• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Root Bricked?

F

Famous Mortimer

Newbie
Seems like a sexy new way of bricking my phone.

Trying to install some custom rom, and it looked like I'd done it. So, my phone turns itself back on, and...nothing. The home screen wallpaper had reset itself (to the lovely peaceful sand dunes) but the phone setup keeps crashing (where you have to select your country, etc.), and nothing works at all.

I can get to the task manager, but can't start anything as it keeps constantly crashing.

Looks like I've really buggered the thing up, and have spent the last hour scouring the net trying to put it into download mode so I can at least try and reflash the stock firmware onto it. But, nothing seems to work, none of the buttons in any sort of combination.

So, I wondered if anyone had encountered this sort of thing before? I'm hoping there's some way out of it, but if not then I guess I shall have to write this one off to the gods of not messing about with your extremely expensive phones.

Any help that results in my phone being fixed will result in a large-ish reward, though. I am willing to empty my PayPal account for the right advice.
 
Get yourself a jig from here, this will force it into download mode.
You can sort it from there.
Gave you a UK supplier as I assume you are in the UK.

HTH
 
If you can turn it on, I doubt that you really can't access download mode.

You do know that you have to let go of the buttons once the I9000 screen comes on right? Wait for about 2 seconds, and let go of the buttons.
 
snapper.fishes said:
If you can turn it on, I doubt that you really can't access download mode.

You do know that you have to let go of the buttons once the I9000 screen comes on right? Wait for about 2 seconds, and let go of the buttons.
Click to expand...
I've tried it, over and over again. It's not like I'm making this up to have a cool story to tell or anything! I cannot get the phone into download mode - if you can tell me another way that works, then please do.

I am aware I shouldn't have done this, which is why I feel so stupid.
 
Famous Mortimer said:
I've tried it, over and over again. It's not like I'm making this up to have a cool story to tell or anything! I cannot get the phone into download mode - if you can tell me another way that works, then please do.

I am aware I shouldn't have done this, which is why I feel so stupid.
Click to expand...

If you can turn it on, there's one more thing you can try.

If you don't already have developer mode on, try to turn it on in settings -> Manage applications -> Development. Once you have developer mode on, plug your phone into your computer. Now run the following command in cmd.

Code: 
adb reboot download

If you are not familiar with adb, you can find instructions on the internet. Alternatively I can teach you as well. It's not too hard.
 
Sarius24, I think if I can bring it back from this, I'll be taking your advice.

Snapper, the problem I've got is, it turns on, then vibrates like it tried to access a program and failed. Then it goes to the setup (which country are you from, etc.) and when you've gone through that, it vibrates a bunch more times (android.process.acore has stopped working), gives an error notice and goes to black. It lets me set up Google, so I can tell if I've got mail, and set the wi-fi, but that's it. It crashes when I try to do anything that's not contained in the setup bit.

I really appreciate the help, but am weirdly calm about it not working. Maybe my buddhist wife is rubbing off on me. Looks like I'm pinning my hopes on the jig working.
 
Sarius24 said:
God ppl stop rooting your phones... =/
Click to expand...

His problem has nothing to do with rooting. Flashing and rooting is two fundamentally different events. You can flash a phone without rooting it, and vice versa. Furthermore, there are so many things that simply cannot be done without rooting your phone. Custom boot animation, deleting bloatware, backing up your game saves, etc. The last one is particularly important to me. Updating your firmware often completely wipes your phone data, and even if it doesn't you are heavily advised to do so after an update. The last time Samsung rolled out the froyo firmware without a wipe many users encountered a lot of errors that could have been solved easily with a wipe.

Famous Mortimer said:
Sarius24, I think if I can bring it back from this, I'll be taking your advice.

Snapper, the problem I've got is, it turns on, then vibrates like it tried to access a program and failed. Then it goes to the setup (which country are you from, etc.) and when you've gone through that, it vibrates a bunch more times (android.process.acore has stopped working), gives an error notice and goes to black. It lets me set up Google, so I can tell if I've got mail, and set the wi-fi, but that's it. It crashes when I try to do anything that's not contained in the setup bit.

I really appreciate the help, but am weirdly calm about it not working. Maybe my buddhist wife is rubbing off on me. Looks like I'm pinning my hopes on the jig working.
Click to expand...

Good luck with the jig.
 
Or like my friend (his sgs Orange uk- didn't have the 3-button recv mode)
We went to the nearest Samsung Service Centre (Angel-London) and they took it, flashed the STOCK (not shitty ORANGE f/w he had before but) STOCK firmware back on and also enabled the 3-button combo mode on for him.
He is running the latest 2.2.1 JPY firmware right now. *No questions asked*
 
Well, after some serious worry, I've got it back working again. Huge thanks to the help of people in here, and I think I owe GalaxyTDM a pint. Now, all I need to sort out is the fact I can't download anything off the market with it. I had this problem before, but I haven't got the foggiest how I sorted it out :)

Actually, it seems like I'm still hanging on by a thread, I tried to do a factory reset because Market wasn't working and it took me back to the Recovery Screen, and I got the "can't mount /dev/block/stl11" error message. It's turned back on, and I can use it, but it seems like I'm missing something? Anyone feel like getting me over the last hurdle?
 
Done!

I found a JPY_JPY_JPY rom and just installed the latest official one. Maybe I'll mess with roms again at some point down the line, but this has taught me that I really shouldn't mess with this sort of thing for a while.
 
When rooting/trying custom rom's, it's important to read (and understand!) all instructions. I forgot to copy some file to the SD-card when trying to install 2.3 which screwed up my phone. Since I was stressed I just used Odin to restore my old 2.2.1 image and ended up in the same situation as you.

My solution was to enter recovery mode and format several different areas, and selecting factory default restore etc.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom