Database Info

Damaged Internal SD Card?

When I boot up the phone, I get a message in my notification bar saying:
Damaged Internal SD Card.
Not an external memory card. My internal SD card. The one built into the phone. Anyone know if there's a way to fix this? Is there a way to reformat the built in SD card? My computer can't recognize it anymore. Am I pretty much screwed?
I posted this in androidforums as well.
EDIT: I found the "Format Card" option in settings. It's working fine, although the fact that this came up in the first place is very troublesome. Some further information: I did the GPS thing where you dial *#*# and some number, then rebooted my phone. My internal card was fine until I rebooted. That was the first time I got that message of a damaged internal sd card.

dude same thing happened to me today - any way to fix this ?

Format it, and hope you never see those dreadful words again.

norcal einstein said:
Format it, and hope you never see those dreadful words again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is a known fact that has been reported on some Galaxy S phones, it is coming from doing multiple Lag fixes of the phone internal SD from RFS to EXT. buyer be ware when flashing lag fixes over and over.

dpmurphy81 said:
This is a known fact that has been reported on some Galaxy S phones, it is coming from doing multiple Lag fixes of the phone internal SD from RFS to EXT. buyer be ware when flashing lag fixes over and over.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
what about when you flash a ROM that comes with LAg fix by default ? and you Disable it all the time can that happen to you? cuz ive flashed but most roms r being gay now with Lag fix ... i disable always might i get that msg? :/

dpmurphy81 said:
This is a known fact that has been reported on some Galaxy S phones
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This affects the bell vibrants only, the captivates never had this issue.

peachpuff said:
This affects the bell vibrants only, the captivates never had this issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
One can assume that the captivate can have this problem also the hardware is no different really from the vibrant. And I feel in my opinion that it is related to the quality of the flash memory chip itself weather you have this problem. compound this with the relentless conversion of the RFS file system it is just a matter of time I believe. The trade off of speed is stability. But that is only my opinion...

dpmurphy81 said:
One can assume that the captivate can have this problem also the hardware is no different really from the vibrant. And I feel in my opinion that it is related to the quality of the flash memory chip itself weather you have this problem. compound this with the relentless conversion of the RFS file system it is just a matter of time I believe. The trade off of speed is stability. But that is only my opinion...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That actually is a pretty big assumption. Just because two phones appear "similar" based on the published specs doesn't mean their insides are at all related. We already know that from a strictly hardware standpoint, even the two GSM cousins in America (the Vibrant and the Captivate) have different physical hardware inside, and many other versions of the i9000 abroad vary quite a bit too. Samsung produces these phones in very large batches, and who knows exactly what the differences are in the individual components put onto each board.
And as far as I'm aware, there's not been a single case of repeated "lag fix" operations causing damage to the hardware. Which makes sense when you think about it too. If I load a single 720p movie onto my internal SD (OneNAND), that probably requires a lot more NAND cells to be touched than an entire system/data/dbdata/cache lag fix being applied. Since all those operations really do is backup the partition, delete the partition, format a new partition, and then restore the data back over. Not really the most intensive thing you can do with your internal SD...
The OP's problem probably lies somewhere in PEBKAC. Not unmounting storage cleanly from the PC, or accidentally unplugging during a file transfer, battery came out unexpectedly at some point, etc. I end up re-flashing my ROM so regularly that I never really have time for little problems to build into big problems, but that might have happened here. Just so many corrupt sectors before the OS finally gives up trying to deal with it. Either way, since formatting seems to have fixed the problem, and this storage is solid-state, not mechanical, the problem is probably not in the hardware.

I had this issue on my captivate, as did two others that I know of, with a certain release of voodoo lag fix. Haven't heard of complaints since, and although it was tricky to fix haven't had problems since
Its not just with Bell phones. But I agree I think its software not hardware (at least for us Cappy folks!)
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

fatttire said:
I had this issue on my captivate, as did two others that I know of, with a certain release of voodoo lag fix. Haven't heard of complaints since, and although it was tricky to fix haven't had problems since
Its not just with Bell phones. But I agree I think its software not hardware (at least for us Cappy folks!)
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What was the fix you applied exactly? I'm interested to it. Thanks

I would like to know what else i can try. I am currently.experiencing the same damaged internal sd card issue and have tried reformatting to no avail. It just seems to skip the actual formating. My pc also cannot see the phone as a drive. Any help would be appreciated.

