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!
Does anyone know how to recover and unbrick a Samsung Ace from a bad flash. My friend tried to upgrade to WM 6.1 using the official upgrade available from samsungusa.com.
All went well, so he says, and the device reset. Instead of loading up it became stuck on a bootloader screen which dispays the samsung logo and www.samsungusa.com.
All attempts to hard reset:
1. hold soft keys
2. press power button
3. press left soft key for clean boot.
have proved futile.
when it is connected to the USB cable it does not recognize the device.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
P.S. I do not think that a call to Sprint Help center will help so I will have to find a community assisted solution.
first advice: after a flash, the initial boot takes very long compared to the normal boot - so let the device sit for 5-10 minutes after switch on, leave the room, have a coffee and wait.
Not sure about the upgrade process for Samsung, but the normal sequence is anyway that the device enters the bootloader when loading the new software.
So as long as you have the bootloader (are you sure it is the bootoloader and not some splashscreen?) nothing is really "bricked".
First make sure you put the device in bootloader mode, then you can just retry the flash with the device connected via USB sitting in boot loader. AS will not find it in this mode, but the flash program should after a while and then continue with the flashing.
tobbbie said:
first advice: after a flash, the initial boot takes very long compared to the normal boot - so let the device sit for 5-10 minutes after switch on, leave the room, have a coffee and wait.
Not sure about the upgrade process for Samsung, but the normal sequence is anyway that the device enters the bootloader when loading the new software.
So as long as you have the bootloader (are you sure it is the bootoloader and not some splashscreen?) nothing is really "bricked".
First make sure you put the device in bootloader mode, then you can just retry the flash with the device connected via USB sitting in boot loader. AS will not find it in this mode, but the flash program should after a while and then continue with the flashing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks Tobbbie, with the above I should be able to clarify:
But first my apologies for my newbie-ness. I did leave the room, went to be, got up and still no change. I am attaching a pic of what I see on the phone. It seems to be the splashscreen.
I am still able to access the hard reset screen using the procedure as shown in the original post, but this takes me nowhere either. Doing a hard reset takes me back to the logo screen with text : "Clean boot mode" included. this also sits for hours.
I was hoping someone would be able to post a solution of the form seen here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=689423
Sorry, cannot help any further here as I do not have this device. If the flash process from the PC does not recognize the connected device in this mode, try to disable USB connections in AS and retry flashing. Normally the flash-SW on the PC will terminate AS so this is not required - but just in case...
http://www.samsungmobileusa.com/i325/upgrade/
try to reinstall the usb drivers or try another pc! Do you use vista? try XP! Remove SIM and SD-Card
Did all the above recommended but came up blank. Still hoping for a solution from the community.
same problem,i tried to upgrade to wm6.1,on the middle,my pc restarted and iam struck.pls some body help me.
I have also same problem. if any one have tested solution plzzzzz share
I will b very greatful
Hello, I'm about to giving up,
Something happened to the phone and now it won't boot, it barely show the "ANDROID" logo when it restart itself. I can enter to the recovery menu, it doesn't have clockwork recovery nor twrp, just the basic recovery. So far I tried:
wipe data/factory - didn't work.
wipe cache partition - didn't work
apply update from adb: Adb just work with sideload and that's it, for everything else it shows closed. I tried sending the rom with sideload and it fails every time:
* failed to write data 'protocol fault (couldn't read status): Invalid argument' *
So I took my sdcard and copied the room there, so I tried
apply update from sdcard, it starts and in no time it says:
Installation aborted (APPLY_EXT).
I'm very frustrated right now, nothing works, it seems that the manufacturer did great effort on being the only one who can recover this phone, who appears to be from China, the MTK6582.
Fastboot? it doesn't show the device, it would be my last hope but no, since there is no adb, I cannot call fastboot, and the apply update from adb only work with sideload (yeah, f**k me).
The best course of action would be to throw it to the trash?
Thanks!
