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Help Desire will only boot to the hboot screen

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wildhareuk

Lurker
Hi,

My HTC Desire will only boot to the hboot screen.

I have not done anything to it apart from turn it on one morning.

Powering on with volume down does not make any difference the phone will not respond to the volume button selection of options.

I can get it to start by holding the backup button when I start it after taking the battery out but presumably this is not a full boot.

I can connect to fastboot via usb and get the following response to fastboot getvar all

(bootloader) version: 0.5
(bootloader) version-bootloader: 0.93.0001
(bootloader) version-baseband: 5.11.05.27
(bootloader) version-cpld: None
(bootloader) version-microp: 051d
(bootloader) version-main: 2.33.161.6
(bootloader) product: bravo
(bootloader) platform: HBOOT-8x50
(bootloader) modelid: PB9920000
(bootloader) cidnum: VODAP001
(bootloader) battery-status: low
(bootloader) battery-voltage: 3566mV
(bootloader) partition-layout: Generic
(bootloader) security: on
(bootloader) build-mode: SHIP
(bootloader) boot-mode: FASTBOOT
(bootloader) commitno-bootloader: dirty-365c78d6
(bootloader) hbootpreupdate: 11
all: Done!
finished. total time: 0.021s

Other information from the boot screen:
BRAVO PVT3
HBOOT-0.93.0001
MICROP-051d
TOUCH PANEL-SYNT0101
RADIO-5.11.05.27
Aug 10 2010, 17:52:18

Any help would be much appreciated.

Regards
Peter
 
Hi Peter, and welcome to AF,

The bad news is that the simplest explanation is that there's a problem with the volume button. If it is "stuck down" that would account both for it booting to hboot and for being unable to select menu items when there.

When you say you can boot it by pressing the back button, what mode does it boot into? Pressing back while booting should boot into fastboot mode, and on my phone if I press both vol down and back I end up in hboot (tried twice, as my back button is becoming slightly unresponsive). But from what you write it sounds like you get into Android? If so, does the volume key work (testing my main theory)?
 
Hi Hadron,

Thanks for your quick response.

The volume button does work - it let's me change the ringer volume when I've booted in fastboot mode.

I've also tried to reboot both in adb and fastboot using the android sdk, but both methods will not get past the boot screen.
 
If it lets you change the volume then you aren't in fastboot mode - fastboot looks very much like hboot, just a different menu and text colours, and all that the volume keys do in fastboot mode is move you through the menu.

OK, that's really strange! You boot into hboot if you do nothing, and if you do what should boot you into fastboot it sounds like you get Android. Can you run user apps when booting that way? The fourth boot mode (after hboot, fastboot and android) is "safe mode", which you should get into by booting while pressing "menu", and in that mode all user apps are disabled. So if you are in Android and can use your user apps then you have a full boot I think.

Which just leaves the question of why all of the boot modes seem mixed up...
 
It changes the volume after I've booted holding the backup key and powering on. It looks like a normal boot.

It also boots and seems to work ok when I hold the menu key down and power on.

It's a bit weird! It doesn't boot properly trying to power on normally.
 
No difference between holding menu key and holding back key?

I'm almost tempted to ask what happens if you boot while pressing home, search or volume up keys (none of which should make any difference)? If you do nothing it's behaving like the volume down is stuck (including the volume key not working when in hboot), but it's like the back key is disrupting this, letting it boot normally (rather than do what it should do, which is put it into fastboot mode), and when booted the keys behave normally. If the keys work normally when running Android that should rule out hardware, but software problems in the bootloader rather than the ROM are pretty much unheard of. I've never come across this before.

You've not received any updates from Vodafone lately (I see it's a voda handset)?

I'd suggest keeping any important data backed-up. At the moment it seems usable, but not knowing the cause I can't offer a prognosis. It might be that an RUU (ROM Update Utility, i.e. complete reflash of the phone) would fix it, but that wipes the phone in the process (so backup is important in case this becomes necessary). Even then no promises - it's possible that this is a hardware problem, just more subtle than the key being stuck. I really don't know.

BTW I'd edit your first post and remove the IMEI and serial number - no need to make such information public.
 
Thanks for the reminder about imei and the serial number - edited!

There haven't been any updates as far as I know. My wife has been using the phone and would have mentioned it.

It does seem a bit strange and I haven't found the same symtoms searching the web. Other similar examples appear to be when rooting or re-flashing the phone.

Thanks for the pointers so far.
 
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