Bump. Having the same issue. Cant see any files in 'my files' (samsung galaxy s i9000), internal sd wont mount or format in clockworkmod recovery

Hi guys, Did you solve the problem somehow?

I just wanted to state that this may be correctable with JTAG. If you guys are interested in letting me try to correct this with JTAG please let me know. I have been able to fix, what I refer to as partition bricking on the i9000 and T959 Vibrant and this sounds similar.

Nah.... JTAG is fully unnecessary. See, the SDCard is a shared space. It's likely the cause of this problem was flashing an inappropriate PIT file after performing a lagfix. Try flashing the stock pit file... I'd attach it as it's really small, but i seem to have lost it . You're going to need to do a total reset on your phone. Use CWM to wipe and delete and format everything you can.
If this is an ACTUAL bad SDCard, then nothing will bring it back short of replacing the chip. JTAG would not be the way to go for this.

AdamOutler said:
Nah.... JTAG is fully unnecessary. See, the SDCard is a shared space. It's likely the cause of this problem was flashing an inappropriate PIT file after performing a lagfix. Try flashing the stock pit file... I'd attach it as it's really small, but i seem to have lost it . You're going to need to do a total reset on your phone. Use CWM to wipe and delete and format everything you can.
If this is an ACTUAL bad SDCard, then nothing will bring it back short of replacing the chip. JTAG would not be the way to go for this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not trying to butt heads with you but I've worked on many phones with what I refer to as "partition bricking" and they were not fixable with any method of flashing. I've gotten a few that were able to be fixed with PIT repartitioning but many have not been. Also see the other thread I replied to you in as JTAG could be a fully capable solution in this instance.
As stated, JTAG can address any portion of the NAND, not just the PBL and SBL blocks.

connexion2005 said:
Not trying to butt heads with you but I've worked on many phones with what I refer to as "partition bricking" and they were not fixable with any method of flashing. I've gotten a few that were able to be fixed with PIT repartitioning but many have not been. Also see the other thread I replied to you in as JTAG could be a fully capable solution in this instance.
As stated, JTAG can address any portion of the NAND, not just the PBL and SBL blocks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sure, it can. By default Riff does not. Also, JTAG is overkill for a bad partition flash. Just reformat from CWM and it should be fine.

AdamOutler said:
Sure, it can. By default Riff does not. Also, JTAG is overkill for a bad partition flash. Just reformat from CWM and it should be fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
RIFF DOES SUPPORT THIS NATIVELY. Also, the phones I obtained were not fixable with CWM repartitioning. I spent hours on the first few to still have mount issue with DBDATA and /dev/block/mmcblk0p1 and /dev/block/mmcblk0p0 errors. I have found a few that were fixable with re-partitioning via ODIN but several that required JTAG to fix. I didn't spend days trying to find the perfect combo before turning to JTAG but I spent a lot of time on many of these phones.

Hi Connexion, I would be interested in trying this, can we do this to Korean Variant of Galaxy SHW M110 (anucall) let me know

Hi,
Unfortunately, that is not a supported model on the RIFF box right now. I sent you a PM I believe with some advice though to hopefully get through it.

Hidden partition

Hello,
i've found that somewhere in our ancient G1's is hidden partition where's stored stock firmware with stock radio, SPL and recovery. I wasn't using it and had it off about 2 months. When I've brought it back to life i was very surprised that it was derooted, stock. I had to do it again, everything. So it means that somewhere has to be partition with it. I think this could save bricked phones and it could be used as extended phone memory. Just an idea..

you sure its the same G1?
Maybe its your brother/sisters one

Removed...

kostnacsek said:
Hello,
i've found that somewhere in our ancient G1's is hidden partition where's stored stock firmware with stock radio, SPL and recovery. I wasn't using it and had it off about 2 months. When I've brought it back to life i was very surprised that it was derooted, stock. I had to do it again, everything. So it means that somewhere has to be partition with it. I think this could save bricked phones and it could be used as extended phone memory. Just an idea..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
post tech detail or me think u = idiot

