[Q] Bootloader borked, can't use fastboot - can it be salvaged? - Nexus 7 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Can't find an example of this happening to anyone else, but it seems to be a difficult problem to search for since any possible fix appears to require that the problem I'm having not exist.
Basics: bootloader is unlocked, but otherwise everything is stock, NOT rooted.
Had a hard lockup a couple of days ago and any attempt to reboot would just get stuck at the Google logo. Even waiting for over an hour, it just wouldn't move on. Went into the bootloader, which was also acting weird, hanging up and just not working properly. A search indicated that the best thing to do is just grab the factory images from Google and use fastboot to re-flash the bootloader image (checksum was verified before I attempted to flash). That process went ok and "fastboot reboot-bootloader" sent to a nice and properly working bootloader. I used fastboot again to load up TWRP (via the "boot" command) to do a backup, and then rebooted back into the bootloader from TWRP. At this point it went fubar.
The screen will show just the up and down arrows for a couple of seconds, then the entire screen goes grey. Neither fastboot nor adb will see the tablet when in the bootloader and my only option seems to be to just hold the power button down and force a restart.
Luckily the original problem did get fixed with this process and it boots up fine now and works perfectly otherwise. adb does work fine when not in the bootloader, and I can use adb to restart into recovery which also works fine. It's just that the bootloader gives me nothing usable.
I'm not going to try and RMA for something that was obviously my fault, and the tablet works fine now except for the bootloader, but I'm sure that I'll want/need it fixed at some point. Does anyone have any suggestions for attempting to fix this, or am I just screwed?

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[Q] Tried reverting to Kitkat, screwed something up

After a whole 24 hours of using Lollipop and found the phone was unusable (phone would ring, but not give any other indication of an incoming call) in some ways, and lacking in other features, I decided it was time to go back to 4.4.4.
So I followed the instructions from Google(/android/nexus/images) , downloaded the 4.4.4 Occam factory image, and installed Minimal ADB and Fastboot. It took a while playing with drivers to get the device to show properly with the adb devices command, but it finally did, and was able to command it to reboot bootloader.
Everything still looking good. Still following the instructions, did the oem unlock, wiping it to factory settings, and then ran flash-all.bat. It went through that, the phone restarted into the bootloader, this time showing the Kitkat loading images instead of Lollipop, I think I'm home free.
I'm in the bootloader again now and notice adb devices is no longer showing the phone, so I try oem lock, and the phone screen updates to show locked. Odd, but it worked. I now used the volume buttons to select power off, and power off the device.
Powering on, the phone shows the Kitkat white "Google" on the screen, but that's it. I try powering it off again, and it restarts itself. I try getting it to display in adb devices, and nothing. The phone has been sitting at this screen for half an hour now with no change.
Using volume down+power I'm able to get it back into fastboot mode, but nothing will work from there. Start, recovery mode, and power off all result in the same thing: phone looks like it's turning on, but sits forever just showing the white "Google" on the screen. Abd devices still shows no devices attached, yet the phone still accepts oem lock and unlock commands, so I tried to run flash-all.bat again, but it just gives a 'command write failed(unknown error)'.
I'm kinda stumped now, and I haven't been able to find anything on this kind of issue. I'm hoping someone might have some experience or be able to suggest something my limited experience hasn't exposed me to before.
EyebrowZing said:
After a whole 24 hours of using Lollipop and found the phone was unusable (phone would ring, but not give any other indication of an incoming call) in some ways, and lacking in other features, I decided it was time to go back to 4.4.4.
So I followed the instructions from Google(/android/nexus/images) , downloaded the 4.4.4 Occam factory image, and installed Minimal ADB and Fastboot. It took a while playing with drivers to get the device to show properly with the adb devices command, but it finally did, and was able to command it to reboot bootloader.
Everything still looking good. Still following the instructions, did the oem unlock, wiping it to factory settings, and then ran flash-all.bat. It went through that, the phone restarted into the bootloader, this time showing the Kitkat loading images instead of Lollipop, I think I'm home free.
I'm in the bootloader again now and notice adb devices is no longer showing the phone, so I try oem lock, and the phone screen updates to show locked. Odd, but it worked. I now used the volume buttons to select power off, and power off the device.
Powering on, the phone shows the Kitkat white "Google" on the screen, but that's it. I try powering it off again, and it restarts itself. I try getting it to display in adb devices, and nothing. The phone has been sitting at this screen for half an hour now with no change.
Using volume down+power I'm able to get it back into fastboot mode, but nothing will work from there. Start, recovery mode, and power off all result in the same thing: phone looks like it's turning on, but sits forever just showing the white "Google" on the screen. Abd devices still shows no devices attached, yet the phone still accepts oem lock and unlock commands, so I tried to run flash-all.bat again, but it just gives a 'command write failed(unknown error)'.
I'm kinda stumped now, and I haven't been able to find anything on this kind of issue. I'm hoping someone might have some experience or be able to suggest something my limited experience hasn't exposed me to before.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ADB needs a booted up android to work, it wont work in bootloader mode. Another requirement is that usb debugging must be enabled in dev options. Fastboot works only in bootloader mode and doesnt need usb debugging.
Download wugfresh toolkit.. Use it to restore your device and DISABLE FORCE FLASH
Sent from my Nexus 4 using XDA Free mobile app

