Root HTC Desire HD - Needs to be brought back to life - Mk II !!!

[John FS]

SOLVED !!!! SOLVED !!!! SOLVED !!!! See next post.

On August 14 2012, user DVSimz started an interesting thread which started with his non-booting DHD and ended - after some sterling work by (amongst others) scotty85 - with his phone fully restored.
Having successfully rooted my own DHD a week ago I then stupidly replaced /system/etc/hosts with a file from my PC and then made a series of escalating misjudgements which placed me in exactly the same predicament as DVSimz was in when he started his thread. My phone is an unlocked sim-free UK Desire HD shipped with GB 2.3.5 and "Fastboot getvar all" reports the following:

INFOversion: 0.5
INFOversion-bootloader: 2.00.0029
INFOversion-baseband: 26.14.04.28_M
INFOversion-cpld: None
INFOversion-microp: 0438
INFOversion-main: 3.13.0.0
INFOserialno: SH132RX01726
INFOimei: 356812048849192
INFOproduct: ace
INFOplatform: HBOOT-7230
INFOmodelid: PD9810000
INFOcidnum: HTC__001
INFObattery-status: good
INFObattery-voltage: 4201mV
INFOpartition-layout: Generic
INFOsecurity: on
INFObuild-mode: SHIP
INFOboot-mode: FASTBOOT
INFOcommitno-bootloader: fcef1579
INFOhbootpreupdate: 11
INFOgencheckpt: 0
INFOregion-id: 0

I have been trying to follow the original instructions but with limited success - in some measure due to the fact that 2 years has elapsed and some of the links in the original thread are broken. I am currently at the stage on page 1, having downloaded http://www.androidfilehost.com/main/Thunderbolt_Developers/scotty85/DHD-root-downgrade-soff.zip and http://www.androidfilehost.com/main/-Support_Files-/superuser/Superuser-3.0.7-efgh-signed.zip (albeit from a different source, but I think it's the same file).
Just before the heading "making a gold card" there is a statement "take your recovery image, and place it into this folder. note that its named slightly differently (mini-adb_inspire)". Shortly after this there is a reference to "misc_version" but, despite staring at the posts for 5 hours I still can't understand where these 3 references in blue come from. I have, in short, stalled.
Basically, here's what I have:
- I have a functioning bootloader which has been unlocked normally using a key from htcdev.
- I have installed clockworkMod recovery v5.0.2.7 which works normally
- I have Mini-adb> installed with fastboot and adb all working normally
- I have copies of DHD-root-downgrade-soff.zip and Superuser-3.0.7-efgh-signed.zip ready to apply when needed.
- I have run adb shell cat /sys/class/mmc_host/mmc2/mmc2:*/cid which produces output : 0353445355303247800311eaa6009cea
I believe that I am "getting there" but I could now really do with a "knowledge boost" from a kind expert who can explain in words of 1 syllable how to finish the job, using downloads and links which are still live today. Thank you to the guys who posted what I have been following up to this point.

 

[John FS]

After being on this for many long hours I am pleased to say that I have solved my own problem. The steps I took may work for others so I thought I'd post them here as soon as possible. Please check the previous post for details of my phone which was purchased as sim-only in the UK about 3 years ago.

As you will gather, all I really had was a functioning boot loader but this, as it turns out, was ALL I actually needed to get going again. For the record, my computer is aCompaq Presario running Vista Home Basic with SP 2.

Step 1.
I downloaded this file which was the nearest ROM to what was on the phone originally.
http://shipped-roms.com/download.ph...60.29_26.14.04.28_M_release_225512_signed.zip

Step 2.
Using 7-zip version 9.20 I then unzipped all of these files from the downloaded file to a temp directory:
android-info.txt
boot.img
dzdata.img
hboot_7230_Ace_2.00.0027_110907.nb010/11/2011
lib.img
radio.img
ramdisk.img
rcdata.img
recovery.img
splash1.nb0
system.img
11 File(s) 779,248,684 bytes
I had to do this step because I found out the hard way that this download, although it bears a .zip suffix, isn't compatible with winzip and therefore it won't work with the fastboot flash method of updating...

Step 3.
I created a "standard" zip file containing these same files using winzip 19.0 (11293) 32 bit version. I named this file "update.zip". Then I used fastboot to send this file to the phone via usb:

C:\HTC_drivers\ROMS> fastboot update update.zip
archive does not contain 'boot.sig'
archive does not contain 'recovery.sig'
archive does not contain 'system.sig'
--------------------------------------------
Bootloader Version...: 2.00.0029
Baseband Version.....: 26.14.04.28_M
Serial Number........: SH132RX01234
--------------------------------------------
sending 'boot' (2840 KB)... OKAY [ 0.526s]
writing 'boot'... OKAY [ 0.669s]
sending 'recovery' (3856 KB)... OKAY [ 1.066s]
writing 'recovery'... OKAY [ 0.812s]
sending 'system' (571388 KB)... OKAY [1276.995s]
writing 'system'... OKAY [ 46.088s]
rebooting...
finished. total time: 1326.521s

Step 4.
As you can see the whole thing took a fraction over 22 minutes. Then the amazing happened and the phone just rebooted normally!

Everything appears to work normally except for one little niggle with wifi which I am sure will be resolved in time. For now I am just over-joyed that I have a phone back again.

Regarding the wifi, the phone makes a connection to the router OK and the router firmware shows in turn that the phone has connected. I can even ping the phone from a windows cmd line and it responds normally. But for some reason I am not getting the higher network layers so at present there's no internet connection for a browser or email client.

Has anybody got a solution for this to save me some time ?

 

[pochacz]

Thanks John FS your method work for me, my phone finally unbrick, after going through so many tutorials finally this one works, however i have no problem with Wifi works fine. Thanks again.