You'd be the first person it has happened to.
I see two options;
1. you're right and there's said "rootkit", it would bridge the gap between trout and sapphire boards by possibly bringing trout storage capacity closer to that of sapphire because, otherwise, they're identical.
2. the rooted build you were using was possibly using a build fingerprint that allowed the updater program to identify it as a legitimate device. if the new boot took longer than expected (or if for any reason during those two months the phone was turned on by somebody else without your knowledge and given access to a network) then there's the possibility that an OTA update was delivered and the phone updated, but I believe those updates require confirmation (unfortunately, my ADP1 doesn't receive OTAs, so I wouldn't know how the process works).
I'm more inclined to believe that the second option is the most likely, but the first option sounds tempting. Has anybody done a close inspection of the trout and sapphire boards? how different are they inside? is the nand inside the msm chip or outside on the pcb? if the nand is inside the msm, then it would make very little sense for qualcomm to make only one chip that was used exclusively for only the htc dream (is there any other device that uses msm7201A AND has only 256 MB internal storage?) and make an exactly identical one for wider use...
====edit====
After some wikipideaing, found out that there's only one another HTC device that uses the same layout as the dream, the touch diamond (msm7201A AND 256 nand). The majority of MSM7201As all have the sapphire's 512 nand. Oh, well, it was worth a shot.

So you're saying that patition maybe really could exist? I'm not a developer, i don't really understand it.
And ad 2. thougt - I can be really sure that no-one but me turned the phone on and boot was pretty fast opposed to CM 6 which i was using before this incident. And even if so, it wouldn't be 1.5 ...

kostnacsek said:
So you're saying that patition maybe really could exist? I'm not a developer, i don't really understand it.
And ad 2. thougt - I can be really sure that no-one but me turned the phone on and boot was pretty fast opposed to CM 6 which i was using before this incident. And even if so, it wouldn't be 1.5 ...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
practically no developers on xda-developers
the question is why do you think there is a hidden partition
and I do hope you are not getting mixed up with French cache
we all know about cache

And where could be whole stock firmware stored if it isn't in partition which is hidden for us? BTW it has to be in ready-to-use state, something like a BART backup, the partition must be big enough.
I think that if we knew about it, we were using it now, in example as extension of phone memory. Or as i said to recover bricked phones. It just happened that way. If you have other phone you could use instead, try to power off your G1 for same time.
You wanted tech specs - i dunno what exactly you want, it's just general G1, not ADP, stock version was 1.5. And even if i had last SPL, radio, AmonRa's recovery, after two months off, everything was stock, 1.5. I tried to start recovery - stock,.. i had to do whole rooting process again.
BTW - what's French cache?

kostnacsek said:
And where could be whole stock firmware stored if it isn't in partition which is hidden for us? BTW it has to be in ready-to-use state, something like a BART backup, the partition must be big enough.
I think that if we knew about it, we were using it now, in example as extension of phone memory. Or as i said to recover bricked phones. It just happened that way. If you have other phone you could use instead, try to power off your G1 for same time.
You wanted tech specs - i dunno what exactly you want, it's just general G1, not ADP, stock version was 1.5. And even if i had last SPL, radio, AmonRa's recovery, after two months off, everything was stock, 1.5. I tried to start recovery - stock,.. i had to do whole rooting process again.
BTW - what's French cache?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://www.answers.com/topic/cache
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caché_(2005_film)
Caché loosely translated is hide,conceal,mask
this is where cache comes from

Effdee said:
post tech detail or me think u = idiot
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
loll you always speak your mind

e334 said:
loll you always speak your mind
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
cruel to be kind

