Hello,
I have an HTC One M8 (T-Mobile) that I had a friend root (he has a PC, I have a Mac, plus he's done it before) and all was going well until I installed a rooted app (I think it was Super SU or something) and my phone went into a boot loop, showing nothing but the HTC logo when I tried to turn it on. I panicked, even though it wasn't the end of the world, as I had just bought this phone from a classifieds source and had no personal info/pictures/contacts/anything on it yet.
However, I am still stuck with a soft bricked phone. My friend suggested going into recovery mode and rebooting (see attached picture) but it didn't help. Then he tried side-loading a ROM onto the device, but his computer (both of them, PCs, and even his brother's PC for good measure) didn't show it recognized the phone anywhere in the file system. And he said he looked EVERYWHERE and tried everything. Then he tried downloading HTC's own proprietary system for installing a custom ROM (I forget what it's called) but his PC wouldn't recognize it, so he couldn't use it either). He all but gave up on trying to restore my phone to how it was after he ran into the last of these problems.
I, however, refuse to believe that with the wealth of knowledge at my disposal via the internet that there is no way to fix this, even though I have a Mac. Is there ANYONE who's patient and Terminal-savvy that can help me get my M8 back to normal working condition? I don't even care about rooting it anymore. Thanks in advance for your instructions/suggestions.
I would just go into TWRP and mount the internal storage as usb, copy a ROM to the phone, umount internal storage and do a full wipe and install the ROM.
Do you want Stock, modified stock, CM??, GPE? you just need to figure out which version of ROM you want.
I think I already tried this...
I was just trying to install the stock firmware via a micro USB but the phone wouldn't recognize it on the micro USB stick in TWRP, is there a reason for this? As I'm assuming a restore to stock firmware is impossible if it can't recognize or read the firmware I'm trying to restore it to. Thank you
Hello? Anyone?
I have what's probably a unique situation, though I hope not. For background info, I bought two I747s, one white and one blue, each with issues, but I intended to put parts together to end up with one good one.
When I did a factory reset on the blue one via the recovery menu, it returned a bunch of errors along the lines of "failed to mount /data." Then when it rebooted it would hang on the Samsung logo. Back in recovery mode it returns more of the same errors just booting into recovery mode, and factory reset still returns more of the same errors and doesn't fix anything. I flashed 4.3 with Odin in an attempt to fix it, but I got the boards mixed up, and that one had 4.4 on it, not 4.1 like I thought. I'm pretty sure it's hard bricked now (that whole can't downgrade thing) because it's unresponsive to everything. Though my computer does recognize that it's plugged in, more on that later.
So I figured, fine, I screwed up, I'll just use the other board with 4.1 on it from the white phone. Except when I did a factory reset on that one, it did the exact same thing! Same errors, same problem stuck at the Samsung logo. Except this time I'm not flashing sh*t until I know exactly what I need to do to fix it. In another post where the guy had the same issue with 4.1.1, it was solved by flashing 4.3 with Odin. And another post where the guy had no idea what version he had, he just knew it was lower than 4.3, his problem was also solved by flashing 4.3, But since my last efforts failed miserably, I'm very reluctant to try it until I get some knowledgeable input. I don't remember exactly which version is on there, it's 4.1.something. I'd also prefer not to upgrade beyond 4.1 because I'd like to unlock it and from what I'm reading you can only do it for free if you're on 4.1. So I guess I need a link to an Odin flashable 4.1 package?
As for the poor blue phone that used to have 4.4.something, and was mistakenly flashed with 4.3, I've heard about JTAG but I don't quite understand it, and I'm not sure it would work in my case since a lot of what I'm reading says that bricking which occurs from downgrading is often unfixable. However, Windows recognizes that a device is plugged in when I attach it via USB. It shows up in the Device Manager as QHSUSB_DLOAD. I am currently researching more on this and the method of booting from an SD card, except I don't have an SD card reader at the moment.
Any assistance, advice, links, information, and plain ole encouragement are always welcome and appreciated.
For the phone running 4.1, flash any stock rom in Odin. After flashing, boot into recovery and perform a factory reset, then boot the phone and use the free method to sim unlock. The important thing is to have the stock 4.1.1 dialler in order to access the hidden menu options?
For home hard bricked phone, you will have to try the debrick image method. If it doesn't work, a jtag service should be able to force flash a rom to the phone.
Wow, that was like a crazy fast reply!
What if the phone is 4.1.2? Can I still flash 4.1.1? I'm on the hunt for a 4.1.1 stock rom now.
