Database Users

[Q] Lucky recovery / Please help a father keep his daughter happy

Hello experts,
I'll try to keep this long story short. Please forgive any mistakes in terminology. I'm an old fart trying to keep up. Bountiful thanks to anyone willing to offer help and advice.
A while back I rooted and flashed my Iconia 500 with a rom called Minimalist 3.1. I believe I rooted initially in order to use NTFS mount, so my daughter could stream movies from a large external passport drive. I need to keep the tablet at 3.0/3.1 because HC, ICS and JLB all break an app I use to stream TV from Hava Monsoon (Slingbox-like) device.
A month or so ago, the tablet stopped booting properly from full power off. I didn't know it at the time, but it was getting stuck in APX mode. Eventually it somehow booted again and I haven't powered off since (just charge as necessary).
I don't use the tab much, but my daughter does and all of her Minecraft, Dragon Vale, etc. game data is important to her.
Yesterday, she brought the tab to me and no matter what I did it wouldn't boot: the power light comes on but the screen stays dark and no vibration. It either must have crashed or run out of battery. I read as much as a I could about being stuck in APX mode, downloaded all the tools I could get my hands on, but nothing worked to recover the tab: not Afterota (this needs ICS I think), not BabSector (returned "failed executing command 16 NvError 0x120002"), not tdv4 (no device attached), not nothing. Proper drivers are loaded, Win7 PC detects an APX device, but ADB servers report no device and communication ultimately fails. I'm guessing this *might* be because I'm still on 3.1, but I don't know.
Anyway, at one point I successfully got the Iconia into download mode (with logo), but rebooting into recovery didn't work. I powered off the device, disconnected from PC, and on a lark tried powering on. Lo and behold it booted normally :victory:
This *could* have been due to using the "dump and save bct option" trick in blackthund3r's APX flash tool, but I tried so many things, I really have no idea.
Here's my question: is this likely to happen again? Does my NvError from BabSector suggest bad RAM or something? Is there anything I can do to insure against another crash in APX mode?
Thanks for reading all that...

It might happen again
mylacuna said:
Hello experts,
I'll try to keep this long story short. Please forgive any mistakes in terminology. I'm an old fart trying to keep up. Bountiful thanks to anyone willing to offer help and advice.
A while back I rooted and flashed my Iconia 500 with a rom called Minimalist 3.1. I believe I rooted initially in order to use NTFS mount, so my daughter could stream movies from a large external passport drive. I need to keep the tablet at 3.0/3.1 because HC, ICS and JLB all break an app I use to stream TV from Hava Monsoon (Slingbox-like) device.
A month or so ago, the tablet stopped booting properly from full power off. I didn't know it at the time, but it was getting stuck in APX mode. Eventually it somehow booted again and I haven't powered off since (just charge as necessary).
I don't use the tab much, but my daughter does and all of her Minecraft, Dragon Vale, etc. game data is important to her.
Yesterday, she brought the tab to me and no matter what I did it wouldn't boot: the power light comes on but the screen stays dark and no vibration. It either must have crashed or run out of battery. I read as much as a I could about being stuck in APX mode, downloaded all the tools I could get my hands on, but nothing worked to recover the tab: not Afterota (this needs ICS I think), not BabSector (returned "failed executing command 16 NvError 0x120002"), not tdv4 (no device attached), not nothing. Proper drivers are loaded, Win7 PC detects an APX device, but ADB servers report no device and communication ultimately fails. I'm guessing this *might* be because I'm still on 3.1, but I don't know.
Anyway, at one point I successfully got the Iconia into download mode (with logo), but rebooting into recovery didn't work. I powered off the device, disconnected from PC, and on a lark tried powering on. Lo and behold it booted normally :victory:
This *could* have been due to using the "dump and save bct option" trick in blackthund3r's APX flash tool, but I tried so many things, I really have no idea.
Here's my question: is this likely to happen again? Does my NvError from BabSector suggest bad RAM or something? Is there anything I can do to insure against another crash in APX mode?
Thanks for reading all that...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well u never know it might happen again. Tell ur daughter to backup her games (a simple Google search on each of the games will tell u how to do so) and if you want to be on HC, then use the stock ROM. The ROM that you used broke my tablet before too.

nelsontky said:
Well u never know it might happen again. Tell ur daughter to backup her games (a simple Google search on each of the games will tell u how to do so) and if you want to be on HC, then use the stock ROM. The ROM that you used broke my tablet before too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the reply. Happened again this morning. Think the battery died overnight.
Confirmed that the a501 B.bat file in BabSector is what allows me to get it unstuck from ABX mode and boot properly.
Seems the BCT file may be the culprit. No idea to keep it from getting corrupted on shutdown though.

