XT1541 Bricked, in boot loop, unable to mount /data in TWRP

[JackalStew]

Hello! I'm having some trouble with my Moto G3 whil attempting to install a custom rom following the guide here: https://forum.xda-developers.com/2015-moto-g/general/guide-osprey-moto-g3-begin-how-to-t3599251

I followed the guide, unlocked the bootloader, got TWRP up and running. Everything was going well up until step 5, the wiping. The output console displayed a lot of red text about the failure to mount /data. Weird, but hey, I backed up right? Anyway, I'd already wiped a lot, so best press on whole I still could. So I continued the procedure. I tried flashing a custom rom, the pico version of opengapps, and a fancy new boot logo.

When I rebooted, the new boot logo was there, but it booted into TWRP running an "OpenRecoveryScript". There was lots of red text (see image) but the main complaints were:
- Could not mount /data and unable to find crypto footer
- Failed to mount '/data'
https://i.imgur.com/LlyN3vB.jpg
(Apologies for rubbish camera photo, I would do screenshots but I have no way to transfer them over)

it would get this far, then crash out and reboot. This would loop forever, until I got it back into the bootloader. It seems that from there I can still issue fastboot commands. I tried "fastboot erase cache" and "fastboot erase userdata" both have had no effect. I tried flashing the recovery partition with CWM, and that now whenever I try to power on it immediately crashes into the bootloader with this error:
https://i.imgur.com/TsptQpQ.jpg

So, not much luck. I've tried frantically googling for a solution, but most of these involve booting in to some form of recovery mode which is clearly a problem for me. As I said, i do have backups, but they are on an SD card and I cannot load up TWRP to apply them!

I've been looking up how to restore stock recovery mode, but I'm not sure how to find out which stock firmware is mine? Here is what my bootloader screen looks like:
https://i.imgur.com/963Ued0.jpg

Any help or even the slightest clue of what I should be doing would be much appreciated. Thanks for reading.


EDIT: Problem solved, thanks to Gravemind.
I reset to stock firmware with many fastboot commands, repeated my steps and everything worked this time.

 

[Gravemind2015]

You can follow this guide to flash back to stock and trying over.

Weird case though, maybe you were encrypted before wiping in TWRP? I can't figure out any other reason.

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[JackalStew]

Yeah, it does sound like a crypt problem. I don't remember encrypting the phone (it's an old device I'm trying to resurrect) but maybe it got turned on somewhere along the way.

Any idea which firmware I should use? It's a UK phone, but I don't see how to match what I'm reading in the bootloader to the firmware images available. I'd rather not make a complete guess, based on my performance this far!

Thanks

 

[Gravemind2015]

Yeah, it does sound like a crypt problem. I don't remember encrypting the phone (it's an old device I'm trying to resurrect) but maybe it got turned on somewhere along the way.

Any idea which firmware I should use? It's a UK phone, but I don't see how to match what I'm reading in the bootloader to the firmware images available. I'd rather not make a complete guess, based on my performance this far!

Thanks

If the phone was not bought from a carrier (service provider), then

Retail Europe (2GB)*-*XT1541_OSPREY_RETEU_2GB_6.0.1_MPIS24.107-55-2-5_cid7*(Newer Build)

seems the correct one.

It should work regardless of the phone being retail or carrier locked though, only things that could be different could be APNs and stuff.

Edit: Link: https://www.androidfilehost.com/?fid=745425885120740007
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[JackalStew]

Cool, Ill give that a try and get back to you, thanks again.

I think I'll go with the 1GB variant. Having dug through my emails, I still have the receipt for it and it was definitely the 1GB model. Plus that appears to be what is indicated under DRAM in my bootloader (see last image in first post, spam filter won't let me post any more links)

EDIT:
Good news, we seem to be in biz. It looks like I'm back in stock firmware. I'll look into the crypto settings and give custom ROMs another go soon and see if this happens again. Once I get to the bottom of this I shall update the OP with all the info. There was a small mismatch between the firmware version I flashed and the one reported by my bootloader, but everything seems to be OK for now.

 

[Gravemind2015]

Cool, Ill give that a try and get back to you, thanks again.

I think I'll go with the 1GB variant. Having dug through my emails, I still have the receipt for it and it was definitely the 1GB model. Plus that appears to be what is indicated under DRAM in my bootloader (see last image in first post, spam filter won't let me post any more links)

EDIT:
Good news, we seem to be in biz. It looks like I'm back in stock firmware. I'll look into the crypto settings and give custom ROMs another go soon and see if this happens again. Once I get to the bottom of this I shall update the OP with all the info. There was a small mismatch between the firmware version I flashed and the one reported by my bootloader, but everything seems to be OK for now.

Glad to know it worked

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