Root Yeah, so I bricked my phone

[ou7shined]

I finally plucked up the courage to set the memory partition using SUroot's special dGB table and *poof* it just hangs on the white screen with green HTC. I can get it into the recovery page but I don't know what I can do if anything from there.

I was having the usual problem of 10 tabs open explaining what to do but none of them actually explaining how to do it instead just linking you to more and more pages.

After a couple of abortive tries with Android Flasher I realised that I might be on the wrong screen (the first one) so I selected FASTBOOT USB and ran AF and chose the bravo_alphaspl_dGB60 image. This time my phone's screen went black for a fraction of a second and AF went...

... but it stayed like this for about 5 minutes so I rebooted manually.

 

[Tyseyh]

Did you Nandroid then flash the hboot then restore the Nandroid?

 

[ou7shined]

I did one the other day when I first rooted it. Does that count?

 

[Hadron]

Quick questions :

What ROM are you running? Only dGB is small enough to fit that hboot. If any other you need a hboot with a larger system partition.

Did you take a nandroid before flashing the hboot? You should have, as it's in the instructions for changing hboot on alpharev.nl. If you did, just restore the nandroid and it should work (as long as the ROM is dGB).

If no nandroid you can try flashing your original hboot back and see whether it will boot, and take a backup if it does then try again. Or if you are using dGB and are happy doing a wipe (app/data backups up to date) you could try wiping from recovery and see whether the phone will boot then, reflash ROM if not.

Bottom line: it's recoverable, the trick will be to do so without data loss. Answer the 2 questions and don't rush into trying to fix until you are sure you know what you need to do.

 

[saltire]

Flashing critical elements like this I'd recommend learning to do it direct via Windows cmd prompt using fastboot commands - it takes another layer of software out of the equation, ie Android Flasher which is really just a GUI anyway.

Setting it up is covered in the FAQ on ADB and Fastboot (you can skip the ADB bits). It's not too difficult and let's you see what's going on as phone reacts to commands as you type

 

[Hadron]

I did one the other day when I first rooted it. Does that count?

Only if you were running dGB at the time. That will restore what you were running when you took the backup, which won't fit in this hboot if it's not dGB.

On the plus side, if nothing else works you can flash the Bravo stock hboot from alpharev and then restore that nandroid and it will get the phone running again.

One last thing: you have a GSM phone (ie. have a SIM card)? I think so as the phone would be in a worse state if it was CDMA, but after someone made that mistake last week I want to be sure.

 

[ou7shined]

Hadron :

Yep running dGB and nope I didn't take a nandroid just now (I didn't see it mentioned in the instructions I was following here and here and another one off-site).

How do I flash my original hboot back? Remembering I am an utter idiot and need my hand held every step of the way.
Using Amon-Ra btw.


Wiping from recovery sounds like something I'd be prepared to do seeing as I only rooted the other day. Ok I have a few new things installed since then but I'm sure I can find them again. How do I do it? Sorry for being such a numpty but I can't let myself make any more mistakes.

All my contacts are saved to my SD, apps are backed up by Titanium and SMS's by SMS backup + as of last week.

 

[ou7shined]

Only if you were running dGB at the time. That will restore what you were running when you took the backup, which won't fit in this hboot if it's not dGB.

On the plus side, if nothing else works you can flash the Bravo stock hboot from alpharev and then restore that nandroid and it will get the phone running again.

One last thing: you have a GSM phone (ie. have a SIM card)? I think so as the phone would be in a worse state if it was CDMA, but after someone made that mistake last week I want to be sure.

Ok fair doos - I was on the stock ROM at the time.

I'm sure you can talk me through this "flashing the Bravo" you speak of, if it becomes necessary.

Yep have a SIM card.

 

[ou7shined]

Flashing critical elements like this I'd recommend learning to do it direct via Windows cmd prompt using fastboot commands - it takes another layer of software out of the equation, ie Android Flasher which is really just a GUI anyway.

Setting it up is covered in the FAQ on ADB and Fastboot (you can skip the ADB bits). It's not too difficult and let's you see what's going on as phone reacts to commands as you type

Yeah I'd be up for that.

 

[Hadron]

To return to the original hboot download the bravo_stock hboot img from alpharev and flash it the same way you did the dGB one. There's a chance it will boot, if nothing has changed apart from hboot, but cannot promise. You will be able to restore your nandroid after doing this if you want.

