When is it my A855 REALLY a brick?

[teddyearp]

OK, I ask this here, because I know that this is the place that has the ppl with the knowledge to help me. I'm all over the place tonite with this question, just need to be confirmed that I am toast, trade it in, or not?

Here's where my troubles began:

http://www.droidforums.net/forum/and...any-rom-2.html

Here's a 'paste' of where I am now:

#quoted/pasted text

OK, Rescue Squad, I've gotta good one for you. I was trying out the "works on any ROM kernel" (this thread http://www.droidforums.net/forum/and...any-rom-2.html) last night and ran into a major roadblock, check my posts there to get started on my background.



Anyways, as I said, I was wanting to get one of P3Droid's kernels working with my (backed up) DroidMod 1.0 rom, coming from the setup in my sig. I then thought I'd go to P3Droid's website and use the method(s) he had posted there. After all, P3Droid posted that he has modified his kernels using Koush's template so that they would work on "ANY ROM".



Here's where it gets interesting(?). After using the method on P3Droid's website, my phone went straight to the bootloader screen upon the very next boot. Couldn't get out of it. Every thing I tried got me straight to a bootloader screen. (if anyone has doubts about whether or not I know what this means, google my user name).



So, I use the ESD56 .sbf file to get myself to a place where I can easily get myself (back) forwards to where I want to (used to) be. The flash completes with a "PASS" message and I quit for the night last night. The only thing that 'nags' me is the fact that no matter what, my phone shows "No Service", a very odd thing as I can power up any old VZW phone here and it will either show Extended Network, or Roaming. I am running WinXP SP2, RSD Lite 4.6, MotoConnect 4.5.0 (needing .NET and installed); ALL working.



OK, to this morning. Power on the phone, enable USB Debugging, install from unknown sources (basically following my own guides as they're really my own notes), then plug in, get the stuff I want in the right place and run this command:



adb install dmupdater-10.apk



Had success with that so went on about my business to root (over WiFi, as the phone shows "No Service") and restore my latest SPR backup (a DM1.0 w/ROM MGR), then went forward to Rom Manager to flash to CMR and restore my latest rom (in me sig). Knowing that all these nandroid backups have NOTHING whatsoever to do with the .03P radio, I then used Rom Mgr to try to update that. BTW, all this time "No Service" is my message, just thought it was due to the fact I still had to do the activation. NOT. The radio update failed with an "asserts" message. So I flashed back to SPR 0.99.3b and then tried every single variation of the .03P baseband update. With SPR I kept getting an "error 7" message.



So, now, even though my phone 'looks' like it used to, it still shows "No Service" and a date of December 31, 1969.



Now I must look deeper, and here is what's up. In 'Settings-> About Phone -> Baseband Version' it shows as "unknown".



I know this post is VERY long, but I thought I should post as much info as I can.



Moving forward, now whenever (or whatever) .sbf file I use I get to where RSD Lite shows "switching to BP pass-through", it hangs there and then errors out. Phone will show "SW Update in Progress", but eventually it will reboot and RSD Lite shows Flash Failure, error with BP pass-through. The phone is even re-booting every now and then, BUT IT DOES BOOT UP. It will show whatever f/w I choose to put on it, yet the baseband still shows "Unknown".



I have tried everything I know. I have used the ESD20 .sbf, and used the old update files we had way back when we wanted to update manually to ESD56. I mean everything!



But there is no way I can get my baseband to show anything but "unknown" and my phone to show anything but "No Service".



In closing, I just wanted to re-iterate that the phone still re-boots on it's own accord, even when it's plugged into my comp (but not while flashing).



Thanks.

#end quote/paste


p.s. I can almost set my watch on how often it will reboot, and since it's of no use to me in it's present state, you should know that it's doing so while in an idle state.

[kbman]

You definitely are NOT toast yet...and the much over used term brick really only applies to a phone that does absolutely nothing...no boot...nada...zilch.

You have a corrupt service programming if not a corrupt BP image entirely. You need to get it to flash through with an SBF to work right again, or a service programming and/or software download backup .qcn file from QPST. Unfortunately, you probably haven't done that before this happened and someone else's files would not be a good idea to try and recover your phone with.

The software download module has a button in the restore window to allow non matching ESNs when restoring from another phone, so perhaps as a last resort I could send you my .qcn files.

I think you have the best chance by getting the SBF file to complete the BP image flash though, by whatever means, including removing all drivers and cleaning and reinstalling or trying another APC if possible etc. and exhausting all possible remedies for that method first, before trying anything else.

This is definitely a recoverable situation, you just have to find the right combination of tricks to make it work.

[briareus]

You definitely are NOT toast yet...and the much over used term brick really only applies to a phone that does absolutely nothing...no boot...nada...zilch.

In other words, like a brick.

[teddyearp]

kbman, YOU DA MAN! I've gotten so spoiled with the Droid hacking that I already forgot all the knashing around we had to do when using these tools on the dumbphones. I tried removing and re-installing everything on my desktop last night, still had same results. So this morning I was getting ready to go to the VZW store and thought, "Well, let me drag out my laptop real quick . . . .", and had success!

Just for kicks the only difference is that my laptop is running that old 'corp' version of XP pro that seems like everybody had a copy of and my driver set was still at 4.3 (I think) as it updated to 4.5 when I was done. Both comps are using the Moto Consumer drivers that require .NET to run.

[Sushman]

i hate to hear about droids getting bricked. glad you didnt. and i agree with kbman, the .sbf should return it...