I'm asking on behalf of a friend of mine who doesnt actually have a computer so he cant post here himself to ask. I'm a vibrant/N1/G1 user myself, so i'm familiar with the aspects here: he has a slide, has the split-screen/ribbon problem on opening/closing the keyboard. He managed to get a warranty replacement from TMO, but he's super paranoid about having to pay the damages fee because he has CM loaded on it instead of the stock firmware.
Bottom line, he wants to brick it just to be sure before he sends it back (he already has the replacement phone). What is the simplest way (that I could explain to him over the phone) to hard brick the phone?
Quick and dirty is all I really need to help him get the job done, all help much appreciated!
If he can brick it, then he can flash the factory ROM that is available to bring it back to unrooted stated. Why not just do that?
-sigh- I guess he can just try to follow the S-OFF instructions to where it says not 2 power off, take out battery- disconnect phone... do the oppsite of what it says not to do? Just saying though... why not just do what Fermunky said?
fermunky said:
If he can brick it, then he can flash the factory ROM that is available to bring it back to unrooted stated. Why not just do that?
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Click to collapse
CaliBoyPhillip said:
Just saying though... why not just do what Fermunky said?
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Click to collapse
Problem is that he lives in virginia and I live in colorado. I rooted and customized his phone when I was out there visiting because he's completely inept at this kind of stuff, so I was just looking for a simpler solution than to try and walk him through a reflash over the phone. Plus, apparently what he told the TMO reps was that he got an OTA update and it bricked him, which is the only way (he said) that they'd do a warranty exchange.
Well, I guess your short answer is No, there is no "quick" way. Whether you try to brick it or not, either way will require some attempt at flashing "something", but to just do it in a completely wrong way. Maybe by connecting to a PC and using clever ADB/Shell commands could also do it, but not entirely sure.
Couldn't you flash the radio for say, a Droid X or any CDMA radio?
I know you can brick CDMA phones by flashing GSM radios.
And yay Colorado ;D
I'm going to have to close this as it's discussing warranty fraud.
Related
Hi,
I want to sell my Hero in a few days.
I've got MoDaCo ROM and Amon Ra Recovery on it.
Is it possible to get that back?
I want to have the Hero so, as it is if it come out of the box.
Can anybody please explain, whats to do?
afaik you can make it as stock as possible with an ruu update.
but you wouldn't do the buyer a favor if he wants to hack it, as he would have to go through the goldcard process, so maybe just leave as is and flash a stock update.zip over it?
OK, but then, the Hero doesn't have any guarantee in germany, right?
Formel-LMS said:
OK, but then, the Hero doesn't have any guarantee in germany, right?
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Click to collapse
i am not really sure about the whole "losing warranty (which is the right word btw ) by modding it" thing... probably htc will charge you if your phone is bricked from software modding, they shouldn't do it if it was modded and then the hardware breaks in an unrelated matter... how old is your hero, the warranty is only 6 months anyway.
if you want to be on the safe side flash an ruu, if you want to be nice ask the buyer first...
Yeah, I wan't to ask. That's best.
Warranty, yes, I don't think about it long enough.
Thank you for reply, kendong!
Formel-LMS said:
Yeah, I wan't to ask. That's best.
Warranty, yes, I don't think about it long enough.
Thank you for reply, kendong!
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Click to collapse
no problem, and it is kendon, i had to put the g2 (as in t-mobile g2 touch) at the end since kendon was already taken (probably be me in a former life...), and of course i wasn't smart enough to put a _ in between...
:rofl:
Very good!
a guy came in today to my store with a bricked evo. he was holding off on the update because he heard there was a chance for it to brick his phone. he was at a party, and someone accepted the update, and now he is stuck in a permanent loop..
while the phone was off, i held the power and vol down button, did a clear storage a few times, and now it boots fine. will it revert back to the rebooting stage, or do you think it is ok?
Is this a joke?
Stock phone, stock OTA update.. maybe this question should be directed to Sprint Tech Support??
I don't know, just an idea..
Why would a sprint employee post on a development site about a warrentee problem?