Hey, I'm in a similar position to you. However, I went about it with a slightly different route. The chip used in this phone is the MediaTek 6582 (I think?). I downloaded some tools from a thread on here that includes the 320 rom and the necessary software for flashing. I've flashed MediaTek devices before, the Huawei Ascend G610 and G700, both successfully. This one is giving me headaches, the damn device keeps disconnecting. HOWEVER, if you're lucky and you don't have the same problem with disconnecting hardware, you should be able to flash a new rom via the software. It'll take a while though. Also, I don't know what'll happen to your IMEI afterwards, so that's another possible headache (both the G610 and the G700 lost their IMEI info, but I'd taken steps to back them up beforehand so I could just restore them; here, there's no option to backup).
Here's the thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/android/general/htc-mtk-cpu-flash-files-flashtool-t3114271
Let me know if you need help. I'm screwed in that the damn phone keeps disconnecting. Similar to you, no fastboot either. Plus, no RUU for this HTC. Hell, the internet barely knows this flipping phone.
Cheers, and good luck.
blitz9826
0Camus0 said:
Hello, I'm about to giving up,
Something happened to the phone and now it won't boot, it barely show the "ANDROID" logo when it restart itself. I can enter to the recovery menu, it doesn't have clockwork recovery nor twrp, just the basic recovery. So far I tried:
wipe data/factory - didn't work.
wipe cache partition - didn't work
apply update from adb: Adb just work with sideload and that's it, for everything else it shows closed. I tried sending the rom with sideload and it fails every time:
* failed to write data 'protocol fault (couldn't read status): Invalid argument' *
So I took my sdcard and copied the room there, so I tried
apply update from sdcard, it starts and in no time it says:
Installation aborted (APPLY_EXT).
I'm very frustrated right now, nothing works, it seems that the manufacturer did great effort on being the only one who can recover this phone, who appears to be from China, the MTK6582.
Fastboot? it doesn't show the device, it would be my last hope but no, since there is no adb, I cannot call fastboot, and the apply update from adb only work with sideload (yeah, f**k me).
The best course of action would be to throw it to the trash?
Thanks!
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Ditto!!!
Hey guys I am having the exact same issue, luckily for me it is my Mrs who done her phone in and not mine . She has the HTC Desire 320, I believe she tried to root it on her own without even asking for advice, I think she used the app Kingo Root, she said she went to remove the root but when she uninstalled the app it didn't remove it. (LOL I told her well perhaps that's because there will be some way of removing it, aside from just uninstalling the app), anyway she proceeded not to care and carried on using her phone as normal for maybe a week or two at most, then about midnight one night, came down and said to me,
"my phone had an update and on restarting I just get a dead android, if you press the power button you get some options so I clicked erase"
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I was like nice so basically you F***ed it!!!!, and for about 2 weeks now I have been endlessly reading post after post, forum after forum, trying rom after rom, RUU, all kinds of things.
Here is the situation, the phone will boot as far as the HTC logo, it will get stuck in a short loop and reset itself 4/5 times repeating the HTC logo, eventually it will end up at the dead android pic (the android on his back with the red exclaimation mark triangle) with the words 'no command'. From here I can press the power button once to get a list/menu of items (What I assume to be the recovery menu). I can backup data, I can restore the backed up data (both of which do nothing as I guess there is nothing really to back up), There is an option to restore from sd card (which I have tried numerous roms and to no avail have any been successful), I can erase the cache and I can also erase everything and recover, the erase side works fine, I did notice in each of these menu that if you press volume up to activate them and then press the power button once, then the writing dissapears and the android proceeds to have his moving atom type thing in his belly, saying 'erasing..', however even with them completed successfully, it still does not restore.
NOTE!!! If you choose the erase and restore method, once activated with volume up, press the power button to get the spinning atom and erasing... message, when this finishes the phone will reboot, it goes to the htc logo, resets itself, goes to the logo again and then just stays at a black screen (almost like a frozen state, I left it for quite some time and it never changed).
