Root D'oh... boot stuck

[mRahmani]

Classic case of not doing any research before making changes:

I have my Commando rooted and debloated at update M080. After waiting a while for news on a new G'Zone, I upgraded to the Galaxy S3 yesterday and decided to do a factory reset on the Commando and either hand it off to my dad or hang onto it for camping trips and such.

Well, the factory reset worked, phone restarted and came back to the Verizon activation screen. I shut it down and then started it back up to play with later on in the afternoon, but now it gets stuck on the "Verizon Wireless" screen with the moving loading bar. From there, it's very inconsistent. Sometime it will say "initializing, please wait" under the bar. Sometimes it won't. Sometimes, pressing the soft keys will make it vibrate, and the volume keys will make noise as if they're operating normally. Sometimes they won't. Any ideas on how to get it past this stage?

I tried reading through the recovery thread for the Commando but couldn't get adb to recognize the device on the VZW screen.

 

[jova33]

Did you remove your home launcher?

 

[mRahmani]

Yeah, I had replaced it with LauncherPro.

 

[jova33]

Did you restore the old launcher before factory reset?

If not I have no clue how to help you

If you have a nandroid, power off device, however you can. In terminal, adb wait-for-device reboot recovery. Plug in device to PC

 

[mRahmani]

No, I removed practically all of the factory apps the very first day and was so used to the other setup it didn't even cross my mind to restore them. I have a Titanium backup of it but I imagine there's no way to push it to the phone. Derp.

I'll see if I can get it booted into recovery, I have an old Froyo image sitting on my PC, but I imagine that will be a long shot.

 

[jova33]

If you can restore the froyo, you won't be able to use the network. The radios changed from froyo to gingerbread. You may be able to get the device back on gingerbread though.

You have a nandroid and the custom recovery though, correct?

 

[mRahmani]

No, I don't, just a Froyo image Spike had uploaded at some point.

 

[Dreamcrusher]

If you didn't install GNM's recovery, prior to the bootloop,you won't be able to recover the phone.

 

[evnp]

edit

 

[jova33]

Can you push the recovery though adb?
I'm a bit foggy on the matter, but I thought you use adb to install the recovery.

 

[Dreamcrusher]

My understanding is that you must have custom recovery, such as GNM's, installed before you can push anything through ADB. If he, mRahmani, didn't have a custom recovery installed before the bootloop he's S.O.L.

 

[mRahmani]

Ah well, that's what I was afraid of. Thanks for the input guys! Technically I think it's still under the Casio one-year warranty... maybe I can get it replaced.

EDIT: Funny, I imagine they lock down everything on this phone to prevent the sort of tinkering that causes bricks. I wonder how many bricks could have been avoided if the recovery wasn't locked!

 

[Spike G]

Jova, you are correct, and dremcrusher, adb is a universal android tool, you dont need a custom recovery although adb has access to the recovery and can utilize it if need be

mRahmani, all hope is not lost, if you had debugging enabled (which should have been if you rooted and didnt change it back)

you can push a system app from adb without a recovery

youll need a computer with ADB and a launcher apk such as apex, go launch, zeam, or if someone gives you the stock g'zgear one, but you will be able to restore that from titanium once you reboot

put the launcher file on your sd with an adapter, or this command from adb:
$ adb push <application_name>.apk /sdcard/
from a command prompt with ADB run the following
adb shell remount rw
adb pull /sdcard/<application_name>.apk
adb push <application_name>.apk /system/app
adb chmod 644 /system/app/<application_name>.apk
adb shell remount ro

if that fails... and if your sd card can mount then youre all good!

Follow these instructions to install a custom recovery from adb:
http://androidforums.com/getitnowmarketing/330813-all-one-recovery-thread.html

but instead of using the phone's mass storage, remove the SD and put it in an adapter to place the files on it and unzip. as long as your phone is capable of mounting the SD you will be able to use adb to install the recovery and flash a nandroid, now unfortunately you'll need someones GB nandroid, however there are a few around you could ask for just a system and boot image and you should be up and running!


unless of course a system reset makes you lose root, then you might be SOL

 

[jova33]

Does factory reset uncheck USB debugging?

 

[mRahmani]

Thanks Spike, I'll give it another shot over the course of the week. I'm pretty fond of the phone and would like to keep it around!