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How to know if your magic is truly bricked or only semi bricked.

I've had the great misfortune of bricking my phone within the first few hours of owning it. I should have known something was up, it wouldn't reboot when I changed the language to English, and I'd have to hard reset it (delete everything) and then let it load in Chinese again. Well, in an attempt to fix what I thought was a rom issue, I went through the song and dance of trying to root my phone.
I'm still not fully clear on how to do it, as it seems there's more to it than just what the tutorials say.
Anyway, like the title of this thread says, there's a pretty good way to figure out if your phone is really bricked, no need to ask or wonder anymore.
If your phone only boots to the htc magic screen (and then stops), and is unable to load bootloader, fastboot, usb connections, or anything else, it's bricked. 100%. You have to take it back. Don't bother searching the forums for the answer, I've wasted hours going through every related thread and trying every possible solution. Without the ability to access the fastboot screen, you're out of possibilities. Untill someone comes out with an unbricker which goes deeper than fastboot, there is absolutely no way to fix it.
A semi brick is much better on the other hand. There are plenty of ways to fix your phone, provided you're only semi bricked. I would define semi bricked as being able to enter fastboot, but being unable to boot the phone as normal. This can happen with a bad flash, or a mis step during a tutorial. I'm not exactly sure how easy it is to change a semi brick to a full brick, but my full bricking happened after semi bricking it while loading a new rom on it.
So. to summarize, if your phone WON'T go into the boot menu by pressing vol-down+power, you're in need of a new phone.
If you can still get into the boot menu, and access your phone through usb, you're ok, just get help (via a tutorial) before going any further, unless you're completely certain of what to do next.
Tis a shame to send a device, which is physically undamaged, to the digital graveyard. But such is life.
Caid.
444.
EDIT
on a side note, before my phone reset itself into it's endless loop of unloading, I noticed the screen flash an image of a box with what looked like a red arrow coming out of it. It was right in the center of the screen. This was in the recovery-RAv1.0H.img menu. What's that all about?

Did you try other key combinations such as Home+Power, or Back+Power?

I'm sorry but I think you're misunderstanding it all a little bit...
Caid444 said:
I've had the great misfortune of bricking my phone within the first few hours of owning it. I should have known something was up, it wouldn't reboot when I changed the language to English, and I'd have to hard reset it (delete everything) and then let it load in Chinese again. Well, in an attempt to fix what I thought was a rom issue, I went through the song and dance of trying to root my phone.
I'm still not fully clear on how to do it, as it seems there's more to it than just what the tutorials say.
Anyway, like the title of this thread says, there's a pretty good way to figure out if your phone is really bricked, no need to ask or wonder anymore.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's easy if you follow the guides... I did it in two different phones with no problem at all in any of them... Anyway, let's stay on topìc
Caid444 said:
If your phone only boots to the htc magic screen (and then stops), and is unable to load bootloader, fastboot, usb connections, or anything else, it's bricked. 100%. You have to take it back. Don't bother searching the forums for the answer, I've wasted hours going through every related thread and trying every possible solution. Without the ability to access the fastboot screen, you're out of possibilities. Untill someone comes out with an unbricker which goes deeper than fastboot, there is absolutely no way to fix it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wrong. If your phone boots to the HTC Magic screen, the bootloader is doing it's job. The bootloader just takes you there. The linux kernel and ramdisk takes you to the boot animation, and there is where android really starts.
If your phone shows the first htc logo, or the Vodafone branded screen, you can start in bootloader mode. To make that you just have to remove the battery, put it back, and press and hold BACK + END KEY. From that, you can fastboot.
Also, and unless you destroyed the recovery partition, you can also boot in recovery mode, by pressing END KEY while holding HOME (no need to keep them both hold, just home button)
Caid444 said:
A semi brick is much better on the other hand. There are plenty of ways to fix your phone, provided you're only semi bricked. I would define semi bricked as being able to enter fastboot, but being unable to boot the phone as normal. This can happen with a bad flash, or a mis step during a tutorial. I'm not exactly sure how easy it is to change a semi brick to a full brick, but my full bricking happened after semi bricking it while loading a new rom on it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would call a semi brick this:
Your phone goes into an endless loop while booting.
Your phone gets stucked on the first boot logo.
You can't get access to the recovery partition.
Your phone boots all the way but then gets stucked.
Your phone gone bad during a software update.
That, all, can be solved by reflashing the affected region. There are tutorials for everything but if you need I can write some hints on each case (I suffered them all ).
Caid444 said:
So. to summarize, if your phone WON'T go into the boot menu by pressing vol-down+power, you're in need of a new phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually, VOLDOWN+POWER starts in Hboot mode. From there you can go back to fastboot mode, but hboot is used to make a software upgrade using complete images or running htc diagnostic images (SAPPDIAG.IMG, SAPP*.IMG /NBH).
Caid444 said:
If you can still get into the boot menu, and access your phone through usb, you're ok, just get help (via a tutorial) before going any further, unless you're completely certain of what to do next.
Tis a shame to send a device, which is physically undamaged, to the digital graveyard. But such is life.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you can't get USB working on fastboot mode, or on recovery mode, your phone has probably a hardware fault. It happened with some of the first revisions of the Vodafone branded magic, don't know about htc branded ones though..
NOTE: Not talking about missing drivers, if you don't have drivers, that's another problem, but the computer should at least detect the device. Also, if your phone is off, and you connect the charger (or usb) and the orange led lights up, the bootloader should be ok.
Caid444 said:
on a side note, before my phone reset itself into it's endless loop of unloading, I noticed the screen flash an image of a box with what looked like a red arrow coming out of it. It was right in the center of the screen. This was in the recovery-RAv1.0H.img menu. What's that all about?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's the recovery mode. With that you can unbrick your phone
Also, as another hint, if you're new to linux OSes, you might want to take a look at some manual on terminal commands. If your main software is bricked, it's possible that your SDCard doesn't get mounted on recovery mode, depending on wich recovery image you're running. Provided you have an update.zip on the sdcard you need to run, you might have to mount it manually.
To do that, you have to start the phone in recovery mode, and run an "adb shell" on the PC.
When you have a shell opened, you'll have to mount the sdcard manually:
mount /dev/block/mmcblk0p1 /sdcard
Then, on the phone you can use the option to run sdcard update.zip to restart the software upgrade procedure.
Regards!

