First of all, lets get something straight. Most people use the term "bricked" improperly. A bricked phone means one thing: your phone won't turn on in any way, shape or form, and there's nothing you can do to fix it. It is, for all intents and purposes, as useful as a brick. A phone stuck in a boot loop is not bricked, nor is a phone that boots straight into recovery mode. These are things you can usually fix, and they're a lot more common than a truly bricked phone. If your phone is*actually*bricked, you won't be able to fix it yourself (but there are things you can do—see the end of this article). For those other problems, you have a few options.
If Your Phone Keeps Rebooting: Wipe Your Data and Cache

If you've flashed a ROM and your phone won't boot into the home screen, it's probably because you forgot to wipe your data and/or cache. It's trying to boot into the ROM, but some leftover data from your last ROM is causing it to error out, and it'll reboot itself over and over again. If your phone's eating a big bowl of boot loops, your first course of action should be to wipe its data and cache, which you can do from recovery mode. This method assumes you're using ClockworkMod Recovery, like the majority of Android users, but if your particular phone uses a different third-party recovery (like AmonRA), you should still be able to find these options in the interface. They might just be in a different place. To wipe your data and cache:
Power down your phone. Turn it back on and boot into Recovery mode. This is a bit different for every phone, so you'll have to Google how to do it for your specific model. Usually it involves holding down another button, like Volume Down, as you turn your phone on. HTC phones will have to then select "Recovery" from a menu, while other phones will boot directly into ClockworkMod. You'll know you're in ClockworkMod by the words "ClockworkMod Recovery" at the top of the screen.Use your volume keys to navigate the menus, and your power button to select menu items. Scroll down to Advanced, and choose "Wipe Dalvik Cache". When that's finished, go back to the main screen and choose "Wipe Cache Partition". Lastly, head to "Wipe Data/Factory Reset". This will delete all your settings and apps, but you should still be using the correct ROM.Reboot your phone.
With any luck, it should boot right into your ROM. If that didn't work, try the below method with the same ROM (or with a different ROM) and see if you get different results.
If Your Phone Boots Straight Into Recovery: Flash a New ROM

If, when you boot up your phone, it goes straight into ClockworkMod, then there's likely an issue with the ROM you flashed. Note that some ROMs boot into recovery mode automatically after flashing, so reboot your phone once from recovery mode to make sure you're having a problem. HTC users: if you boot up your phone, it might go straight into the bootloader—check to see whether you can choose "Recovery" from the list before continuing to the next step. HTC phones usually don't boot straight into recovery.
In this case, you'll want to reflash the ROM from scratch. Try again with the ROM that messed up your phone, if you so choose, but if that doesn't work, try an entirely different ROM. The best way to do this is to download a ROM from somewhere on the net and putting it on your*SD card. You'll need to take the SD card out of your phone, and you'll need an SD card reader that you can plug into your computer. Here's how it works:
Plug the SD card into your computer. Drag the ROM's ZIP file to your SD card, and wait for it to copy.When it's done copying, eject the SD card and put it back in your phone. Reboot into Recovery mode. This is a bit different for every phone, so you'll have to Google how to do it for your specific model. Usually it involves holding down another button, like Volume Down, as you turn your phone on. HTC phones will have to then select "Recovery" from a menu, while other phones will boot directly into ClockworkMod. You'll know you're in ClockworkMod by the words "ClockworkMod Recovery" at the top of the screen.Use your volume keys to navigate the menus, and your power button to select menu items. Scroll down to "Install ZIP From SD Card" and navigate to the ZIP file you just copied over. Give it time to flash the ROM.When it's done, reboot your phone.
Hopefully, your phone should successfully boot into the new ROM. From there, you can probably assume that the previous ROM that messed up your phone isn't going to work, and you'll have to find another ROM for now—or find another copy of that ROM that isn't corrupted. Remember to make backups of your working ROMs so you don't lose all your data!
If Your Phone Boots Straight Into its Bootloader: Restore From a Stock ROM
If you're really having trouble, one of the most surefire ways to get your phone working again is to restore from the original ROM your phone came with—unrooted, stock, stable goodness. Each manufacturer and phone has a different method for doing this, and we can't go into too much detail here, but we can steer you in the right direction.
Note that this will unroot your phone, and return it to exactly how it was when you bought it from the store. You'll lose all your apps, settings, ClockworkMod recovery, you'll get over-the-air updates again, and you'll even have to re-activate your phone if you're on a CDMA provider like Verizon or Sprint.
