing ROMs for the Desire may og may not brick your devices. As you can see in this thread http://android.modaco.com/content-p...-usb-connectivity-etc-and-root-a2sd/page/540/ we are quite a few with bricked devices - and no way to un-brick them so far.
Nobody yet knows what might have caused this - maybe Apps 2 SD.
I would advice for everyone to wait flashing any further until this issue is clarified!!!

Thanks for the heads up. Not been flashing much as of late but was planning to try out a different ROM. Does this problem affect all customised ROMs or just certain newer builds?

Mastoid said:
Thanks for the heads up. Not been flashing much as of late but was planning to try out a different ROM. Does this problem affect all customised ROMs or just certain newer builds?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is about as random as can be is the best way to decsribe it! Some people flash many times and have no bother, others flash once and the phone is bricked
It so far doesn't seem to be exclusive to any particular rom, people speculate it may be A2SD, but others think it's the actual rooting process. To be honest, no one actually knows why it's happening and how to fix it. All that is certain is that more and more people are posting with the issue.

It could be any ROM.
Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk

socktug said:
It is about as random as can be is the best way to decsribe it! Some people flash many times and have no bother, others flash once and the phone is bricked
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I take it you have a bricked phone then? I hope this gets resolved soon especially for those who might have turned their phone into nothing more than a paper weight.
It so far doesn't seem to be exclusive to any particular rom, people speculate it may be A2SD, but others think it's the actual rooting process. To be honest, no one actually knows why it's happening and how to fix it. All that is certain is that more and more people are posting with the issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Since many people have reported this issue, is there not some kind of pattern emerging? Hopefully we can isolate the problem to something in particular, as you stated, whether it be caused by the rooting process, Apps2SD, or a USB driver issue.
For those who are experiencing this, might be an idea to post computer specs, what ROM they attempted to install, and other associated things so we can narrow down the problem.

I've flashed loads so far and have no issues - finally got a ROM I like at the mo so will leave it for now...probably

My guess its the recovery, its not installed to the phone and its very sensitive for connection: do not move phone or cable during flash.

It happens that I flash several time in a day, I have MCR r3 A2SD+ now and I never had such a problem...

The problem is APPS2SD related.

DocRambone said:
My guess its the recovery, its not installed to the phone and its very sensitive for connection: do not move phone or cable during flash.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't mean do break up the good mood in this thread. But if you have a problem/issue with this, please follow the thread on MoDaCo - any kind of input is welcome in this debate
BTW: If any moderator reads this: Can we make this sticky until problem is solved?

Could this be most of the issue happened to be with people with .80 bootloader??

kuailan said:
Could this be most of the issue happened to be with people with .80 bootloader??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This problem has nothing to do with the 0.80 bootloader. It's all to do with APPS2SD, that was discovered weeks ago on MoDaCo.

abc27 said:
This problem has nothing to do with the 0.80 bootloader. It's all to do with APPS2SD, that was discovered weeks ago on MoDaCo.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are people on modaco who have bricked their phones, and were not using A2SD.
I managed to brick mine by knocking it during the flashing process. I did not use A2SD.

socktug said:
I managed to brick mine by knocking it during the flashing process. I did not use A2SD.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think DocRambone is onto something here... he stated a few posts back that he thinks it may be down to the sensitivity of the connection/cable while the phone is in recovery mode during flash, and you mentioned that you bricked your phone while knocking it while flashing in recovery?
From my experience, whenever I attempted to flash Desire cutoms ROMs, I did not move the USB cable at all and it worked fine. Had the phone placed on the desk and kept it stationary while flashing. I have not had any problems with Apps2SD or USB driver issues either.