...And now that .bat file isn't even working. Tab is stuck in APX mode and won't come out.

cm 12.1 rom is fine but "System UI has crashed" ;-;

My issue is a little strange but please bare with me.
I have CM 12.1 installed and after the boot up animation and arriving at the home screen I am hit with a "Unfortunately System UI has crashed." This is because I was trying out different CM Themes I was downloading from the play store. Most of them worked fine but one of them just messed everything up and this happened ::crying:
Complications
1. According to my research this issue could be easily resolved with on other android devices that actually have Power and Volume Buttons to enter the Recovery mode upon boot up but as you guys know the MOJO does not.
2. i cannot use my windows 10 pc to force the MOJO to recovery mode because my PC actually has an issue of its own right now where everytime I restart it, it wont boot back up until like the next day after all the power has drained out of it so I can actually never turn it off. And because of this I cannot do the thing where I have to restart my Windows 10 pc to disable driver signature verification otherwise I could use my PC to fix it.
Everytime before when I flashed roms back and forth from stock and Cm 12.1 I didnt use a PC I just used the MOJO itself.
I do have a physical keyboartd in my arsenal though so if there is a way to force the MOJO into recovery upon bootup with a certain Key combination I dont know about it. It's really crazy to believe that changing the CM themes is actually what screwed my MOJO rather than all the times before I've done so much more risky things on it.
Anyway if you guys can help me I would appreciate it. If not I just am going to cry myself to sleep. My email is [email protected] if you want to get in touch with me if you cant on here. THANKS

wifiwitch987 said:
My issue is a little strange but please bare with me.
I have CM 12.1 installed and after the boot up animation and arriving at the home screen I am hit with a "Unfortunately System UI has crashed." This is because I was trying out different CM Themes I was downloading from the play store. Most of them worked fine but one of them just messed everything up and this happened ::crying:
Complications
1. According to my research this issue could be easily resolved with on other android devices that actually have Power and Volume Buttons to enter the Recovery mode upon boot up but as you guys know the MOJO does not.
2. i cannot use my windows 10 pc to force the MOJO to recovery mode because my PC actually has an issue of its own right now where everytime I restart it, it wont boot back up until like the next day after all the power has drained out of it so I can actually never turn it off. And because of this I cannot do the thing where I have to restart my Windows 10 pc to disable driver signature verification otherwise I could use my PC to fix it.
Everytime before when I flashed roms back and forth from stock and Cm 12.1 I didnt use a PC I just used the MOJO itself.
I do have a physical keyboartd in my arsenal though so if there is a way to force the MOJO into recovery upon bootup with a certain Key combination I dont know about it. It's really crazy to believe that changing the CM themes is actually what screwed my MOJO rather than all the times before I've done so much more risky things on it.
Anyway if you guys can help me I would appreciate it. If not I just am going to cry myself to sleep. My email is [email protected] if you want to get in touch with me if you cant on here. THANKS
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think first I'd replace the PC. If that's not practical, try to boot it to this .iso once you've burned it to CD:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/62oh30gzjzvsbew/sulu2-528.007-android.iso
Download the recovery.img to root's home, connect to the MOJO and turn it on, open a terminal and issue:
# fastboot -i 0x0738 boot openrecovery-twrp-2.8.2.0-mojo.img
Should boot the MOJO into the recovery. If you can't get your PC to boot properly I think you're OOL. You might look into getting a used PC, one that's out-of-date or simply has a bad (or no) HDD, that you can pick up cheap, and use this simple Linux distro (Puppy Linux it is, with fastboot and adb binaries installed by me) for an OS. But be careful, Linux is addictive, and you may find yourself in the same predicament as I am: losing patience with the bloated domineering Windows OS.