This is less likely, but it's a problem I and a few others have run into on occasion: sometimes your SD card just gets corrupted, which makes the above methods useless (since they rely on your SD card to work). Take your SD card out of your phone, put it into your computer using an SD card reader, and format it. It's very important that you format it through an SD card reader directly and not by plugging in your phone in USB mode—I learned this the hard way. Format it as FAT32 and try the above methods again.
Other errors, like during the ROM flashing process, might give you a hint as to what's wrong. Try heading to the*XDA Developers forums*and asking for help, as your phone could have one of a million specific problems we can't address here today. Remember, if your phone turns on, there's still a good chance you can recover from whatever error you're experiencing, so don't give up just yet!
If Your Phone Is Truly Bricked: Take It Into the Store and Play Dumb
If your phone is actually bricked—that is, it won't turn on at all, no matter how hard you try—it's time to give up and move on. The first thing you can do in this situation is try to take it back to your carrier's store and play dumb—just say something like "I don't know what happened, but my phone won't turn on anymore" (don't tell them you rooted it, obviously). Most carriers don't have time to deal with such issues and they'll just give you a new phone. Sure, it's a tad evil, but it should work most of the time.
If they're wise to your act, though, you can try another store or just sell your bricked phone for a few bucks on Craigslist. Sadly, if no one will replace your phone, you'll have to buy an entirely new one. Such are the dangers of rooting, but don't be discouraged! Bricking your phone is pretty rare, so I wouldn't worry about it being a common occurrence. As always, though, when you void your warranty, only do so if you're ready to replace that device completely, since you never know what can happen.
Sincerely,
Clowntown Developers
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I've heard about how it's pretty much impossible to brick the nook... Mine seems about as useful as a brick though. I was trying to set up a dual boot following these instructions. Basically, I had HC installed to the internal memory. backed it up, formatted system and data, then flashed update-nc-stock-1.2. CWM said that was successful. Then I rebooted with my CWM SD card out. Screen said "read forever" or whatever, then went blank. I waited for about 5 minutes, and pressed the power button. The screen went from an 'on' blank to an 'off' blank. Since then, I haven't been able to get it to turn on at all. Just an 'off' blank screen with no signs of life, even with charger cable connected. Tried it with CWM SD in and out. None of the buttons seem to do anything...
Thanks in advance!!
I'm pretty new to the Nook having just got it today, but I did some reading prior to attempting anything to see how easily I could back out if I had to.
Have you tried basically starting over (ie. Let go of the multi-boot dream for a bit and get back to basics)
You know, take a SD card, use diskimager to put the clockwork 3.0.2.8 image on it with the CM7 full ROM and boot to that, then format system, data and cache with clockwork and finally install the CM7 zip image (and gapps I guess) just to get going again.
If it all works, maybe take another run at whatever you are trying to do with the multi-boot stuff.
Thanks for the reply.
Sounds awesome; problem is I can't get the thing to do ANYTHING. boot period, into recovery or otherwise. I plug it in and it displays nothing - no 'wait 15 minutes and try again'. Just a black screen no matter what I do. I have an SD card with recovery on it, and i've tried making it do something with or without the SD card. No luck.
Good luck with your nook; I had really been enjoying mine.
So holding the power button for 10-15 seconds doesn't do anything?
Or when you plug in the power does it try to boot?
I mean in a complete worst case scenario you could grab yourself a T5 and open it up, disconnect the battery, and then reconnect it.
Then something is wrong with your Recovery SD card, as no matter what, hardware dictates that it reads the sd card first. The problem with what you did through dual boot methods is you resized partitions. So even if you do back out of all of this, you're going to be losing space unless you setup dual boot.
Recreate the CWM recovery card, either redownload the image and reburn it. Find a different one or something else, because it should load on startup.
Thanks for the help!
Reformatted SD again, then tried powering up with the power cord unplugged. Apparently it won't boot into recovery as long as the power cable is in, and whatever the boot was on EMMC was messed up. Happily running stock 1.2 now, next step, dual boot with HC!
Anyone know how I can delete this thread as it's pretty unnecessary?
I guess I bricked my iconia...
I installed Recovery, etc. But when I rebooted my device it starts up, and shows my initial display screen. But it locks on the display (it is past the Android, and Acer screen).
