Root Ways to brick a phone after its been rooted ???

[jjrialva]

I recenlty bought another Samsung Vibrant (first one was stolen) but this time it has been rooted and running android 2.2 froyo.

Questions:

1) What ways can a rooted phone be brick after the rooting has been completed successfully?

2) Is half-brick phone possible? and if so, How can I know if it is?

If you are wondering why I bought a rooted phone when I know almost nothing about rooting its because, well, I know almost nothing about rooting and I wanted to skip the hard part of the process.

 

[lordofthereef]

The term bricked simply comes from the term that the phone is useless as a brick (ie you cannot do anythng with it). I suppose a "half-brick" could be something like a device with only parts of its features working. Not sure what exactly you are asking about how to brick though. Are you asking because you want to brick it or are you just trying to avoid that? If it's the latter, I would just use the system as normal and don't try and do any modifications yourself. Simply using it what it is meant for shouldn't lead you into any trouble.

 

[adi19956]

doing things wrong in any process in recovery mode can brick it, some people find flashing ROMs too many times can brick. there are other types of bricks such as a USB brick, when the USB won't work.
I know little about the Vibrant, but I did find this, just in case the worst happens for you How to Un-Brick Your Samsung Vibrant / Galaxy S
I would say, if it ain't wrong, don't fix it. i.e. don't muck around with ROMs you know little about seeing as you're a beginner

 

[jjrialva]

Trying to avoid the phone getting bricke. So ok I'm staying away from ROMs and flashing. But 4 things I want to alter or install are: 1) tethering 2) delete all the preloaded trash 3) alter the theme 4) lag fix

If I could know in which, if any, there is good possibility of damaging the phone I'll get/pay someone to do it for me. After that I'll use the phone the way is meant to be used. Thanks for the help and the link.

 

[Xyro]

I've moved this to the rooting sub-section of the vibrant section.

I believe the dangers of rooting vary from phone to phone. For example, with my phone you can flash pretty much anything (except radios) without risking bricking the phone. But I know that's not true for other phones. So you should get more specific answers here

 

[adi19956]

Trying to avoid the phone getting bricke. So ok I'm staying away from ROMs and flashing. But 4 things I want to alter or install are: 1) tethering 2) delete all the preloaded trash 3) alter the theme 4) lag fix

If I could know in which, if any, there is good possibility of damaging the phone I'll get/pay someone to do it for me. After that I'll use the phone the way is meant to be used. Thanks for the help and the link.

by all means don't stay away from using ROMs, they're fun, but be careful. XDA is always a place to head for advice with ROMs.
to delete all the preloaded apps, use this SystemApp Remover - Android app on AppBrain
for tethering, I would advise you wait for the 2.2 update for the Vibrant Samsung Vibrant: Android 2.2 Froyo ROM Update – Build Download Unstable? : Product Reviews Net it should come with it.
altering the theme I don't really know what you mean...
lag could be fixed by a hard reset or a different ROM, not sure

 

[adi19956]

if you can't wait for Froyo for tethering wifi tether - Search Android Apps on AppBrain there are many ways to fix that

 

[baillou2]

The great thing about the Vibrant is that you really can't brick it. A true brick means the phone is done for with no hope of repair.
If worse comes to worst you can always use Odin, this will allow you to fully recover the phone. It can be tricky if you're a noob (getting into download mode), but it can be done. So far I've never heard of a Vibrant that was beyond saving. I've seriously fracked up mine several times, but now I've become quite expert at fixing it, so it's no big deal.

 

[psz]

Agreed, say what you will about Samsung, but they basically made the phones unbrickable (Behold II was hard to brick as well).

Basically, ODIN or Clockwork Recovery will let you put a new ROM with new features.

If you DO happen to cause a problem, ODIN back to Eugene's Stock ROM, and your phone will be as it was on Day 1...