[Guide] How to brick your Desire S

How I bricked my Desire S - information on avoiding brick and an indictment of the dubious nature of HTC's S-on policy
The Desire S is a great phone so why did I want to root it?
The main reasons for rooting and s-off for me were:
Titanium backup (android built in backup is weak)
Being able to remove bloatware that takes up unnecessary spaces and unnecessarily reduces battery performance.
To try different ROMs from the community
Video screen capture
And of course I bought the phone so isn't it mine to use as I please.
Having waited a long time for a good s-off tool to come out I was getting more and more anxious to s-off.
Alpharev got together with Unrevoked to create Revolutionary.
I had previously used the Unrevoked tool to root my first generation Desire. The tool worked easily and flawlessly even on my Mac.
I later used the Alpharev bootable CD to s-off and root a later generation Desire. Again it worked smoothly and flawlessly.
Having had this positive experience I felt confident in the new tool, Revolutionary.
I read everything I could find about how the tool worked and how others were finding results. All seemed straight forward and uncomplicated so I proceeded to download and run the tool from my PC because there was no Mac version available.
Temp root and s-off went smoothly. No apparent issuse. Both Hboot and Fastboot had been successfully replaced on the phone, and CWM recovery was working.
So I added su in recovery then ran a nand backup of the whole system at this point.
Then I downloaded a Cyan 7 ported for the Desire S that was getting good reviews and feedback. The rom seemed to flash clean. After running it for a short time it stated crashing, so I decided to try an MIUI ported to Desire S. Again a ROM with good feedback and labeled as stable.
Downloaded the ROM and flashed it after a full wipe in recovery.
This time on reboot the phone hung at the HTC screen on boot for a very long time. So I wanted to do a force shutdown.
Here is where things got ugly.
The Desire S does not have a force shutdown keystroke combo as my old Desire did. So I opted to pull the battery.
Reinserting the battery and booting into recovery nothing worked properly.
CWM wouldn't mount its partitions, wouldn't flash a rom or even do a factory reset.
I tried doing some functions in fastboot mode. But nothing worked. Any command issued in fastboot mode would just lock up the phone and terminal.
At this point I was pretty worried so I got on #revolutionary and chatted with some of the big guns. I got some good feedback to test this and try that but in the end nothing worked. So I got on XDA forum and looked for others with similar issues.
What I found at this point was very troubling.
XDA user opumps had the same issue as me and had done some great research about the problem.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1150917
It becomes clear on reading, that like him, my Desire S had a fried eMMC chip. This is the internal storage device for HBoot. Once cooked your are basically F*ucked. There is no recovering from this by reformatting the eMMC. Pooched.
Doing the tests on the XDA post I found my eMMC to be pooched.
Now the question is, What fried the eMMc? Was it the S=off process or the forced pulling of the battery while the phone was boot locked?
I then took the phone to HTCs warranty center.
They tested the phone and called me back a few hours later. Your eMMC chip is fried they said. Yes, I said, Can you fix it please?
He told me that the eMMc was fried by the s-off tool I had used. Now, maybe he is full of **** and just wants an excuse to void my warranty. And, maybe not.
I told him to go ahead and fix it. He told me it would be a $200 Dollar replacement of the main board. ****. Well, what other choice do I have. Do it, I told him.
Next I got on the phone with the HTC help center. I got friendly with the lady technician on the call. After some nice chat I started probing for information on the Desire S. After a long conversation She told me that the Desire S, Incredible S, Desire HD all have the problem of frying the eMMC chip if the battery is disconnected while power is on. She said she gets calls every day with people who have fried their eMMC chip. Not through S-off but just because the battery came loose and lost contact while the phone was on or charging. The main reasons for the issue are as follows, HTC cheaped out on the eMMC chips in these phones, as the issue is specific to a particular series of eMMc. And because of a design flaw in the way the battery door closes, and because HTC did not include a force shutdown key combination to shut the phone off properly when locked.
So in the end it sounds like a lot of bad design and bad planning and poor foresight on HTC's part led to the fried eMMC on my phone. But they are not willing to stand behind their product and found an excuse to void my warranty and make me pay for the replacement Mainboard.
Now, here is where we get into the debate of should anyone s-off their phone? The main point here is no one should have to s-off. The phones should never be shipped s-on. It's bad policy to lock the bootloader. But having received an s-on phone you may very well want to s-off. If you decide to s-off just remember that you could easily brick your phone by many ways not related to s-off and your warranty will be void.
Another option is to not buy HTC because of the design flaws and their bad locked bootloader policy. To unlock and root a Samsung all you have to do is issue the command fastboot oem unlock. I don't know if Samsung phones also have the eMMc chip issue, so I can't comment there. But I certainly prefer their open policy on bootloaders.
Maybe the whole reason for locked bootloaders from HTC is beacause they are aware that they used sub par eMMc chips and are trying to reduce bricks.
Regardless this experience has made me very dubious of HTC in general.
I hope this is helpful and educational.

Thanks for sharing, I removed my battery a couple of times while stuck in htc logo screen. Don't think I'll try that move again, anyway I read about holding power + vol up + vol down to force shutdown, wondering whether that works...
Sent from my HTC Desire S using XDA App

monkey21stc said:
Thanks for sharing, I removed my battery a couple of times while stuck in htc logo screen. Don't think I'll try that move again, anyway I read about holding power + vol up + vol down to force shutdown, wondering whether that works...
Sent from my HTC Desire S using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Again, thanks for warning.sorry to hear your struggle, disappointed that htc use this tactic, will certainly reconsider buying an alternate make device next time of this issue persists
The volume up plus volume down plus power button combination does work, it's just but published
Very often, although have yet trio try out when the devices has hung, but certainly reboots my device .
Swyped from HTC Desire S using XDA Premium

just fyi in germay they take 184 € to repair a bricked eMMc :-(

Aye, Thanks for Sharing. I'v hade the same problem as you. I'll never buy an HTC phone again. Cheap bastards!