Hi thank you for the response. Replacing my PC is on my list but it is also easy to just go on without turning it on but i look to renew ym warranty with Alienware and having them fix or replace it, even though they should do it for free because it seem to be an issue alot of people are having with the early Alienware Alphas.
Anyways my PC is an alienware Alpha it doesnt have a disk drive. Can I just put this .iso on a usb flash drive instead of a cd-rom ? If I can do I have to format the flash drive to a certain format ?
Thanks dude

wifiwitch987 said:
Hi thank you for the response. Replacing my PC is on my list but it is also easy to just go on without turning it on but i look to renew ym warranty with Alienware and having them fix or replace it, even though they should do it for free because it seem to be an issue alot of people are having with the early Alienware Alphas.
Anyways my PC is an alienware Alpha it doesnt have a disk drive. Can I just put this .iso on a usb flash drive instead of a cd-rom ? If I can do I have to format the flash drive to a certain format ?
Thanks dude
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can flash this (or most other linux live-CD .iso files) to a USB drive with a utility called Unetbootin. IIRC it's available for Windows, Mac, or Linux. I have no idea whether your Alpha is capable of booting to it, though. Any chance of borrowing another PC, maybe one a bit more traditional? Your little brother's old slow laptop maybe? FWIW I just finally managed to get fastboot and adb working on a Chromebook with an ARMv7 processor, but I doubt you want to go through that much work. Does the Alpha have an Intel processor?

N7 2012 [WiFi] Grouper - Bricked or the Flash Memory just failed?

Ok, so to start off I'm very familiar with Nexus Root Toolkit an its many graceful features & its ablity to bring the N7 from the brink of destruction (Soft -Brick) "AS LONG AS YOUR PC CAN DETECT THE DEVICE".
Here's the issue.. I was in TWRP (Multi-ROM) just renaming 1 of the Secondary ROMs to more friendly names, I hadn't done any flashing of any zips or roms for a few boots, I just booted into Recovery to do some renaming of Secondary ROMs that I had installed a few nights before but I had been in an out of several different one's just making sure they were all working so anyway.. after I was done renaming, I reboot the system & it just went F'ing blank.. now nothing.. there's no back light, no bootlogo, nothing happens at all when I plug in the charging or hold the power button with or w/out the vol-+ keys, I've checked the battery connection, it was snug but I removed it over night.. still nothing, I'm just clueless.. Before we jump on the NRT do a factory wipe & restore, when I plug it into Windows it instantly pops up with the "Device has Malfunctioned" not the "installing adb drivers" or anything like it has so many times before.. either Im over thinking this an the answer is so simple Im blinded by rage over how much this p1sses me off that it was working fine one moment an then just reboots to blank nothingness.. even if I take the battery out an try plugging it directing into the pc via the OEM usb cable it gives the same error with or w/o the battery in .. the toolkit cant even see it cause windows cant establish what the hell it is.. And yes I've tried installing every android driver possible.. the N7 was primarily for my wife to read e-books on.. so i rarely played with it.. an it was new sealed in the box just bought last year around this time so i can't believe the Flash Memory is shot already, if anyone could throw me their 2 cents it would be greatly appreciated , this is so frustrating but I think its BRICKED.. or at least some tiny flash chip is toast..
its the - N7 2012 Grouper WIFI Only model -
p.s. I apologize for the slight harsh tone, I'm just upset with this issue.. I got this particular tablet with the knowledge an understanding that it was the (almost) un-brickable tablet, yet I managed to do it.. If by some chance I get it to fire up, I will definitely let ya know.. But I have read alot of posts an my guess is somehow I managed to mess up the nvflash an now the memory chip or something is corrupt beyond a NRT Factory reset.. but again it was at almost full battery when i rebooted from within the TWRP Menus & I wasn't flashing anything previous to me being in my Main Rom which was stock rooted 4.4.4 de-bloated, playing a game called Empire 4 Kingdoms for like a 1/2 (just getting my daily's) before i decided to check out my Secondary Roms an rename a few because I wanted to started playing around with them to test how the same game played on different flavors or Android..