... And you can start the process of ROM-testing all over again ;->

 

[imolared]

Would have to respectfully disagree that a Vibrant cannot be bricked. How many of you T-Mob customers successfully ran the last OTA update (supposed to fix GPS) from T-Mobile and then were able get past the Vibrant splash page - raise your hands. Ok, now put your hand down if the Vibrant was stock - not rooted! Trust me that there are very few if any hands still up. I had two rooted Vibrants in my house both bricked immediately after that update. To their credit T-Mobile did replace both phones (several weeks apart), but they were adamant about "was the phone rooted?" I can assure you that I have not rooted the replacement and will just live with Eclair, sense and bloat. Still hoping for Froyo or Gingerbread sooooooooooooooon . . .

Color me as done with rooting - for now.

Jim in FLA

 

[w_bovine]

Would have to respectfully disagree that a Vibrant cannot be bricked. How many of you T-Mob customers successfully ran the last OTA update (supposed to fix GPS) from T-Mobile and then were able get past the Vibrant splash page - raise your hands. Ok, now put your hand down if the Vibrant was stock - not rooted! Trust me that there are very few if any hands still up. I had two rooted Vibrants in my house both bricked immediately after that update. To their credit T-Mobile did replace both phones (several weeks apart), but they were adamant about "was the phone rooted?" I can assure you that I have not rooted the replacement and will just live with Eclair, sense and bloat. Still hoping for Froyo or Gingerbread sooooooooooooooon . . .

Color me as done with rooting - for now.

Jim in FLA

When people say the Vibrant cannot be bricked they are in a sense correct. A brick originally meant a phone was put into a state where nothing could be done to bring it back to life and was good for nothing more than a paperweight.

This for all intents and purposes does not occur with the Vibrant. It's been shown time and time again that with the proper software and knowledge a Vibrant that is in what at first appears to be a hopeless state can be restored to a properly working device.

It has come to be referred to as "soft-bricking," that is, bricked in that at the time it will not function but can be restored, usually fairly easily.

Rooting will not brick a Vibrant, nor will it interfere with OTA updates. Far more likely is a bad OTA update or user error.

What makes you think things will be any different just because you have Froyo or Gingerbread?

 

[psz]

Correct. A "Brick" is when the device is so unusable by any means that it has as much use for you as a brick: It sits there (and can potentially be thrown at a would-be attacker)


In the case of both the Behold II and the Vibrant, I have only once with either phone EVER been in a position where *I* had to do something, other than reboot, to get it to work.


In both cases, flashing back to the stock ROM fixed the problem, and I was able to carry on.


As it stands, I'm running an extremely fast, stable, battery-lite version of Froyo on my Vibrant. (33+ hours off the charger with ~25% battery left... Through two days of work!)

 

[STiGLOGiC]

As it stands, I'm running an extremely fast, stable, battery-lite version of Froyo on my Vibrant. (33+ hours off the charger with ~25% battery left... Through two days of work!)

What ROM are you running?

 

[psz]

Team Whiskey's Nero Beta 2 (I've had no reason to go to Beta 3 or V1 final, especially with Gingerbread already being worked on for Galaxy S by the CM team) combined with Eugene's SuperIO Kernel.

This thing is *FAST*.

 

[gibsonusa]

Hey. So I've soft bricked my phone a couple times, and I've done plenty of reahearch on how to root and how to get back to stock before I flashed any roms. When I did flash I learned how to restore using nandroid and how and what odin is and how to use it. Trial and error is ok with this phone being that it can be saved in almost any situation.if you see anything on your screen when you think you messed it up don't worry it can be fixed and brought back to life with some simple steps and some reading. You might get stuck at a vibrant screen and it wont load it is real nice to know how to get to stock(personally I always odin to stock when flashing a new rom.). All I can say is read tons and tons of posts about things you want to do over at xda. They have so so many guides and if you follow the instructions and use some common sense you will find that the vibrant is an outstanding phone. The sky is the limit atm with this phone
Im running nero v1 with stock kernel and I. Couldnt be happier.

Sorry for typos using phone for this post.

 

[STiGLOGiC]

I'm going to go ahead and second everything gibsonusa just said. I have soft bricked my phone twice tonight alone. It took about 4 minutes to get everything set straight, and I never had to flash back to stock. So long as it has current running through it, I'm pretty sure you can bring it back.