I should also note, which I didn't to begin with, but no matter how long I hold the volume down and power button, there is no such hboot/fast boot menu at all, if you hold the volume down and power button even after it displays the htc logo, the phone just proceeds to endlessly reset and loop through the same process forever.
The only thing I can seem to access with little success, is the ADB CMD prompt through the Android SDK,
Code:
adb devices
will indeed return the device (a set of numbers with the word sideload beside it)
Code:
adb usb
Apart from the odd fluke, this has seemed to fail everytime with either an error about a protocol or an error stating 'closed'
Code:
adb sideload "ROM_FILENAME.ZIP OR .IMG
Occasionally this will throw the protocol error, but generally succeeds and displays the 100% most of the time, however the phone doesn't even try, it just almost instantaniously returns the error message :
Code:
[B][I]Installation Aborted (APPLY_ADB_SIDELOAD)[/I][/B]
NOTE!!! That the android lays on his back with this error, but it only says error below not no command.
I am pretty sure that I already came across a solution very similar to the one you posted above, and I just couldn't get it to recognise the phone, the only way the RUU would work, was by completely removing the battery and plugging in the usb, however without the battery in the phone, it just constantly beeps via usb, so I guess it turns on, then off, then on, then off, forever!!! So the RUU fails everytime, if I leave the battery in and try, the RUU program does nothing whatsoever! So I am at a complete loss with it now.
Cheers
GunnerJnr
Any luck with unbriking the HTC?
Maybe this is the solution, good luck.
Search: How to Unbrick every MTK China Phone ! Preloader / SP Flashtool Fix [HD] on Youtube
Responds please.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=64659997&postcount=16
I think that you no tell true because I tried this method with volume keys and nothing. Flash tool still show error. Its impossible to write android without battery. I think really put your phone to rubbish or sell as lcd+digitizer parts I think just we must waiting for new custom rom flashable via stock recovery. 320 is still new model and developers no moke any custom rom. So maybe only HTC service may help, only in HTC Factory peoples know how install android and bootloader on hard bricked device.
I'm going to try and encapsulate everything that's going on into this initial thread but I'm sure I'll miss something.
Basically, I undertook to root my phone last night. I followed all the steps in the root thread, and I thought it worked, but then when I went to the root checker to see if I was successful. The test couldn't get a result the first time, and then failed the second time. I've known my phone to be a little temperamental when it comes to stuff like that, so I shrugged it off. Then, everything started running with so much lag that my only option was a reboot. It came back up just fine, but then, apps wouldn't open anymore. Since a reboot fixes everything, I rebooted AGAIN... except no I didn't, because I couldn't move past the white splash screen.
After some time hacking around with TWRP, system restoring my phone and the like, I finally managed to actually load the OS again. I think the phone was rooted at that time, but I don't know for sure, because this was the drawback: I couldn't install ANYTHING. My idea is that the system was rebooted into read-only mode. I tried everything I could think of to revert the system to rewriteable again, but nothing ever panned out. There was just one thing that stood out to me: "Your phone worked properly when it wasn't rooted." So, I got the brilliant idea to use SuperSU to unroot my phone. Stupid, stupid move, because now my phone can't boot past the white splash screen again. As a last ditch effort, I decided that it was time to flash the stock system to the phone. Except I probably did it wrong.
Code:
fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
Code:
fastboot flash recovery system.img
Code:
fastboot flash recovery boot.img
And where I stand now is that my phone will not boot past the white splash screen, and I can no longer access either TWRP or Fastboot.
Is my phone fooked, or can anyone save this?
#1 You can't flash system image via fastboot - it's semi-locked.
#2 You can't use 'flash recovery' command for boot and system images.
#3 For restoring your phone use SP Flash Tool - there's a thread in the General section called 'How to unbrick'.
Try it and let us know.
Cheers
Yeah, I realized afterward that if I were trying to flash the image of the system, I should not have used the "flash recovery" command because I disabled access to the other recoveries, lol. I have tried to use the SP Flash Tool in the past few days, but I could never get any download progress. I think my computer isn't making the VCOM drivers accessible to be able to flash those things to my phone. Do you have any advice on that end? Because I have seen that thread and tried those steps but I'm just not successful.