i need to know that every chip is different...bad for u that u got the bad one but i flash phone daily and its ok..i have same procedure every time i do that..to brick phone can happen to experts too...well if u want to risk to get root and all goodies u can say good bay to warranty..thats for sure

thanks for sharing man.
monkey21stc said:
Thanks for sharing, I removed my battery a couple of times while stuck in htc logo screen. Don't think I'll try that move again, anyway I read about holding power + vol up + vol down to force shutdown, wondering whether that works...
Sent from my HTC Desire S using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
that works on miui

Buy a htc with simlock.
Mine is t-mobile
When I've started my device for the first time, is was already s-off because if I turn my phone on it will show the t-mobile logo
So u can't brick your phone if you will s-off
But thanks for sharing
Next time I won't buy a htc
Sent from my HTC Desire S using XDA Premium App

Just remember though flash memory is extremely volatile, and ripping a battery out of a phone generally isn't a good idea to begin with, although I was lucky to read about the vol up/down + power procedure before I rooted my phone.
Very interesting post, interesting to see the bigger picture behind this issue.

so here's the deal - I am 99.9% sure that the bricked eMMC chip is a problem only in devices with a chip that was faulty in the first place. When the phone first came out, there were MANY threads on the hardware faults like "Battery cover not fitting" and "Misaligned screen". This was an issue that could't be identified easily, so it wasn't reported. Now, many people are having this issue and instead of panicking, we should do some research. I think that all the guys who bricked their phone would be living close to each other, in the same country or at least the same continent ie, this is a local issue. Also, i'm sure they had one of the other issues i mentioned above. I've not seen anyone in India or Asia with any such issues, so i think we need to find out why europe is having problems. Contact the BRICKees, i'll try making a new thread.

^^^.. yes this issue you need to find the Source.. I sold my Desire yestreday to get Hold of the Desire S but my only concern is this Dead eMMC chip.. and that is the reason I am not buying it yet... I want to identofy the ones with this issue..
really I dont want to screw up my 40K Rs on a faulty set..

Got the same problem, accidentally bricked a DS with a faulty Samsung eMMC, barely 3 weeks after buying it and 2 weeks after S/OFF'ing and rooting it... (btw, isn't it strange that Samsung chips that you find in Samsung branded phones don't seem to have this problem, but strangely the chips sold to their competitors seem to always be somehow sub-par ? Clever and sneaky way to undermine the competition, if you ask me. But at the same time, I bought a SGS2 as replacement in the meantime. ^^ even though it heats up a bit, it's way better than the DS )...
Haven't RMA'd the DS yet, I'm trying my damnedest to find a way to S-ON again and trash the remainder of the partition table -so the service center won't gimme **** about it.. So far I've been able to revert back from Alpharev SOFF to PVT ENG SOFF (0.98.2000), but even this has been horribly hard to achieve.. The "secret fastboot command" to totally brick a NAND didn't work, of course. Had to do it all by hand, in the dead of night, losing many hours of sleep in the process.. :/
It's really shameful that HTC is using such deviant ways to cover their own ****ups and to shirk the payment of their dues.. So I really got no qualms about trying to con them into replacing the device under warranty either. "tit for tat", or so they say.. And they shouldn't be surprised if I never ever again buy a phone from them either, that's really bad PR if y'ask me...
PS : I just got one of those mischievous ideas that often occur to me during sleepless nights : I've read here and there about how dangerous flashing a radio is, and it should only be done if necessary, yadda-yadda-yadda... (heck, I was at my 4th radio flash -just for the fun of it, didn't even have any reception or battery problems to justify it- when I bricked my DS, and I can tell y'all that it wasn't what ****ed it up :S)
Let's just imagine -that's a hypothesis, of course- that I attempted flashing a new radio, and one of my cats "accidentally" jumped on the desk and ripped the usb cord away from the phone, making it drop down on the floor, dislodging the battery in the process.. Wouldn't this brick it nice and proper, and render the NAND totally unreadable even for a HTC service center ? xD
I guess they got a XTC device at hand, but would that help in such a case ?