Before I reply, I'd just like to say thank you very much for your extremely in depth reply.
biktor_gj said:
I'm sorry but I think you're misunderstanding it all a little bit...
It's easy if you follow the guides... I did it in two different phones with no problem at all in any of them... Anyway, let's stay on topìc
Wrong. If your phone boots to the HTC Magic screen, the bootloader is doing it's job. The bootloader just takes you there. The linux kernel and ramdisk takes you to the boot animation, and there is where android really starts.
If your phone shows the first htc logo, or the Vodafone branded screen, you can start in bootloader mode. To make that you just have to remove the battery, put it back, and press and hold BACK + END KEY. From that, you can fastboot.
Also, and unless you destroyed the recovery partition, you can also boot in recovery mode, by pressing END KEY while holding HOME (no need to keep them both hold, just home button)
I would call a semi brick this:
Your phone goes into an endless loop while booting.
Your phone gets stucked on the first boot logo.
You can't get access to the recovery partition.
Your phone boots all the way but then gets stucked.
Your phone gone bad during a software update.
That, all, can be solved by reflashing the affected region. There are tutorials for everything but if you need I can write some hints on each case (I suffered them all ).
Actually, VOLDOWN+POWER starts in Hboot mode. From there you can go back to fastboot mode, but hboot is used to make a software upgrade using complete images or running htc diagnostic images (SAPPDIAG.IMG, SAPP*.IMG /NBH).
If you can't get USB working on fastboot mode, or on recovery mode, your phone has probably a hardware fault. It happened with some of the first revisions of the Vodafone branded magic, don't know about htc branded ones though..
NOTE: Not talking about missing drivers, if you don't have drivers, that's another problem, but the computer should at least detect the device. Also, if your phone is off, and you connect the charger (or usb) and the orange led lights up, the bootloader should be ok.
That's the recovery mode. With that you can unbrick your phone
Also, as another hint, if you're new to linux OSes, you might want to take a look at some manual on terminal commands. If your main software is bricked, it's possible that your SDCard doesn't get mounted on recovery mode, depending on wich recovery image you're running. Provided you have an update.zip on the sdcard you need to run, you might have to mount it manually.
To do that, you have to start the phone in recovery mode, and run an "adb shell" on the PC.
When you have a shell opened, you'll have to mount the sdcard manually:
mount /dev/block/mmcblk0p1 /sdcard
Then, on the phone you can use the option to run sdcard update.zip to restart the software upgrade procedure.
Regards!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To the first answer.
It's not THAT easy, the guides are kinda (you should already know what you're doing at this point) in nature. It's confusing for newcomers, as we've no idea what to expect, that and there are a multitude of variations. More specification as to which guide works with which model, and which updates would be nice.
As for the second part, I could not get the phone working with any button variation pressed. I'm sorry I was not more clear in my description, to begin with. I could press (and hold) any button (or buttons) + power (end key) and the phone would just vibrate (briefly) and then display the original screen "htc magic"(endlessly). The orange light does come on when plugged into the usb or computer, but only while it is off, as soon as the device turns on, the light turns off.
Another thing of note is that, after bricking it, I had to remove the battery to turn it off (every time if it was on), and if I put the battery back in while it's plugged into the usb port of the computer, the phone would turn back on without pressing any buttons. It's also completely unresponsive or detectable by my computer after bricking it. The only other thing I can get it to do is make the orange light blue by holding the action button and turning on the device. That way the light on top of the device is blue when it turns on. Still unresponsive at that point.
This is my first android device, but not my first htc device (I've had MANY MANY different ones.) so I'm a bit familiar with trying different combinations to get a response.
I am not the first person who's had this happen, unfortunately. There have been a couple others, who've described the exact same encounter. Perhaps it's a mistake that I made, and perhaps they also made it themselves. I would like to figure out how it's happening, though, and perhaps write a tutorial for people like us unlucky few.
Again, a really big thanks. I've sent my phone back and am getting a new one soon. I much appreciate your reply, however, as it's probably the most understanding and considerate reply I've seen on these forums.
Cheers.
Caid.
444

One more quick question out of curiosity, when you press and hold back and press end to turn on the device (it still goes to the htc magic screen) SHOULD it go to a different screen, other than the "htc magic" screen? Or is that a process that runs without some sort of visual notification on the device itself?
The usb was completely unresponsive after this happened, but in the event that bootloader may have been running, (only possible if it runs without any visual notification on the device itself), I'll go pick up the device and see if my usb drivers on my computer just became unresponsive after being accessed too many times. Sometimes windows does that, right? Perhaps a reboot would have allowed fastboot and the drivers to connect again, if the device was trying to talk to the computer, but I just didn't know on account of not having any notification.
So, again, should pressing back and power bring me to a different screen? or would it also look like it was hanging on htc magic screen?
Caid.
444
p.s. Sorry for the confusing wording, I'm tired and trying very hard to be as specific as possible.

back+end/power should lead you to the fastboot screen right after it shows the HTC Magic screen or whatever splash screen you have installed.
Home+end/power should lead you to the recovery screen.

ok, it was bricked. Thanks for the answer.
Caid.
444

Caid444 said:
Before I reply, I'd just like to say thank you very much for your extremely in depth reply.
To the first answer.
It's not THAT easy, the guides are kinda (you should already know what you're doing at this point) in nature. It's confusing for newcomers, as we've no idea what to expect, that and there are a multitude of variations. More specification as to which guide works with which model, and which updates would be nice.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No problem, we all should be here to learn, and to help (except for the trolls)
This is the guide I followed for both Vodafone branded Magics: http://android-dls.com/wiki/index.php?title=Magic_Rooting
Maybe not for now, but for the next magic you get it may come handy
Caid444 said:
As for the second part, I could not get the phone working with any button variation pressed. I'm sorry I was not more clear in my description, to begin with. I could press (and hold) any button (or buttons) + power (end key) and the phone would just vibrate (briefly) and then display the original screen "htc magic"(endlessly). The orange light does come on when plugged into the usb or computer, but only while it is off, as soon as the device turns on, the light turns off.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When the phone is off with the charger connected and you press the power button, the light goes off, as for the others, you really should be able to enter the SPL if it could the magic bootlogo and vibrated upon boot...
Maybe you didn't try enough or maybe your bootloader behaved differently than mine... I should be more clear anyway, to get to the bootloader, the best way to make it go to the bootloader is press and hold back key, then while holding it, hold the power button too. It should take about a second or two before showing the three skater droids.
Caid444 said:
Another thing of note is that, after bricking it, I had to remove the battery to turn it off (every time if it was on), and if I put the battery back in while it's plugged into the usb port of the computer, the phone would turn back on without pressing any buttons. It's also completely unresponsive or detectable by my computer after bricking it. The only other thing I can get it to do is make the orange light blue by holding the action button and turning on the device. That way the light on top of the device is blue when it turns on. Still unresponsive at that point.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When you put the battery while USB or charger is connected, the phone boots up, that's the normal behaviour. About the blue led, that's the Radio bootloader. That's quite dangerous to play with, but it gives a lot of other functions. Another sign that your phone wasn't completely dead Even if you wipe the SPL (the three skater droids), you may be able to boot into the Radio bootloader and write or boot another one to fix it. But that's waaaay harder
Caid444 said:
This is my first android device, but not my first htc device (I've had MANY MANY different ones.) so I'm a bit familiar with trying different combinations to get a response.
I am not the first person who's had this happen, unfortunately. There have been a couple others, who've described the exact same encounter. Perhaps it's a mistake that I made, and perhaps they also made it themselves. I would like to figure out how it's happening, though, and perhaps write a tutorial for people like us unlucky few.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I guess the first advice when you start tricking with a phone is be careful with what you're doing. That's the good thing of fastboot.
When booting on fastboot mode, you can pick, for example a recovery image, and boot it without overwriting the original rom:
Code:
fastboot boot [recovery_image]
Then, when you see it's working, you can flash it:
Code:
fastboot flash recovery [recovery_image]
fastboot flash boot [boot_image]
fastboot flash system [system_image]
fastboot flash data [data_image]
You can't do that with the system.img since it's too big, but you can do it also with a boot.img
About the key combinations on the phone, it goes like this:
Code:
BACK + END KEY -> Fastboot mode (you shouldn't see the boot logo)
VOLDOWN + END KEY -> Hboot mode (you shouldn't see the boot logo)
ACTION (trackball center) + END KEY -> Radio Bootloader (you shouldn't see the boot logo)
HOME + END KEY -> Recovery mode (you should see the boot logo, then get the recovery menu)
SEND + MENU + END -> Reboot the phone (while the phone is on)
Maybe there are more (android has kind of 'safe mode' but I don't know it it goes there automatically if there's a problem or if it has to be called manually)
Anyway, I hope these things will be useful for the next phone, and for anybody who's a bit lost on this
Regards!

