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Help Stuck on HTC boot screen

A

arkwright

Member
Hi everyone...
Complete ageing newbie here so please be gentle.
I've just been given a HTC Desire that can't seem to get past the boot screen.
By doing a bit of research, here's what I know about the phone. The bootloader has been unlocked and it's been rooted. It also has a ROM called MildWild installed I believe.
I have manged to access recovery mode and it says it is running ClockworkMod Recovery v5.0.2.0
If I attempt to activate any of the options in recovery, i.e. 'wipe cache partition', I get taken to a screen showing half an orange circle wearing a top hat if that means anything to anyone.
It doesn't actually do anything else from this point and if I press the power button it just takes me back to the list of options to reboot, apply update from sdcard etc.
The only other thing to add is that the previous owner removed the SD card when he gave me the phone so I'm not sure if it contained information that is needed for the phone to boot.

That's about as much as I can tell you I'm afraid and was wondering if anyone could help me to get the phone working again.
 
Orange circle with hat sounds like something to do with ClockworkMod (think of "A Clockwork Orange" and you'll see the connection). Though I can't think of any reason that shouldn't work, though I never used CWM more recent than about 2.7 on the Desire, since CWM 3.0 was unstable on that phone. It might be worth trying a different recovery if we can't get things working otherwise.

OK, first things first: you confirm that this is the Desire A8181, aka "Bravo"? I have to ask because there are so many "Desire" models from HTC that most of the posts here are for different phones these days. The fact that you mention MildWild makes me fairly confident that you do have the right phone, but just want to be sure.

If you go into the bootloader (reboot phone while pressing and holding the "volume down" key) there will be some writing at the top of the screen (white screen, little green androids at the bottom). If you can tell us what that says it will tell us a lot about the state of the phone. In particular you should look for the word "Bravo" at the top (will confirm phone model), either "S-On" or "S-Off", and the hboot version (especially any pink writing including the word "alpharev"). The software version and baseband should be on that screen somewhere as well, and they will also be useful. When we know this we'll know what our options are.

That phone has been rooted and a custom ROM installed. Is this what you want, or are you OK with stock HTC software? I'll give one warning about that: the Desire has very limited internal storage, so if you are planning on installing any significant number of apps you may be better off rooted, as it gives you more options. If you are OK with stock software then we may be able to do that as a one click operation. However, we'd still need to check the bootloader information first.

If you want to fix the ROM, it might be a matter of working out what the problem is but it might also be simpler to install a new one. Have you tried the factory reset option from recovery? It is possible that there was something vital on the SD card, in which case if a factory reset doesn't get it booting we may need a new ROM. If some apps had been moved partially to SD that might stop it booting, but a reset will fix that. If part of the ROM had been moved there you'll need a new ROM.

One reason I asked about information from the bootloader screen is that one way people worked around the Desire's limited storage was to repartition the internal storage of the device. The text on the bootloader screen (especially anything pink right at the top) will tell us what your current partitioning is, which will be important when choosing a ROM since some ROMs require particular partitionings. This is also important if you wanted to use stock HTC software - if the internal storage has been repartitioned we'd need to change that before the stock software will fit.

Finally, the Desire will need an SD card, so it's worth getting one.
 
Thanks for the reply...

I'll try and cover the information you need. Here's what appears when I go into bootloader:

-Revolutionary-
BRAVO PVT4 SHIP S-OFF
HBOOT - 6.93.1002
MI CROP-051D
TOUCH PANEL - SYNT0101
RADIO - 5.11.05.1B
Aug 10 2010 17:52:18

I've tried a factory reset, but it just keeps going to the Tophat symbol.

I'm happy to install any ROM that will just get the phone working to be honest. I already have an SD card available.
 
OK, so it's S-Off but running stock partitions. Relatively recent Froyo radio though not the very latest. So it shouldn't be too hard to find a ROM that works on that.

The first problem is your recovery not working. So I'd replace that with one that does. 4Ext Touch recovery seems still to be available - there is a direct download link in that thread (look for "(Desire GSM)"). Download that, unzip it and you will find a .img file, which is the recovery. To install that you will need to set up "fastboot" on a computer. There is information about that here, or some that was written for the Desire here. Once you have fastboot set up on the computer, you can install the recovery by doing:

a) Boot into fastboot mode (from off, volume-up and power or volume-down and power then cycle to fastboot option)
b) Connect phone to PC through USB. You should see "FASTBOOT USB" on your phones screen.
c) Open CMD (Start > Run > type "cmd" and press enter)
d) Type "fastboot flash recovery c:\your recovery file name" where c:\your recovery file name is the exact location and name of the recovery file you downloaded.

Then with your new recovery you can try a factory reset and see whether that's enough.