So I tried to recover the device using the unbrick procedures described in this forum, and others. But it seems whenever it tries to process any update.zip file including the unbrick the little android man either stops turning or displays a sign indicating things did not work out as they should have.
I have clockwordmod backup from my system. How do I use that backup? When I use my phone the device automatically boots into xrecovery and allows me to restore. How do I get that with the Iconia?
first of all your device is not bricked as long as you can boot into any type of recovery.
second you obviously have cwm installed, but anyhow even if you don't have it i hope you have an external sd-card.
dl any of the stock rom's from the dev section, basically best is to choose the rom made for your country.
extract the update.zip and put it on your external sd-card.
then install it with cwm if you still have it, or with acer recovery (volume - and power simultaneously until the recovery text shows up).
and then take it from there.
also good idea is to clean dalvik cache and data cache before restarting if you use cwm.
then you can reinstall root and cwm.
zoubidou said:
first of all your device is not bricked as long as you can boot into any type of recovery.
second you obviously have cwm installed, but anyhow even if you don't have it i hope you have an external sd-card.
dl any of the stock rom's from the dev section, basically best is to choose the rom made for your country.
extract the update.zip and put it on your external sd-card.
then install it with cwm if you still have it, or with acer recovery (volume - and power simultaneously until the recovery text shows up).
and then take it from there.
also good idea is to clean dalvik cache and data cache before restarting if you use cwm.
then you can reinstall root and cwm.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks... The problem is I can't boot into anything.
How do I boot into cwm? I can't boot into the operating system as once it hits the display screen with my picture the system freezes and tries to power down?
I have been playing around with acer recovery, but all of the updates I downloaded will not load onto the system. It tries to install, gets about 1/3 through and then gives me an error.
Hence why I was thinking that maybe my backup has something?
push volume - (left volume button) first and power and keep your fingers on it until it displays the recovery text message on top left of the screen
If you are getting into recovery. And flashing. A rom give you errors or does not complete. This issue is a bad d/load.or a bad currupt SD card.I would say format your SD card again.redownload the correct rom again.don't use a download manager.then decrypt. Unzip then put the update.zip on your SD card turn off your tab install SD card.
Reboot
Holding down volume up and power until you see the 4th line of txt. It should take you to cwr. Or flash your device
good luck
Yep.. use vol-down and power to boot into cwm. Keep holding vol-down until you see tiny white text in upper left corner.
Then do full restore. When it's done, if you don't see "Backup Succesfull!" message, you'll need to restore flexrom from the advanced restore menu. This is because it failed trying to restore .android_secure.img and caused cwm to restart before flextrom was restored.
Alternatively, you can delete the .android_secure.img file from your backup set before doing the full restore.
Good luck.
Sent from my A500 using Tapatalk
Thanks guys for all of your feedback.
However, when I hold down the buttons you mentioned I do get those text items you mention. The problem is that unlike my android phone it does not pop up the recovery menu. It goes straight into the Acer Recovery procedure (The android with turning gears).
Could it have been that upgrading to a specific ROM the recovery procedure is shortcircuited????
What I am trying to figure out is how to get the recovery menu.
Same deal!
I have the exact same issue. The Update.zip will not take and the Android Gears screen gets to 1/3 before the yellow triangle. Any further help would yield loud THANKS!
your update.zip should preferably be those 3.1 full. cos I believe it does not check anything for it to fail.
Thanks Kenny that does help and explain a few things.
ok...so i was playing with the custom partition tool and ended up screwing up my phone...now the phone doesn't boot...i can't mount data or format it...can't wipe Dalvik's cache...i've tryed fixing this with a stock firmware...it didn't even want to install it...it's like the whole data partition off my phone is unaccesable...please helpp...
We do not know what you did to your phone, please explain it.
1) Did you use the tool that increases your internal storage for apps?
2) What happens if you hold vol+ and vol- and turn on the phone?
3) What happens if you hold vol+ while turning on the phone?
4) What happens if you try to simply boot up the thing?
5) What happens if you follow the instructions Huawei provides for updating the ROM?
You might have damaged the partition table of your internal memory. That should not be that big of a deal - as long as your computer still recognizes the device.
If your computer does not recognize the device, do the following: Download the .iso-image provided here. Burn it onto a CD and start it up, it is a linux-live-cd. There will be only one program, gparted. It will recognize your device.
