SBF = wipe everything. This is like doing a total factory reset; it clears and re-writes almost every partition. Root access would be wiped out from it.
Not ENTIRELY true.
While flashing a sbf file using RSDlite, you are setting all the system and proprietary things back to completely stock. It will remove root access, and all that junk, along with all, the things that came from mods/tweaks/hacks/roms
BUT flashing sbf BY ITSELF alone will NOT wipe away ANY user data. You MUST data wipe from stock recovery to do that. This is why sometimes you boot loop,after sbf flash , and you need to data wipe to cure those boot loop blues, cuz sometimes there are things left over that you tweaked that didn't get wiped out after flashing the sbf, but they get removed from a data wipe from stock Android recovery.
To sum up:
For a TRUE OUT OF BOX FACTORY CONDITION(i.e. You just bought and opened the box) MUST flash sbf file using RSDlite with a computer. AND THEN after that, you wipe data/cache from stock Android recovery.
I'm willing to bet that would have also fixed you issues with not being able to boot past Motorola screen as well. Cant hurt to get a new one, but if you can compare them to see which is in better working order, then it couldn't hurt to do.
Either way, if youre going to send it in, and want to erase traces of root and such, then you need to do more than just data wipe. You NEED to sbf AND data wipe.
From my nexus tappin the talk
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