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Root [Virgin Mobile/Sprint] Wife did V8 update and killed her phone, now what?

Superorb

Well-Known Member
Sep 30, 2010
211
16
Denver, CO
My wife did the update while she was at work and now her phone is dead. It was rooted, but not ROM'd and now nothing works. I can't wait till she gets home for me to try and fix it. Recoveries do not work on her phone at all, there's no way to enter them so I don't have any backups. Where do I go from here?
 
I think I would first shut it down and remove the sd card, then copy off any data. Then try plugging it in to a PC with a good data cable to see if you can parse any device and onboard sd folders to pull any data off. After that try a factory reset and see where you get (Power plus volume up.)

Rooted phones simply cannot be updated via FOTA without puking, regardless of recoveries, etc.

If the factory reset doesn't get it back, you may end up having to follow the unbricking guide with the LG flash tool and then flash one of the base roms. I'd pick the V07 odexed...then turn it on, let it stabilize, update the prl and profile, and then wait for the FOTA to come along and then let it install. Then you should be at V08, then re-root, IIRC the stumproot is the method for V08.

Good luck.

The unbrick tool will not touch the external sd card. You won't need to copy anything from it. You won't be able to get access to the phones internal sd.

The factory reset won't work as well. Boot into the stock recovery. Turn phone off, hold down the Volume DOWN, and POWER until your phone tells you to let go of the buttons. Wipe cache, then reboot.

If that doesn't work, run the unbrick tool.

Rooted phones simply cannot be updated via FOTA without puking, regardless of recoveries, etc.

Rooted phones running the update will fail. If you have cwmt installed, it will fail but if you have twrp installed, it will succeed. Follow the instructions listed above and you will be good.
 
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The unbrick tool? There's about 8 posts on it, which one? I haven't been able to find anything about unbricking for the v8 phones yet, only v5-v7.

ETA: It's only booting into CWMT now, the wipe menu never comes up. When I do a factory reset in CWMT it just boots back to CWMT.

Yes, there is nothing posted for unbricking for the v8 update yet. The v7 instructions should be used instead. Once your phone is back up and running you'll receive the v8 update.
 
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I'd rather it be confirmed before I do it to this phone. I can wait a few days, I can let her use my old Optimus V old school for a bit haha.

It's really funny to see all the comments, not just in the F3 forum, about if worse case someone can use their old OV . They just don't make them like that anymore. I still keep mine just in case my main phone bricks, which has been known to happen.
 
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It's really funny to see all the comments, not just in the F3 forum, about if worse case someone can use their old OV . They just don't make them like that anymore. I still keep mine just in case my main phone bricks, which has been known to happen.

Yeah, I wish I still had mine. :(

The Optimus V was truly one of a kind.
 
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It's really funny to see all the comments, not just in the F3 forum, about if worse case someone can use their old OV . They just don't make them like that anymore. I still keep mine just in case my main phone bricks, which has been known to happen.

Using mine atm. LG Tribute should be in my hands soon. Decided to change phones after my F3 crashed and burned as this one has some great features, like HD voice calling, better stock UI and Sprint Spark compatibility. If I like it, might get another one for rooting if it goes on sale over the holidaze. :^) Currently goes for $60-$80.
 
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Ok, so I was able to unbrick and start from scratch with v7. Then I tried installing CWMT and it worked! Previously it would install but the key combo wouldn't boot into recovery. I also some how had a backup from a few weeks ago which restored fine. And since the recovery worked I'm confident that the Qlide removal will also work, and I can look into flashing new ROMs as well. Yay!! :):):)

ETA: The OTA v8 update popped up. Is there a way to get rid of the nag permanently? Or install it without bricking the phone again?
 
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Ok, so I was able to unbrick and start from scratch with v7. Then I tried installing CWMT and it worked! Previously it would install but the key combo wouldn't boot into recovery. I also some how had a backup from a few weeks ago which restored fine. And since the recovery worked I'm confident that the Qlide removal will also work, and I can look into flashing new ROMs as well. Yay!! :):):)

ETA: The OTA v8 update popped up. Is there a way to get rid of the nag permanently? Or install it without bricking the phone again?

Glad to hear everything went well. Remember that if you do soft brick, as long as you can enter recovery, you can always restore a backup to fix it. Only if you can't use recovery is when you'll need to use LGFT.

There are several threads outlining what other members have done to avoid the OTA update nag with success. Look both in the main F3 sub-forum as well as here in the ATR section for methods. I always update new FW with LGFT and then restore data and sd-ext (2nd partition-external SD) in recovery. If I've found a working root exploit for the new FW version, that is. :D
 
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When v7 came out I was able to install it just fine on my rooted phone. Nothing bad happened. I hadn't heard about the brickings that were happening and I just went for it. Now I'm tempted to try an install this v8 and see if I can get away with it again :D
If you do, please post your results. Maybe even a run down on your system setup or anything special you may have done before hand.
 
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Well I gave it a go and it failed the install and then just rebooted my phone and it works fine. My phone doesn't really have anything special other than being rooted and having the bloatware uninstalled.

The failure was caused by the bloatware that was removed. the OTA updater-script checks that all stock files to be patched are present. If they are not there the flash will abort/fail. Your phone reboots and quietly waits to try it all over again later. :rolleyes:
 
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So my wife wakes me up and throws her phone at me. Says "somehow" the update was installed again. *sigh* Ok, I'll fix it... Then she tells me that she just last night got her phone exactly the way she wanted it and it's my fault she didn't sync her contacts or ask me to back it up like I asked her to do. So now she gets to learn the lesson again. Let's see if it sticks this time...

Installed the FOTAKILL so hopefully this never happens again. Though, I'm getting pretty speedy recovering her soft bricks. In under 20 minutes I went from bricked to restored to the 3 week old backup I did.
 
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