No my computer recognises the phone...i tried to increase the internal memory...if i hold vol+ and - the phone goes in to bootloader...i cna also access the recovery mod...if i boot the phone...it just says IDEOS and frezzes there..i followed the instructions on huawei and stock rooms...install but at the end they say instalation failed...hope i didn't forget anything
VanMuc said:
No my computer recognises the phone...i tried to increase the internal memory...if i hold vol+ and - the phone goes in to bootloader...i cna also access the recovery mod...if i boot the phone...it just says IDEOS and frezzes there..i followed the instructions on huawei and stock rooms...install but at the end they say instalation failed...hope i didn't forget anything
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Than all you have to do is go into Recovery, mount the SD Card, copy the customer Rom and install it.
Amm...well i tryed that...and it's the same thing..still get that same IDEOS screen and nothing happens..and what is a customer ROM?
We'll...it's over..my phone died:/...i tryed the gparted...and screwed something up even more...so i'm gonna take it back tommorow..tnx for the help..
If you do not explain what you doing exactly I am afraid I cannot help you. gparted is a tool used to format and partition memory. You cannot screw up anything, it is just a software change. I suggest you tell us what you see when you select the device within gparted (which partitions show up etc.) before returning it.
i see nothing..the phone doesn't even wanna turn on now since i did something with gparted...and gparted doesn't show my device..cos it doesn't read it...it's dead..
If it does not turn on anymore you do need to send it in for repair. Please be careful the next time and if you do want to apply that partition program, do exactly what the instructions say. Besides overclocking this is the only thing you should not experiment with.
Well hopefully you get a new device (or a repaired one) soon!
Hi everyone
I have a Huawei U8800 which I can no longer boot (it gets stuck at the white Huawei screen). I can, however, access the 'pink screen' (vol+, vol-, power button) and the files when connecting it to my computer, but entering recovery mode (vol+, power button) does not seem to work.
I am an utter noob, so my approach to solve my problem would be to simply take the phone back to the shop, but first I would like to erase my personal data. Is this possible in my case, without voiding my warranty? In case it is not, could you perhaps tell me how I could go about fixing the phone myself (in such a case I would also be willing to scrap the warranty)?
Thanks a lot in advance!
PS: I have not rooted the phone or done anything like that, all I did was installing a couple of apps, so it's pretty much in its original state.
You should be able to flash one of the original roms and the phone would boot if there're no hardware problems.
The original roms were removed from the huawei website but if you search the site there were plenty links afaik.
Thanks dionero. The trouble is that I am too much of a noob to understand what exactly you mean by 'flash one of the original roms'. Could you please provide some more detail? Thanks a lot
Here is a rom with instructions on how to flash :
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=17591131&postcount=1
Thanks again! I will give it a go later on today.
Did you manage to recover the phone?
Thanks for asking! First I need to go and buy a micro SD card, as that seems to be required for the process. But I'll post an update once that's done and I've attempted the recovery. Thanks again for your time!!
Hi,
finally the micro SD card has been delivered - I'll never buy from that shop again, what long shipping times!
Anyway, I'm afraid the recovery did not work. The phone did react, said it was performing the upgrade, and it the end it even displayed the "Upgrade completed" message. Attempts to reboot, however, still don't let me get any further than the Huawei screen
One further observation I have made (even before the attempted recovery, but ever since the phone stopped booting): when the phone is switched off (which nowadays can only be accomplished by removing the battery), and I plug it into the power outlet, it immediately starts its booting attempt. When the phone was still alright, however, it would recharge its battery without trying to boot immediately. I don't know whether that's important, but maybe someone can make use of this information!?
Well, in case anyone on here has got some more suggestions as to what else I could try I would be really grateful. Thanks a lot for your time and effort, and for reading this!
How long did you wait at the Huawei screen? First start takes longer time and it should reboot multiple times. Anyway, you should try flashing one of the recoveries, 5.0.2.3 for example. You can find it in the development section. With that you should wipe cache and data, delete dalvik cache and then try to start it.
I'm on mobile so I can't give you a good tutorial, but recovery should be fairly easy to install (look for stockwell's recovery).
Sent from my u8800 using XDA App
Thanks, Blefish, for your reply. I tried recovery flashing at some point along the way, and I tried it again now, this time using the version you suggested. Still I simply cannot boot into recovery mode. I can either get the "pink screen", or simply the white Huawei screen, even if I press Vol+ and the power button (I've also tried pressing them for different amounts of time, but all to no avail)
Oh, and as an answer to your question: I waited for maybe 15 minutes or so.
