Softbricked Phone Battery Too Low for RSD Lite, Won't Charge - Motorola Droid 4

I have searched around for a couple days, but there doesn't seem to be anyone who has posted about this issue with a Droid 4. So here is what I have.
I rooted my Droid 4 using the RazrBlade method without incident. Afterwards I wanted to flash Cyanogenmod onto it, but did not have a custom recovery like ClockworkMod or TWRP set up yet. So, looking around led me to download the latest safestrap .apk so I would have a recovery capable of flashing Cyanogenmod. The latest version of safestrap would not work for me because of a parsing error, I looked around and found that some people were having the same issue and fixed it by downloading an earlier version of safestrap to their Droid 4. So, I found a safestrap 2.x.x version, downloaded that and followed the directions accordingly. I now had a functional (to my knowledge) recovery that would allow me to flash CyanogenMod. So I downloaded the .zip file from the CyanogenMod website for Droid 4, and attempted to flash it using the recovery that safestrap 2.x.x set up.
Everything looked okay for the install, no errors were reported, phone was at least at 80% battery, but once the phone rebooted, after the Motorola spash screen, there was a blank screen. The phone is on, evidenced by the backlight being visibly seen, but otherwise there is no evidence that it is trying to boot up any ROM. There is no loop whatsoever, just a blank screen.
First, I thought it was a bad install, afterall, it wouldn't be the first time. But when I turned it off (only possible via PWR&Vol.- button combo) it did not give the option to go into the safestrap recovery mode upon booting back up.
But I am not without a working knowledge of how to pull a phone out of a softbrick state, so I quickly connected my phone to a computer set up to take adb commands and tried to reboot my phone into the recovery mode. I connected my phone to my PC, left it on the blank screen mode and typed the adb command [adb devices] to confirm that it was acknowledged by my computer, it was, and attempted to reboot it into the recovery mode with the command [fastboot reboot-recovery]. It responded by rebooting, but led back to the backlit blank screen. I thought that this might be an issue with the wires or drivers or something to that effect, so I reattempted with a usb cord that was supplied by Motorola, and reinstalled all the appropriate drivers. Nothing worked, so I moved everything to a new computer freshly set up to take adb commands. I connected my phone and it was immediately recognized by the new computer, but it still would not respond to any adb commands. Attempting to reboot into recovery yields a blank screen still.
By this point I do not care if my phone is rooted or if I have to restore it to factory settings. So I look up solutions that flash it back to the stock 4.1.2 ROM. I find one that does this, but it requires that I am in AP Fastboot Flash Mode. I put it in the aforementioned mode, but it is not recognized by the adb terminal. It is listed as an adb device if it is in "blank screen mode" but not while in AP Fastboot Flash Mode. Shortly after this the battery is too low to program anyway, so I turn it off and set it to charge. But instead of a "battery charging" screen, I am greeted with the Motorola splash screen for as long as the phone is connected to the charger. Every time the phone is removed from the charger it, immediately and without pause, loses power and cannot be powered on until placed back on a charger.
Looking around some more, because I am increasingly desperate to solve this problem, I find something called RSD Lite, which will reflash the stock firmware to the phone and it will behave as if it was reset to factory settings. I plug the phone up to the computer, it powers on, I boot it up to the AP Fastboot Flash Mode and RSD Lite sees the phone as a fastboot device, and is ready and willing to fix it, but the battery is too low to program.
The battery is incapable of being charged by a wall outlet by any means that I have tried (will list below), BUT... If I connect my phone to a computer, and after the phone is connected, turn the phone off, a little green LED light appears at the top left and stays for at least 15 minutes until the Motorola splash logo appears and my phone connects to the computer. The phone recieves power in this mode evidenced by the fact that it does not instantly power down after it is disconnected from the power source. But at this point in time, the battery does not charge enough to cause a change in the AP Fastboot Flash Mode to allow it to be OK to Program.
Here is some misc info that might be needed:
Modes that I have access to
1.) Motorola Splash Screen + "Blank Screen Mode": This mode connects to the computer and is registered by the device number XT894. After the Moto Splash Screen there is a backlit blank screen I call "Blank Screen Mode". This mode is recognized by adb commands but not by RSD Lite. Any time an adb command is used apart from rebooting, command prompt says <waiting for device> and the device does not respond.
2.) Motorola Splash Screen Only: This mode is only accessible by connecting the phone to a wall outlet. This mode does not charge the phone and if the phone does not have any power otherwise, will power down without warning upon being disconnected from the power source.
3.) Boot Mode Selection Menu: This mode provides various options that appear to do nothing. The "Recovery" option that is supposed to bring me to the default android recovery mode instead brings me to the Motorola Boot Logo and then to a green android laying down with a red triangle over it (with an exclamation point). I am able to access AP Fastboot Flash Mode from here.
4.) AP Fastboot Flash Mode: In this mode, the device is recognized by the computer as an adb fastboot device (not as an XT894 device). It does not respond to adb commands, and the adb terminal does not acknowledge the phone in this mode. RSD Lite does acknowledge the phone in this mode, but trying to begin the process to reflash the stock firmware causes the "Low Battery/ No Program" text on the phone to flicker and result in a failure in the RSD Lite program. It lists the reason as: Phone return(ed) Fail.
5.) Computer Charging Mode: When connected to a computer, and immidiately powered off, a green LED light turns on. After leaving the phone for some time, the phone can be disconnected and stands on it's own power without needing to be connected to a power source to remain on. In this mode, the screen is not on, and the phone is not recognized by the computer at all.
Methods I Have Attempted to Use to Charge Phone
1.) Plugging Moto Stock USB charging cable to computer and leaving it: This causes the 1st mode listed above to occur, and no charge is held. After 10 minutes of "charging" upon disconnecting cable, phone shuts off abruptly, and without any warning.
2.) Plugging Moto Stock USB into USB to Wall Outlet Plug: This causes 2nd Mode listed with similar results to above.
3.) Plugging Motorola Wall Outlet Charging Cable to Phone: See above
4.) ALL Above Methods + Boot Mode Selection Menu BD Tools Mode: I read that if you were to connect your phone to a wall outlet after booting it up into the Boot Mode Selection Menu, and selecting BD Tools, the phone would boot up to the Motorola Boot Logo screen, then show a battery charging similarly to how one does if you charge your phone after it shuts down from having 0% Battery. This was not the result I received. Similar results to #1
I apologize if there is some blatant simple answer here, but I have looked everywhere to find a solution to no avail. I included everything that occured between then and now so as to facilitate this process, and hope that I am not stepping on any toes with the wall of text I just posted.
Thanks in advance, if more info is needed (or if the post needs to be formatted in an easier to read way) just say so.