Yes, you can flash 4.1.1 from 4.1.2.
audit13 said:
Yes, you can flash 4.1.1 from 4.1.2.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Apparently not always. I downloaded and flashed 4.1.1 with Oden 3.07, it rebooted, showed the android image like it was updating, progress bar finished, and then it just went blank. Now both phones are in the same condition of being hard bricked and showing QHSUSB_DLOAD in the device manager.
This is strange. I have downgraded approximately 10 i747m phones from 4.1.2 to 4.1.1, unlocked using the free method, and re-flashed back to 4.1.2 after unlocking.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2371897
What options did you check in Odin? Where did you get the 4.1.1 ROM? I ask because the stock ATT 4.1.1 rom was apparently removed from sammobile.com.
How did you confirm that the phone was running 4.1.2?
I checked only auto reboot in Odin.
I found this link sammobile.com/firmwares/database/SGH-I747/ in this thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s3-att/help/downgrade-att-running-stock-4-4-2-rom-t3170938 , 7th post
The download was going absurdly slow, so I googled the exact file name being downloaded which was, I747UCDLK3_I747ATTDLK3_ATT, and found a google drive link at https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_UTWXKFnZoNVFdSVjJEZlMwZjA/edit which was the first result after searching for the file name if that link doesn't work. I'm downloading the slow one now to compare it to the one I got from google drive.
I'm unsure if the phone was 4.1.1 or 4.1.2, that's why I asked if it's possible to flash 4.1.1 on top of 4.1.2. I was only trying to do a factory reset originally and had no intentions of flashing anything. I just wanted to wipe out all the crap on it from the previous user so I had only glanced at the version out of curiosity to see if it was unlockable via the free method. I remember it was 4.1.something.
I have an SD card reader on order. Hopefully I'll be able to unbrick one of them.
Do you, or anyone else, have any idea why a simple factory reset would cause errors like I described and then hang on reboot? At that point both phones were 100% factory and I hadn't done anything to them except put a battery in them to power them on. I've done a factory reset on four other S3s and this didn't happen.
It is definitely possible to flash 4.1.1 over 4.1.2 because the bootloader could not be downgraded until the mjb version.
That's what I've been reading. So where did I go wrong? Any idea why a factory reset would screw up like that?
Did you confirm the bootloader before flashing?
audit13 said:
Did you confirm the bootloader before flashing?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, because I had no intentions of flashing it when I tried to do a factory reset. Then after that went bad it wouldn't boot, and I don't know how to check the boatloader when a phone will only go into recovery mode.
Where did you see reference to 4.1? It's possible that the modem or baseband was 4.1 but the bootloader was 4.3.
Under about device and then Android version. The one where if you tap it a lot you get the jellybean android that pops up. It wasn't the baseband version because that's a much longer number with the model number in it.
That screen doesn't tell you the bootloader.
As I said, I didn't check for the bootloader version before I ran into trouble because I only wanted to do a factory reset and I didn't intend to flash anything. I wouldn't imagine that it would have a different bootloader than the OS version unless that can happen without any user intervention because the previous owner was only concerned with selfies and games. She certainly didn't modify anything.
I cant explain what happened. This has never happened to me after flashing about 10 phones.
I believe it has something to do with the errors that were produced while trying to do a factory reset. What bothers me is that both phones did the exact same thing. Normally I'd say it was something I did, except that I didn't do anything but put a battery in them, boot up, find lots of junk installed, and then attempt a factory reset. On the first phone, I rebooted into recovery and tried it from there. On the second phone I tried it from inside the OS. Same results on both. The phones ran fine before that.
Any advice on how to do the boot from an SD card, or how to do the JTAG thing? I've been reading a lot but the information jumps around a lot. I'm comfortable with soldering and have an IT background if that helps.
It's possible that the recovery was corrupt or the partitions were corrupt.
Whenever I factory reset a phone, I always boot into recovery to do that, not from within the ROM.
Sounds to me like you did nothing wrong.
Did the previous owner have the phone from the time it was new?
Edit: for the phone that you flashed with 4.1.1, Odin said "pass" in the status window and the it auto rebooted?
audit13 said:
Did the previous owner have the phone from the time it was new?
Edit: for the phone that you flashed with 4.1.1, Odin said "pass" in the status window and the it auto rebooted?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know for sure if she had it from new. Yes, for both phones Odin said pass in the window and then it rebooted. I had walked away when Odin finished with the first phone. I came back and it was dead. The second one I watched and it showed the android with the wireframe in his guts and the progress bar which moved across, and then it just went blank.
There were error messages about the partitions when I did the factory reset IIRC. Perhaps the recovery or the partition was corrupted like you said. It's just odd that both had the exact same identical problem with the exact same results. That's why I think that it must have been something I did, except that I didn't DO anything other than initiate a factory reset.