I did mine from the laptop and the phone on the sette beside me. lol. I initially thought I'd knocked it and the battery came out, but I'm fairly sure now that the battery wasn't the problem, it fits too tight to come out with a simple knock of the hand.
Anyway, all I can say is if you brick it, and can unroot it, and bought it at the carphonewarehouse, you will be fine! They took it back and gave me a new one, no questions asked. I'm not going near a root process untill there is a fix now

Afaik there are two possible solutions for the issue
1. someone needs to security unlock the spl, so that we are able to use all fastboot commands
2. In the modaco thread someone found some helpfull kernel commands
so, if anyone either is experienced in spl modifications or capable of programming c for the kernel commands, pleade send me a pm

millen said:
I don't mean do break up the good mood in this thread. But if you have a problem/issue with this, please follow the thread on MoDaCo - any kind of input is welcome in this debate
BTW: If any moderator reads this: Can we make this sticky until problem is solved?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have read the last few pages of the MoDaCo thread but still I am not clear about the issue.
Is it there are some unknown factors causing the root process to brick the USB? But still you can flash stock RUU in fastboot?

you can flash back to stock cause fastboot is still working and so you can flash the signed stock roms (thoose with release keys or the testrom with testkeys) but due to the fact that adb is nomore working you can't enter the custom recovery to flash cooked roms

millen said:
I don't mean do break up the good mood in this thread. But if you have a problem/issue with this, please follow the thread on MoDaCo - any kind of input is welcome in this debate
BTW: If any moderator reads this: Can we make this sticky until problem is solved?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just send a message to one of the mods, he sure will make that post sticky
--edit---
man, theese guys are fast, now it's sticky

Easy and apparently safer method of rooting?
Not sure if anyone's seen this on modaco but using the tiny core linux has worked well for me, with 3 flashes from a stock HTC ROM and currently running eViL De-SiRe after trying paul's initial boot then the Cyanogen Port.
May flash again tonight with the Kernel release the ROMs will get better and better.

[Q] Going back to stock (Different question)

Hello,
I currently do not own a SGS4g, but I know a friend who does.
My friend previously had an iPhone and liked it. Now he wants to explore the customization of Android (due to me flashing so many different ROMs in front of him). He is currently too scared to root and custom rom his phone in case he bricks it.
I know there is the One-Click unbrick, but I was curious if it would work on the SGS4g. According to this it said it works on all Odin3(?) Samsungs and only on "softbricks".
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1153310
So I guess my questions are:
How can I tell if the phone is "hardbricked" and "softbricked?"
Once you flash a custom rom + kernel will you be able to go back to stock i.e. stock radio/kernel/bootloader?
I also found this:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1117554&highlight=bible
It provided awesome information but I couldn't find out if there was a stock radio and others backed up online.
I know that these types of questions are asked a lot on these forums. So please bear with me.
Again, I am not familiar with this phone so stuff about Odin and Heimdall are flying over my head. I flashed my custom ROMs on my Motorola Milestone and we didn't have Odin and Heimdall.
Please help, I'm doing this to make a fellow Android User love his phone just a little bit more.
Thank you,
lilhugo

There are odin files that will return you to stock within 10 min, so don't worry about that. Soft bricks are when you don't mount the system properly (among other things) or don't follow the dev's instructions and your rom doesn't load. You will basically stuck at the galaxy s startup screen and can't get past it. This usually happens to everyone at least once and not really considered a big deal. To fix, you need to use odin to flash a rom with the computer. A hard brick usually happens when people mess up with flashing roms that change the boot loaders. There can be other causes but this is the most common reason. You can tell it is hard bricked if the phone wont even power on. This is much more serious than a soft brick. Soft bricks are always recoverable. Hard bricks are not always recoverable, but still possible.
Sent from my SGH-T959V using XDA Premium App

Why,or how do phones get bricked?

Everybody out there is asking, how to unbrick this, how to unbrick that? Or if you're in the Evo 3D thread, how do I brick my Evo 3D?
What I'd like to know is, why, or how does a phone get bricked? If you have a USB with corrupted files, you can just totally wipe it and start fresh. If there's no hardware troubles, why isn't there a way to just do a wipe of everything and start fresh?
And also, how is it that a phone gets bricked in the first place? I've heard about things with Emmc boot, getting stuck there, wiping bootloader, etc. But I've flashed multiple different bootloaders, and you have to dabble with Emmc boot while getting S-OFF, so why is it impossible to get out of these if you get stuck in them? Isn't it just software holding you back?
Honestly, if you really just wanted, couldn't you just use an ultra powerful magnet to the NAND Memory to ultra wipe everything? I mean phones aren't assembled with bootloaders or any data in them, in a sense they're factory bricked when they're first created... no?
Ah well, I suppose that's all.
Hungry for information,
TBG