Sounds like you will need a motorola factory cable. I think that's what they are called. It provides power directly to the phone allowing you to fastboot. I know you can find them on ebay. I believe team black hat also sells an adapter to turn your regular OEM cable into a factory cable.
Your other alternative would be to sacrafice a usb cable and attach to the battery terminals directly to charge the battery. If you google it you should be able to find directions for how to do this. I believe someone posted a how to on youtube for the razr which should give you a good idea of what you would be getting into.
Good luck!
Droid 4 - Avatar

Fixed It
Thanks for the help.
I didn't feel like paying $12 dollars and waiting several days to purchase one of those special factory cables, so I ended up taking a non-USB charger, spicing it, and hooking it directly to the battery terminals like you said. After I did that, it automatically said that it was "OK to Program".
The only problem I had was that RSD Lite wasn't able to fix it, I had to download some other app that ran things through command prompt while the device was in AP Fastboot mode. But the end result was the same.
I found out that the problem that caused all this was me not flashing the CyanogenMod firmware into ROM Slot-1 while in the safestrap recovery mode. I flashed it to the "Stock" ROM Slot instead.
Thanks again for the help, I learned a lot, and I am glad I didn't have to shell out money for a new phone. :laugh:

Related

[Q] Did I brick my first phone?

I have a Motorola Droid 4. I installed SafeStrap recently on it and installed CM11 to the stock rom (mistake I know). I kept running into issues and I finally sorted all of them out and I decided I wanted to restore back to stock and then install CM11 to a rom slot. I come to find out that I am unable to restore my stock backup as it keeps failing. So I then decide I am going to just go ahead and restore my CM11 backup to rom slot 1 and make it the active boot rom, but that turned out to fail to for whatever reason. I reboot my phone several times and received the Motorola logo followed by the dreaded Android on his back with his chest opened up and the exclamation point/triangle coming out of it.
So I gave in and decided to just go ahead and use the Droid Razr Utility that I have used before to reinstall the stock ROM and start all over. During this process everything seems to be going fine. I am able to boot into Fastboot, the PC recognized the phone and can see it. I then start the recovery by doing option "2" to wipe and install. My phone reboots a couple of times and then comes to the point of another reboot but the phone never turned back on. I've tried many button combinations to get this to boot up but nothing seems to respond. I have attached a screenshot of what the Droid Razr Utility showed when the phone was attempting to restart but never did.
I purchased a Fastboot cable to hopefully get me to the point of my PC recognizing the phone but that does not seem to work. When I plug in my phone Windows never detects anything. I removed all the drivers and nothing. If I plug the phone into a charger the Green light flashes for a split second. If I plug my phone into the computer the Green LED light will stay solid. According to Motorola this indicates that the battery is fully charged. I've tried reseating the battery to no avail.
So based on the information above and the attached screenshot, is my Droid 4 bricked and unusable now?
After doing a bunch of research I think I indeed bricked my phone. Since the ROM I tried flashing to my phone was not for the Droid 4 but rather the Droid RAZR, it looks like my phone is dead. I was hopeful and assumed that this would be able to be reversed by hooking up to a PC but apparently that is not the case. Perhaps I tripped the eFuse or something which is causing the boot loader to not initiate. I guess I need to get a new phone now unless someone has a nifty trick up their sleeve to get the phone accessible via a computer.
You are going to need a Team Black Hat cable, aka fastboot cable. Then plug it in, and run RSD Lite using the DROID 4's fastboot files. You can find the fastboot files at this website below. Download the one that matches the version of Android you have.
LINK: http://sbf.droid-developers.org/phone.php?device=11
Ordered a factory cable on eBay; we shall see; thanks for the information
Even though my computer does not seem to recognize my phone when I plug it in. For example, I plug it in using the Fastboot cable and I never heard a sound from my computer like it knows something was just plugged in?
