Root Getting into Recovery when you are bootlooped at HTC screen, with PG05img.zip still on SDCARD

[chrisjm00]

Hello all,

I posted this over at XDA, figured I would post it here as well.


Just found a neat little work around for getting into recovery when you have a radio on your SDcard. You don't need a card reader or anything for this one. Tonight I accidentally flashed a Sense kernel while trying to get CM7 up and running. I got stuck at the HTC screen and it refused to boot any farther. So I had the choice of going to walmart and buying an SDCARD reader, but I thought that I could find a way around it, and I did. Sorry if this has already been posted.

Steps:

1. Connect to a charger and remove the SDCARD from the phone, replace the battery and then boot into Hboot screen. Normally this would ask to update the radio if an SDCARD with a PG05img.zip file was inserted, and regardless of whether you accepted or declined, you were forced to reboot, with no way to get into recovery.

2. Remove the battery from the phone. Hboot will stay powered up while connected to your charger.

3. Reinsert the SDCARD and replace battery.

4. Select recovery and your phone will boot into recovery for you, and you can restore a backup, or reflash your rom, or whatever you were trying to accomplish before you got into a bootloop or bad rom install or whatever.

Again, I don't know if this has been posted before, but I thought it was a cool little workaround for those times you need to get to recovery but can't due to the PG05img.zip file still being on your SDcard.

 

[scotty85]

might wanna got a cardreader from newegg or ebay for the next time around. while your workaroud obviously works,i personally would not be real fomfortable removing my sdcard and/or battery with my phone plugged in and powered on.

much safer,IMO,to just stick the card in a cardreader,or even another old cellphone.

 

[chrisjm00]

I had an old cell phone but it refused to read the sdcard. Too high capacity I guess. Oh well, I didn't have the sdcard in the phone when I initially booted it up so I figured no harm no foul, but none the less a card reader won't hurt.

 

[sml7285]

Something similar happened to me too:

"Yep. Got everything fixed. Being the idiot that I am, I left the PG05IMG file on my sd drive. By ghetto rigging a system where I held the battery in contact with one hand and used a handle of a spoon to push in the SD microchip with the other after bypassing the bootloader into recovery, I managed to reflash and get everything up and running"

 

[chrisjm00]

Something similar happened to me too:

"Yep. Got everything fixed. Being the idiot that I am, I left the PG05IMG file on my sd drive. By ghetto rigging a system where I held the battery in contact with one hand and used a handle of a spoon to push in the SD microchip with the other after bypassing the bootloader into recovery, I managed to reflash and get everything up and running"

Not sure if the smart ass comment was necessary but hey, thanks for the input.

 

[ridobe]

Not sure if the smart ass comment was necessary but hey, thanks for the input.

I don't think any smartass comment was meant towards you. I believe he is just copying and pasting his own quote from another thread/forum. I actually remember reading it somewhere.

 

[scotty85]

I don't think any smartass comment was meant towards you. I believe he is just copying and pasting his own quote from another thread/forum. I actually remember reading it somewhere.

yes i remember reading it too,tho i didnt undertand it till now... all of a sudden i got the visual of how he musta used a spoon handle to shove in his sd card while holding the battery onto the contacts with the other hand.

definately not meant as smart ass comment.

i hope what everyone who reads this thread derives the following important messages:
1)make sure to delete or rename PG05IMG files immediately.
2)invest in a cheap card reader for emergencies(ebay,newegg.com) as both methods described worked,but are not optimal.

 

[SecondShot]

I learned the same lesson the hard way recently...first thing i do now is delete the PMG file but...my card reader is old and wouldn't read the TB card so I had to figure something else out...

I had an old 2gb micro sd card from my blackberry Storm (haha, read it and weep...i loved that thing before I knew how good it could be on my tb anyway, i digress), removed battery, removed 32 gb micro sd card (no spoon necessary ), replaced with other 2gb micro sd card, replaced battery and booted her up - damn if it didn't work (cause it didn't have a PMG file on it. Now I could turn off normally and replace the SD card. Deleted that puppy as soon as I could by mounting the original sd card.

I would say that was lucky though. As Scotty says, don't suggest following in my footsteps.

 

[scotty85]

just curious... what did you guys have on your sd cards that you couldnt have just let re-update? ida prolly done that before i resorted to spoons and battery pulling

 

[digdug1]

Something similar happened to me too:

"Yep. Got everything fixed. Being the idiot that I am, I left the PG05IMG file on my sd drive. By ghetto rigging a system where I held the battery in contact with one hand and used a handle of a spoon to push in the SD microchip with the other after bypassing the bootloader into recovery, I managed to reflash and get everything up and running"

WHOA now thats some MacGyver stuff right there

 

[chrisjm00]

Sorry, its tough to gauge sarcasm on a forum. Just seemed like a stranger method than what I stumbled onto to bypass the hboot screen if you end up stuck.

 

[CyberPitz]

might wanna got a cardreader from newegg or ebay for the next time around. while your workaroud obviously works,i personally would not be real fomfortable removing my sdcard and/or battery with my phone plugged in and powered on.

much safer,IMO,to just stick the card in a cardreader,or even another old cellphone.