Let us know where you live , so maybe one can help you , I live in Sweden and will be glad to help you if you are near ;-)

Hey! Thanks again for all the help, and the offer to come help. Unfortunately, I'm in China. Coming here from Sweden (although it's a single large landmass) would take quite a bit of time
I appreciate all the support, though. Very cool community we're building here for the magic.
Caid.
444

htc semi-brick?
Hi to all. I'm in the same condition described in this tread; after installing SPL i get the htc block in Vodafone brand red screen.
None keys combination bring me to the boot menù. Only Action(trackball) + power have effect, but with a black screen...
Any suggest?

What do you do if you can boot into fastboot but can't flash anything because absolutely everything gives the error "FAILED (remote: signature verify fail)"?
I have a card reader and have tried just about every sappimg.zip, every boot.img, every recovery.img i could find. I can't even boot a recovery img because the screen just hangs at the HTC Magic logo.
I don't know what kind of warranty i have on this thing, but i might take it in tomorrow and see if i can get it replaced. I've only had it for just under two weeks.

Newbie need help
ok so i can still go to recovery mode but everytime i reboot my phone the mytouch 3g logo never goes away im new to Android but not htc can somebody plz help me out.

gruppler said:
What do you do if you can boot into fastboot but can't flash anything because absolutely everything gives the error "FAILED (remote: signature verify fail)"?
I have a card reader and have tried just about every sappimg.zip, every boot.img, every recovery.img i could find. I can't even boot a recovery img because the screen just hangs at the HTC Magic logo.
I don't know what kind of warranty i have on this thing, but i might take it in tomorrow and see if i can get it replaced. I've only had it for just under two weeks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Instead of flashing something, you boot a recovery image, and then, from there, you flash whatever you need (using adb & flash_image for example)
PS: Be a little patient, if fastboot is letting you boot a recovery image, the recovery needs to boot, and that takes a little while, and while it's booting, you see the bootlogo until the menu appears. Also, you can try running adb shell after boot process started to try to get an error message (or at least to know if the thing is booting in some way)

I couldn't boot any recovery images. I had tried a few different Hero ROMs but decided i wanted to use Cupcake again because i have a 32B board and it just doesn't have enough RAM, though Swapper makes it usable at least. I don't know what exactly i did, but i've learned a lot from my mistakes. Everything i tried failed the signature check because the hboot version didn't match. If i could just flash the 1.33.2005 hboot again, i would have been in business, but no matter which recovery image i tried, it just sat there doing nothing. And believe me, i waited.
Fortunately, T-Mobile gave me a new device after i took it in and played dumb. And I just rooted it =]

Caid444 said:
ok, it was bricked. Thanks for the answer.
Caid.
444
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why not flashing it with an RUU from HTC. Not sure that would work but it is worth trying.

Hi there, people!
First of all, thanks because while I was reading ur posts I realized that my phone had been bricked, 100 %
I tried official ROM upgrade to Android 1.6 using the folowing steps
1. Copied radio zip to my sd card by renaming it in update.zip
2. Recovery screen was started by pressing HOME+END key
3.Applied update.zip, process was going on: Opening package, verifing package, installing radio...and message about success was shown and phone restarted
4. Phone stucked on HTC Magic logo screen...15 minutes
5. I removed a battery, put it back and tried to reach recovery or boot mode again
6.Unsuccessfully! Phone vibrates and turns on...but always stucks on the HTC Magic screen
7. USB does not recognize my phone is connected (I tried any adb and fastboot commands)
8. So, I just pray to give me a new phone if my warranty will be accepted

iivanovic said:
Hi there, people!
First of all, thanks because while I was reading ur posts I realized that my phone had been bricked, 100 %
I tried official ROM upgrade to Android 1.6 using the folowing steps
1. Copied radio zip to my sd card by renaming it in update.zip
2. Recovery screen was started by pressing HOME+END key
3.Applied update.zip, process was going on: Opening package, verifing package, installing radio...and message about success was shown and phone restarted
4. Phone stucked on HTC Magic logo screen...15 minutes
5. I removed a battery, put it back and tried to reach recovery or boot mode again
6.Unsuccessfully! Phone vibrates and turns on...but always stucks on the HTC Magic screen
7. USB does not recognize my phone is connected (I tried any adb and fastboot commands)
8. So, I just pray to give me a new phone if my warranty will be accepted
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the same problem. I get up hboot and fast boot menus can not get it in recovery. try to add in sappimg but no luck

I'm having the exact same problem...
Any solution yet?

Hello! I can assure you that your phone is not fully bricked! Awhile ago I flashed a new radio only to discover that I hadn't done my research and was a complete and total idiot. I flashed the 1.76.xxxx on a 32B. It didn't like it. I got a quick HTC logo that disappeared then the phone never responded again. When I say never responded it was dead. no combination of buttons would get any response. If you can get into fastboot you have options. All that's necessary is to make sure you have the appropriate sappimg file. Try the Unlockr's gold card method file. He has a .zip file that may work for you. Just make sure that you find an image that is compatible with your board (32A or 32B). Hope this helps!

[Q] GT-i9020A; URGENT. Random crash, can't mount /sd-card or /data anymore.

Hello XDA-Developers. Long time lurker, first time poster. After watching the "Noob" video, I feel compelled to apologize in advance for needing to call on your greater experience and knowledge.
The specs (If there's anything left out that you might need, let me know. If I can get to it, I'll post it):
Model: Samsung/Google Nexus S GT-i9020A
Bootloader Ver: I9020XXKA3
Baseband Ver: I9020UCKD1
Carrier: Bootloader says ATT, my actual carrier is Telus.
ROM: Cyanogenmod 7.1 RC1 Experimental
Kernel: Netarchy's Nexus S CFS 1.3.6 Stable
CWM Ver: 3.0.2.4
The problem:
I've been running CM7 for the last couple of months (since I got the phone). I woke my phone, opened the Market, and it suddenly went into a boot loop; not from the beginning Google logo though, just the Nexus S boot screen, and very laggy. I let it try to boot for a while, and did a battery pull when it was (to my apparently idiotic mind) obviously not going to. Put the battery back in and it just sat there on the Google logo for a good half hour.
Here's where things get a little curious. I pulled the battery again, and PWR+VOL UP to get to the bootloader. Load up CWM, and lo and behold, I can't mount the internal SD or the DATA partition. Thus, I can't restore, can't flash anything new, and I've got a phone good for a whole lot of nothing.
What I've done so far:
I've spent the last 9 (yes, nine.) hours searching the internet with increasingly more vague and unrelated search terms. The best solution I've found so far: "Take out the SD card, pull everything off of it and format it. Put it back in to the phone, and presto!" A caveat that you all know: The Nexus S has no removable SD card.
One of the first things I tried, having only fastboot at my disposal, has turned out to be the worst thing I could have possibly done. I tried locking then unlocking the bootloader again, to wipe everything and start from an empty phone. Well, the boot loader won't unlock again. Fastboot sees my Nexus S, fastboot oem unlock yields the familiar "Unlock Bootloader?" screen, and when I select Yes.... Nothing happens. The phone stops responding, the command prompt sits there with "c:\fastboot-path>fastboot oem unlock ..."
Now, the solution to this, according to some, is to wait long enough and do a battery pull to finish unlocking the bootloader. This has yielded no results. Further research indicates that the internal storage may have some kind of hardware problem, a known issue with the Nexus S. Being forced to look at sending the phone in for repairs, I've become a little desperate. I need to removed the CWM somehow. I've got the stock recovery.img, but I'm stuck with a locked bootloader. I did a lot of research into using ODIN to recover the phone back to stock, but I can't get the phone into Download Mode. Using the VOL UP+DOWN then plugging it into USB throws me directly into the screen asking me to unlock my bootloader... except there's no way to say yes or no.
At this point, I'm seriously panicking. This is my only phone, and I'm really quite broke. I can't afford to pay for repairs if they find the phone is out of their ridiculously strict warranty. I can't afford to be without a way to get a hold of me when I'm not standing next to my fiancée or staring at my GMail inbox... Quite literally, my job depends on this phone.
Help me XDA-Developers... You're my only hope.

