Good evening!
I have a HTC Desire 820n a51_ul S-ON (single sim variant, 8 core Qualcomm 615, 2 GB RAM, Eastern Europe). I would like to be able to flash TWRP in order to try to remove the Sense junk (I bought a HTC instead of a Samsung due to Samsung's bloatware, and I am very disappointed by the Sense junk; I hate when phone makers try to push their limited apps in front of more open Google ones). The problem is that on the official TWRP site I did not find a recovery image for any HTC 820 (single/dual sim etc.). However, I found a TWRP image here, but it is for KitKat (and my device is currently running Marshmallow - I am unable to see the connection between ROM version and recovery version), and for me anything not backed by the official site looks sketchy.
The problem is that:
1. I am afraid to flash a bad recovery. Even if I know that it won't affect the functionality of the Android itself, I would like to keep everything working (I do 3-4 factory resets a year).
2. I have no stock images (for recovery or for ROM), and I would like to get those first before starting to tinker with anything.
Is doing fastboot boot <recovery> (instead of fastboot flash <recovery>) safe even if the recovery image is not good for my device, or there are risks? As far as I understand, the boot option should not allow writing to the device (only reading from internal memory). Is there a possibility for the bad recovery image to make permanent changes to the device (like writing something to the memory), that would not be gone after a reboot?
Also, will I be able to make a backup of the stock rom and recovery with the booted custom recovery? Or it is possible for it to return garbage?
Is unlocking needed for fastboot boot, or is unlocking needed only for flashing? (I am planning to flash a custom recovery, if I find one working).
(Sorry for any mistakes, English is not my mother tongue.)
Related
Hello All,
I think I may have possibly bricked my m8.
I was using cyanogen 11, when I decided to try and flash the GPE rom that is available.
However I did not flash the latest firmware. I am not able to get into fast boot. When I press Power + Volume Down, it takes me too bootloader but no options are available other then press power to reboot.
When it reboots I do get into the rom however, wifi, and service are unavailable for obvious reasons. My Stupidity may have costed me this phone :/ I wasn't able to get s-off with my t mobile variant. It is unlocked, and had TWRP installed.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Bricked? But you can get into ROM? Do you even know what a "brick" means?
Just restore your device to Stock and do an OTA to get latest firmware in order to have a working custom ROM on latest firmware. You are T-Mobile, US? Do an RUU, or head over to the Collection thread in General section and download a nandroid backup for your device and restore it from within TWRP(Instructions is also available in the first 2 posts of the Collection Thread).
If you can get it into bootloader/fastboot it ain't "bricked", it's recoverable.
BerndM14 said:
Bricked? But you can get into ROM? Do you even know what a "brick" means?
Just restore your device to Stock and do an OTA to get latest firmware in order to have a working custom ROM on latest firmware. You are T-Mobile, US? Do an RUU, or head over to the Collection thread in General section and download a nandroid backup for your device and restore it from within TWRP(Instructions is also available in the first 2 posts of the Collection Thread).
If you can get it into bootloader/fastboot it ain't "bricked", it's recoverable.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay maybe not bricked but I messed it up quite badly, Im not able to get it into the recovery or have it be detected via fastboot. I did try and do a ruu to have it be put back to stock but Im not sure how to go about doing that since ruu cannot see it since it isnt in fastboot... :/
Did you Make sure you update you SDK. Only the latest fastboot and adb will work with lollipop
subarudroid said:
Did you Make sure you update you SDK. Only the latest fastboot and adb will work with lollipop
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did get the latest one from the official site, I was able to use it perfectly fine last night. Now however when I try adb shows the device offline, even if I kill and start the server, and disable and renable the debugging, try different ports etc. I can get it to show the device name, but it says offline next to it, I get no prompt on the device. I was reading the gpe doesnt use fastboot, ( I may be wrong) But that would explain why I dont see anything at the bootloader screen, other then press power to reboot the device.
Good news everyone! I was able to fix it in the most impractical way ever.
So why nothing else worked, I did still have access to the rom which of course had no wifi or service. So what I did was install the terminal emulator via browsers onto my phone, from there I was able to type reboot recovery and restore my backup that I had! and wala, whatya know, now it works, and I dont have a useless phone anymore
Right... so, I think I traced down why OTA doesn't work.
Namely, whenever I click on system update to search for update, it searches, but nothing happens.
Online I found that this is likely because a WW custom ROM was flashed... and so OTA doesn't work.
My phone is brand new (got it today actually), but 'stuck' on Android 5.0 (ugh).