I took an i747m and reflashed stock the Telus 4.4.2 ROM.
In download mode, you should see the green Android guy with the words "Downloading...Do not turn off target" and a blue progress bar moving from left to right.
I did not check reset in Odin. Once it finished flashing the ROM, I removed the USB cable, removed the battery, replaced the battery, and booted the phone. I the Android guy with the wire frame for a few seconds, the screen went blank, and the phone started up with the Samsung logo.
Since you were getting errors with mounting the different partitions, you may have needed to flash the PIT and PDA files but I can't really say for sure as I have never encountered this problem.
I normally verify everything before I use Odin because phones that I have been given to fix have had all sorts of weird configurations.
You'll have to try the debrick guide. of use a jtag service. You could also do what I did and that is to look for people with phones that have a damaged screen and buy they at a steep discount.
Expert advice needed please. This is a puzzle that someone might enjoy solving.
Although I have a fair bit of experience with flashing, I tried to flash my 8.0 for the first time and it has dramatically failed. It was probably my fault - not an uncommon story.
What is less common is that I am struggling to figure out how to undo the damage I've done. What's really making this difficult is that no computer recognises the device as USB any more so I can't use Odin, Kies, etc to repair or return to stock. I have tried everything I can think of to deal with the USB issue, the usual cable, driver, port nonsense. I don't think the USB problem is Windows now.
I suspect one of these things may have happened:
The USB port just went bad coincidentally during this flash process (charge, no data). I have ordered a new port but it will take weeks to arrive.
Has the device come out of Developer/USB debugging mode somehow? I can't tell because I can't boot to an OS.
I wonder if the ROM flash has corrupted the firmware the deals with USB - is that possible? Where is the devices USB drivers located? Is it in the bootloader, something like BIOS?
I'm suspicious of the bootloader, as the screen is weirdly corrupted now when I turn on or reboot the device - fuzzy white lines rather than a logo - but that disappears when OS tries to load, or I go into Recovery/Download.
I actually did do a backup of the original ROM to the SD card; but restoring it doesn't work, just produces an endless Samsung boot, even if I then wipe and reset.
I can get into Download mode, and a Recovery (Philz for N5120) but since I can't connect to the devise with USB in any way, it's very hard to get the Recovery to flash anything new and useful. I did put my SD Card in another phone and copied over the stock ROM zip from Samsung, but it refuses to flash - I think because it doesn't like Philz Recovery? I can't think how to replace Philz Recovery with another by flashing, without USB.
I may have to wait to replace the USB port, but I fear that won't fix it. Until then, I can only think of one other thing to try, and that is to copy a ROM onto the SD Card through another phone, and try to flash it. Lineage doesn't flash, and nor does the stock zip I got from Samsung. Would anything else work?
Can I flash an alternative recovery from within the recovery? Philz only lets me flash zips, not img or tars.
So it's quite a mess, but if anyone has a brilliant idea of how to get out of this, I'd love to hear it.
THANK YOU if you have a genius idea.
So after a few days of working on this, I did manage to resolve it, and I thought I'd just add a note about how I escaped this obscure problem.
The device went bad because I stupidly flashed an incompatible Recovery to the device and somewhere between doing this, backup and restoring and flashing, it corrupted mostly everything including something in the bootloader.
Oddly enough, the solution seemed to be to mess up the Recovery even more by flashing something even more random - it seems this provoked the device into restoring its own basic Recovery. Using this to wipe and reset the device somehow enabled Download mode's USB interface to start working again so I was able to use Kies to return to stock, which repaired everything including the bootloader.
Finally, I flashed the correct Recovery for this device, and then managed to flash the ROM I wanted. A happy ending to a stressful story; the device now works better than it ever has done before.
Hi Guys,
As the title says my S20 Ultra has managed to get itself stuck in a boot loop as of last night. I can boot into recovery mode, download mode and safe mode. When booted into safe mode it will stay on the home screen fine. However if i try to unlock the phone to use it, it crashes and reboots into a bootloop.
If I just plug in a usb to access the files via usb in safe mode before the phone is unlocked the phone is not detected (device manager detects a samsung device but nothing in file explorer most likely because the usb services haven't started up yet and won't until the phone is unlocked).
Im sure a factory reset will solve the bootloop issue but I don't want to lose the date on the phone until it's backed up (recently renovated our house and I have pictures on there of before and afters I would like to keep).