Update: Odin seems to detect the phone even though it doesn't say download mode, BUT the part of the recovery that writes data fails, and it just hangs. I can't restore using that either, I guess.
Update 2: Forgot to mention, the "Download Mode" screen looks like the unlock bootloader prompt (the green title and the first three paragraphs), and under that it has "USB Control Init//USB Control Init End". When I run Odin, the words "Verify Image (IPBL) ... Success" appear in read above the USB Control Init message. It's at this point it hangs and does nothing for over an hour. After a battery pull, the message "Complete(Write) operation failed." comes up in Odin.
Is there anything I can do here?

sorry im just heading to bed so this is more of a reminder for me to post tomorrow but
what does it say when you try and mount the sd in clockwork? have to tried taking a logcat?
don't panic.

CWM Mount /sdcard returns the error "Error mounting /sdcard!". The same goes for /system and /data.
As far as a logcat goes, fastboot sees the Nexus S, but the ADB shell does not. Sits at "waiting for device" indefinitely if I try at the bootloader. If I try in CWM Recovery, it returns the error: "/shbin/sh: exec: line 1: logcat: not found".
Something must have happened to my /boot partition as well. Doesn't hang at the Google logo anymore, just dumps me back into the bootloader, with a message at the top saying "FASTBOOT MODE - NO BOOT OR RECOVERY IMG". Given that the CWM recovery is still there, I have no idea what's going on with that one.

I am not sure but I think that you are not in the Download Mode. You should see big "Download mode" text on your screen. And you can't boot your phone because you wiped it already with the unlock command therefore the message - no boot no recovery. ADB doesn't work in bootloader.
Question - when you boot into bootloader does it says locked or unlocked? I think that your NAND memory is corrupted, flashing with ODIN could help but you need to see the "Download mode" text in order to flash with ODIN.

My bootloader is currently locked, which is turning out to be a real headache. I can't get the "fastboot oem unlock" command to complete. As I type this, I let the command run for ~15250 seconds (yes, 15 thousand) and did a battery pull, given no indication that it had completed.

Does your Download mode look like this? If yes, that is right. Have you also checked that your Device is recognized from Windows and that the drivers for the download mode are installed?
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}

@brainmaster: The drivers seem to be installed properly. "fastboot devices" shows the proper serial. My "Download Mode" does NOT look like that. I'll post a picture as soon as I can. The best way to describe the screen I get when doing the "VOL UP+DOWN" button combination while plugging in the USB is the top half of the screen is the first three paragraphs of the "Unlock Bootloader?" prompt, and the bottom half is the bottom part of the bootloader screen.
It's the only method (other than a 301K resistor on a micro-USB) that I've found to get the Nexus S into download mode. Is there another way?
As an aside, are there different drivers for Download Mode? My phone shows up as "Android 1.0" when using fastboot or the screen that's supposedly "Download Mode", and from when I first rooted the phone, I know it shows up as "Nexus S" when plugged in and actually booted into a ROM. I've applied the Samsung ADB interface drivers to those, and the fastboot works. Obviously I can't check the ADB shell right now.

That is the thing - you are not in the Download mode. If you wore then you will see "Samsung CDMA Modem Device" installed (that is for mine although its GSM device).
And the Download mode should look like that photo with two additional text lines.
I think that its bricked, sorry.
You could pull out battery and let it so for at least 5 minutes, and then try the Download mode - you are doing it right: Vol Down + Vol Up (When the Phone is off) and then plug the USB Cable in the PC.

Thanks for the replies, brainmaster.
Is there a way of completely bricking the phone at this point? I'm trying to figure out a way that the phone will appear to still be under warranty. The only issue is the CWM: if I could get rid of that somehow, then I'd be golden to send this sucker in for repairs.
Only problem is my bootloader's locked.

Don't take 100% for sure, but I think that you already wiped the CWM, since there is no boot image then there is also no recovery.

I still have access to CWM Recovery :|

Have you tried:
fastboot erase recovery

Yes, but the fastboot returns the error that the bootloader is locked and that I should run fastboot oem unlock to run the erase.

Well, all my troubleshooting efforts failed, even the 301k resistor jig. I sent the phone in for repairs on Friday, August 5th. As of today, I learned it's with Samsung's technician right now, and nobody's called about a voided warranty, so here's hoping.

Figured I wouldn't leave the thread at a dead end, in case anyone stumbled onto this from google/xda search:
Samsung sent the repair ticket back to the Telus store with the repair code "REPLACE", so they just gave me a new handset. I have no idea why they just said replace but I have my Nexus back, and that's all that's important.

So are you gonna re-root your Nexus, LOL? Or too much of a headache?

Hah, I rooted and stuck CM7 on it within two hours of knowing the new one I got wasn't busted. Stock just doesn't cut it, potential headaches or not.
Serious Nexus S is serious.

litanyoffail said:
Hah, I rooted and stuck CM7 on it within two hours of knowing the new one I got wasn't busted. Stock just doesn't cut it, potential headaches or not.
Serious Nexus S is serious.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LOL!! Yeah, I'm new to the Nexus from HTC Evo 4g and I was on the fence whether to root or not, but I'm gonna take the plunge!! Very unlikely to brick a device except in the most unfortunate of circumstances!

Not booting, vibrating only (black screen)

HTC Sensation 4g, on Bell (canada).
It has LeeDroid ICS v4.2.0
My phone will not turn on at all. At first I thought it was the common, dead battery, but its not. I have three batteries, and I even bought an external battery charger to isolate this issue. When I found that it wouldn't turn on, I had not tried to upgrade the firmware or anything for weeks, so a flashing issue is not it.
I cannot get into hboot, recovery, nothing. Nothing has ever shown on the screen since. I have tried for hours to get it into hboot by pressing the vol - and power buttons together, but nothing. I've tried doing it with different batteries, with and without my memory card, with a different memory card etc.
When I press the power button, or after I try to put it into hboot, it vibrates every 15 seconds or so, and this will not stop until either the battery runs out (gets very hot) or I take the battery out.
NOW, the odd thing is, is that I can sometimes get it connected to my computer, and the only thing that I can connect to the phone is fastboot. I cannot connect adb, and obviously htc sync won't work. I've tried everything to get adb working, but nothing works.
In conclusion, my phone is dead, and the only thing that works is command-line fastboot on my pc.
(I like to explain as much as I can in a main post so I get the best help possible) Also, please know that my phone worked perfectly (well as perfect as android gets) for WEEKS before this happened.
thanks guys!

