Help Help save a Desire that will not boot

[allmandring]

Hi there!

my girlfriend bought a HTC Desire last week on Ebay. When it arrived it worked great, she installed a few random things on it from Market like Angry Birds Beta and stuff like that. We went to sleep and when we woke up in the morning it was stuck on the pink circular rotating thingy shown when the Desire boots. Except it doesn't rotate - it just sits there stuck for hours until the battery dies.

I can get into the recovery screen by holding the volume down button, but suggested restoring the system by clearing storage and installed stuff does nothing - it would just return me to the stuck pink circular thingy.

When going into the recovery screen it briefly flashes something like:
HBOOT
SD Checking
Loading...[PB99DIAG.zip]
No Image!
Loading...[PB99DIAG.nbh]
No Image or Wrong Image!
Loading...[PB99IMG.zip]
No Image!
Loading...[PB99IMG.nbh]
No Image or Wrong Image!

(might not be exactly like that (the image names at least) since I found this on another forum - but it flashes by too quickly to read)

Now although I'm pretty PC savvy I'm totally new to the Android platform and don't really know where to start or the terminology even. Can somebody please explain what's going on so I know at least where to start searching? Is this known as bricking?

I thought it would be pretty easy to fix - just flash it with a new ROM, replace all software on it and it would boot right? Well every guide I found so far states that I'm supposed to turn on "USB logging" on the Android phone first to connect to it and flash it - but how am I supposed to do this if the Desire will not boot into the OS?

I've tried Unrevoked on Mac but it just sits there waiting for the connection (probably the usb logging part). I've installed HTC Sync on XP - but its the same thing.

Any other ideas how to make it right? Or at least diagnose the problem and point me in the right direction?

To my knowledge the phone is not rooted or something (would probably say so in the emergency screen right?) - there are just those 4 standard options there.

Is it possible to maybe upload a completely new ROM through the sd card? How would I do that? Is this supposed to work together with recovery in the emergency screen? Because recovery on it own doesn't do anything but also return me to the circular stuck thingy.

Please help!

 

[SUroot]

Is it branded (operator specific logos at boot up etc)? Is it gsm or cdma (does it take a take card)?

If you remove the SD card does it boot? Android 2.1 or 2.2?

 

[jads112]

I have the EXACT same problem.

- T-Mobile HTC Desire
- Rooted via Unrevoked3
- Worked fine and everything
- Booted into recovery and made a backup
- Rebooted
- Boot loop, pink circle, phone goes off then back on, pink circle
- I tried entering HBOOT, can enter HBOOT
- Scroll to RECOVERY - reboots phone when I press power to select
- Wnt to Clear Storage, storage cleared, reboot loop again...
- I have tried ALL combinations of SD card/SIM/Battery
- The biggest problem is I cannot enter recovery because when I do press power to select item it just reboots therefore I cannot reflash ROM...
- I can enter fastboot and go to bootloader/reboot/reboot bootloader/power down

Any help would be apprciated! And if I work it out then I'll let you know too. I am also pretty computer savvy but no idea what to do with regards to the Desire... Stumped at how to reflash without recovery...

Thanks,

Jads

EDIT: Found this: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=695667 it appears you can put that in root of SD and it will go through the RUU (ROM Update Utility)?

 

[SUroot]

If you have an ruu of your branding, the latest version should run when connected in fastboot. Ruu runs from pc. To use a generic one, you would need a goldcard. If you haven't already got one you.may be stuck as you need the desire to.make one