completely stock (never tampered) Mini won't boot past hboot into OS

iceterminal

Member
May 17, 2008
8
2
0
Hello XDA members,

My wife's HTC One Mini's battery drained yesterday and when we charged it up, it will not boot into the OS. I'm quite familiar with rooting, loading ROMs, and stuff like that for my HTC One, but it's really odd that the stock AT&T ROM and everything is getting this behavior. I would ideally not have to wipe everything right away because she took pictures of our new born daughter (3 months) and she unfortunately did not setup G+ to backup her photos.:( I'm a little hesitant to bring it to AT&T right away (we have insurance on this phone) because I feel like they might not explore all the options as we would here on XDA.

here is what the boot screen says.

*** LOCKED ***
M4_UL PVT SHIP S-ON RL
HBOOT-2.19.0000
OS-1.32.502.3
eMMC-boot 1024MB
Sep 3 2013,11:06:59.0

FASTBOOT

usual volume button commands

BOOTLOADER
REBOOT
REBOOT BOOTLOADER
POWER DOWN

I can get into BOOTLOADER which lists, recover, factory reset, clear storage, simlock, image CRC, and show boarcode.. but nothing happens when I select them with the power button.


I'm at a loss here. I'm going through the process of getting my Windows 8.1 drivers to connect to fastboot to see if I can access the card to pull down the images but I'm not sure if I can do that since I didn't have any opportunity to unlock it in ADB prior to booting into hboot.
 

abzboi

Senior Member
Jul 22, 2013
317
50
0
Sacramento
Hello XDA members,

My wife's HTC One Mini's battery drained yesterday and when we charged it up, it will not boot into the OS. I'm quite familiar with rooting, loading ROMs, and stuff like that for my HTC One, but it's really odd that the stock AT&T ROM and everything is getting this behavior. I would ideally not have to wipe everything right away because she took pictures of our new born daughter (3 months) and she unfortunately did not setup G+ to backup her photos.:( I'm a little hesitant to bring it to AT&T right away (we have insurance on this phone) because I feel like they might not explore all the options as we would here on XDA.

here is what the boot screen says.

*** LOCKED ***
M4_UL PVT SHIP S-ON RL
HBOOT-2.19.0000
OS-1.32.502.3
eMMC-boot 1024MB
Sep 3 2013,11:06:59.0

FASTBOOT

usual volume button commands

BOOTLOADER
REBOOT
REBOOT BOOTLOADER
POWER DOWN

I can get into BOOTLOADER which lists, recover, factory reset, clear storage, simlock, image CRC, and show boarcode.. but nothing happens when I select them with the power button.


I'm at a loss here. I'm going through the process of getting my Windows 8.1 drivers to connect to fastboot to see if I can access the card to pull down the images but I'm not sure if I can do that since I didn't have any opportunity to unlock it in ADB prior to booting into hboot.
I gotchu my friend ;D http://www.htc.com/us/support/htc-one-mini-att/news/ That is the ruu for the htc one mini ;)
 

iceterminal

Member
May 17, 2008
8
2
0
I gotchu my friend ;D That is the ruu for the htc one mini ;)
Thanks! Unfortunately the executable requires the phone to boot into the OS to be recognized and the phone isn't booting into it. Trying to find the RUU stock ROM now to see if maybe I can push it over via fastboot. Crossing fingers!
 

iceterminal

Member
May 17, 2008
8
2
0
Thanks! Unfortunately the executable requires the phone to boot into the OS to be recognized and the phone isn't booting into it. Trying to find the RUU stock ROM now to see if maybe I can push it over via fastboot. Crossing fingers!
Ah I read that it will work too if it is fastboot which is why you were suggesting it. I'm wrestling with fastboot drivers and windows 8.1 so it is recognized so I dualbooted into ubuntu which can communicate via fastboot so I'm hoping WINE will run and flash the RUU .exe
 

iceterminal

Member
May 17, 2008
8
2
0
So I ended up rebuilding an older laptop to Windows 7 and ran the RUU executable and it looked promising at first with the updater recognizing the device and displaying what software version and stuff.... but then when it rebooted into hboot with it's process, the update failed.. not sure if it matters but it was "updating" from the same version as the current version. I was hoping this would be a fresh install. So now I'm looking into maybe doing a fastboot oem unlock and flashing a rom myself. Not sure if this will help me get the phone back from the dead, but going to do some more reading and exploring. If anyone has some shots-in-the-dark they would like to offer, I'm up for trying them.
 

iceterminal

Member
May 17, 2008
8
2
0
Ok so here is the latest and hopefully someone can confirm what I'm thinking for next steps.. I attempted to unlock the bootloader from HTC Dev. I was able to extract the keys, and I loaded the BIN with the new keys that will unlock the bootloader. Interestingly enough, I was expecting the HTC dev splash screen warning to come up where I would have to Accept the new terms and stuff, but that did not come up at all. So it was like I could go through the process and communicate to the device to unlock the bootloader, but something must be corrupt about it because it is just not responding the way it should on certain commands/tasks.. My bootloader is still locked (S-ON)

SO.. I stumbled upon someone mentioning that we are able to load CWM recovery even on a locked bootloader. Is this true and available for the HTC One Mini as well?? Couldn't find a definite answer on that for this device.
 

nelvinchi

Senior Member
Apr 3, 2011
403
526
133
London
Ok so here is the latest and hopefully someone can confirm what I'm thinking for next steps.. I attempted to unlock the bootloader from HTC Dev. I was able to extract the keys, and I loaded the BIN with the new keys that will unlock the bootloader. Interestingly enough, I was expecting the HTC dev splash screen warning to come up where I would have to Accept the new terms and stuff, but that did not come up at all. So it was like I could go through the process and communicate to the device to unlock the bootloader, but something must be corrupt about it because it is just not responding the way it should on certain commands/tasks.. My bootloader is still locked (S-ON)

SO.. I stumbled upon someone mentioning that we are able to load CWM recovery even on a locked bootloader. Is this true and available for the HTC One Mini as well?? Couldn't find a definite answer on that for this device.
Have sent you a PM re your issue..... :D

Re flashing recovery without fastboot (locked bootloader), it can be done, but only, as far as I know, via the phone os using CWM manager or Flashify (which is a cool app!)
 

iceterminal

Member
May 17, 2008
8
2
0
wanted to close the loop on this thread that nelvinchi and I literally tried everything we could think of to bring the phone back to life with no avail. Much respect out to nelvinchi for taking his time to help me out! We've determined that the device has a faulty memory chip and cannot be recovered...