Do you have a backup of any stage? If you can run fastboot you may still be able to save it. There is a thread for unbricking the sensation i'd start there and see if that helps. Can you boot to bootloader at all? If you can download an /RUU and extract the rom.zip, rename to PG58IMG.zip and put on the sdcard then power on using volume down and it will load the file just press power to flash it

bonesy said:
Do you have a backup of any stage? If you can run fastboot you may still be able to save it. There is a thread for unbricking the sensation i'd start there and see if that helps. Can you boot to bootloader at all? If you can download an /RUU and extract the rom.zip, rename to PG58IMG.zip and put on the sdcard then power on using volume down and it will load the file just press power to flash it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Could I flash the rom.zip in fast boot? I do have backups, I will try my luck at one of those.
But I cannot get into any recovery or boot loader at all.
I'm going to try this at work, and will let you Know!

I tried flashing the recovery, and boot using a RUU that I found. I still am getting in fastboot, but thats all. I cannot get to HBoot or any type of recovery.

Ever Found a solution?
Hi, did you ever found a solution to this problem? Because I'm having the exact same one.

Denobe said:
Hi, did you ever found a solution to this problem? Because I'm having the exact same one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sadly I didn't. I deemed it dead after trying a bagillion different things. I read somewhere that it may be a mobo issue, but to fix it, wasn't worth it when I had only a bit left on my contract. I upgraded to an iPhone 5 because android just wasn't for me.

help- bricked it, no recovery, what now?

Hey yall. I had the phone for 6 days before I bricked it. I am wondering if there is any stock recovery mode or anything or what I shsould do? I think something went wrong due to using the root toolbox pro app. I have done some backups within the ap as well as Titanium Backup but now the phone will not boot up and I dont know if/how to put it in factory recovery mode. Soft reset does nothing. The Motorola logo will show on startup but then the screen just blacks out forever, not off, just colored black.
A few details, the phone was rooted with Motofail2go, with no recovery and bootloader still locked as far as I know.
Should I take it to Sprint for a factory reset? Is this even an option? What are my other options?
Next time I will probably use the Moto unlock key so I can open the bootloader all legit like and have a recovery mode...

Try holding power button and the down volume key to power off. Once you power off press and hold them again. This should boot you into fastboot, Motorola's adb shell basically. This can take a couple tries, make sure the phone is powered down completely before hitting volume down and power button to get into fastboot. If you can boot into fastboot you can unlock using this guide: http://www.droid-life.com/2012/08/20/how-to-unlock-the-motorola-photon-q-bootloader/
Once unlocked flash the custom recovery of your choice (I like twrp). You can boot into custom recovery by holding volume up and the power button from a powered down state. Here is the link for instructions on how to flash twrp:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1887070
Then you can download one of the stock backups for the Q posted in the development section and restore them using the custom recovery. Most of the ones I have seen have been compatible with twrp.
The only way to download the stock rom backups is to remove the sd card from your phone, plug your sd card into a PC or other device with a card reader, download the stock backups, and place the stock backup rom files on your sd card. Finally place the sd card with the stock backup downloads into your phone.
These backups and information on how to go through this process can be found in this thread on page 2: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2001226
The key is to make a backup of your existing rom with twrp and then move the stock backups from your sd card to the twrp/backups/yourdeiceserial/ directory. That creates a backup directory which twrp knows to look for backups in.
Don't feel bad, I've been in that state several times since getting the Q, live and learn.
Sent from my XT897 using xda app-developers app

UnicronAlpha99 said:
Try holding power button and the down volume key to power off. Once you power off press and hold them again. This should boot you into fastboot, Motorola's adb shell basically. This can take a couple tries, make sure the phone is powered down completely before hitting volume down and power button to get into fastboot. If you can boot into fastboot you can unlock using this guide: http://www.droid-life.com/2012/08/20/how-to-unlock-the-motorola-photon-q-bootloader/
Once unlocked flash the custom recovery of your choice (I like twrp). You can boot into custom recovery by holding volume up and the power button from a powered down state. Here is the link for instructions on how to flash twrp:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1887070
Then you can download one of the stock backups for the Q posted in the development section and restore them using the custom recovery. Most of the ones I have seen have been compatible with twrp.
Don't feel bad, I've been in that state several times since getting the Q, live and learn.
Sent from my XT897 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If that does not work you could drop it in water or something. You have not officially unlocked boot loader so you still have warranty. Or you could just tell sprint it quit working and act completely clueless. At least its bricked with warranty still intact.

matt2k12 said:
Hey yall. I had the phone for 6 days before I bricked it. I am wondering if there is any stock recovery mode or anything or what I shsould do? I think something went wrong due to using the root toolbox pro app. I have done some backups within the ap as well as Titanium Backup but now the phone will not boot up and I dont know if/how to put it in factory recovery mode. Soft reset does nothing. The Motorola logo will show on startup but then the screen just blacks out forever, not off, just colored black.
A few details, the phone was rooted with Motofail2go, with no recovery and bootloader still locked as far as I know.
Should I take it to Sprint for a factory reset? Is this even an option? What are my other options?
Next time I will probably use the Moto unlock key so I can open the bootloader all legit like and have a recovery mode...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Both of the methods above are very effective. When I had the first photon I bricked it and just dropped it in water and did a claim. Depending on the insurance you have that way may cost you $100. The other method should work. When I first got this phone I did the exact same thing and to go back and unlock then flash twrp and in stall a stock backup someone had posted.
Sent from my XT897 using Tapatalk 2

UnicronAlpha99 said:
Try holding power button and the down volume key to power off. Once you power off press and hold them again. This should boot you into fastboot, Motorola's adb shell basically. This can take a couple tries, make sure the phone is powered down completely before hitting volume down and power button to get into fastboot. If you can boot into fastboot you can unlock using this guide: http://www.droid-life.com/2012/08/20/how-to-unlock-the-motorola-photon-q-bootloader/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the response. Is there anything extra extra special about getting into factory fastboot mode? I can't seem to get it done. Is there an official set of instructions anywhere? Does the phone need to be plugged into the PC? It was always my understanding (for the last week) that Power and Vol Down was the soft reset mode which reboots the phone. Therefore it always tries to reboot in normal mode. This is what keeps happening. It never powers completely down using this method.
Anyhow, once I follow your instructions, the Moto logo appears, no Sprint logo appears, the phone "powers on" but the screen is blacked out (not off). After waiting for a while at the blank/black screen, or holding down several buttons like vol or camera I get the first attachment: "Process system is not responding. Would you like to close it?" When I wait nothing happens. When I push OK nothing happens. By chance, I held down power during the notification and the power menu came up behind the ANR notice (second/third attachments). So obviously there are some things working but the main system isn't booting up. And either factory fastboot is nuked or I can't figure it out. When I power down from this accessible power menu and try to do the fastboot (Power / Vol Down) I still havent gotten it to work.
Any other ideas before I take drastic measures?
Since I bought it from Amazon would that be my best route for return or should I go thru a Sprint store?
Thanks in advance.

