Root Am I screwed?

[BATMAN123]

The screen on my Droid is not turning on and I need to take it back. The only problem is that I am rooted. Everything seems to be working fine, the notification light is blinking and when I hit the lock button the bottom buttons light up. I have tried removing battery, and the only way I can tell it is turning on is because I have a text message. So, am I screwed?

 

[UBRocked]

The screen on my Droid is not turning on and I need to take it back. The only problem is that I am rooted. Everything seems to be working fine, the notification light is blinking and when I hit the lock button the bottom buttons light up. I have tried removing battery, and the only way I can tell it is turning on is because I have a text message. So, am I screwed?

Pull your battery give it a minute...and then try to boot into recovery (Hold the 'X' button on the keyboard as soon as you power on and let go when the Motorola logo appears). See anything? I'm making sure it's not a ROM issue.

 

[sirus]

If that doesn't work, try d-pad up, flash ese81 and force update to 2.1. Then take it back and tell them you tried a hard reset to fix your device. I would format the SD before you go... rooting leaves "roots"

 

[BATMAN123]

I tried removing the battery and booting into recovery, still a black screen.

 

[UBRocked]

I tried removing the battery and booting into recovery, still a black screen.

Did you see the moto logo?

 

[BATMAN123]

No, I don't see anything but a black screen.

 

[johnlgalt]

Try going into the bootloader instead.

Pull battery out, leave it out for 5 minutes.

Put it back in, then press and hold the up direction on the D-Pad (Up being towards the screen when the keypad is open) and press the power button to turn it on.

If the screen works in this mode (black background, white text) then you can use RSDLite to revert your phone to a non-rooted stock ROM.

But if it works in bootloader mode, then your screen is not dead - so it may simply be a setting on your phone, or dust in / smudges on the proximity sensor or ambient light sensor....

 

[UBRocked]

Try going into the bootloader instead.

Pull battery out, leave it out for 5 minutes.

Put it back in, then press and hold the up direction on the D-Pad (Up being towards the screen when the keypad is open) and press the power button to turn it on.

If the screen works in this mode (black background, white text) then you can use RSDLite to revert your phone to a non-rooted stock ROM.

But if it works in bootloader mode, then your screen is not dead - so it may simply be a setting on your phone, or dust in / smudges on the proximity sensor or ambient light sensor....

Isn't the Moto logo not showing up a good indication that the screen (or something hardware related) is broken? I figured you'd see that no matter what. No?

 

[BATMAN123]

Yeah, still a black screen

 

[UBRocked]

Yeah, still a black screen

I don't know if there is a way you can walk blindly through unrooting your phone...that's a new one to me

John (you know..."the man" ) do you have any ideas???

 

[UBRocked]

A video tutorial possibly...and just follow the exact steps...keypress by keypress?

Bottom line is your phone is not fixable...it's going back to the store to get traded for another one LOL

 

[BATMAN123]

Yeah, I had figured as much. I only got it 3 months ago, so I still have warranty. I just have to unroot it, I'll try to find a video tutorial.

 

[johnlgalt]

You can still RSDLite the phone, it just will look like it was never touched. Remember, after you get into the bootloader, everything is done from the computer side, RSDLite even reboots the phone for you.

At that point, if it breaks further, it is gonna be pretty hard for the average VZW tech to tell you were rooted - and if it does not break, well, it will have a stock OS waiting for the user to activate it - and you're golden.

Either way, you're golden. But if it works you're more golden. If it breaks in the middle of updating then perhaps folks at Motorola can still find traces of your rooted OS on the phone, and trace the IME back to you.

So, you really have nothing to lose in trying this before taking it back to them.

 

[UBRocked]

Thanks John...despite my time on here and the countless ROMs I have flashed...I have never used RSDLite

 

[johnlgalt]

Spoiler

(Secret - I used it for the first time Saturday to push 2.0 onto my phone to test the update file I had gotten OTA - my theory was that it was an all in one update - no matter if you were on 2.0, 2.0.1 or 2.1, you'd get updated to 2.2.)

Turns out I was right - but Pete clued me in to some really interesting facts about the update, as well as confirming that it would do absolutely nothing if you were already running 2.2. I learned a lot in the 2-3 hours I was talking to him - and I mean a lot!

 

[UBRocked]

Very cool! 2-3 hours with Pete must have been very interesting!

 

[johnlgalt]

Yeah, it was exciting, and interesting all at the same time. I think I was so jazzed though because I looked at it all on my own, and realized that the file structure itself was not all that different than I would have seen in a ZIPped *nix OS - and when I figured that out I started poking around in scripts and such, comparing hashes, doing diff comparisons on files, etc....

I was like a kid in a candy store. So, naturally, when I proved my hypotheses correct, I was on cloud 9....

 

[BATMAN123]

So I am in RSDLite and when I try to flash the .sbf it says it failed flashing process. Really though, Verizon wouldn't know that I have it rooted until they try to fix it. could they trace it back to me and then charge me whatever they would for voiding the warranty?

 

[johnlgalt]

yup - it's been done before. Another user here (at least one, but IIRC correctly it was actually 2 different users) had something occur where it was determined that they were out of warranty b/c of either water damage or something else - but the users were not initially made aware of it.

When it says it failed to flash - any error messages?

 

[BATMAN123]

No it does not. I hit start and almost instantly it says 'Failed flashing process' under status. And FAIL under result.

 

[johnlgalt]

try pulling the battery (don't have to wait this time) and then booting it into the bootloader again - it sounds like it is not actually in the bootlaoder, and since the screen is dead, you'll have to guess...

 

[BATMAN123]

Ok, I removed battery, put it back in, held towards the screen for about 10 seconds and hit start. It still says failed. I've tried this a couple times, so I'm not sure what's wrong.

 

[johnlgalt]

held the D-Pad, right?

And not the center, just the upper black part.....

 

[BATMAN123]

Yeah, I held the d-pad towards the screen for about 10 seconds.

 

[johnlgalt]

You have to hold it while turning on the phone....

Sorry if I didn't make that clear