Phones get bricked when you go somewhere in the software that you can't get out of,or you edit the software wrongly, so it doesn't work right anymore. Of course,you could always break something,and kill your phone.
Sent from my U8150 using xda app-developers app

But why is it you can't do a total erase and obliterate every trace of memory from the phone and re-write it? I know the on board memory in a phone doesn't come pre programmed with memory...

thebeastglasser said:
But why is it you can't do a total erase and obliterate every trace of memory from the phone and re-write it? I know the on board memory in a phone doesn't come pre programmed with memory...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No but things like the eMMC chip DO come pre-programmed. If you simply wiped every trace of memory from any phone then it would have no idea how to boot up, how to interface to the USB, how to do anything.
Most of the time a 'Bricked' phone is actually caused by someone not reading properly first and not following the instructions correctly, or by thinking they know better than everyone else and can skip a step or take a shortcut.
On the HTC Desire S there was a problem with the eMMC chips 'frying' - normally caused by people who insisted on pulling their batteries after a lock-up and then re-inserting them quickly before the circuitry had discharged fully

The reasons why phones get bricked :
-Because of a nooby brain
-Corrupted ROM that is not Welly built
-Flashing wrong updates, kernels, ROMS...
-Messing up build.prop
.....many numerous other reasons.
You will understand what bricking means only when you brick your beloved phone
That moment is just like a Mini-Heart attack.
Sent from My Premium Calculator HD

No trust me, I semi bricked my old E4G for Sprint as well as my Transformer Prime and was stuck in fastboot with my Evo 3D... trust me, I'm kind of the definition of mini heart attack...
But why can't you get out of a "hard brick?" And what is it that defines a hard brick that makes it so that you can't do anything else?
EDIT: And does abhardbbrock have to be a hardware error? Or can it be a software error?
EDIT2: Although I suppose I already knew it could be a software error... It can happen easily while getting S-OFF on the EVO 3D.

Probably the most obvious case of "hard brick" is when you can't even start the phone, or open the bootloader, which means that there is no way to reverse the situation as you can't get access. Not sure what's the actual reason these things happen though.

thebeastglasser said:
No trust me, I semi bricked my old E4G for Sprint as well as my Transformer Prime and was stuck in fastboot with my Evo 3D... trust me, I'm kind of the definition of mini heart attack...
But why can't you get out of a "hard brick?" And what is it that defines a hard brick that makes it so that you can't do anything else?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Most of the time a hard brick is the result of a part of memory getting wiped that you don't have access to flash to e.g emmc chip,if it gets damaged you can't just flash it as its preprogrammed
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda premium

zacthespack said:
Most of the time a hard brick is the result of a part of memory getting wiped that you don't have access to flash to e.g emmc chip,if it gets damaged you can't just flash it as its preprogrammed
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ALRIGHT, now that makes sense. Thank you for clarifying. I salute you sir.

Yup, when a device is hard bricked, memory that contains drivers for the boot sequence has been erased or corrupted. Thus, the device quite literally doesn't know how to boot. Data has been erased that can only be manipulated during hardware assembly.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

flashing gapps
DD-Ripper said:
The reasons why phones get bricked :
-Because of a nooby brain
-Corrupted ROM that is not Welly built
-Flashing wrong updates, kernels, ROMS...
-Messing up build.prop
.....many numerous other reasons.
You will understand what bricking means only when you brick your beloved phone
That moment is just like a Mini-Heart attack.
Sent from My Premium Calculator HD
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if im using goo manager and check for updates,, does that automatically show me the updates for my phone {verizon s3} and my rom or are they for every phone???

Micromax a76
i have successfully changed my recovery , then i booted my phone with custom UI from zip file... it worked ... then i made factory reset ... my phone stucked in boot loop ... i tried to get into my recovery mode but its not working , phone is going in default factory mode which is in chineese i translated it but it consist of option of testing hardware only .... what to do? how can i get into recovery mode ? is there a way to install custom recovery via USB ? micromax A76

AbleAmazing said:
Yup, when a device is hard bricked, memory that contains drivers for the boot sequence has been erased or corrupted. Thus, the device quite literally doesn't know how to boot. Data has been erased that can only be manipulated during hardware assembly.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
it was built and programmed this way, probably so people won't root their phone its a win win cause you don't get to change what you get and if you do and **** this up its your fault and you need to buy a new one(from them) cause who will stay without a phone now days?