Hi again yall. You know once I got to thinking about it, I decided to check out the return policy on Amazon Wireless. They will accept any device under warranty for the first 30 days and it is up to Moto for the next 11 months of warranty coverage. They email me a packing label and it ships out 1 day and they ship out the new phone 1 day shipping. Hard to beat, just takes 2 days of shipping and some more fun times with my Epic, 10.1CM style, in the meantime.
Who's to say it wasnt some sort of hardware or software glitch that bricked the phone rather than my screwing around? Nobody knows and it isn't up to the consumer to prove his innocence. I bought everything legally, all the apps at the app store, and only ran the motofail2go root method. Wasn't running any custom Roms, Mods, or anything. I don't feel bad after they got me for another 2 grand for 24 months, and since I have been with Sprint for 10 years;l I have spent well over 10k or 15k with them lifetime.
If any other method pops up between now and when I ship it out I may give it a shot but if not, ah well, capitalism.

matt2k12 said:
Thanks for the response. Is there anything extra extra special about getting into factory fastboot mode? I can't seem to get it done. Is there an official set of instructions anywhere? Does the phone need to be plugged into the PC? It was always my understanding (for the last week) that Power and Vol Down was the soft reset mode which reboots the phone. Therefore it always tries to reboot in normal mode. This is what keeps happening. It never powers completely down using this method.
Anyhow, once I follow your instructions, the Moto logo appears, no Sprint logo appears, the phone "powers on" but the screen is blacked out (not off). After waiting for a while at the blank/black screen, or holding down several buttons like vol or camera I get the first attachment: "Process system is not responding. Would you like to close it?" When I wait nothing happens. When I push OK nothing happens. By chance, I held down power during the notification and the power menu came up behind the ANR notice (second/third attachments). So obviously there are some things working but the main system isn't booting up. And either factory fastboot is nuked or I can't figure it out. When I power down from this accessible power menu and try to do the fastboot (Power / Vol Down) I still havent gotten it to work.
Any other ideas before I take drastic measures?
Since I bought it from Amazon would that be my best route for return or should I go thru a Sprint store?
Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try using adb. If your computer has drivers on it for phone you might able to get into fast boot. If that does not work I would try Sprint store first. Have locked my phone up several times while hacking wife off in progress and have used adb every time. Only time i have been truely scared is when i soft bricked my nexus 7. had to stay at work for two hours after i got off to get it to recover because i was scared of her lol.
---------- Post added at 02:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:57 PM ----------
If you get adb to recognize device you could take chance and officially unlock boot loader. Then flash twrp. There is a thread in general section about having trouble getting official update. It has a stock recovery in it. Trick would be moving files to recovery section of twrp

I have gotten the phone to soft power down and get into fast boot and custom recovery. It's a bit tricky with timing, I usually wait for the screen to go black after soft reset, let go, and immediately hold power and volume down. If you can not boot into fastboot I honestly don't know what you can do either than return the phone.
Sent from my XT897 using xda app-developers app

UnicronAlpha99 said:
I have gotten the phone to soft power down and get into fast boot and custom recovery. It's a bit tricky with timing, I usually wait for the screen to go black after soft reset, let go, and immediately hold power and volume down. If you can not boot into fastboot I honestly don't know what you can do either than return the phone.
Sent from my XT897 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the help Unicron. I think Brandons method might be my only alternative... but you know what? I already have the box packed up to ship back to Amazon! I am still a noob; I dunno if I could go the distance on this one. I have been updating my Android SDK files since I got the phone but I never got it to recognize boot up thru ADB fastboot. disclaimer* I havent tried it in a couple days since all teh SDK updates completed.
I dunno though I am a big time DIYer when possible. If it werent for the massive amount of tape I put on the box and packing label I would already be trying this method. I can't convince myself just yet. Amazon makes it too easy. I could have the *new* phone by Friday. Then I wouldn't be wasting my remaining work week trying to hack into my personal Christmas present in order to make it function...........................................
Edit - Yes I'm impatient. My job is too demanding and I am trying to set a good precedent for 2013. Wasting the first 3 work days on a phone is not how I intend to start off the year. There is probably a valuable lesson to be learned from this as far as hacking experience and to be honest with the responses here I think I could get it to boot up from PC in SDK/ADB mode and go from there. I just didnt know if that was possible until after I made the claim with Amazon. I still have an entire day today and tomorrow if I want to indulge myself. It doesnt matter if I mail the package today or Wednesday, I can still get it by Friday. I believe this thread is still valuable because we have patterns of repeating past failures and I may find use of it when I recieve my new phone and, darn it, it mysteriously bricks as well. in the same fashion.... the only thing I was really trying to do was get all my apps on my SD card... sad huh?
Edit 2 - Opened up the box, tried fastboot and adb, nothing. Off she goes.

I don't blame you, it sounds easier to exchange in your case any way. The main suggestion I have is if you are getting into any type of build.prop or operating system tweaks that have potential to lead to boot loops or cause the phone not to boot, then unlock the bootloader and install custom recovery.
The Moto-fail method seems limited to only be able to run apps that require root. For me this has no use as I want to be able to have complete control over all aspects of the Android OS. There is not a huge mod community for the Q as yet but I believe Cyanogen will be a reality as Interloper continues working on it. I came from an Epic with Cyanogen and soft-bricked it a minimum of 50 times. CWM was very forgiving on that phone, the Q is a lot more finicky and frustrating.
If you have insurance through the carrier then you are going to pay $150 for a refurb if something goes wrong and you hard brick the phone. If you unlock bootloader and install custom recovery then you have a fail-safe in the form of nandroid backups and restores. Then you can mod away with little fear.
Good luck on the new phone and I hope you don't give up after six days of modding with the Q!
Sent from my XT897 using xda app-developers app

matt2k12 said:
Thanks for the help Unicron. I think Brandons method might be my only alternative... but you know what? I already have the box packed up to ship back to Amazon! I am still a noob; I dunno if I could go the distance on this one. I have been updating my Android SDK files since I got the phone but I never got it to recognize boot up thru ADB fastboot. disclaimer* I havent tried it in a couple days since all teh SDK updates completed.
I dunno though I am a big time DIYer when possible. If it werent for the massive amount of tape I put on the box and packing label I would already be trying this method. I can't convince myself just yet. Amazon makes it too easy. I could have the *new* phone by Friday. Then I wouldn't be wasting my remaining work week trying to hack into my personal Christmas present in order to make it function...........................................
Edit - Yes I'm impatient. My job is too demanding and I am trying to set a good precedent for 2013. Wasting the first 3 work days on a phone is not how I intend to start off the year. There is probably a valuable lesson to be learned from this as far as hacking experience and to be honest with the responses here I think I could get it to boot up from PC in SDK/ADB mode and go from there. I just didnt know if that was possible until after I made the claim with Amazon. I still have an entire day today and tomorrow if I want to indulge myself. It doesnt matter if I mail the package today or Wednesday, I can still get it by Friday. I believe this thread is still valuable because we have patterns of repeating past failures and I may find use of it when I recieve my new phone and, darn it, it mysteriously bricks as well. in the same fashion.... the only thing I was really trying to do was get all my apps on my SD card... sad huh?
Edit 2 - Opened up the box, tried fastboot and adb, nothing. Off she goes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
FWIW, pressing vol down + power til it resets then pressing the camera button + power once the screen is black gets you to the Boot Mode Selection Menu, where you can start recovery, fastboot, BP tools (still not sure what that is entirely) and some others. Seems to be a fairly reliable/easy method for getting to both recovery and fastboot from any point.

befrosty8612 said:
FWIW, pressing vol down + power til it resets then pressing the camera button + power once the screen is black gets you to the Boot Mode Selection Menu, where you can start recovery, fastboot, BP tools (still not sure what that is entirely) and some others. Seems to be a fairly reliable/easy method for getting to both recovery and fastboot from any point.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sure wish I would have known that ahead of time. Does this work without any recovery mode and with the bootloader still locked?

matt2k12 said:
Sure wish I would have known that ahead of time. Does this work without any recovery mode and with the bootloader still locked?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It does work without any recovery mode and I believe it still works without the bootloader being unlocked, I didn't know about this myself until after I had already unlocked it. Sorry I couldn't help out sooner.