So... I would like to ask for the recommended course of action so I can get either latest OTA, or just install a stable and up to date clean Android ROM (without all the Zen bloatware) that works.
Also, I'm relatively new with flashing this phone and there's tons of info on rooting, different CWM and TWRP's, etc.
Problem is, which ones to use?
How to determine if you're using the right one and avoid bricking the phone in the process?
My phone arrived with SuperSU... which would indicate it's been rooted (and I was able to install AdAway).
So bearing that in mind... what would you recommend?
Your phone should not be rooted when bought in a store. So it seems to be used before, and not correctly refurbished.
Anders
As there is no possibility to get evidence that you did not do that yourself, you can only hope to get a replacement from the vendor,or any warranty.
On the other side: the device is already rooted, so you can flash a 6.01 rom yourself.
Depending on the way the phone was rooted in the first place, OTA will not always work.
I did see an original rom surface recently. With that you can go original, Unrooted and locked, so the vendor will not be able to void your warranty claims.
Verstuurd vanaf mijn ASUS_Z00A met Tapatalk
Sorry for the late reply.
Was busy.
The phone was bought off Amazon UK, and no modifications to the device were done by me apart from installing my apps.
Trouble is, I don't know how to flash a new ROM onto this thing.
The forums are overflowing with information which is all over the place and it is extremely confusing.
Yes, I tried the search function and found some info, but it is all over the place.
I have to be able to figure out the original firmware apparently if I want to flash the CWM or TWRP... and in some cases, flashing TWRP can break the device it would seem (what's up with that?), and I cannot figure out the original firmware because the mobile was not delivered with one (a custom WW ROM was apparently flashed on top of I don't know which version), and I really do not know where to look for this.
So, I'm very confused.
There's too many threads to sift through and each seems to be giving its own unique information and a list of no no's which appear to contradict each other.
I could use some help in sorting through this 'mess' (well, 'mess' for me) so I could try at least flashing the original ROM and get OTA (for which I require concise instructions).
Also, something else seems to be happening... Asus Zentalk forums appear to refuse to load on my laptop for whatever reason.
Settings>About - will show you what rom you have.
I would recommend unlocking bootloader 1st as this seems to have helped me. If you have any recovery but stock or have a white splashscreen then this has already happened... I used the unofficial unlock tool to do this and thus my imei numbers stays off the "no warranty" list..
If you go to the pre-rooted rom thread you can download the newer stock roms. These also have the recovery, boot and droidboot.img files included with the .rar file of a system.img (unrar it of course)...
I believe it may also contain the flashtools, if not look at the CN to WW thread...
Using fastboot you can flash these onto your phone using commands -
fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
fastboot flash boot boot.img
fastboot flash fastboot droidboot.img
fastboot flash system system.img
Make sure, if do this the commands are correct. Copy and paste can be your enemy because if you use the same command and just overwrite your boot/droidboot or recovery every time you flash, it may result in a brick...
Good luck and happy flashing...
I seem to get OTA's pushed now..
Tnx.
Now that I look back, it doesn't seem too complicated.
My bootloader seems to already be unlocked though.
One other thing... about flashing that system.img
I think I stumbled upon similar instructions before, however, I couldn't find system.img file (everything else was accounted for).
Also, does the the procedure for flashing new ROM's or possibly just OTA's require repetition of ALL those commands, or just some?
Oh and I was able to access the stock recovery (which the seller said he used to flash the custom WW rom). Could I use it to update OTA's manually? And would I need to first unroot the mobile?
Hello
I have a HTC10 bought from official distribution in Europe, Poland, polish telecom operator.
I am currently on Android 6.0.1 (1.95.401.4). Plan to wait for OTA with Nougat and after this, unlock my phone and install TWRP and maybe a custom rom. Since last time I rooted anything was almost 5 years ago, and I heard rumors or true statements, that rooting HTC10 can mess up my encryption I want to find some simple answers to my lack of knowledge.
1. Is it possible after unlocking and rooting or installing custom rom to fall back to my original software and state out of the box, so the HTC service center will service my phone under warranty without noticing anything?
2. Does unlocking and flashing custom rom like LeeDroid mess up or disable entirely Encryption feature? I want to use it.
3. Do I need to s-off to flash custom rom like LeeDroid or similar?
4. If I need to s-off, can I go back to my out of the box software version and lock my phone so the HTC service center will repair it under warranty?
5. How to check what "version/edition" of european HTC I have to download a proper RUU for my phone in case something goes wrong?
I know that flashing anything is connected to wiping my data, that is not a problem.