Can someone confirm what exactly is meant by pressing Power and Volume + and - at the same time? Press Power and press both ends of the volume rocker switch at once? Is that it?

first press the two volume buttons and then power until it shuts down.
worked for me at least -I just learned about that trick a trifle too late

your story said that it includes desire HD? wow i didn't know that honestly when my old DHD freezed i always pull the battery out and no problems at all it's just that the constant carmode problem irritated me and ended up selling it and bought a Desire S...not yet rooted and S-Off but will do later...so it's not the S-off process it's the battery thingy...it sucks for that to happen

Thanks for guide. I'm really scare of eMMC chip problems. I never tried to S-OFF coz of eMMC chip problems. Don't wanna to make void the warranty

Thanks for sharing! I have removed my battery a few times already to force shutdown. Don't know if I'll ever try it again. Maybe as a last resort, but at least I know the risks now. Thanks again!
Sent from my HTC Desire S using XDA App

Cool thanks for Sharring
Sent from my HTC Desire S using XDA App

i work my whole life with pc, hardware, software, flashed everything from set-top boxes to mobile phones.
seriously, i can't believe that anybody can fry the eMMC (a ****ing simple NAND-based flash memory) cause he puts SOFTWARE on it - thats what it build for!!!
you can brick your phone if you destroy the bootloader or something without a possibility to fix it, this won't destroy any hardware on your phone - but thats a different story.
the only reason for s-on is to take you the chance to deinstall the bloatware which they pollute their devices.

apairofscissors said:
How I bricked my Desire S - information on avoiding brick and an indictment of the dubious nature of HTC's S-on policy
The Desire S is a great phone so why did I want to root it?
The main reasons for rooting and s-off for me were:
Titanium backup (android built in backup is weak)
Being able to remove bloatware that takes up unnecessary spaces and unnecessarily reduces battery performance.
To try different ROMs from the community
Video screen capture
And of course I bought the phone so isn't it mine to use as I please.
Having waited a long time for a good s-off tool to come out I was getting more and more anxious to s-off.
Alpharev got together with Unrevoked to create Revolutionary.
I had previously used the Unrevoked tool to root my first generation Desire. The tool worked easily and flawlessly even on my Mac.
I later used the Alpharev bootable CD to s-off and root a later generation Desire. Again it worked smoothly and flawlessly.
Having had this positive experience I felt confident in the new tool, Revolutionary.
I read everything I could find about how the tool worked and how others were finding results. All seemed straight forward and uncomplicated so I proceeded to download and run the tool from my PC because there was no Mac version available.
Temp root and s-off went smoothly. No apparent issuse. Both Hboot and Fastboot had been successfully replaced on the phone, and CWM recovery was working.
So I added su in recovery then ran a nand backup of the whole system at this point.
Then I downloaded a Cyan 7 ported for the Desire S that was getting good reviews and feedback. The rom seemed to flash clean. After running it for a short time it stated crashing, so I decided to try an MIUI ported to Desire S. Again a ROM with good feedback and labeled as stable.
Downloaded the ROM and flashed it after a full wipe in recovery.
This time on reboot the phone hung at the HTC screen on boot for a very long time. So I wanted to do a force shutdown.
Here is where things got ugly.
The Desire S does not have a force shutdown keystroke combo as my old Desire did. So I opted to pull the battery.
Reinserting the battery and booting into recovery nothing worked properly.
CWM wouldn't mount its partitions, wouldn't flash a rom or even do a factory reset.
I tried doing some functions in fastboot mode. But nothing worked. Any command issued in fastboot mode would just lock up the phone and terminal.
At this point I was pretty worried so I got on #revolutionary and chatted with some of the big guns. I got some good feedback to test this and try that but in the end nothing worked. So I got on XDA forum and looked for others with similar issues.
What I found at this point was very troubling.
XDA user opumps had the same issue as me and had done some great research about the problem.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1150917
It becomes clear on reading, that like him, my Desire S had a fried eMMC chip. This is the internal storage device for HBoot. Once cooked your are basically F*ucked. There is no recovering from this by reformatting the eMMC. Pooched.
Doing the tests on the XDA post I found my eMMC to be pooched.
Now the question is, What fried the eMMc? Was it the S=off process or the forced pulling of the battery while the phone was boot locked?
I then took the phone to HTCs warranty center.
They tested the phone and called me back a few hours later. Your eMMC chip is fried they said. Yes, I said, Can you fix it please?
He told me that the eMMc was fried by the s-off tool I had used. Now, maybe he is full of **** and just wants an excuse to void my warranty. And, maybe not.
I told him to go ahead and fix it. He told me it would be a $200 Dollar replacement of the main board. ****. Well, what other choice do I have. Do it, I told him.
Next I got on the phone with the HTC help center. I got friendly with the lady technician on the call. After some nice chat I started probing for information on the Desire S. After a long conversation She told me that the Desire S, Incredible S, Desire HD all have the problem of frying the eMMC chip if the battery is disconnected while power is on. She said she gets calls every day with people who have fried their eMMC chip. Not through S-off but just because the battery came loose and lost contact while the phone was on or charging. The main reasons for the issue are as follows, HTC cheaped out on the eMMC chips in these phones, as the issue is specific to a particular series of eMMc. And because of a design flaw in the way the battery door closes, and because HTC did not include a force shutdown key combination to shut the phone off properly when locked.
So in the end it sounds like a lot of bad design and bad planning and poor foresight on HTC's part led to the fried eMMC on my phone. But they are not willing to stand behind their product and found an excuse to void my warranty and make me pay for the replacement Mainboard.
Now, here is where we get into the debate of should anyone s-off their phone? The main point here is no one should have to s-off. The phones should never be shipped s-on. It's bad policy to lock the bootloader. But having received an s-on phone you may very well want to s-off. If you decide to s-off just remember that you could easily brick your phone by many ways not related to s-off and your warranty will be void.
Another option is to not buy HTC because of the design flaws and their bad locked bootloader policy. To unlock and root a Samsung all you have to do is issue the command fastboot oem unlock. I don't know if Samsung phones also have the eMMc chip issue, so I can't comment there. But I certainly prefer their open policy on bootloaders.
Maybe the whole reason for locked bootloaders from HTC is beacause they are aware that they used sub par eMMc chips and are trying to reduce bricks.
Regardless this experience has made me very dubious of HTC in general.
I hope this is helpful and educational.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Please change the title of the thread to "how not to brick your desire s". The current one sounds really fun and why any one would want a guide to brick their phone.
Sent from Desire Aj'S using XDA eXtra Premium App!