befrosty8612 said:
It does work without any recovery mode and I believe it still works without the bootloader being unlocked, I didn't know about this myself until after I had already unlocked it. Sorry I couldn't help out sooner.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Awesome, I am wanting to do the backdoor root method again but, of course, may brick it. I dont think Amazon will keep sending me new ones.... but maybe!

befrosty8612 said:
FWIW, pressing vol down + power til it resets then pressing the camera button + power once the screen is black gets you to the Boot Mode Selection Menu, where you can start recovery, fastboot, BP tools (still not sure what that is entirely) and some others. Seems to be a fairly reliable/easy method for getting to both recovery and fastboot from any point.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For anyone concerned, I knew it would only be a matter of time until bricking my new device. This damn Root Toolbox Pro did it to me again, and on a simple, menial task. I am going to be working thru the motions on getting this to work.
Using the instructions quoted I did get stock recovery to work or at least flash on the screen for a split second. Seems like there is a timer on the recovery screen. I am having trouble with the fastboot prompt though on the PC. Do I do it in the "platform-tools" folder which contains fastboot or in the "tools" folder of the main SDK directory? I am really a noob, can you give me the cliff notes of how to get into ADB, fastboot, etc on the Photon Q in order to do a factory reset? I already have Android SDK installed and completely up to date so that is done. And Fastboot is installed. I'm just having trouble crossing the finish line here... I can get the fastboot page opened in the stock recovery but from there I'm lost. I dont know what to type into the command prompt, in what directory, or what.... Also when I open the command prompt in the SDK folder on the PC with fastboot in the directory and type "adb reboot bootloader" it says "device not found". Maybe (surely) that is the wrong prompt?
FWIW my phone is showing the dead android guy. I didnt do anything besides try and clear up my Play Store download list which required a reboot. The phone never started back up. I dont know how much damage was done or info was lost or whatever, but seeing as how I was rooted but still locked, I had no custom recovery. So no back ups. Is there anything to restore or am I looking at a full wipe and restore?

matt2k12 said:
For anyone concerned, I knew it would only be a matter of time until bricking my new device. This damn Root Toolbox Pro did it to me again, and on a simple, menial task. I am going to be working thru the motions on getting this to work.
Using the instructions quoted I did get stock recovery to work or at least flash on the screen for a split second. Seems like there is a timer on the recovery screen. I am having trouble with the fastboot prompt though on the PC. Do I do it in the "platform-tools" folder which contains fastboot or in the "tools" folder of the main SDK directory? I am really a noob, can you give me the cliff notes of how to get into ADB, fastboot, etc on the Photon Q in order to do a factory reset? I already have Android SDK installed and completely up to date so that is done. And Fastboot is installed. I'm just having trouble crossing the finish line here... I can get the fastboot page opened in the stock recovery but from there I'm lost. I dont know what to type into the command prompt, in what directory, or what.... Also when I open the command prompt in the SDK folder on the PC with fastboot in the directory and type "adb reboot bootloader" it says "device not found". Maybe (surely) that is the wrong prompt?
FWIW my phone is showing the dead android guy. I didnt do anything besides try and clear up my Play Store download list which required a reboot. The phone never started back up. I dont know how much damage was done or info was lost or whatever, but seeing as how I was rooted but still locked, I had no custom recovery. So no back ups. Is there anything to restore or am I looking at a full wipe and restore?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As abnormal as it seems, your situation seems pretty normal... at least from my shoes. I went through the same scenario... I didn't know what adb was, or fastboot, etc. So, here's what I know
the fastboot commands work even if adb doesnt see it in the list of devices attached. Somehow it just works (as long as the phone is in fastboot mode).
If you're able to get to the fastboot mode, things should be okay. Just open a windows explorer window to the Platform-Tools, hold the shift key and right click on a blank space within the window, then click open command window here.
you should be able to pass any adb (if the phone is on and recognized) or fastboot (if phone is in fastboot mode) commands from that command prompt.
Also, if you have a stock recovery, CMW, or TWRP image, this is the folder to copy those .img files to. Once you get your phone into fastboot mode and its plugged into the computer, just type into the command prompt:
Code:
fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
If you're just looking to reboot the phone into recovery
If you have a CWM or TWRP recovery just replace the recovery.img with whatever the .img file that you have. Also, as a tip instead of writing the entire file name, just press the first couple letters then press the tab key within the command prompt, it should fill in the rest. keep pressing tab until you get to the .img file name you want.
To avoid doing this again, maybe I can help... what were you trying to do to begin with? From the sound of it, you were trying to root the phone with the Root Toolbox Pro but it bricked, and then you tried to reboot into recovery and then got the red android... ?

befrosty8612 said:
As abnormal as it seems, your situation seems pretty normal... at least from my shoes. I went through the same scenario... I didn't know what adb was, or fastboot, etc. So, here's what I know
the fastboot commands work even if adb doesnt see it in the list of devices attached. Somehow it just works (as long as the phone is in fastboot mode).
If you're able to get to the fastboot mode, things should be okay. Just open a windows explorer window to the Platform-Tools, hold the shift key and right click on a blank space within the window, then click open command window here.
you should be able to pass any adb (if the phone is on and recognized) or fastboot (if phone is in fastboot mode) commands from that command prompt.
Also, if you have a stock recovery, CMW, or TWRP image, this is the folder to copy those .img files to. Once you get your phone into fastboot mode and its plugged into the computer, just type into the command prompt:
Code:
fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
If you're just looking to reboot the phone into recovery
If you have a CWM or TWRP recovery just replace the recovery.img with whatever the .img file that you have. Also, as a tip instead of writing the entire file name, just press the first couple letters then press the tab key within the command prompt, it should fill in the rest. keep pressing tab until you get to the .img file name you want.
To avoid doing this again, maybe I can help... what were you trying to do to begin with? From the sound of it, you were trying to root the phone with the Root Toolbox Pro but it bricked, and then you tried to reboot into recovery and then got the red android... ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the response. So, all I have to do is: go to fastboot and flash a stock recovery image file and it will automatically wipe the phone, cache, everything, and restore the operating system? Sounds awfully easy! I found some stock files in this post : http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2001226&page=2 Are these the ones you used before?
Last question: I can flash CWM or TWRP but wont be able to access them if my bootloader is locked, correct? So flashing a stock recovery will allow me to have my stock phone back again, locked and un-rooted? I guess if I cant get it to work with the stock recovery then I can unlock the bootloader and do a CWM or TWRP recovery and then flash the stock .img files?
Thanks again for your help. I already had root with the motofail2go method which I like using but seems like when I try and use some generic root feature from apps from the app store that it will crash/brick the phone cuz obviously those apps are generalized and likely to brick certain percentage of devices....

Ok what does this mean? Something with the bootlaoder obviously. Does it need to be unlocked?
Code:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools>fastboot flash recover
y qrecovery1.img
(bootloader) Variable not supported!
target reported max download size of 31457280 bytes
sending 'recovery' (5962 KB)...
OKAY [ 0.479s]
writing 'recovery'...
(bootloader) Preflash validation failed
FAILED (remote failure)
finished. total time: 0.755s
C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools>
And on the phone screen it says "invalid image size for partition recovery" twice for both times I tried this method.