Is there a method I could use to get the data back other then sending the phone off to a recovery service? Maybe something that doesn't void the warranty of the phone but if there is no other choice I would consider voiding the warranty. I used to install custom roms on all my old android phones but never felt the need to on this one. I'm fairly tech savvy so am Just looking for ideas.
Cheers
Coddeh said:
Hi Guys,
As the title says my S20 Ultra has managed to get itself stuck in a boot loop as of last night. I can boot into recovery mode, download mode and safe mode. When booted into safe mode it will stay on the home screen fine. However if i try to unlock the phone to use it, it crashes and reboots into a bootloop.
If I just plug in a usb to access the files via usb in safe mode before the phone is unlocked the phone is not detected (device manager detects a samsung device but nothing in file explorer most likely because the usb services haven't started up yet and won't until the phone is unlocked).
Im sure a factory reset will solve the bootloop issue but I don't want to lose the date on the phone until it's backed up (recently renovated our house and I have pictures on there of before and afters I would like to keep).
Is there a method I could use to get the data back other then sending the phone off to a recovery service? Maybe something that doesn't void the warranty of the phone but if there is no other choice I would consider voiding the warranty. I used to install custom roms on all my old android phones but never felt the need to on this one. I'm fairly tech savvy so am Just looking for ideas.
Cheers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try flashing the same firmware you're currently running using Odin and HOME_CSC to keep your data, possible it will replace and fix the corrupted files causing the bootloop
So last night I tried what you have mentioned. It didn't change anything unfortunately.
I then thought it might be worth trying an older firmware. I tried rolling back to the previous firmware and then to android 10. Both of these ended up making things worse and it would boot loop at the android startup screen.
Luckily I managed to get back into Odin mode and put the current firmware back on and I'm now back to square one.
OK so I have had a thought. I've seen that some people have managed to establish a USB connection to thier device through TWRP and managed to backup their data through that. I've also seen that on older phones you can use odin to only flash TWRP and then boot into it. I'm not sure if things have changed drastically and you are unable to do that on the S20 ultra now. After my data (pictures and videos) was backed up I could then reflash the recovery back to stock and do a factory reset to fix the bootloop.
Does this seem plausible?
Before I get going - yes I know I messed up. I do have plenty of experience flashing ROMs etc, albeit I'm absolutely not an expert. This was purely a not thinking moment.
So I flashed my Samsung Tab S4 with Kali Nethunter a while back, not really used the tab since. Without a great deal of thought, I decided to put the device back to factory. I went back into the OS and flicked the OEM toggle - utter braindead move. Obviously the device now comes up with a warning, the exact wording is:
"Security Error: This device has been flashed with unauthorized software & is locked. Call your mobile operator for additional support. Please note that repair / return for this issue may have additional cost"
I can still access download mode.
Right, now you've finished laughing/cussing me I did some digging and apparently I can still flash with Odin if its the official ROM? I went to SAMMobile and downloaded the latest ROM and Odin fails with a write error.
What I need to know is:
How bad have I messed up?
Is this recoverable?
Any help appreciated.
Hello there,
So yes, pretty bad mistake but these things happen but it should be recoverable. Just follow the link to get your device booted up! Hopefully the link is for your variant, if not look into installing twrp recovery for your device. Once installed you can back up your data and flash the rom compatible using twrp. Then set up the device and restore your data but make sure it's unlocked or your error may repeat itself! Also you have to find the right version of Odin, they do vary some are patched. Have fun!!
Recovery
Hi,
Thanks for the reply Jedi.
It already has TWRP on it, but recovery is inaccessible since I turned the OEM lock back on. The only thing I can now access is download mode but it can't seem to write to it, which I'm guessing is because the OEM lock is back on. I thought I might still be able to write the official Samsung ROMs even with the OEM lock but it doesnt seem like its the case. Obviously no access to ADB to do a Fastboot unlock either. Fresh out of ideas.
Any other solutions?
bump - anyone? lol, really not looking for an expensive door stop.
It seems you're at the dead end. However, there might be a solution for this, not sure though does it work. But go to OnePlus forum and you'll find how to recover from bricked device. You still got hope because of TWRP. good luck bro
OK, so for anyone wondering if this is fixable, the answer is YES!
You can flash the standard ROM even with the bootloader locked. Clearly what I downloaded from SAMMobile wasnt compatible, however when I used Frija, it found and downloaded the correct ROMs.
Another sticking point of this was the infamous USB 2.0 issue, I assumed the ROM was failing again, however when I finally could be arsed to try it on my old PC, its worked like a charm.
So there you have it:
Latest version of Odin
Latest Samsung USB drivers
Latest ROM downloaded from Frija
Put the tablet into download mode and flash away.