Welp, my phone got hard bricked for no reason... I just tried to turn it on, but I get nothing but a LED flash... and that's only if it is charging. My phone is a Moto G, and I have had no problems with it until recently... I can't even get the files to show on my chromebook... I am screwed, aren't I?

So... why can't you just change those little parts to working one that are preprogrammed and why aren't phones made like PC??? You do some s*** with OS... just reinstall it

How to repair soft bricked android?
Okay so first of all I will let you know why a phone gets bricked-
>Corrupted Rom
>Some system files got deleted
>Rooting
>Modding
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MY CASE
I always keep two phones with me like one for my experiments and one as a backup. In this case I'll be talking about my LYF WIND 3 that got bricked.
>Actually I was trying to install TWRP onto that phone but first I had to root it, and due to the upgraded android security, I wasn't able to do via KingoRoot so I tried I-ROOT and it did the job but instead of kingo-superuser I got some ****ty superuser so i tried granting permission to the actual SUPERUSER and while doing so I accidentally double rooted my phone (First with I-ROOT and then with KingoRoot), which was kinda stupid, so it just deleted some system files and my phone wouldn't boot after that. It just got stuck on the boot logo.
>The second time I was trying to replace the boot animation and logo but did something wrong so the same situation arose again.
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CURE
So my phone uses a Qualcomm CPU so i just guessed I'll flash it again.
*After Intense Googling*
I found this software QFIL (Qualcomm Flash Image Loader)
I downloaded this file and the drivers for my device. *Google it you'll find for yours too*
Then I downloaded the Stock Rom for my device *Google it again*
Now I just went over to Flat Build in that software and loaded the firehose file and the rawprogram.0 and Patch.0
Now I had just put my device in Download Mode (Volume Keys and Power Key)
Connected via USB and it detected it and then just clicked on DOWNLOAD
It takes about 5 minutes.
After this your phone gets good as new (Unroot, Full Reset)
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Why so many soft bricks and recovery problems?

I've never seen a two day span where I've seen this many near bricks and recovery problems. Its starting to look like the TF300 fiasco. Did CWM screw something up recently or are all these user problems unrelated and coincidental?

elfaure said:
I've never seen a two day span where I've seen this many near bricks and recovery problems. Its starting to look like the TF300 fiasco. Did CWM screw something up recently or are all these user problems unrelated and coincidental?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is mostly user problems, but CWM can brick your device by wiping the wrong partition. TWRP has been patched and wont do this. AKA why TWRP is recommended, rather than CWM, which is a good recovery, but for our device it can cause issues. And if you read, 99% of the bricks are recovered. So the point of the bricks is nothing, it is if we can recover them or not, to which most are, which is a wonderful thing. 10 TF300s a day were bricking, this is not occurring with the TF700, so there is no fiasco happening here .
Tylor
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk HD

Most people who brick their device don't read enough. And then, when they come here with their problem, they don't write enough.

_that said:
Most people who brick their device don't read enough. And then, when they come here with their problem, they don't write enough.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As a newbie, I may suggest that the Tylorw1 remarks could be announced on the http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=30223822#post30223822 topic (regarding that it is advised to use TWRP until CWM will be patched). Because I parsed all this topics and others before starting to flash my TF700 and never seen that recommandations and the other like "do not use software launch of recovery". Those information, you can only get them on the topic you look at once you have had an issue.
I was not totally a newbie with switching to developer mode / rooting / flashing, since I began doing this on my HTC magic, continued with an HTC desire HD, then a galaxy note. Never got those hard troubles (once I had a fear, but has been able to unlock it alone with my magic).
At last, that's very good you're here to help us after our mistakes!

The problem is that there are a lot of (stupid) people who can't bloody read.

florck said:
At last, that's very good you're here to help us after our mistakes!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I must be honest: I fear the day _that transitions to another device. The work he put in in your case is nothing short of amazing (to me). We all have our perks and qualities, but... pfff...
On-topic: it does seem like we are having more bricks and recovery/boot problems lately. Is that a market thing? Has the 700 gone done in price, thus reaching a greater user base? (Not to my knowledge.) Are we seeing more inexperienced users now than we did at first? (That might be a likely cause.)

