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How do you perform a complete factory reset with stock recovery?

H

horseflesh

Newbie
I need to factory reset my Awe because I stuffed up a file in the system directory and it won't boot, but I am having trouble.

I get to stock recovery by holding down Vol Down and hitting power. In recovery, I choose Wipe Data/Factory Reset. Time passes... but when the process is complete, the phone won't boot. Looks like the system files have not been wiped out and replaced with stock. So... How do I accomplish this? (A bad build.prop is my root problem.)

If there is a way to edit file permissions from stock recovery, that might work too, I think that was my original mistake.
 
Well, I didn't solve the problem, but I went another way and was able to flash a new ROM.

I'd still like to know how to do this, though.
 
I can't help since I don't know any other way of doing a factory reset, but would you share how you flashed a new ROM when your phone wouldn't boot?
 
Good point, I should explain.

My core problem was that I put a bad build.prop file into the system directory. It was a flashable fix for the OTA update nag, but since I didn't have TWRP installed, I couldn't flash it. I had to extract the contents of the fix and put it in manually... and I screwed up. I did not set permissions on the updated file. This was enough to make the boot freeze.

Frozen phone, stock recovery, factory reset doesn't touch the system partition, what to do?

I found out that I could install TWRP by booting the phone to FTM mode and using this tool: http://androidforums.com/awe-all-things-root/850926-fix-soft-brick-one-click-fix.html

That only installs TWRP temporarily, but that was enough. I was able to properly flash the update, and then the phone would boot.

Once the phone booted I decided to update ROMs since I had blown away all the user data anyway.

Lessons learned: always install TWRP, don't install files from a flashable zip manually if you're gonna make a mistake!

(I think if I had TWRP to start with, I could have gone directly to a new ROM with the sideload method... The phone doesn't have to be bootable if you can get to TWRP. I didn't really know what TWRP was good for until I went through this, I don't do much to my phone besides rooting for the sake of ad blocking.)
 
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