Because he know that his internal support can't answer his question.
internal support sucks..
anyways, you guys didnt hear about the sprint 1.47.651.1 update bricking phones?? i didnt know if anyone here had an unofficial fix for it. i cleared the storage a few times, and now it works... it keeps asking me to download the oem1.32.651.6 OTA update, but then says its corrupted. everything else seems to work.
figured you guys would know more than anyone on any type of fix. i didnt know my questions deserved some rude answers.. i was just trying to help out the guy since we cant get the phones in stock for another week or so. guess thats what i get for trying to be a sprint employee that actually tries to help a customer.
staticchmbr said:
internal support sucks..
anyways, you guys didnt hear about the sprint 1.47.651.1 update bricking phones?? i didnt know if anyone here had an unofficial fix for it. i cleared the storage a few times, and now it works... it keeps asking me to download the oem1.32.651.6 OTA update, but then says its corrupted. everything else seems to work.
figured you guys would know more than anyone on any type of fix. i didnt know my questions deserved some rude answers.. i was just trying to help out the guy since we cant get the phones in stock for another week or so. guess thats what i get for trying to be a sprint employee that actually tries to help a customer.
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Click to collapse
As long as you follow the instructions I don't see any harm running the 1.47 ruu, just to know he has a clean install of the official 1.47 release.
Also, as far as I know there is no way at this point for the guy to revert back to an earlier sw version
Look HERE for the stock ruu's
staticchmbr said:
guess thats what i get for trying to be a sprint employee that actually tries to help a customer.
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Click to collapse
Don't take it so personal man. That's the irony, a Sprint employee coming to a dev community to seek assistance on behalf of a customer running and having trouble with stock Sprint software.
Sprint really should build a bridge to the dev community. We COULD have a very symbiotic relationship, but I am all too familiar with bullsheet corporate prerogatives.
nebenezer said:
Don't take it so personal man. That's the irony, a Sprint employee coming to a dev community to seek assistance on behalf of a customer running and having trouble with stock Sprint software.
Sprint really should build a bridge to the dev community. We COULD have a very symbiotic relationship, but I am all too familiar with bullsheet corporate prerogatives.
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Click to collapse
i completely agree.. i mean i have to get all of my answers from the internet..(especially xda), mainly because sprint tech sucks. their official forum for tech sucks as well. this is the first place i come for answers...
so for the ruu.. thanks! i usually use windows mobile, but does this ruu work the same on android? i just open it up, and run it?
staticchmbr said:
i completely agree.. i mean i have to get all of my answers from the internet..(especially xda), mainly because sprint tech sucks. their official forum for tech sucks as well. this is the first place i come for answers...
so for the ruu.. thanks! i usually use windows mobile, but does this ruu work the same on the evo? i just open it up, and run it?
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Click to collapse
I have zero experience with WinMo.
Plug your phone into the computer via usb, run the ruu.exe and follow the directions
If you're on a laptop make sure it's NOT set to sleep. Don't use the PC for ANYTHING else while the ruu is running. As long as the pc doesn't lose power and the phone doesn't lose power during the update then everything should run fine.
I ran that ruu on my last evo before I returned it for warranty replacement, the ruu took no more than 10-15 minutes from start to finish.
ok, cool.. sounds exactly like winmo.. thanks! im going to try it out as soon as its done downloading
Yes yes, tampering with the hardware of a device voids the warranty. But does it actually make a difference? Cant you just unroot your device, and send it back into the store for a brand new one (if something breaks, etc etc)? I feel kind of stupid asking this question but i honestly dont understand the difference between the two. Answer please?
Depends, I'm not sure if you can unroot the Evo. My Moment I could unroot. If the phone doesn't start up, then you're okay.
The first Evo (rooted) I bought fell in the toilet, the right side of the screen stopped working, all I did was uninstall Superuser and any rooted apps via ADB and they never suspected a thing.
You could still boot into recovery though but they never tried I guess
sW333t11 said:
Yes yes, tampering with the hardware of a device voids the warranty. But does it actually make a difference? Cant you just unroot your device, and send it back into the store for a brand new one (if something breaks, etc etc)? I feel kind of stupid asking this question but i honestly dont understand the difference between the two. Answer please?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, you can just Unroot but just make sure to flash the S-ON zip first. They are big to say it voids your warranty, but I don't think they really go through phones all that much to check for evidence of rooting. But, don't take advantage of this being an option. It gets old seeing all the people on here who brick their phones because they don't know what they are doing then just returning it for replacement because they didn't read something closely enough. These antics only hurt all of us in the end, just more excuses for Sprint to jack it to us on insurance etc.
