[Q] Droid Bionic Bricked on JB Update

HalfBrian said:

Hi all,

Backstory/Details (skip to bottom for a tl;dr and my questions)

I tried updating my Bionic to the Jelly Bean OTA update (using the file from this thread: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2235946). I had the ICS OTA update with root (orignally rooted GB, took it over to ICS). I tried the update on my system and got a hash fail. I've dealt with this on previous updates, so I booted into my phone and tried to unfreeze my apps. My root was not working and hadn't been for a while (su was there and had the right permissions, but no apps could access root even after updating all of the related apps), so I used Razrs Edge to get it working again. I then tried to use Titanium Backup to unfreeze my apps, but it wasn't working. Thus, I just went into /system/apps and renamed the frozen APKs back to the originals. After that, I booted into recovery (without going back to my system) and "successfully" updated to JB using the OTA update on my SD card.

After the update my phone would never boot. It just got stuck at the boot screen (the one with this logo, after the startup sound http://cdn.androidpolice.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/image611.png). I tried wiping the cache, doing a factory reset, re-applying the update. Nothing would get it past the startup screen.

After reading around, it sounded like no one else had issues. Therefore, I was stuck with a useless phone. I read into using RSD Lite to flash a full partition image, and thought it sounded like it would work. Unfortunately, I could not find a JB .fxz image. I read warnings about how you can't go from ICS to GB and hoped that that was not the case with JB/ICS. I decided to roll the dice and try to flash an ICS image.

Needless to say, trying to flash the ICS image using RSD Lite bricked my phone. It is now stuck at the Fastboot screen, and won't do anything. From what I can gather, doing an RSD Lite load using a JB .fxz would probably fix my phone, but I can't find it anywhere.

tl;dr: My JB OTA update semi-bricked my phone, tried to flash an ICS build using RSD Lite, bricked my phone

Does anyone have any advice on how to fix this? Anyone have (or know where to get, or know how to make) a Jelly Bean image that I can flash?

I'm currently using my OG Droid as my temporary for a month before I can upgrade to a new phone. Thus, I'm willing to be pretty risky with my Bionic if need be.

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

Did RSD give you an error message when you attempted to flash back to ICS?

Back when the first GB update came out, a bunch of people (myself included) had issues with the new update and the trick to flashing back was to use the new cdt.bin (since you couldn't go back from that one). The new cdt.bin file is in the root of the update zip file. Once you have the file, you either need to tweak the XML file that you pushed into RSD or use moto-fastboot.exe instead of RSD and push all of the partition images to the phone manually. That might work here.

matthimrod said:

Did RSD give you an error message when you attempted to flash back to ICS?

Back when the first GB update came out, a bunch of people (myself included) had issues with the new update and the trick to flashing back was to use the new cdt.bin (since you couldn't go back from that one). The new cdt.bin file is in the root of the update zip file. Once you have the file, you either need to tweak the XML file that you pushed into RSD or use moto-fastboot.exe instead of RSD and push all of the partition images to the phone manually. That might work here.

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

Being in the same situation here -> Updated to JB without OTA Rootkeeper made me loose root. Out of haste, I tried FXZ'ing back to ICS. So I followed this thread, and this "almost" worked. I failed at step 6, so then I replaced the cdt.bin file from the JB update into the extracted ICS fxz folder, and it got passed that but failed on a couple of other steps. I edited the XML file to skip those, and when it finished it would never boot up past the M logo.

Thankfully, I was able to still boot into recovery and I just applied the JB update on my SD card. I'm now 100% stock JB, and waiting for a JB root exploit so I can (hopefully) restore my apps through TB.

I did the same thing, This worked for me -

Download and extract this
6.7.246 FXZ File

Download and extract this to the previous location
moto-fastboot-win32.zip

Boot into fastboot mode

Connect to PC with USB

On PC, open command window and navigate to folder created above. I renamed the folders and made them easy to navigate to.

Use commands


Once finished reboot to stock recovery (This system WILL NOT BOOT) and install the Jelly Bean zip from SD Card

Reboot

Won't get root back but you'll have a working device.

Spent the past several hours trying to figure this out and just now got my phone to boot into JB.

If your battery is dead, tear apart an old WALL charger, cut the cord and attach pos to pos and neg to neg put a piece of tape over your battery terminals (don't think this would be good for the battery) and put battery in to hold it in place. Not sure how to tell which wire is pos, guessing always works for me lol.

NOTE: A stock wall charger does not seem to put out enough power to fully boot the phone, so remove the wires and tape and charge the battery normally to at least 10% then boot, this made my phone loop while trying to first boot and I thought something was wrong with the system



Edit: Seems at some point I corrupted my internal sd card, the OS was able to reformat. Not sure if it is related or not.

help stuck in fastboot mode

Earic3938
Can you please explain about getting the files to the command prompt. In a more step by step not sure how to open them up in command.