_that said:
Most people who brick their device don't read enough. And then, when they come here with their problem, they don't write enough.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well put. We have two ears and two eyes and two hands but only one mouth. Intelligent people tend to use their senses in those proportions. Only after they have mastered this can they attempt to use their brains.

MartyHulskemper said:
I must be honest: I fear the day _that transitions to another device. The work he put in in your case is nothing short of amazing (to me). We all have our perks and qualities, but... pfff...
On-topic: it does seem like we are having more bricks and recovery/boot problems lately. Is that a market thing? Has the 700 gone done in price, thus reaching a greater user base? (Not to my knowledge.) Are we seeing more inexperienced users now than we did at first? (That might be a likely cause.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm going to be the first to second @florck 's suggestion to top-sticky a warning about CWM with a statement that it could wipe the wrong partition and leave the user SOL (maybe not in those exact words) and for XDA to point a suggestion towards using TWRP (touch) instead as a safe alternative. At least until CWM patches this bug. This would be paramount for new users to read. I found it during my rooting research but I agree that its fairly buried.
[Edit] One thing to note is he was not using an "old" CWM, in fact it was a future developer version not even released yet?? So the masses haven't even seen this version yet. Someone should inform CWM about this before they release it, it if came from them broken. I don't think I'll ever be using their recovery after seeing what can happen.
*************************************************************************
Quote @Pretoriano80 from other thread: "CWM 6.0.5.3?The latest official version is 6.0.3.0 iirc. AFAIK this kind of brick occur when using an" old" recovery (both CWM and TWRP) with the new bootloader and is triggered when the Wipe Data option it's used."
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I'm also interested in learning how his cryptographic key got messed up/deleted. I've been wondering if this could be used for a bootloader exploit to enable NVflash?
Lucky for @florck to have @_that for sure as we all are, but also lucky for him he wasn't that much of an inexperienced user that he couldn't at least access a terminal and type some commands, run an adb shell, and follow instructions. He seemed to be a pretty good student but he should have read more I agree.
I find there are three types of people. Dumb people who never learn from their mistakes, smart people who do learn from their mistakes, and then there's the wise people who learn from *other peoples* mistakes.
For me as a fairly inexperienced user getting to ride the roller coaster and see the guts of a near brick was fascinating to say the least. Its good to know about these things before you need to. Its great to know @_that if you don't. His knowledge and troubleshooting prowess is phenomenal. Rare breed indeed. It wouldn't surprise me if he didn't have a mother and was beamed down.

Guys, i think you are mixing stuff here, let me explain.
1)The "wipe data/media" option in CWM
This bug can lead to a corrupted partition but it's easy to recover by installing the Stock Firmware from MicroSD with CWM recovery (yes CWM install option will still work because the staging partition is not corrupted). After the install process is complete and the tablet rebooted once you can use the Wipe Data option from the Bootloader menu, that procedure will also fix your corrupted data/media partition.
So as you can see no ADB knowledge or other skills are required in order to recover your device.
2) Using and "old" recovery version with an incompatible bootloader (both CWM and TWRP recovery)
Using the Wipe Data option from the Bootloader menu under this circumstances could lead to a bootloop to Recovery and if you don't have good ADB knowledge/skills (or if _that it's not around ) you are doomed. Anyway it seems that as long as you still have ADB you can recover from this too.
Also some users reported a hard brick under this circumstances (bootloader signature mismatch error) but there wasn't much background info from the users on the matter.
ONLY way to recover from this issue is by sending the device back to Asus and pay for repairs.
3) Regarding the missing token my understanding is that a wrong offset was used so i presume that using the correct offset you will find that the token is still there.
And even if someone could remove the token it would still be impossible to trick Asus because they already have your device's serial number on their server.
P. S: I already planned to update the AIO thread with the latest stuff /info but i've just got recovered from a knee surgery so i'm not in the mood yet.
Using
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk HD

Thanks for the very clear play-by-play problem descriptions and future resolutions of what recently happened with the one user's near brick who then witnessed the miracle of _that in action. It'll be good for CWM users if it comes up again so they can self-resolve their problem with your instructions.