Hard brick? Can't boot to recovery

So I think my Nexus 6P is hard bricked, but I just want to be sure before I issue an RMA.
I was on a plane flying over the Pyrenees and opened the camera to take a picture. The phone froze and started rebooting, which I found strange really strange as it never happened before. Since then, it wasn't able to boot again. The phone is completely stock, running 7.0, apart from the unlocked bootloader that I had unlocked the day I bought it (March/April this year). The phone shows the unlocked bootloader warning, goes to the white Google logo with the padlock below, and then goes back to the unlocked bootloader.
From here I can Power + Vol down and get to bootloader, which I thought would leave me to recover the phone somehow. I know my way around nexus devices so the first thing I tried was scrolling in the bootloader menu and boot into stock recovery. No luck, unlocked bootloader warning, white Google logo and loop. Tried "Factory" in the menu and the same thing happens.
So then I've gained access to a computer and tried downloading a twrp recovery and boot into it. Ran fastboot boot twrp.img, the phone tries to boot again, and the same thing happens. Boot loop. After that, I've downloaded the latest stock Google images and I've run a different set of things, all with no luck. Booting directly from fastboot into stock recovery doesn't work. Flashing stock recovery and trying to enter stock recovery via bootloader menu doesn't work. I've erased and flashed bootloader, radio, and all other partitions (system, boot, recovery, vendor and cache), without any luck. The fastboot commands return "OKAY" but it seems like it's doing nothing.
I am out of ideas, I always thought I would be able to recover a Nexus phone as long as I could reach bootloader mode, but I guess I'm wrong. Should I RMA, or is there anything else I should try?
Thank you.
You say you "Ran fastboot boot twrp.img." Try to do fastboot flash recovery twrp.img from fastboot and see if you can get twrp working. Then try to flash a ROM
vladniko said:
You say you "Ran fastboot boot twrp.img." Try to do fastboot flash recovery twrp.img from fastboot and see if you can get twrp working. Then try to flash a ROM
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Done both, actually. Tried to boot directly from a fastboot command and then tried flashing the actual recovery image to the phone. No luck in both. Never able to get into twrp.
I had the same thing happening to me. I was also using stock 7.0 with an unlocked bootloader. My screen froze during webbrowsing and had to restart the phone. Once booting up, it never came past the Google logo. Getting into recovery didn't work either, just started looping again. Tried to flash twrp, got in there after many tries. Tried flashing all kind of android versions but nothing helped. After that I decided to just use my warrenty and send the phone to the store. They replaced the motherboard and are now sending it back.
hubhib said:
I had the same thing happening to me. I was also using stock 7.0 with an unlocked bootloader. My screen froze during webbrowsing and had to restart the phone. Once booting up, it never came past the Google logo. Getting into recovery didn't work either, just started looping again. Tried to flash twrp, got in there after many tries. Tried flashing all kind of android versions but nothing helped. After that I decided to just use my warrenty and send the phone to the store. They replaced the motherboard and are now sending it back.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep, I gave up already. Tried all different sort of thing, and was never able to get into any kind of recovery, let alone Android itself.
Called Google support yesterday evening, a replacement is on its way already.
eddie_gordo said:
Yep, I gave up already. Tried all different sort of thing, and was never able to get into any kind of recovery, let alone Android itself.
Called Google support yesterday evening, a replacement is on its way already.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Needed the RMA anyways. If you had an unlocked bootloader and formatted each partition and then flashed each partition with the corresponding image file from the latest factory image, it was shot. It happens from time to time. Happened to mine as well. 2 or 3 days after I finally got it (pre ordered on launch) I rebooted the phone at some point 2 or 3 days later and it just never turned back on. 100% bone stock. Not even an unlocked bootloader. Nothing would happen when I plugged it into a PC, left it on AC power for hours and hours and still nothing. Holding power 10-15 seconds, nada. RMA'd and luckily this one's been perfect ever since. Good luck with the new device!

Is my bootloader broken?