If not, the process to install a ROM is:

a) choose a ROM, and download the zip file to your phone's SD card
b) boot into recovery
c) in recovery do a factory reset (if you haven't already), then install the ROM .zip
d) reboot phone

Been a while since I've looked at Desire ROMs, but you this one (MildWild 5) might be worth a go.

Returning to stock is also possible with your current setup, but I have to go offline now, so not time to describe that at the moment.
 
What happened here? I am keen to know as I have just been given an HTC a8181 similar to above. I am very new to both forum and android stuff only just progressed to a smart phone. I do know about linux enough to get myself out of fair trouble. :)

I have been skimming around in Forum to get a feel for what the HTC Desire a8181 phone can do. I know the lady that was trying to fix it, likely to have rooted it under instructions but did not know anything about rooting (she is very bold). She thought it may be kaput but to me it looks like it is working in terminal mode.

I have ended up experimenting posting, using this Forum post, which is my first post too. Would probably be a good idea to post in a separate new thread.

Before getting pc adb and fastboot installed I tried doing recovery using the phone alone but from memory it always hangs with "Revolutionary in the middle of the screen.

Having pc running fastboot I have managed following information
To me it looks like the basic operating system is missing.

[gert@kde64byTexstar sdk-tools]$ ./fastboot-linux getvar all
(bootloader) version: 0.5
(bootloader) version-bootloader: 6.93.1002
(bootloader) version-baseband: 5.17.05.23
(bootloader) version-cpld: None
(bootloader) version-microp: 051d
(bootloader) version-main: 3.14.405.1
(bootloader) serialno: SH116PL01119
(bootloader) imei: 356409043987638
(bootloader) product: bravo
(bootloader) platform: HBOOT-8x50
(bootloader) modelid: PB9920000
(bootloader) cidnum: HTC__044
(bootloader) battery-status: good
(bootloader) battery-voltage: 3762mV
(bootloader) partition-layout: Generic
(bootloader) security: off
(bootloader) build-mode: SHIP
(bootloader) boot-mode: FASTBOOT
(bootloader) commitno-bootloader: dirty-365c78d6
(bootloader) hbootpreupdate: 11
all: Done!
finished. total time: 0.005s
[gert@kde64byTexstar sdk-tools]$
 
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It's S-Off, so Revolutionary has been run. But you say that you can't enter recovery? If so, installing a new recovery is the first step. 4Ext Touch was the last recovery I used on the Desire - further down that post you'll find a "direct download" link for a version you can flash using fastboot (put phone in fastboot mode, connect to computer via usb, then use the command "fastboot flash recovery recovery.img" to install the recovery). The download seems to be a zip, so I guess the img is inside that.

After that you can use recovery to flash a new ROM. You will find a few in the same forum that the thread above is from.

If you visit the root section of this forum you will find some useful info linked from the "All Things Root Guide" sticky thread. It's all quite old, but then so is the Desire ;)
 
Hadron
Thanks for replying, I made good use of your information above and got the 4extTouch installed. I had a bit of trouble getting it to run until I removed the USB cable and then reboot.

There seem to be something on the phone, but somewhere I read "unrecognised ROM" I guess that means I have to go for a new ROM

$ ./fastboot-linux flash recovery 151025-recovery/recovery.img
sending 'recovery' (3784 KB)...
OKAY [ 0.548s]
writing 'recovery'...
OKAY [ 1.070s]
finished. total time: 1.618s
$
 
If the ROM was OK then it would boot normally. It's worth doing a factory reset (which just wipes user-installed apps, data and settings, does nothing to system software). You can do that using the recovery. But if it won't boot normally after that then a new ROM is needed.
 
Thanks, I have downloaded MildWild5 and will try installing this tomorrow. Getting too late here now. :)

I will put it into USB Storage mode and inspect content from the PC and make sure nothing needing recovery first.
 
Had USB cable connected, and 4ExtTouch running.
I downloaded the MildWild 5 and copied the zip file to the SDDATA partition
Then used the 4ExtTouch to install the zip ROM

When rebooting, first htc shows for 15 seconds or more

Sorry!
The application Status Bar (process.com.android.systemui) has stopped unexpectedly. Please try again

I did 'force close' and the system seems to be installed

Message that no SIM card (correct)

Managed to configure a few thing, Date, Timezone

Then suddenly display turned itself off.

Pushing the power button comes up with the time and request for SIM card and only gives about 5 seconds before turning off again??

Holding the power button on for a few seconds allows a few more options to be displayed but I can not seem to get any further. Menu button no response for example.

I was expecting to be bale to explore a bit without the SIM card. For one thing I would like to connect WiFi to my router and use it as a remote portable display unit. I seem to remember this is quite possible on a Samsung Galaxy

Progress at least and I think the phone will be ok.

Postscript: I should have remembered that the lock needs to be pushed left to right, I am back into normal working situation without the simcard. :rolleyes:
 
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