Red LED, No Boot Because of My Idiot Moment

galeshka

Member
Jan 31, 2011
7
8
23
Just happened today, I root the phone with kingroot, then installed XZDualRecovery to remove the kingroot and replaced them with SuperSU. One thing led to another, instead of flashing the SuperSU package, I end up formatting the internal storage. Nothing left there. Luckily I managed to realized my mistake in time, before rebooting the phone. So I download the flashable stock rom, planning to copied via MTP, then flash it to restore my phone. Two hours later, the download finished - yes, sadly, it took that much time here to download 1++ GB, and I still considered it fast - That 2 hours of being bored unfortunately led to another stupid mistake. I rebooted the phone before I copied and flashed the downloaded stock rom :crying:

TWRP only only offers me to flash the SuperSU package, then rebooted. Needless to say, the phone is dead. Just the red LED laughing constantly of my stupidity.

Quick Googling tells me the symptom pretty much the same with hardbricked ZL. Red LED, no Fastboot, No Flashmode. Pressing the button at the side of SDCard slot only make the phone vibrates, show Sony Logo, then blank. Okay, time to get panic, time to light a cigarette and take a distance for a bit to cleared out my head.

That done, I start googling to troubleshoot the problem. Quick search reveal the tools I need to recover the phone. I need Flashtool, ftf stock rom, good cable data, probably EMMA too. Unfortunately, the Flashtool only available through torrent, which has no peers, so I have to look somewhere else to get it. Wasn't ideal, but what a heck, I need to recover this phone.

Once all the tool in place, time to execute. Several guides I've found tells me I need to flashed the stock ftf with flashtool. But even with the cable plugged and constant pressing on the all available button (power, vol up, down and sdcard side button) can't make the phone recognized by the computer. I've tried every combination of cable plugged/unplugged, button pressed/depressed, all to no availed. Desperation seeps in.

Okay, time to take another break, another cigarette, and charge the phone for a bit. Afterward, I choose to tried to work on the phone recovery using linux. Maybe windows messed up somehow with the driver thingy that prevent me to fix the phone. No such luck unfortunately. Linux also failed to detect the phone. Hmmpppphhhh... Back to windows then.

I fired up the flashtool, pressed to lightning button, choose flashmode, pick the ftf files, then pressed the yellow button on the side of sdcard slot continually. The phone vibrates, 3x, I keep pressing, then it vibrates again 1x, but no respond from the computer, so I keep on pressing it. It vibrates again in 3x, paused, 1x, long paused rhythm. Then something happened, the LED turn green, and the windows notifying something happened. The log column of the flashtool start filling with lines, but end up in lost connection with the phone. Its a progress though, so I turned the phone off for a bit, to restart the process again. What I've done:
1. Start the flashtool.
2. Wait till it finished the initial detection.
3. Pressed the lightning button in flashtool.
4. Choose the Flashmode.
5. Choose the ftf files to be flashed, then pressed the flash button.
6. Pressed the button at the side of the sdcard slot continually - using a bamboo toothpick - until the LED turn green.
7. Let the flashing process done.
8. Restart the phone.

Voila, the phone boot normally, showing the sony logo, then the blue wave then it boot to the wizard screen with low batt warning. So I plugged it to a charger, then proceed with the wizard. The funny thing is, I swear I had more than 90% battery before I entered my special idiot mode. Apparently all of that red led period drained the battery fast. So after I finished the wizard, I put the phone on airplane mode to accumulate enough juice (till 9%) then I test to reboot the phone to make sure it really work. And it does. So I turned it off, to charge faster so I can start updating the firmware (I used C6502_10.5.A.0.230_10.5.A.0.230.ftf) and sets the phone straight again.

So that's how I spend my quality time today. Not much, but hopes it can help anyone out there with the similar problem. Cheers.