phnxnvrdies said:
Ok, so to start off I'm very familiar with Nexus Root Toolkit an its many graceful features & its ablity to bring the N7 from the brink of destruction (Soft -Brick) "AS LONG AS YOUR PC CAN DETECT THE DEVICE".
Here's the issue.. I was in TWRP (Multi-ROM) just renaming 1 of the Secondary ROMs to more friendly names, I hadn't done any flashing of any zips or roms for a few boots, I just booted into Recovery to do some renaming of Secondary ROMs that I had installed a few nights before but I had been in an out of several different one's just making sure they were all working so anyway.. after I was done renaming, I reboot the system & it just went F'ing blank.. now nothing.. there's no back light, no bootlogo, nothing happens at all when I plug in the charging or hold the power button with or w/out the vol-+ keys, I've checked the battery connection, it was snug but I removed it over night.. still nothing, I'm just clueless.. Before we jump on the NRT do a factory wipe & restore, when I plug it into Windows it instantly pops up with the "Device has Malfunctioned" not the "installing adb drivers" or anything like it has so many times before.. either Im over thinking this an the answer is so simple Im blinded by rage over how much this p1sses me off that it was working fine one moment an then just reboots to blank nothingness.. even if I take the battery out an try plugging it directing into the pc via the OEM usb cable it gives the same error with or w/o the battery in .. the toolkit cant even see it cause windows cant establish what the hell it is.. And yes I've tried installing every android driver possible.. the N7 was primarily for my wife to read e-books on.. so i rarely played with it.. an it was new sealed in the box just bought last year around this time so i can't believe the Flash Memory is shot already, if anyone could throw me their 2 cents it would be greatly appreciated , this is so frustrating but I think its BRICKED.. or at least some tiny flash chip is toast..
its the - N7 2012 Grouper WIFI Only model -
p.s. I apologize for the slight harsh tone, I'm just upset with this issue.. I got this particular tablet with the knowledge an understanding that it was the (almost) un-brickable tablet, yet I managed to do it.. If by some chance I get it to fire up, I will definitely let ya know.. But I have read alot of posts an my guess is somehow I managed to mess up the nvflash an now the memory chip or something is corrupt beyond a NRT Factory reset.. but again it was at almost full battery when i rebooted from within the TWRP Menus & I wasn't flashing anything previous to me being in my Main Rom which was stock rooted 4.4.4 de-bloated, playing a game called Empire 4 Kingdoms for like a 1/2 (just getting my daily's) before i decided to check out my Secondary Roms an rename a few because I wanted to started playing around with them to test how the same game played on different flavors or Android..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
UPDATE STATUS - If I plug it into the pc without the battery i get a windows driver install box that says "Installing APX..." does this indicate the NVFlash is corrupt or is there a way to get out of apx mode.. im not familiar with that mode .. only ADB & fastboot..
Update 2 - After reading lots, I've come to conclude its hardbricked, must have had an error in memory or whatever.. its stuck in APX mode so im going to replace the whole MB with a working 32GB [model me370t] & start over .. maybe ill not install so many ROMS via multirom.. just a few - THREAD BE CLOSED - I'm done here, good luck to anyone with similar results

Unable to hack Asus Zenfone Laser 2 [ZE550KL - Z00L - Z00LD]

