Technical Think Tank for Bricked G1's

d474rpr · May 18, 2009

I started this thread as a constructive and positive place for those of us that have recently lost our G1's or ADP's. I am going to document all my settings, Radio version, Firmware, Build info, etc here and hopefully reverse engineer this issue until I have an answer. If anyone has any hardware engineering information on this device it would be greatly appreciated. I'm even willing to host a private forum from my site to work on this.

Thanks everyone for your continued hard work and Haykuro, you're still the man!

MosquitoD4K · May 18, 2009

-JFv1.43 RC9 firmware (just did this one update, not the radio update)
-1 GB micro SD which was deliverd with the phone
-Google's Developers Edition
-rooted
-sim ulocked
-almost fully loaded about 80 % battery
-everything went fine, the update went fine, restarting, and then no response and always and always the same android screen,

now im trying to crash it by low battery, not by just take the battery out, maybe this'll work (but I dont think so)

don't know anything else

sir*mez · May 18, 2009

Partioned Fat32/EXT2 1GB SDcard from t-mobile
Flashed RC29 via Bootloader .NBH file
Rooted with RC29
Updated to RC33
Flashed Hard SPL
Flashed JF v1.5 ADP Lucid MOD - did APPs2SD and Dalvik2SD
Flash 2.22.19.26I Radio
Flashed Grafitti Citrus Theme JFv1.50 Beta
Flashed H Special SPL with battery at 89% - saw it update, rebooted on its own, saw the chip with the arrow on it and it rebooted. once after that it hanged. I waited 5 minutes and then took the battery out. Got my sdcard reader, renamed the jf v1.5 to update to reflash like instructed. powered the phone with home+power and got nothing but a hang on t-mobile G1 screen.

Both phones were done the same. One phone bricked and one phone flashed the SPL.

ivanmmj · May 18, 2009

I wonder if the Dream responds to goldcards like other HTC phones do...
That's how we fixed our Heralds, which is how the Elf's got their fix, etc.

d474rpr · May 18, 2009

ivanmmj said:
I wonder if the Dream responds to goldcards like other HTC phones do...
That's how we fixed our Heralds, which is how the Elf's got their fix, etc.

Goldcard as in a specialized SIM?

UnkzDomain · May 19, 2009

d474rpr said:
Goldcard as in a specialized SIM?

Goldcards as in a specialized SD card

ivanmmj · May 19, 2009

d474rpr said:
Goldcard as in a specialized SIM?

You convert a SD card into a Goldcard and the phone will read it and allow the phone to flash ANY NBH file, regardless of CID, etc etc.

sblmnl · May 19, 2009

MosquitoD4K said:
-JFv1.43 RC9 firmware (just did this one update, not the radio update)
-1 GB micro SD which was deliverd with the phone
-Google's Developers Edition
-rooted
-sim ulocked
-almost fully loaded about 80 % battery
-everything went fine, the update went fine, restarting, and then no response and always and always the same android screen,

now im trying to crash it by low battery, not by just take the battery out, maybe this'll work (but I dont think so)

don't know anything else

This has happened to me many times when I didn't wipe (the PHONE

). Take the battery out, place back in and hold Home + Power to get into menu. Type alt + w to wipe, afterwards, alt + s to apply update.zip from sdcard, then Home+Back to restart. The first time loading, it can take up to ten minutes to get past the Android screen (mine took 7-10 minutes), so be patient.

Post back with any results.

sir*mez · May 19, 2009

ivanmmj said:
You convert a SD card into a Goldcard and the phone will read it and allow the phone to flash ANY NBH file, regardless of CID, etc etc.

that wont work i just read the write up. In order for the goldcard to work, the g1 has to go into fastboot, which none of our devices can go into fastboot nor recovery. I even formatted a sdcard to start the process but when i got to the fastboot i was so disappointed.

satru · May 19, 2009

One detail, when i flashed the new spl I was doing something else and when i check my phone it back to recovery utility windows itself ,it was in 15 20 minute, after that i reinstalle jf1.5 and all worked ok

what this means. if you are flashing your phone and before these process finishes your take out you battery, you can bricking you phone. take patience and wait.

Good luck

ps:i change the final text for sir*mez

sir*mez said:
that wont work i just read the write up. In order for the goldcard to work, the g1 has to go into fastboot, which none of our devices can go into fastboot nor recovery. I even formatted a sdcard to start the process but when i got to the fastboot i was so disappointed.

sir*mez · May 19, 2009

satru said:
One detail, when i flashed the new spl I was doing something else and when i check my phone it back to recovery utility windows itself ,it was in 15 20 minute, after that i reinstalle jf1.5 and all worked ok

what this means. if you are flashing your phone and before these process finishes your take out you battery, you and only you bricking you phone. take patience and wait.

Good luck

this happened to the one that bricked.
Flashed H Special SPL with battery at 89% - saw it update, rebooted on its own, saw the chip with the arrow on it and it rebooted. once after that it hanged. I waited 5 minutes and then took the battery out. Got my sdcard reader, renamed the jf v1.5 to update to reflash like instructed. powered the phone with home+power and got nothing but a hang on t-mobile G1 screen.