1. yes, you can go back to complete stock. bootloader unlocking is covered in warrenty
2. Encryption is not messed with, stock you will be encrypted always. with custom roms like leedroid and viper you have to option to turn it off or on. Currently with android N and custom roms you need to run without encryption at the moment for everything to work properly. this is only temporary and only if you want to run N currenty.
3. no, s-off is needed for downgrading firmware or using different firmware then your suppose to most of the time.
4.yes again, this is pretty much same answer as #1
5. hold down the volume down button and power until you boot into download mode. it will display your proper model number and current firmware version
Thank you very much for your answer. I do not plan to flash Nougat right now, I will wait for official release via OTA, after than I will check for custom rom if it supports encryption without problems and then flash it.
I'm an idiot who just assumed that the unlocked phone he bought new in Europe was the European version (dual-SIM) and didn't first take a backup of all the partitions before messing around with it.
I'm wondering if I got sold some other region's hardware by a shady seller. How can I tell? Do I just have to flash every firmware out there until I get it to boot, or is there another way?
Model: XT1635-02
Type: M1D64
And dual-SIM.
I unlocked the bootloader, flashed TWRP, decided that I wanted to take the OTA, reflashed recovery to stock from the latest EU package...and it would no longer boot. Flashed back to TWRP, same. Reflashed the entire firmware package following these instructions, but it still won't boot.
Thanks.
--
Update: after considerable fiddling, I reloaded TWRP and got it to install and boot the Cyanogenmod 14.1 release, meaning my device is not permanently trashed beyond repair-- it just doesn't like any of the firmwares I've tried to feed it. Obviously this is still sub-optimal since CM requires some blobs that Moto haven't yet released to support the camera etc., but it's better than nothing. My goal is still to get stock firmware back onto this phone.
Update2: buoyed by my CM14.1 success, I decided to try to apply a similar methodology to get the stock firmware running. I failed utterly. Maybe if I build a TWRP-flashable copy of the stock RETEU package I could get it to flash fully and boot, but all it does at this point is loop over the bootloader unlock warning screen and occasionally attempt to auto-erase itself in Recovery before bootlooping again.
Update3: aaaand my IMEI is "0." This seems bad.
boot to fastboot screen and take a pic of it and post it.
So I recently purchased a brand new HTC M8 & the first thing I did was install TWRP & Custom Oreo ROM. However, I was not very impressed as two of the things I was looking forward to took a major hit - audio quality & battery drain on certain camera based apps. However, while most devices are very easy to return to stock ( I have experience with Samsung, OnePlus etc.) I cannot find a definitive guide that can help me restore to the last marshmallow update with stock firmware & recovery. Every online tutorial I try seems to work halfway and then the files wont flash etc.
Does anyone have a proper surefire way of bringing it back to stock. I would appreciate it alot.
Also its M8n (Euro Unlocked Version) it came with S-Off from the factory. It had Kitkat on it when I wiped it.
Thankyou
First of all, if you made a TWRP backup of your stock ROM (before flashing custom ROM); then you can just restore that to get back to the stock ROM. If you didn't make a TWRP backup, then you should have. This is a fundamental best practice when modding these devices. I find it surprising that so many folks skip doing this. For that matter, do not do anything to your phone without beforehand knowing how to reverse it (go back to stock).
Luckily, there is a collection of stock TWRP backups which you can use, plus a very well written guide: https://forum.xda-developers.com/htc-one-m8/help/tutorial-how-to-stock-stock-twrp-t3086860
Flashing custom ROM doesn't touch firmware, so that hasn't changed from stock firmware (Kitkat?). If you want to update firmware, the above linked thread has that as well.
On the note of firmware, you should not have been running an Oreo custom ROM with kitkat firmware (if that is what you did). It may or may not explain some of the issues you had. I'm actually surprised you were able to flash an Oreo ROM at all, with KK firmware.
As far as stock recovery, the link I gave also has the necessary files and instructions on how to restore stock recovery. But honestly, I don't feel it is value added to do so. The only reason to have stock recovery is for updates, and this phone is long done (years) with updates. And TWRP gives you a lot more flexibility to recover, backup, etc.
Alternately, your version may have RUU. This is a HTC specific tool you can use that to restore to full stock, including ROM, firmware, stock recovery - every single partition restored to stock (will also wipe all data on the phone). But I would need the exact phone info, in order to tell you which RUU (if your M8 version has one - not all do). If you want to go that route, do fastboot getvar all, and post the results (delete IMEI and serial number before posting).