Hi to all.
I landed on XDA because I am not able to hack my Asus Zenfone Laser 2 dual-sim (ZE550KL, which seems to be also called as Z00L or Z00LD... I don't know why... ?!? ). Actually I'm very new on smartphone hacking, so I did my best recently to understand what "rooting", "recovery", "brick" etc mean.
I tried to enter this world because my phone gets gradually very slow as I use it and so I supposed that erasing the pre-installed applications and overclocking it would help, possibly installing a lighter and more performing custom rom. In order to do this I read that in short I have to unlock the boot loader, root the phone and then eventually install a custom rom. In fact I suppose that getting root privileges should already do the job by keeping the original rom, unistall all unwanted apps and eventually overclocking it. Is that correct?
However, the problems I found on my way are the following two:
I've not been able to follow those procedures on Linux. In detail, I'm not able to use "fastboot boot" instruction because it gets stuck on "waiting for any device". The device is listed and allowed when running "adb devices", the boot had been unlocked previously, the phone is in debug mode etc... but the problem is still there despite I've been trying with both the adb package included in the repositries and the one downloaded from the related google page. I've been told it may be a matter of USB drivers, so I also installed the android studio package thinking it would help, but I was wrong. I'm quite confused on this, despite I do hope I can hack my phone using my favourite operating system (I'm a Linux user since 2006). If you do not feel like helping on this then I will try on Windows.
After trying the same procedures on Windows 10, I realised that the Android Usb drivers released by Google did not work. I had to install the proprietary ASUS USB Drivers from the official website and only then I was able to overcome on Windows the same "waiting for any device" I had experienced on Linux. However, the phone "bricks". I suppose this should be the technical term used in this field to tell that the phone gets stuck for hours on the boot animation. I tried several times to reboot it, but each time the same story.
Maybe the problem on Linux is that I do not have the proper Android Device Usb drivers installed. In this case, how to solve the problem taking into account that ASUS only released the drivers for Windows?
RECAP: I have my phone bricked now (Android is unable to reboot, but I can do access both to the Power+VolumeUP menu (by the way, what's the name of this menu? Fast boot?) and the Power+VolumeDOWN menu (by the way, what's the name of this menu? Recovery boot?)
So sorry for the long story.
Hope you can help.
Thanks for your attention and best regards.

Uhm... no replies till now?

i dont know how you get this kind of trouble, maybe try other computer? , im using wondows 10, download small package of of fastboot driver and adb driver, flash twrp using fastboot command. all done. then i make full backup using twrp, next flash magisk .now i have root access, any problem or bootloop i just restore the full backup that work.
---------- Post added at 04:53 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:22 PM ----------
i see a lot of this zen2 laser got bricked on this general forum , you should read some more if that could help

When I had this device, I remember booting a temporary recovery TWRP and rooted it in that recovery. Then once I got rooted, I installed TWRP app and installed a permanent recovery from within the TWRP app, which needed root of course. Then I got everything working.
You can try booting on a temporary TWRP using fastboot then flash supersu or magisk or whatever rooting client you want. Though, I think you need an unlocked bootloader. I'm sure there's a guide around here somewhere

I'm using a Z00T and just installed LineageOS yesterday using Windows 10, following a guide by Android Authority and LineageOS.
Volume Up + Power = Fastboot
Volume Down + Power = Recovery
Sounds like you can get into Fastboot, so I'm wondering if maybe you can use it to flash the recovery image??? (I'm not a dev in any form; try this at own risk)
I'm assuming you unlocked the bootloader already...
In the directory where all your images are, perhaps try flashing the recovery with the following, where RECOVERY.img is whatever you may have renamed the TWRP image to be:
Code:
fastboot flash recovery RECOVERY.img
After it's finished flashing, turn off the phone, then reboot into recovery mode with Volume Down + Power.

Something Similar happened with my phone and looking for answer
Hi All,
I'm new to this but do some hands on reading these forums. Recently i don't know how but my phone continuously boot into Fast-Boot mode. If I try to push some zip file as mentioned i'm getting error related to partition. "failed to write partition."
Can someone help me out with this.
Thank in advance.
CerealKiIIel said:
Hi to all.
I landed on XDA because I am not able to hack my Asus Zenfone Laser 2 dual-sim (ZE550KL, which seems to be also called as Z00L or Z00LD... I don't know why... ?!? ). Actually I'm very new on smartphone hacking, so I did my best recently to understand what "rooting", "recovery", "brick" etc mean.
I tried to enter this world because my phone gets gradually very slow as I use it and so I supposed that erasing the pre-installed applications and overclocking it would help, possibly installing a lighter and more performing custom rom. In order to do this I read that in short I have to unlock the boot loader, root the phone and then eventually install a custom rom. In fact I suppose that getting root privileges should already do the job by keeping the original rom, unistall all unwanted apps and eventually overclocking it. Is that correct?
However, the problems I found on my way are the following two:
I've not been able to follow those procedures on Linux. In detail, I'm not able to use "fastboot boot" instruction because it gets stuck on "waiting for any device". The device is listed and allowed when running "adb devices", the boot had been unlocked previously, the phone is in debug mode etc... but the problem is still there despite I've been trying with both the adb package included in the repositries and the one downloaded from the related google page. I've been told it may be a matter of USB drivers, so I also installed the android studio package thinking it would help, but I was wrong. I'm quite confused on this, despite I do hope I can hack my phone using my favourite operating system (I'm a Linux user since 2006). If you do not feel like helping on this then I will try on Windows.
After trying the same procedures on Windows 10, I realised that the Android Usb drivers released by Google did not work. I had to install the proprietary ASUS USB Drivers from the official website and only then I was able to overcome on Windows the same "waiting for any device" I had experienced on Linux. However, the phone "bricks". I suppose this should be the technical term used in this field to tell that the phone gets stuck for hours on the boot animation. I tried several times to reboot it, but each time the same story.
Maybe the problem on Linux is that I do not have the proper Android Device Usb drivers installed. In this case, how to solve the problem taking into account that ASUS only released the drivers for Windows?
RECAP: I have my phone bricked now (Android is unable to reboot, but I can do access both to the Power+VolumeUP menu (by the way, what's the name of this menu? Fast boot?) and the Power+VolumeDOWN menu (by the way, what's the name of this menu? Recovery boot?)
So sorry for the long story.
Hope you can help.
Thanks for your attention and best regards.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