DroidForLife33 said:

Earic3938
Can you please explain about getting the files to the command prompt. In a more step by step not sure how to open them up in command.

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

The files are on your computer, command prompt is just a different way to look at them.

Use the "dir" command to view files in current directory/folder, "cd" to change folders ex.. cd [folder name], cd followed by two periods(cd..) would move up a folder. You're just looking at the files in a different way (other than windows), all the same files are there.

I renamed my folder to V246 just to make it easy to find and put it on the root of C: to change directory to C you can type cd C:\

Thanks

I'm re-flashing the Jb update now thanks for the help Ill just wait till a root method comes out.

DroidForLife33 said:

I'm re-flashing the Jb update now thanks for the help Ill just wait till a root method comes out.

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

Yeah, think that's kinda what all of us in here are waiting on, lol

Glad I could help!!

Thank you so much!



After I botched the Jelly Bean update (made a huge mistake and tried to restore data through TWRP; it's apparently not like CWM) which overwrote some of the Jelly Bean system files, this thread helped me pull my Bionic back from the dead.

It took many hours and a lot of breath holding, but I am now running Jelly Bean unrooted and somehow managed to have my data stay pretty much in tact.

I wish I could tell you exactly what worked, but I tried so many things I really can't. I do know that using moto-fastboot.exe was the key. I also know I needed to have the recovery.img rewritten to the phone, but I honestly don't know which one worked. LOL

Once that recovery.img copied over everything else fell into place.

Thanks again this community ROCKS!

matthimrod said:

Did RSD give you an error message when you attempted to flash back to ICS?

Back when the first GB update came out, a bunch of people (myself included) had issues with the new update and the trick to flashing back was to use the new cdt.bin (since you couldn't go back from that one). The new cdt.bin file is in the root of the update zip file. Once you have the file, you either need to tweak the XML file that you pushed into RSD or use moto-fastboot.exe instead of RSD and push all of the partition images to the phone manually. That might work here.

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

This worked for me. Thanks for the help. I thought that I had finally bricked my phone and was ready to go to Verizon and take my lumps!

Thank you so much!

eric3938 said:

The files are on your computer, command prompt is just a different way to look at them.

Use the "dir" command to view files in current directory/folder, "cd" to change folders ex.. cd [folder name], cd followed by two periods(cd..) would move up a folder. You're just looking at the files in a different way (other than windows), all the same files are there.

I renamed my folder to V246 just to make it easy to find and put it on the root of C: to change directory to C you can type cd C:\

View attachment 1889262

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

I FREAKING LOVE YOU! Thanks a bunch dude! You helped me so much, it boots! And works, sure, i couldn't get it to install JB, ill figure it out later, but i did manage to bring it back to my old ICS rooted! Your awesome dude, my dad would have been pissed if it weren't for you!:victory:

Had over to the HoB (House of Bionic) at droidrzr.com if you ever get in trouble again. I have the JB update and fxz posted on my threads as well.

Sent from my SCH-I605 using Xparent Skyblue Tapatalk 2

Eric, i'm 99% sure that i'm following your instructions as closely as possible. I think, however, that perhaps given my particular bricking that my bionic isn't actually communication with my laptop while running the commands that you list. While the command runs I don't see any kind of feedback or acknowledgement from the phone that it's getting data.
When I try to run the .zip while in recovery it aborts at a signature error.

Looking like i'll be firing up the old OG droid as well!

Anybody?

Thanks!
BobZ

@ eric...
hit the thanks button, but had to post.
Thanks for your help, saved my bacon with this fix.

Droid Bionic Soft-brick Fixed After Jelly Bean Update Attempt Failed

Thought I'd share my experience in case others might find it helpful. Also wanted to thank eric3938 for his post on 16 April 2013 -- it's what saved my Droid Bionic!

I had started with a Droid Bionic with Gingerbread. Updated to ICS when it came out, then rooted it sometime afterwards. I took the OTA Jelly Bean update, but it failed. Then I remembered that I had installed Bionic Bootstrap to get Nandroid backup ability. A bit of research confirmed this was likely the cause of the upgrade failure. I then attempted to follow a set of instructions on how to get a rooted, ICS droid bionic ready for the OTA, lost my place due to an interruption, and decided I needed to restore from one of the nandroid backups, but they kept failing!

I then figured a factory reset was in order, and since I wasn't sure if the phone would boot out of the nandroid backup menu, decided to use the bionic bootstrap factory reset option. BIG mistake! After that reset, the phone would only end up with an image of an android on its back with an exclamation mark inside a red triangle over its open belly.