You will need to flash the system image as well if you want those, as the recovery image will only flash the recovery. The files in that link are for twrp only... so you'll have to be able to get there first.
With the custom recoveries, I'm not 100% sure whether or not you will be able to use them without being unlocked. I would wait to see if anyone else can answer that question for you, but if you did try it without an unlocked bootloader, you at least have the stock recovery to fall back on if needed.
Sent from my XT897 using xda app-developers app
---------- Post added at 09:16 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:12 PM ----------
I'm thinking it could either be that your phone is full and the image you're flashing is too large to fit on the space available...
Or you're trying to flash custom software on a locked phone.
Hopefully someone is able to answer that a little better...
Sent from my XT897 using xda app-developers app

You can't alter the stock recovery (flash a custom recovery like twrp or cwm) in fastboot without having the bootloader unlocked. Your options are to unlock your bootloader, flash custom recovery, create a backup of your current setup, download one of the stock working backups, place it in the backups folder for twrp on your external sd card, and restore one of the known working backups in the development section (befrosty linked to one). Or you could use RSD lite to return to stock using a stock factory firmware flash. That involves connecting your phone to your PC and flashing the phone back to factory stock. Information on RSD Lite and links to the FXZ's can be found here.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2095536
Sent from my XT897 using xda app-developers app

[Q] Android won't boot...

Hey folks...I'm running into a problem I was hoping someone might be able to help with.
Earlier today I pulled my phone out of my pocket at work and saw that it was off...I thought that the battery must have died sooner than I thought. I started charging it in the car on the way home and it wouldn't boot up like normal. It would get to the google or "dots" screen and then reboot. I again thought that the battery might just be really low. After getting home and charging the phone all the way I still can't get it to boot up. As of now, one of 3 things will happen...
1-The phone will turn on, get to the google screen and bootloop (usually when plugged in).
2-The phone will turn on, get to the google screen and freeze.
3-Get to the "dots" screen and either swirl forever or eventually reboot and do one of the above again.
I've read some threads where people suggest this is a faulty power button, that doesn't seem to be the case for me though because I can get into fastboot and it won't select anything or turn off without me doing it.
I've used WugFresh NRT and wiped/reflashed android. I'm running out of ideas. Do you have any others?
I was running the stock 5.0.1, unlocked, not currently rooted.
Thanks!

kyle313 said:
Hey folks...I'm running into a problem I was hoping someone might be able to help with.
Earlier today I pulled my phone out of my pocket at work and saw that it was off...I thought that the battery must have died sooner than I thought. I started charging it in the car on the way home and it wouldn't boot up like normal. It would get to the google or "dots" screen and then reboot. I again thought that the battery might just be really low. After getting home and charging the phone all the way I still can't get it to boot up. As of now, one of 3 things will happen...
1-The phone will turn on, get to the google screen and bootloop (usually when plugged in).
2-The phone will turn on, get to the google screen and freeze.
3-Get to the "dots" screen and either swirl forever or eventually reboot and do one of the above again.
I've read some threads where people suggest this is a faulty power button, that doesn't seem to be the case for me though because I can get into fastboot and it won't select anything or turn off without me doing it.
I've used WugFresh NRT and wiped/reflashed android. I'm running out of ideas. Do you have any others?
I was running the stock 5.0.1, unlocked, not currently rooted.
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you try flashing factory images?

ryukiri said:
Did you try flashing factory images?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, that was what I flashed :/

If you can get into fastboot you "should" be able to flash stock images... Obviously this will revert any root and you will need to flash TWRP/CWM recovery after.
I assume you have a Windows PC with fastboot/adb setup and all drivers etc..
- Download latest "stock" hammerhead images (I cannot post links due to XDA rules... so: "developers.google.com/android/nexus/images#hammerhead"
- Extract the .tgz archive contents on your PC into a folder
- Boot the N5 into fastboot and plug USB cable from phone into your PC
- Go to the folder with the extracted files and run the "flash-all.bat" script on Windows
**Hopefully at this point your device will start to respond.. I.e, on fastboot screen, at the bottom you will see "writing" or something, as the script runs on the command window on your PC.**
If this works, you should be able to reboot once complete and then wait to see if you can get back into your phone.. then you can fastboot again and flash custom recovery, and then whatever rom.
If however you have a hardware issue (i.e, even after the above process it fails) then I am not sure what you could do... I guess ensure it has a complete charge. If you can get into fastboot and the buttons are responsive then it should not be a faulty power button.
Hope this helps :good:

Have you tried a simple factory reset? Reason I ask is it was working fine so sounds like something needs "flushing out" clear cache etc.

kyle313 said:
Hey folks...I'm running into a problem I was hoping someone might be able to help with.
Earlier today I pulled my phone out of my pocket at work and saw that it was off...I thought that the battery must have died sooner than I thought. I started charging it in the car on the way home and it wouldn't boot up like normal. It would get to the google or "dots" screen and then reboot. I again thought that the battery might just be really low. After getting home and charging the phone all the way I still can't get it to boot up. As of now, one of 3 things will happen...
1-The phone will turn on, get to the google screen and bootloop (usually when plugged in).
2-The phone will turn on, get to the google screen and freeze.
3-Get to the "dots" screen and either swirl forever or eventually reboot and do one of the above again.
I've read some threads where people suggest this is a faulty power button, that doesn't seem to be the case for me though because I can get into fastboot and it won't select anything or turn off without me doing it.
I've used WugFresh NRT and wiped/reflashed android. I'm running out of ideas. Do you have any others?
I was running the stock 5.0.1, unlocked, not currently rooted.
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you choose the right model and firmware before you flash in WugFresh NRT?

The above could be right, however when I've used it, it's pointed out if I made that mistake. Having used his software dozens of times I've found it will bring any Nexus 5 back to life.

howard bamber said:
The above could be right, however when I've used it, it's pointed out if I made that mistake. Having used his software dozens of times I've found it will bring any Nexus 5 back to life.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello! I am apologize for that I didn't read the OP carefully. This happened to me once in that particulary way, but it was immediately after flashing. OP says that it happened suddenly, without reason. So now I am the one, who doesn't read, right? Sorry for that.
Regards, Zagor

Thanks for the responses, but I'm still having trouble.
I have been able to successfully write the newest stock android 3 times (1 without full wipe, 2 with) and the phone still can't boot up and goes through one of the three issues above.
I've also been able to get to the system recovery from the bootloader and I've tried wiping the cache and doing a factory reset from there and the problem remains.
I'd contact google, but I bought it at launch so I don't think they'll do anything for me since it's been 1+ years.

kyle313 said:
Thanks for the responses, but I'm still having trouble.
I have been able to successfully write the newest stock android 3 times (1 without full wipe, 2 with) and the phone still can't boot up and goes through one of the three issues above.
I've also been able to get to the system recovery from the bootloader and I've tried wiping the cache and doing a factory reset from there and the problem remains.
I'd contact google, but I bought it at launch so I don't think they'll do anything for me since it's been 1+ years.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sounds like you have a bad nand sector. From fastboot try:
Code:
fastboot oem lock
Then reboot into fastboot and check if it's locked or not. If the device isn't locked your emmc is corrupt and there is nothing you can do. If that is the case call Google and they will most likely help you out with a RMA.

theesotericone said:
Sounds like you have a bad nand sector. From fastboot try:
Code:
fastboot oem lock
Then reboot into fastboot and check if it's locked or not. If the device isn't locked your emmc is corrupt and there is nothing you can do. If that is the case call Google and they will most likely help you out with a RMA.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was actually able to relock the phone.
Luckily I called google and they're going to send me a replacement.
If anyone else has any other ideas, I'll still take them...I'd rather not be without a phone for the next week!

You won't be without a phone - they are sending a refurbish unit to you , putting a block on your credit card and waiting for you phone to arive at them. Once that happens they will release the funds.