hey I have the same issue im on windows 10 and asus hasn't realeased drivers for asus zenfone laser connectivity so It wont show up no matter what I do, and the windows 7 drivers cant be used.

BlondebigboobsIRL said:
hey I have the same issue im on windows 10 and asus hasn't realeased drivers for asus zenfone laser connectivity so It wont show up no matter what I do, and the windows 7 drivers cant be used.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm using Z00T and Windows 10. Had no issues using the Android Authority and LineageOS guides.

These guides are great but I don't want to lose my data by formatting my bootlooping device, and the drivers asus gives do not work with windows 10, the adb drivers work fine but the asus drivers do not.

help with V20 H918 twrp instead of dl-mode, no keyboard in 7.0

edit:
problem solved, got the h918 up and running all right with download mode flashed back on, recent twrp on recovery,
20H and root.
this was just impossible for people with little knowledge like me. what helped in the end was a huge bunch of luck and reading reading reading. for hours and days. will now create complete guide for REAL helpless people (like me) that want just a rooted phone with twrp. thx to all the genius people that made so much possible here.
==================================================================================================
hi,
hope someone can help me with this since im struggling for weeks now.
got a H918, managed to unlock bootloader with linuxbootstick on laptop since it wont run on pc,
and got twrp on it with runningnaked whateveritis.
then i completewiped it, and... i cant remember ! somehow i got android working, but i couldnt restart into downloadmode. bcuz downloadmode is now twrp. i cant remember to have installed twrp as downloadmode.
also i dont have a keyboard anymore in android. first i wondered why playstore wanted to force me to speak to it, couldnt explain, then i noticed there is no keyboard present (i didnt delete it) ok fk it, complete wipe, restored backup of a fully functional OS (10p it should be i think) no keyboard present again AHA. i mean, i didnt make a bu without a keyboard present. so now i dont know whats going on. had a very hard time to have the phone being recognized by pc for running LGUP and downgrading from 20H to 10P, not possible now anymore. tried cables, ports, different picturetransferprotocol/mtp/midi etc. fastbootmode/twrp (downloadmode, in which it worked before is not accessible anymore)
i just cant make the phone being recognized by pc or laptop anymore. only way to get to twrp, is disconnect
usb-cable, turn phone off, hold volUP put in usb cable, yea, thats the way to get into downloadmode, now it starts into twrp. when holding volDOWN and plug in usb cable it starts into fastboot mode.
dont know what to do now.
when rebooting from twrp into twrp i get the NO COMMAND screen with dead android robot. i had a hard time with my v10, now with a little more experience, i just dont know what to do anymore. nothing will work, android deletes the keyboard FOR NO REASON and saves this into the twrp backup afterwards, yea ridiculous, i know.
what is this shlt? what can i do? i want a phone running rooted with magisk, lucky patcher and poweramp, thats not too much of request. someone got any ideas?
thx