I spent a lot of time searching for fixes and trying a lot of different things:

1. Downloaded the 4.0.4 image from sbf.droid-developers.org/cdma_targa/list.php, and copied it to the external sd card from the phone with my laptop. Put the sd card back in the phone, booted into recovery and tried to install the update from the external sd card. Update would start, authenticate, and then fail with an error 7, with a message indicating that a file could not be found in the /system/bin folder.

2. Downloaded the 4.1.2 update from sbf.droid-developers.org/cdma_targa/list.php, put it on the external sd card and tried applying it. The update process would not authenticate the update.

3. Tried using RSD Lite 5.7, but could not get it to apply either the 4.0.4 or 4.1.2 images. I would always get a failure at some point.

4. Found the House of Bionic site (droidrzr.com/index.php/topic/5764-samurihls-house-of-bionic/). After reading through the information there, downloaded hob 10.1 and, following instructions, proceeded to attempt to flash 4.0.4 back to the phone. The hob (HouseOfBionic) program would successfully drive the flash with RSD, and the phone would appear to take the flash, but would either remain at the fastboot menu when hob said it would reboot, or would boot and end with the android on its back underneath the read triangle.

The battery of the phone ran down at this point and I could no longer flash anything. I read about the USB Factory Cable Adaptor on the HouseOfBionic site, so I ordered one. It arrived in about 3 days! When it arrived, I tried additional variations with hob, but no joy.

I was about to concede failure when I stumbled across the post by eric3938. From a high-level perspective, his experience seemed very similar to mine, so I decided it was the best option I had. However, after reading about the security issues that prevent regressing from Jelly Bean, I decided that instead of using files from the 4.0.4 release, I would use the files from 4.1.2 release. I then proceeded to do the following:

1. Downloaded and un-zipped the moto-fastboot-win32.zip file from the link in the post by eric3938.
2. Copied the preinstall.img and system.img files out of the 4.1.2 zip into the folder where I had placed the moto-fastboot exe.
3. Booted the phone into fastboot mode.
4. Opened a command window and pasted the following commands, one at a time, into the window and executed them:


Un-plugged the phone from the USB cable and then plugged it back in (to reboot it). The phone booted, but then just appeared to hang at a black screen with the four hard buttons at the bottom lighted up. Every time I would remove power and re-apply power, I would get the same results.

I finally pulled the USB cable out, then, while depressing the volume down button and holding down the power button, I inserted the USB cable and then released the power button (while continuing to depress the volume down button). This brought me to the boot option menu. I chose the recovery option. When the recovery menu appeared, I chose the 'apply update from external source' option and selected the Jelly Bean update zip file. IT WORKED!!!

The update authenticated and then began to install. When the update completed it rebooted a couple of times and the crashing sound of the android eye was music to my ears!

A couple of additional notes:

1. At one time during the process, I lost the ability to communicate with the phone from my laptop. I was afraid I had rendered the phone useless, but, after uninstalling the Motorola Driver Manager, rebooting, reinstalling the Motorola Driver Manager, rebooting, and trying again, found I had restored communication with the phone.

2. I discovered that with the factory cable adapter, I could leave the battery out of the phone and not have to pull it at times get to the fastboot menu -- this saved a lot of wear and tear on my fingers!

3. After going through the Jelly Bean setup process, I noticed I did not have 4G network access -- only 3G. I did some more searching and found a suggestion to pull the battery and SIM card, wait a few minutes, reassemble the phone and try again. That did it. I now have 4G network access.

I hope no one has to go through this with their phone; but, if they do, I hope this is helpful.

okay so I"m STUCK. literally, more stuck than I've ever been. i've always been able to fix a softbrick on any device, whether mine or not but I'm stuck and I'm thinking this might work for me considering the failure reports I'm getting (won't go into detail). But I have a couple questions. you just extracted the files from the verizon file (JB or ICS?) and flashed those right? and then got some hardware button reaction, and then flashed the update through stock recovery, correct? and idk if you know this, but there is no difference in moto-fastboot.exe and the regular fastboot used for linux correct? thank you so much for your help, you may save my phone. luckily i have a factory cable so don't have to worry about battery issues. ....btw I got sideload error 7 and none of the recommended issues applied to me, nor was I able to boot my phone to double check those were the problems. THen also, I got an error every time during RSD's FXZ'ing of ICS and JB. SO we're kind of in the same situation. although i know for a fact my error was during the installation of the bootloader, so the preinstall & system img flashes may help me.

lemonoid said:

okay so I"m STUCK. literally, more stuck than I've ever been. i've always been able to fix a softbrick on any device, whether mine or not but I'm stuck and I'm thinking this might work for me considering the failure reports I'm getting (won't go into detail). But I have a couple questions. you just extracted the files from the verizon file (JB or ICS?) and flashed those right? and then got some hardware button reaction, and then flashed the update through stock recovery, correct? and idk if you know this, but there is no difference in moto-fastboot.exe and the regular fastboot used for linux correct? thank you so much for your help, you may save my phone. luckily i have a factory cable so don't have to worry about battery issues. ....btw I got sideload error 7 and none of the recommended issues applied to me, nor was I able to boot my phone to double check those were the problems. THen also, I got an error every time during RSD's FXZ'ing of ICS and JB. SO we're kind of in the same situation. although i know for a fact my error was during the installation of the bootloader, so the preinstall & system img flashes may help me.