[Q] Did my blunder brick my bloomin' phone?

So I rooted my Samsung Infuse and installed Clockwork recovery using the appropriate method for flashing the - v3 or ve or what it might be called - recovery. So then using Clockwork I backed up my current ROM (Stock). It acted funny later after so I decided to just go back and restore from a previous ROM. It said there were problems mounting a few things. Don't remember what those were. However, here is the real kicker; I may have used update.zip from the previous phone (Which seemed to be a T-Mobile My touch 3G with a 32A something and a 32B something else, similar to the Fender) I had since all I did was switch out the external SD cards since they were both the same size and I had all of my music on the My Touch.
So, if it did flash the Update.zip, is my phone, for the most part, completely bricked? It's symptoms include:
- Static pictures
- Will not boot into recovery
- Will display 'Samsung' but then cuts to static afterwards.
- Shows Battery meter when plugged in and my computer still recognizes and installs the device drivers.
- It will boot into Download mode. Dunno if that actually will help at this point.

If it still turns on you're golden. Just look for the ultimate unbrick thread in the development section and follow the op instructions to go back to stock. The unbrick also is pre rooted and had the right recovery installed, so you're good to flash stuff after
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997R using XDA Premium App

Cool, so somehow this fixed a phone which had a Fender radio flash. Since that's the case, what should I be worried about in the future that might permanently brick my phone?

Mr.Brosnan said:
Cool, so somehow this fixed a phone which had a Fender radio flash. Since that's the case, what should I be worried about in the future that might permanently brick my phone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Trashing your partitions and bootloaders. Tho I'm not an expert on Samsung devices those seem to be the main causes of true bricks.
Sent from my HTC Thunderbolt

So if I change the partitions to like an ext3 filesystem is that considered trashing it? Yes, I'm fairly new to this entire in depth Android experience. I only took the Android over the iPhone because I am experienced with Linux and only touched a MAC (Referring to the Apple Operating System and not MAC cosmetics) three times.

Well, now I can't download anything in the market due to an 'Unknown error'. I mean, I can receive emails, I think I can call and text. I just can't use my smart phone to do dumb things now. This is a very disturbing complication and I will set off to find the cure for this ailment by posting here again.

Mr.Brosnan said:
Well, now I can't download anything in the market due to an 'Unknown error'. I mean, I can receive emails, I think I can call and text. I just can't use my smart phone to do dumb things now. This is a very disturbing complication and I will set off to find the cure for this ailment by posting here again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you could try a factory reset or
you could just start over
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1116251
and or
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1092021

JBO1018 said:
Trashing your partitions and bootloaders. Tho I'm not an expert on Samsung devices those seem to be the main causes of true bricks.
Sent from my HTC Thunderbolt
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mainly bootloaders, and ours have enough protection that it's difficult to trash them.
It's next to impossible to hardbrick our phone. Worst case you put it in a state where you need to Odin/Heimdall something to fix it.