You should also read all replies to this thread - there are people who solved their problems with SPFT in their own way, that's how I've revived my phone from hardbrick.
Make sure you're phone is disconnected when you start the flash. AFTER you hit the download button in SPFT... then connect your phone...
Fantastic advice from both of you. I'm ready to revive my phone!
Okay, I think I'm making good progress on recovering my phone. I have managed to get back the stock recovery onto my phone, which I then used to install TWRP. But I'm not out of the woods yet. I used fastboot to flash the boot image onto my phone also, but when it came to the system image, I'm having a lot of trouble. The only ROM I can find for the Blu Pure XL is a 7z file. Now, I know how those work, I have 7zip and I extracted it for the system image. When fastboot was available to me, I couldn't push the system image to the phone. Now that I have TWRP and I have no more access to fastboot, I've tried to load the system file onto my phone through my SD card in four different ways:
As a .img file
As a .7z file
As a .zip file that I created by zipping up the image file
As a .zip file that was .7z, but I changed the extension
None of those methods worked. The Blu development thread doesn't point me to a zipped ROM file. One person there said that they had a backup of their files and provided a link, but those images seem to have been removed.
I'm so close, I can see this phone working again in the near future, I just need your help to get me there. Please! :'(
Edit: Also, keep in mind, I'm dumb. I don't think I really did anything super wrong, but I may be missing something ultra obvious. So if you could just keep your answers dumb for me, it would help even more.
I would stop trying to use all of the methods you are using I believe you are slightly confused by them at this time..
At this point what you have done with the random image flashing is get damaged partitions..
Get SPFT. Turn off you phone completely.
Download the full Scatter file for you phone. (put it aside).
Download a file called ALL MTK driver install. ( or something to that effect). Search for it on Google. You will find it. Run it and then reboot your PC completely.. (if you have windows 8 or higher look online on how to install unsigned drivers) --THIS IS THR BIGGEST PROBLEM PEOPLE HAVE--
Extract your full downloaded scatter image to a directory.. (you can download the Gionee E8 image if you want) it is what I am running on my Blu..
Run SPFD read the thread that they pointed out to you. Find the scatter and point SPFD.. Once it is loaded on the program UNCHECK the PRELOADER check box.. (if not you can cause problems) ..
click download and after 10 seconds or so plug in (you completely powered off) phone into the computer..
.Then wait..... and wait... It will tell you it's progress..
Keep trying it, it WILL work.. and ALWAYS unchecked preloaded when flashing with spdf...
I did follow all the steps in the original guide, and I followed the steps that you gave me too, down to using the advanced device manager to remove any MediaTek drivers from the computer and restarting the computer with disabling the driver signature verification, but when I click download, wait, and plug my phone into the computer, just nothing happens. The computer says it's an unrecognized device, and the download never progresses.
I see also that you said keep trying, but every time I try the SPFT, it never sends anything to my phone. And I don't even know how to tell if I'm missing some important step.
OK this happens sometimes. plug the phone in with device manager open.. plug the phone in when it is off..
When it says unrecognized device double click on it really fast( it will disappear fast, try it a couple of times if you don't get it the first time) then hit update driver.. point it to the MTK drivers folder (unzip the MTK drivers folder). It will pick the proper driver. on some computers it loads up so fast it has no time to recognize the driver..
After you load the drivers power off your phone again and follow the instruction I gave.. After you do this once it will load the drivers right after this..
When I double click on the unrecognized device button, it just brings up a notification that my device wasn't recognized because it malfunctioned. I don't have an option to install any drivers.
My problem is finally solved. After starting up SPFT and clicking download, I held Vol - and Power and then connected it, and that pushed the download forward. I got to the Blu animation screen, and it stayed up FOREVER, but then the next time I looked over, it was on the initial setup screen. Good as new.
Thank you guys for all your help. This forum really is an amazing place.