Thread moved to Q&A.
Nah its not me with the problems, my phone is perfectly fine. I was just wondering because one of my friends wants me to root their phone and such, but they're kind of hesitant because of the whole waranty being voided thing. With the S-On zip though, this unroots the enitre phone back to stock? I forgot to mention this before but the phone that would possibly need unrooting is an Evo purchased a couple weeks ago.
The if you used unrevoked, the s-on tool sets your nand security back to s-on, and then running a ruu with reflash all stock software. Doing these two things will completely unroot you and make the phone eligible for warranty stuff.
Got it. Thanks a bunch.
yea when we root its all software crap and so with software its easily taken on and off just gotta know what your doing. As for as hardware mods if you take your phone apart that voids the warranty .
Apologies if this has been covered before- searched a couple of times with no joy...
Waiting for delivery of my Defy and still not sure what mods to do...Having read about a lot of UK models having the dreaded ear-piece fault, I'm just wondering:
1. what I can do that can be undone if my phone develops this fault?
i.e. Is it possible to root the phone, remove some of the Motoblur bloatware, overclock and scale, and still be able to return it to it's original state if the earpiece goes? (or at least make any mods undetectable!)
2. From what I've read it is possible to skip the Motoblur registration. Would I still be able to use the phone portal- what apps require the Motoblur registration?
Basically I'd love to tweak the phone but am paranoid about voiding the waranty!
Thanks in advance!
Once you are rooted and have recovery installed backup your system before doing anything else. If something happens restore the backup and unroot. Only problem might be if you have some type of hardware issue and can no longer boot the phone.
There is always risk, but that will help.
rbeier1221 said:
Once you are rooted and have recovery installed backup your system before doing anything else. If something happens restore the backup and unroot. Only problem might be if you have some type of hardware issue and can no longer boot the phone.
There is always risk, but that will help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks. Is it the case that you can mod the phone any way you like as long as you backup, restore and unroot before returning the phone for any possible warranty claim? Would a Mototola tech be able to tell that the phone had been modded and then reset to it's original state? Just wondering if I'd be better to wait a couple of months for any possible fault to appear...Thanks again.
cwhiggs said:
...am paranoid about voiding the waranty!
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Click to collapse
If that's your primary concern, tweaking isn't really an option.
As soon as you start fiddling with the software, you technically void your warranty.
That said, most fiddling can be undone and if the phone were to end up in a state that you couldn't boot it to fix your fiddling, there's a fairly good chance that the engineers wouldn't be able to boot it to discover what you've done.
Not to mention, from past personal experience, a lot of front-line engineers that actually deal with faulty handsets that are sent away for repair don't really care or may not be bright enough to be able to tell that you've messed with your phone.
Thanks. Think I'll go ahead and mod it. Been reading the relevent posts/stickies and from what I can see as long as I'm carefull and follow the various steps closely and in order, I'll be unlucky to brick it. Think I'd get pissed off waiting several months for any fault to show- just wary of the earpiece going and then being told I'm screwed coz I've played with the software! Thanks again.
I've mistakenly upload HardSPL from Mega-Touch2 ...
Phone is not react on nothing
i've try soft and hard reset, phone is dead ...
is there any solution ?
JFH said:
I've mistakenly upload HardSPL from Mega-Touch2 ...
Phone is not react on nothing
i've try soft and hard reset, phone is dead ...
is there any solution ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Use it as a paperweight?
Seriously, though, the only way to recover from that, if it won't do anything, is a JTAG recovery. See if any of your local electronics dealers can do it for you. Otherwise, it might be better for you to get a new one...
i've try to do something with mtty usb
but "ub port can not open".
i disabled usb connection in w7pro
JFH said:
i've try to do something with mtty usb
but "ub port can not open".
i disabled usb connection in w7pro
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It isn't going to work. You have the wrong SPL flashed to it. The SPL is what loads up EVERYTHING in the device and makes it all play nicely together. You won't be able to recover via USB. JTAG is the only option, but it isn't something you will be able to do, I would imagine.
service said,procesor is fake
they said, "we try few times with 3 different recovery tools, in 75% phone go down"
is this possible, procesor is death ?