Bingo. I did the exact same thing as OP, but thankfully was able to throw my SD card in there, connect to computer and delete that blasted file. Taught me a valuable lesson, at least

 

[SecondShot]

Scotty, it was the gb radio file and the phone was in a bootloop. then if you tried to go to hboot, it just kept updating since it found the PMG file. Maybe there was an easier workaround...all ears.

 

[scotty85]

Scotty, it was the gb radio file and the phone was in a bootloop. then if you tried to go to hboot, it just kept updating since it found the PMG file. Maybe there was an easier workaround...all ears.

well,best option woulda been a card reader nother option would have been to insert the card into another phone that could connect to a pc,then deleted the file that way. or even a file viewer on another phone,coulda deleted it without plugging into a pc.

otherwise,i would have let the radio update,then select no to reboot when it was done. then you could have selected recovery from hboot. in recovery you could mount the card for usb storage,then deleted the file,replaced with froyo radios(if thats why you didnt want to re-update the GB radios),moved a rom to the card to flash,or whatever else you might have needed to do. you could then have restored a backup or flashed a rom,and then either: a)reboot into the OS,or b)pull the battery to get back to hboot.

what you did with replacing the card,brings us to another,clever option: make an "emergency SD card" for these situations. it could be just a 2g,with an emergency rom to flash,and a clockwork mod folder with some backups. now,if you forget to delete an IMG file,or your in a bootloop and your current card bites the dust just pop in the emergency card and good to go. yeaaaaah i like that idea.

 

[SecondShot]

Yeah man, I like that idea too. That is what I am doing right this moment! Emergency SD Card...

Also ... per one of your suggestions -- it wouldn't let me select "recovery" in hboot. It would only allow the "update option".

 

[Drew66]

Scotty, it was the gb radio file and the phone was in a bootloop. then if you tried to go to hboot, it just kept updating since it found the PMG file. Maybe there was an easier workaround...all ears.

LOL, I had the same problem. Luckily my wife also has a TB so I just put the card in her phone and removed the file and moved the card back and all is good again!

 

[scotty85]

Also ... per one of your suggestions -- it wouldn't let me select "recovery" in hboot. It would only allow the "update option".

sometimes when you update in hboot,after the update is complete,youll be presented with "update complete. reboot? vol up yes/vol down no" at wich point you could select no and then get to recovery. however,ive recently noticed that not all hboot updates do this. when i went back to the original radios this morning to go back to cm7,all i could do was "power to reboot".

so your right,this option wont always work im not sure if its got something to do with the type of update,or simply something in the "android info" text file.

at any rate,the emergency sd card is a great idear. im gonna do one up too,as soon as i secure myself an extra lil 2 or 4 gb card

 

[Ibrick]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but couldn't you just pull the SD put it into your comp and delete the file that way?

 

[WormDoes]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but couldn't you just pull the SD put it into your comp and delete the file that way?

Yes, if you have a card reader. If not, Scotty's idea is probably the best option, IMO. I have an old 1gb card I'm going to load up as an emergency card as well

 

[LexusBrian400]

I've used the trick mentioned earlier, about letting the battery make contact without the sd card fully inserted and it worked perfectly fine, no card reader needed. Just a steady hand Very simple to do. Of course the card reader is the best option (or another phone) but the battery trick works just fine if need be.

 

[Cinder]

This thread is kind of old but this happened to me recently. My particular story:

Rooted the phone, got BAMF GingerRemix up and running for ~ 2days worked great.

Decided I'd try out the latest sense squared theme, flashed it, phone will not boot into the actual os. Phone hangs on custom boot animation screen for almost an hour. Sinking feeling in stomach starts to set in...

Get into Hboot and the phone just kicks into update mode with the PG05IMG file b/c I never took it off the card (did I mention this was my first root/smartphone?).

Ended up doing the battery pull>sd removal>battery in>phone hboot usb option>battery pull again>sd in>battery in>recovery (which thankfully I created one just before installing this theme) and now all is back to normal.

I will admit, for a second I started to think I'd be tossing this phone in some water and paying an 89$ deductible for a new one lol. Thankfully, that wasn't the case

 

[ekyle]

might wanna got a cardreader from newegg or ebay for the next time around. while your workaroud obviously works,i personally would not be real fomfortable removing my sdcard and/or battery with my phone plugged in and powered on.

much safer,IMO,to just stick the card in a cardreader,or even another old cellphone.

My card reader decided to fail me in my time of need over the long weekend. I had to put my SD card in my fiancee's Droid X and delete the radio file haha

 

[scotty85]

My card reader decided to fail me in my time of need over the long weekend. I had to put my SD card in my fiancee's Droid X and delete the radio file haha

nothin wrong with that! ive got a couple old phones layin around i could use if my card reader fails. i still like the idea of an emergency spare card,and i still havent gotten around to makin it up,lol

 

[ekyle]

nothin wrong with that! ive got a couple old phones layin around i could use if my card reader fails. i still like the idea of an emergency spare card,and i still havent gotten around to makin it up,lol

I've got a bunch laying around but no way to put the ROM I was trying to reflash back on lol

 

[defTwitch]

just an FYI... I seem to be able to boot into recovery and not HBOOT sometimes even with the radio file on the SDCARD.

Not sure how I do it... but I do =)