I've an old HD 6 which I won't really miss if it gets broken, so I like to mess about with it. It has previously had TWRPS working well, until I allowed the upgrade to Fire OS 5.6.1.0 (which, in itself, works fine). Now, if I try adb reboot recovery, it will reboot, but instead of going into the twrps screen, it reboots again, and just starts up as normal. The same thing happens with the up key/power buttons combination. If I do adb reboot bootloader, I get the fastboot prompt, but any attempt to send anything from adb gives a 'locked hw' message. Kingroot will no longer root it (no strategy). Are my days of experimenting with this thing over?
I have the same issue currently. So far I haven't found any ways to fix recovery so I can get things working correctly again. I can't even factory reset the device because recovery doesn't boot. The device is usable, but I'd like to be able to get back into recovery. The ISO unbricking method doesn't work on 5.6, so we're out of luck on that front. I'm hoping that we can get the new unbricking method working for out device.
Thanks for the reply. At least I know it isn't just me I'll probably stick it in the drawer for now, in case I need to use (or just play with) FireFly.

Can't boot into recovery or bootloader

Alright, I just got my Nexus 6P up and running again and wanted it to be my secondary phone for work, but now I'm facing an issue I'm not familiar with.
So, the phone works just fine, I have PureNexus 7.1.0 installed on it along with Magisk and I am sure I have TWRP installed on it as well. But I'm not 100% sure.
The issue is that I can't get my phone to boot into bootloader or recovery mode. As soon as I try to enter bootloader or recovery I only get a black screen, nothing else.
To boot back into the phone I have to keep holding my power button down and enter my charging cable or my PC and with some fiddling around it boots just fine into OS.
So, how can I, or, how am I supposed to fix something like this? I can't get adb to work since I can't get into bootloader. Although it still finds my device when I enter the black screen when using adb reboot bootloader command but it won't do anything with the device. So, if I want to install a new recovery it won't do anything, just saying "error: device not found".
Edit: I just want to add that if I do a wipe (factory reset) nothing happens. The device turns off, I insert the charging cable and spam the power button and it just boots like nothing happens, everything remains on the phone.

Nexus 10 boot stuck on google logo... bootloader ok, but recovery does same thing.

I replaced my GNEX10 battery last january. Aside from the battery calibration being off... (which eventually corrected itself!) it's been working fine. As of late it had rebooted itself while I was using it a few times. A few days ago, it had enough battery such that I left it on overnight. I picked it up the next morning and the notification lamp was flashing so I knew it was still on. I tried to wake it up without success. Usually a quick tap on the power button should do it. Nothing. So I rebooted... and on the google logo it stuck. I knew that a factory reset was probably in order since I didn't do it when I replaced the batter... I got it into the recovery screen... but I could not get the menu. I likely didn't press the right volume rocker. Then I tried again... booted to the bootloader, and selected recovery. This time, and since, only the google logo comes up. No andy on his back with "no command". It just tries to boot into something. I can't do a factory reset this way.
I tried the Nexus Root Toolkit. I can only get it to recognize the device if it's in the bootloader... when I try to use it to boot to recovery, same thing and the NRT says waiting for device... and gets no further. I tried to use it to flash (stock?) recovery but the N10 just sits there on the twrp logo screen and nothing more after temporarily booting into twrp. Just keeps saying "waiting for device"
Anyone have any suggestions! Getting seriously bummed!
So one more data point... I manually rebooted into the bootloader after trying to flash the stock recovery using the NRT. Then it appeared to flash the recovery image.... here is the bit of the log where it ended up:
Checking Fastboot Connectivity
fastboot devices
R32CB04GHGT fastboot
+ Fastboot Device Connected
Flashing Stock Recovery to RECOVERY partition...
fastboot flash recovery "C:\usr\NRT\data\Recovery_Stock\recovery_stock_mantaray_5.1.1_LMY49J.img"
Temporarily Booting TWRP...
fastboot boot "C:\usr\NRT\data\Recovery_Custom\TWRP\twrp-3.0.2-0-manta.img"
Flashing 'undo-perm-recovery-signed.zip'...
Waiting for your device...
That's where it ended up... not getting any further. Once again, attempting to boot into recovery gets it stuck on the Google logo.
How screwed am I? Is there a thread somewhere in the forum anyone can point me at?
Well, in spite of the crickets... I understand. I've managed to resurrect my Nexus 10. Alas there are no good contemporary replacements. The last so-called nexus table google put out there was too damn expensive in the first place and they seem to have abandoned the tablet market to others.
So the key question here: So long as I can get this tablet into the bootloader is it generally possible to reflash a stock image? I'd like to know of any types of caveats etc. The mystery I have still though is: How or why did my N10 get into this state (of of only being able to get to the Google screen) in the first place? I didn't have any questionable apps installed etc. I was totally on stock. One thing that did happen a week or two prior to my tablet going belly up... was somehow the thing lost my google account info and gmail had none of my accounts in place... it was very odd.
I did have to wipe the system because evidently you can't flash anything onto a locked bootloader (the Nexus Root Toolkit by wugfresh is up to date so far as the N10 is concerned at least). I know I could have resorted to using fastboot.exe and the adb directly but this was a touch easier. Alas the backup options for it say you need an unlocked bootloader which seems to be a chicken/egg issue if you've always been on stock.... so it goes.

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