JFH said:
service said,procesor is fake
they said, "we try few times with 3 different recovery tools, in 75% phone go down"
is this possible, procesor is death ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've already said that your problem is that you flashed the wrong SPL. The device is dead. Get a new one.
Think of this as an opportunity to get a new phone and a lesson learned.
I gave my old broken Nokia to my nephew and he plays with it all the time. Silly kid thinks he can make calls from it.
JFH said:
service said,procesor is fake
they said, "we try few times with 3 different recovery tools, in 75% phone go down"
is this possible, procesor is death ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is the ugly truth that you have to face with it. I'm sorry to hear that.
Try a new phone right now, use the old dead one as a paperweight like others have said.
Replace the mainboard, you bricked the device.
Okay, i can not understand this guy.
Can someone translate to proper english if you understand?
What has he done?
ryannathans said:
Okay, i can not understand this guy.
Can someone translate to proper english if you understand?
What has he done?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
He flashed the Hard SPL from the HTC Mega (Touch 2) to his HTC Rhodium (Touch Pro2). Doing this bricked his device. The only solution is to either J-TAG it to recover directly, replace the mainboard, or replace the whole device. Since the OP flashed the wrong SPL, I am assuming that he is probably not qualified or capable of J-TAG or mainboard replacement (I mean no offense to the OP). This is why I simply stated that he just get a new one.
The moral of the story is to read carefully before doing any of this stuff for this very reason. He now has a $300 paper weight.
cajunflavoredbob said:
He flashed the Hard SPL from the HTC Mega (Touch 2) to his HTC Rhodium (Touch Pro2). Doing this bricked his device. The only solution is to either J-TAG it to recover directly, replace the mainboard, or replace the whole device. Since the OP flashed the wrong SPL, I am assuming that he is probably not qualified or capable of J-TAG or mainboard replacement (I mean no offense to the OP). This is why I simply stated that he just get a new one.
The moral of the story is to read carefully before doing any of this stuff for this very reason. He now has a $300 paper weight.
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Click to collapse
Ahh, makes sense now.
As long as you sit in the right forum you should be fine OP
Didnt realise there was no way to recover it once it is bricked. I tend to be really careful but I still worry when flashing my phone. Makes me scared to do it on my next phone now knowing its game over if I do something wrong.
fade2black101 said:
Didnt realise there was no way to recover it once it is bricked. I tend to be really careful but I still worry when flashing my phone. Makes me scared to do it on my next phone now knowing its game over if I do something wrong.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You'll be just fine if you read carefully before flashing. The OP's problem was that he flashed a SPL from a completely different device. If he had done something wrong with the Rhodium software, then we could have helped him recover. As long as you stick to stuff to your device, you should be fine.
fade2black101 said:
Didnt realise there was no way to recover it once it is bricked.
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Click to collapse
That's what a brick is, a paperweight. Useless and unrecoverable, that's the main point in calling it a "brick". Some have defined a brick as unrecoverable w/o opening up the phone. And some use terms like "semi-brick". But the "semi-brick" distinction in particular seems silly. If you can recover from it fairly easily, than its not a brick. You just hit a roadbump,and then you figured it out.
The OP is screwed because he messed with the SPL, and as cajun said, the SPL is what loads EVERYTHING else. If you are just flashing ROMs and whatnot, even a bad flash is easy to recover from. As long as you can get into bootloader, you're fine. Just flash a known good ROM.
redpoint73 said:
That's what a brick is, a paperweight. Useless and unrecoverable, that's the main point in calling it a "brick". Some have defined a brick as unrecoverable w/o opening up the phone. And some use terms like "semi-brick". But the "semi-brick" distinction in particular seems silly. If you can recover from it fairly easily, than its not a brick. You just hit a roadbump,and then you figured it out.
The OP is screwed because he messed with the SPL, and as cajun said, the SPL is what loads EVERYTHING else. If you are just flashing ROMs and whatnot, even a bad flash is easy to recover from. As long as you can get into bootloader, you're fine. Just flash a known good ROM.
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Click to collapse
Is this covered in the warranty? lol
I can recover hard bricked phones including the TP2 and many other devices using JTAG. PM me with any questions about a bricked Tp2.