Both phones were done the same. One phone bricked and one phone flashed the SPL. So yes I guess I bricked one phone but a miracle happened with the other one. the one that flashed properly went into the recovery on its own right after the boot, but not in no 15-20 min wait like you said. you sure need to stop the blaming. i am not blaming anyone for my bricked phone, im just trying to find a solution. you are going to get this locked because of the bickering.

satru · May 19, 2009

hey sir*mes was no my intentions blaming to anyone , i only want to say that all need to give more time to flash before take out the battery. only that.

i will do something for you , i will change the text, happy?

Good luck

sir*mez said:
this happened to the one that bricked.
Flashed H Special SPL with battery at 89% - saw it update, rebooted on its own, saw the chip with the arrow on it and it rebooted. once after that it hanged. I waited 5 minutes and then took the battery out. Got my sdcard reader, renamed the jf v1.5 to update to reflash like instructed. powered the phone with home+power and got nothing but a hang on t-mobile G1 screen.

Both phones were done the same. One phone bricked and one phone flashed the SPL. So yes I guess I bricked one phone but a miracle happened with the other one. the one that flashed properly went into the recovery on its own right after the boot, but not in no 15-20 min wait like you said. you sure need to stop the blaming. i am not blaming anyone im just trying to find a solution. you are going to get this locked because of the bickering.

neoobs · May 19, 2009

sir*mez said:
that wont work i just read the write up. In order for the goldcard to work, the g1 has to go into fastboot, which none of our devices can go into fastboot nor recovery. I even formatted a sdcard to start the process but when i got to the fastboot i was so disappointed.

So what harm would it do to try? From what I remember the goldcard on herald was supposed to get us into the bootloader even when we couldn't normally.

d474rpr · May 19, 2009

Let me be perfectly clear, those of us with the issue of a bricked device from loading the SPL from Haykuro are experiencing an actual case of being bricked.

Read carefully.

The phone WILL NOT turn on!!!!

We are looking for a solution that runs as far back as actually burning the SPL image directly to the phone's memory. I am even willing to try a hardware to hardware method to accomplish this.

I know the phone is still somewhat responsive because my laptop detects the USB connection to the phone but it will not recognize the device.. obviously because the communication is broken since the phone is dead. The power LED will turn on but only after I remove the battery first. Once I press the POWER key the LED turns off and will not light again until I remove and replace the battery.

Solutions that we are trying:
GoldCard method.
Looks like a couple of us have tried this but since fastboot can't see the device then we can't use this method unless someone knows something super seceret.

Crashing the device by allowing the battery to fully discharge. Unlikely but trying anyway.

Any other ideas?????
Thanks everyone for helping thus far!

d474rpr · May 19, 2009

neoobs said:
So what harm would it do to try? From what I remember the goldcard on herald was supposed to get us into the bootloader even when we couldn't normally.

I tried it and so far no luck...

sir*mez · May 19, 2009

neoobs said:
So what harm would it do to try? From what I remember the goldcard on herald was supposed to get us into the bootloader even when we couldn't normally.

ok but the phone wont go into bootloader. which is what im trying to get it to do. if i get it to bootloader i know i can fix it. even if it went to the recovery i could fix it. but I get nothing.

in order to create a goldcard for the dream it has to read the sdcard off fastboot which i cant get into.

neoobs · May 19, 2009

d474rpr said:
Let me be perfectly clear, those of us with the issue of a bricked device from loading the SPL from Haykuro are experiencing an actual case of being bricked.

Read carefully.

The phone WILL NOT turn on!!!!

We are looking for a solution that runs as far back as actually burning the SPL image directly to the phone's memory. I am even willing to try a hardware to hardware method to accomplish this.

I know the phone is still somewhat responsive because my laptop detects the USB connection to the phone but it will not recognize the device.. obviously because the communication is broken since the phone is dead. The power LED will turn on but only after I remove the battery first. Once I press the POWER key the LED turns off and will not light again until I remove and replace the battery.

Solutions that we are trying:
GoldCard method.
Looks like a couple of us have tried this but since fastboot can't see the device then we can't use this method unless someone knows something super seceret.

Crashing the device by allowing the battery to fully discharge. Unlikely but trying anyway.

Any other ideas?????
Thanks everyone for helping thus far!

Are you saying your screen doesn't turn on?

d474rpr · May 19, 2009

neoobs said:
Are you saying your screen doesn't turn on?

No, I'm saying it doesn't turn on.

ivanmmj · May 19, 2009

d474rpr said:
No, I'm saying it doesn't turn on.

The same happens on Heralds when the imgfs is messed up. To fix it, we force it to go into the bootloader mode and it does turn on. I wonder if it's something similar.

theslam08 · May 19, 2009

I meantioned in the big main topic an idea though I dont think anyone saw it.

In the past for other phones I was able to make recoveries using the computer while it was in the boot loop.

Anyone with the brick, try to see what happens when you do this:

adb remount

After the "T-Mobile G1" screen shows up. See if it says mount sucessful. I would try though it does not stay on the screen too long for me, not only that it might work for me just because it continues fine so its inconclusive.

If you get lucky and it says remount successful, you could try this:

adb shell recovery

I am not sure of the commands to follow from there, but it might allow you to flash a different update.zip file from the command line. If you get lucky like that, look up the commands and see how that might go. There has to be a way to communicate to the hardware when that screen comes up. Its good that that screen comes up, because it means its not 'fried' so to speak, it just has a misconfigured loader which doesnt have the correct set of instructions (good point about the different types of boards, thats most likely the issue) for THAT board. I would go back to the one that worked previously.

Technical Think Tank for Bricked G1's

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