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

I extracted the files i mentioned from the verizon Jelly Bean file and flashed those (from Windows 7).

Before you start the flashing process, take the sd card out of your phone and copy the Jelly Bean zip file to it. Then reassemble your phone.

After flashing the two files, you'll then have to manually manipulate the phone to get back into stock recovery. Then install the Jelly Bean zip file update from recovery.

Best of luck!

---------- Post added at 09:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:36 PM ----------

wburchard said:

I extracted the files i mentioned from the verizon Jelly Bean file and flashed those (from Windows 7).

Before you start the flashing process, take the sd card out of your phone and copy the Jelly Bean zip file to it. Then reassemble your phone.

After flashing the two files, you'll then have to manually manipulate the phone to get back into stock recovery. Then install the Jelly Bean zip file update from recovery.

Best of luck!

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

By the way, once you go to Jelly Bean on Droid Bionic, do not EVER install Bionic Bootstrap (or ClockWorkMod) -- I just had to reflash my preboot and system image partitions. Research I've done indicates SafeStrap is the replacement for CWM and Bootstrap.

lemonoid said:

<snip> and idk if you know this, but there is no difference in moto-fastboot.exe and the regular fastboot used for linux correct? <snip>.

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

Moto-fastboot.exe for Windows is able to handle large files > 2GB (particularly important with flashing webtop). The regular fastboot.exe for Windows cannot.

The fastboot for Linux has no such problems, IIRC.

---------- Post added at 06:26 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:23 PM ----------

wburchard said:

<snip>
By the way, once you go to Jelly Bean on Droid Bionic, do not EVER install Bionic Bootstrap (or ClockWorkMod) -- I just had to reflash my preboot and system image partitions. Research I've done indicates SafeStrap is the replacement for CWM and Bootstrap.

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

More correctly - Safe Strap is the only bootstrapping method to replace your stock recovery and install alternate ROMs that is currently working on the JB build on the BIOINIC.

SafeStrap and bootstrap have coexisted for quite a while, for many devices - it was personal preference before as to which one you could use, or else you were limited by the ROM developer, who would only make a ROM compatible with one or the other (usually not a problem, but there were a few ROMs that were finicky).

However, as of JB, Bootstrap (currently, and AFAICT, for the foreseeable future) no longer works, but SS still does.

You forgot to mention the factory cable

These instructions should be etched in stone. Because they are so damn helpful to anyone who's bricked this phone. One thing you forgot to mention. BTW nice with the hack, but if it's a borked / bricked phone this hack may not work at all. The best solution for everyone out there (and it only costs about $10 - $20) is a factory cable or adapter to use in the USB port. This is kind of equipment they use at Motorola when they first unlock the phone, and it limits the need for any battery to be in the phone. From what I understand it works on almost all of the Motorola droid phones. So for anyone who wants to unbrick their phone my first recommendation is a Factory Cable or Factory Adapter. It will save you alot and I really mean alot of heartache. Which is a good thing, because the one thing you don't want is the phone going dead during a flash procedure.

eric3938 said:

I did the same thing, This worked for me -

Download and extract this

Download and extract this to the previous location

Boot into fastboot mode

Connect to PC with USB

On PC, open command window and navigate to folder created above. I renamed the folders and made them easy to navigate to.

Use commands

Code:

moto-fastboot.exe flash preinstall preinstall.img
moto-fastboot.exe flash system system.img

Once finished reboot to stock recovery (This system WILL NOT BOOT) and install the Jelly Bean zip from SD Card

Reboot

Won't get root back but you'll have a working device.

Spent the past several hours trying to figure this out and just now got my phone to boot into JB.

If your battery is dead, tear apart an old WALL charger, cut the cord and attach pos to pos and neg to neg put a piece of tape over your battery terminals (don't think this would be good for the battery) and put battery in to hold it in place. Not sure how to tell which wire is pos, guessing always works for me lol.

NOTE: A stock wall charger does not seem to put out enough power to fully boot the phone, so remove the wires and tape and charge the battery normally to at least 10% then boot, this made my phone loop while trying to first boot and I thought something was wrong with the system



Edit: Seems at some point I corrupted my internal sd card, the OS was able to reformat. Not sure if it is related or not.

Click to expand...

Click to collapse