Entropy512 said:
Mainly bootloaders, and ours have enough protection that it's difficult to trash them.
It's next to impossible to hardbrick our phone. Worst case you put it in a state where you need to Odin/Heimdall something to fix it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good stuff to know considering my next phone is a toss up at this point between the Prime and Vigor.
Sent from my HTC Thunderbolt

System app removal

Alright, this might sound stupid but I could not find a straight forward answer on google... ANYWAYS my question is.
I have a unrooted MT4G it's got a "bad" EMMC serial so I will NOT be rooting it (as I bought the phone used with no warranty and I can't afford to brick it)
I'd like to remove some of the system apps like Yahoo and the Game demos.
Which it LOOKS like I can use the DDMS file explorer to delete the .apk's in system/apps.
What i'd like to know is it safe and will it remove the apps from my phone without having root access

Well if worst comes to worst when you do it that way and it messes up, you can always flash a PD15.img stock file to get back to stock. On the downside it will erase everything.

bas3balman said:
Well if worst comes to worst when you do it that way and it messes up, you can always flash a PD15.img stock file to get back to stock. On the downside it will erase everything.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm, no go. I just clicked remove and it did nothing...lets me click it though =/
Also tried ADB (untintall and rm) both need root
and even tried to restart adb with root (won't run on production builds)
remount gets oporation not permitted. =[
I guess I'll just be stuck with having this Yahoo....erm junk eating up resources

The bad emmc isn't a big problem as everyone thinks it is, use to own 2 glaciers with the bad chip and no issues.
as for removing the system apps,i don't know of a way to do it without root access. you might as well just root it an flash ics, lol

When I rooted the subject of bad emmc wasn't brought up yet. Whether I have one or not, I still rooted and S-OFF flawlessly.

Not possible to delete system apps if your unrooted....
Sent from my Dark Unicorn Resurrected v.2.5 using Tapatalk 2

How many times do I have to explain this? I've posted in almost every thread where the words "bad eMMC" were used.
It's not a BAD eMMC unless it takes a crap - period. Some of those chips die without the phone ever being rooted. Yes, the flashing process that happens repeatedly AFTER rooting, will speed up the decline of a chip. If you're worried about rooting I hope you've never done an OTA because it carries an even greater danger than rooting, as all the major partitions are rewritten.
I've rooted 3 phones with the "bad" chip (misnomer if I've ever heard one) and flashed custom recoveries and ROMs on them, and all work. My phone in particular has been abused like thosed girls that grow up to do porn. Works just fine.
The least invasive method of getting those apps out of your drawer would be to temp root with visionary (only if you're on froyo) and use Titanium backup to freeze the apps.

Thanks to estallings15.
I have one with bad emmc and bad screen and he encouraged me to root.
Custom roms are light years better than stock.
And I can't return my phone.

estallings15 said:
How many times do I have to explain this? I've posted in almost every thread where the words "bad eMMC" were used.
It's not a BAD eMMC unless it takes a crap - period. Some of those chips die without the phone ever being rooted. Yes, the flashing process that happens repeatedly AFTER rooting, will speed up the decline of a chip. If you're worried about rooting I hope you've never done an OTA because it carries an even greater danger than rooting, as all the major partitions are rewritten.
I've rooted 3 phones with the "bad" chip (misnomer if I've ever heard one) and flashed custom recoveries and ROMs on them, and all work. My phone in particular has been abused like thosed girls that grow up to do porn. Works just fine.
The least invasive method of getting those apps out of your drawer would be to temp root with visionary (only if you're on froyo) and use Titanium backup to freeze the apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for clearing that up. I was unaware of that and may have given bad advice regarding the bad chip myself. Could we get a new thread in the forums and sticky it I wonder?
Sent from my HTC Glacier using xda app-developers app

I have the so called bad chip, and so far running like a champ. I say you shouldn't worry to much as the myt4g runs fairly cheap. You could probably get one for a hundred dollars or less if you prowled eBay,Craigslist,Amazon etc. Also worst case scenario your phone gets bricked you can always sell the phone on eBay as broken and then pay the difference
Sent from my Dark Unicorn Resurrected v.2.5 using xda premium