Sorry wrong info
1. Download a stock rom.
2. Create a folder on the SD card named "dload"
3. Copy UPDATE.APP and UPDATE_CUST.APP from stock rom archive to dload folder
4. Insert sdcart to phone
5. Switch on phone with press vol+ and vol- buttons
6. The installation will start automatically
Thanks ufukyayla, but what you're suggesting is exactly what dionero had suggested earlier, and unfortunately it did not work.
Ok all, help me out here too, this is my very first guide EVER!
If you need to root your phone ONLY:
Google search for Super1Click,
Place phone in debug mode, Settings/Applications/Development/Android Debugging
Plug phone into computer using any USB cable, wait for drivers to install, look to see if a device called Android ADB something installs
If not, Google search for Moto Driver Helper, install and run that, plug phone back in.
Open Super1Click, click root.
After it's done, unplug and reboot phone.
If you want to install apps from anywhere else besides the Google Play Store
Root phone, see above
After reboot, plug phone back into computer and then click [Allow non-market apps]
Reboot.
All set.
If you want to install Clock Work Mod Recovery, aka CWM Recovery, CWM, Advanced Recovery, etc.
1 click method to root and install CWM at same time
To install a custom ROM
Find ROM
Download ROM
Download the gapps.zip for your ROM (eg gappscwm7.zip for Gingerbread, gapps9.zip for Ice Cream Sandwitch, etc.)
Have root and CWM o phone, see above on how to do that.
Pace the ROM and gapps.zip files on your SD Card either with the phone in Disk Drive mode or with a USB Stick or whatever.
Boot into recovery mode ONLY THIS EXACT WAY: Power off phone wait for BLUE LED, hit the VOL. DOWN Button.
Push VOL. DOWN to select (Recovery)
TAP the power button.
TAP power button on [Custom Recovery]
Using the VOL. UP and DOWN buttons, select (Wipe data/factory reset), TAP power button to enter
After that, do the same thing but select (Wipe cache partition)
Last go to (Advanced), then (Wipe Dalvik Cache)
After that sometimes I'll do the (Wipe Battery Stats), but you don't have to if you don't want to.
Then click (Go Back) and then go to (Install zip from sdcard)
(choose zip from sdcard)
Then select your ROM FIRST, then install
Then after do the same thing again, (Install zip)..., this time install the gapps.zip (eg mine is gapps-gb-20110828-signed.zip, for Gingerbread, AKA CM7, yours can be the same for CM7, of if installing ICS, AKA CM9 or JB, AKA CM10, It'll look like mine but have ics or jb or something in place of [gb])
Then click (Go Back)
Then click (Reboot system now)
Let phone reboot, you should see a blue led and then either a green (good), yellow (might work) or red (bad rom) led.
If it was green, your good.
if it was yellow, it might work.
If it was red, try again from turning off phone and pressing VOL. DOWN at BLUE led.
IT WILL TAKE UP TO 10MIN FOR YOUR PHONE TO BOOT THE FIRST TIME YOU INSTALL A CUSTOM ROM, BE PATIENT.
If you still see the boot up logo after 10min, pull the battery and put it back in, turn on phone again and it should boot fully.
If your stuck on red (M) logo, see below To return phone completely to stock, and retry from To Root your phone.
If you have any other issue or get stuck somewhere, POST YOUR ISSUE BELOW.
To unlock your phone (This is NOT the same as rooting your phone)
First and foremost, you'll need ANOTHER SIM CARD , not SD Card, SIM CARD ,
Fist try to call AT&T and ask them for your network unlock code,
If that doesn't work then either Google SIM Unlock code or ask around here for help in getting it. You might try this, or this if you know Russian or post below you need help
After that, reboot phone.
Then pull battery, change out your sim card with the other carrier sim card (anyone but an AT&T simcard) and it'll ask you for the code, put it in and your all set.
I will finish and update this as I have time.
I was going to create a guide for newbies sometime ago, but my PC got broken and Im not working now to fix it.
Good to see it, there lots of new users trying to get something from zero to update their phones.
josuearisty said:
I was going to create a guide for newbies sometime ago, but my PC got broken and Im not working now to fix it.
Good to see it, there lots of new users trying to get something from zero to update there phones.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ya well it's not even finished yet. If you look at it in full, I left out acouple of sections that should be there. Work in progress, just like most of my life. And I need to fix the links too.