Or you can wipe from recovery. If you do it that way you may as well wipe everything you can (data, cache) then reflash the ROM as well, assuming the zip is still on your card. If the ROM is okay and just data corrupted then a factory reset from recovery without rom flash would work.

 

[Hadron]

To wipe from recovery, look for items with the words erase/wipe/format/factory reset in the recovery menus. I've never used Amon Ra so can't be more specific.

 

[ou7shined]

To return to the original hboot download the bravo_stock hboot img from alpharev and flash it the same way you did the dGB one. There's a chance it will boot, if nothing has changed apart from hboot, but cannot promise. You will be able to restore your nandroid after doing this if you want.

Or you can wipe from recovery. If you do it that way you may as well wipe everything you can (data, cache) then reflash the ROM as well, assuming the zip is still on your card. If the ROM is okay and just data corrupted then a factory reset from recovery without rom flash would work.

Ok I think I get this. I'll try the first one first.
Can you give me the link for the bravo_stock hboot img please? I though I knew where to get it but I was barking up the wrong tree.


What did I do wrong the last time to cause this? FASTBOOT USB should have been highlighted yes?

If all that works.... what is the difference between the the 60mb and the 65Mb dGB hboots - should I try one over the other?

 

[Hadron]

I'm on my phone, so not easy to link. Can get from alpharev.nl - there is a table of different hboots there, and the stock one should be labelled as such (has 250 system, 40 cache, 147 data). Get the image rather than the zip, and you can flash using AF as you did before. Best if you check the md5 before flashing to make sure you have a good download - see link on md5 checking in the forum sticky.

I don't think you did anything wrong with your hboot flash, except not take a nandroid before doing it. If you move the partition boundaries but don't relocate the data it's highly likely that the data will be unreadable. That's why you should take a nandroid first and restore it after the hboot flash - that copies your stuff into the new partitions. Sometimes you can get away without, but you cannot count on it.

If you might add to dGB, eg. theming, go for the 65MB version. 60 to really maximise user space.

 

[ou7shined]

Ah-ha found it
There's no point in doing a nandroid this time is there?

 

[Hadron]

No point doing a nandroid until you have it booting.

If it does boot after changing hboot back to stock then do a nandroid for sure.

If not, it's a choice between restoring your older nandroid (which will take you back to the ROM you had at the time) or wiping & reinstalling.

 

[ou7shined]

Ok cheers wish me luck.
The checksum checked out fine btw.

 

[ou7shined]

It's still a no-go.
It did just the same thing again except I left it 10 minutes before manually rebooting this time.

Going for the restore... I hope.

 

[ou7shined]

Woohoo! It's back. (original ROM)
It's kind of strange being back to a familiar phone setup again. Now I guess I'll have to start all over again.

Thanks for your excellent help (and your patience) there mate.

 

[SUroot]

So flash Rom and sign in to it, nandroid backup, flash hboot, nandroid restore

 

[Hadron]

No worries, glad it's working again.

Apart from corrupt hboot or radio flashes, pretty much anything else is fixable. And at least you know what to do next time

 

[ou7shined]

Ok I've done it. I had another semi-brick moment using Android Flash so I re-flashed the ROM again (restore didn't work a second time) and used cmd prompt (this thread helped me a hell of a lot - I'm sorry but the FAQs are just not explicit enough to be noob friendly) and it worked first time - took just 0.250 seconds to complete too.... plus a week of stressing about taking the leap.

So flash Rom and sign in to it, nandroid backup, flash hboot, nandroid restore

The phone is back up and running straight after the hboot flash (woo-hoo 250Mb of free space - get in! ) Do I still need to do the nandroid restore you mentioned?

 

[Hadron]

If the phone boots and runs then you are OK without the restore.

 

[ou7shined]

If the phone boots and runs then you are OK without the restore.

That's the best news I've heard all day.

 

[dan55]

congrats - i think flashing my hboot was the scariest part for me too - good to see you have recovered it - i agree in part that the guides, although good, are still full of strange lingo to someone who has never been here before - only reading, trying, asking questions, and praying can help there

 

[SUroot]

You think flashing a tested hboot is scary? Try making your own and flashing it as a test, knowing if any little thing went wrong in the process, your phone could be bricked. Now that's scary