I did buy a fastboot cable from bluvector on amazon but that didn't seem to do anything for me. My Droid 4 still has a black screen and plays dead:crying:
bean1975 said:
Ordered a factory cable on eBay; we shall see; thanks for the information
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you having the same problem as me? Your Droid 4 will not turn on and just sits at a black screen when you push the power button?
@sd_shadow you out there? I would love to hear your advice on my issue to see if there is any hope for my phone.
I received a FastBoot Cable but when I plug it in nothing happens. I also have a Kindle Fire HD and plugged the fastboot cable into it and powerd it down and back on and it boots normally. I'm wondering if the fastboot cable is faulty? Also I think my droid 4 may be completely shot since pushing the power button does nothing for me so I don't know how I could get back into Fastboot mode, unless a confirmed working fastboot cable will force the phone to boot and enter fastboot mode?
BigPapaGotti said:
@sd_shadow you out there? I would love to hear your advice on my issue to see if there is any hope for my phone.
I received a FastBoot Cable but when I plug it in nothing happens. I also have a Kindle Fire HD and plugged the fastboot cable into it and powerd it down and back on and it boots normally. I'm wondering if the fastboot cable is faulty? Also I think my droid 4 may be completely shot since pushing the power button does nothing for me so I don't know how I could get back into Fastboot mode, unless a confirmed working fastboot cable will force the phone to boot and enter fastboot mode?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Motorola Devices will be powered by the Fastboot/Factory cable, when you connect the Droid 4 to pc via a fastboot cable, it should power on but you may need to select fastboot mode in bootmenu options.
Not sure about the kindle HD, but an Original Kindle Fire 1st gen, will boot direct to fastboot mode, when connected to a Fastboot cable
Both require Hardware cable and device to be working correctly.
sd_shadow said:
Motorola Devices will be powered by the Fastboot/Factory cable, when you connect the Droid 4 to pc via a fastboot cable, it should power on but you may need to select fastboot mode in bootmenu options.
Not sure about the kindle HD, but an Original Kindle Fire 1st gen, will boot direct to fastboot mode, when connected to a Fastboot cable
Both require Hardware cable and device to be working correctly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
According to the description on the amazon site that I bought this cable from it shows the cable as being able to support Kindle Fire HD, that is why I am thinking that this cable is faulty, since it is not working on my droid nor is it working on my Kindle Fire.
I am thinking on buying a different one and returning my current one but i'm hesitant to do so. I have my doubts that this will allow my Droid 4 to boot up and/or be recognized by my computer. Since I get no response with the Vol-, Vol+, Power button combinations i'm thinking this is hard bricked because of the wrong files I flashed to it.
Before I made this mistake the phone was at least responsive showing the android/exclamation point screen. Then my dumbass ran the wrong flashing utility and that was all she wrote.
Do you think there is hope for my my phone even though the power button yields no response? If the fastboot cable will at least allow my phone to be recognized by my computer then I think i could save it, but that is where i have my doubts, but would love to try.
BigPapaGotti said:
According to the description on the amazon site that I bought this cable from it shows the cable as being able to support Kindle Fire HD, that is why I am thinking that this cable is faulty, since it is not working on my droid nor is it working on my Kindle Fire.
I am thinking on buying a different one and returning my current one but i'm hesitant to do so. I have my doubts that this will allow my Droid 4 to boot up and/or be recognized by my computer. Since I get no response with the Vol-, Vol+, Power button combinations i'm thinking this is hard bricked because of the wrong files I flashed to it.
Before I made this mistake the phone was at least responsive showing the android/exclamation point screen. Then my dumbass ran the wrong flashing utility and that was all she wrote.
Do you think there is hope for my my phone even though the power button yields no response? If the fastboot cable will at least allow my phone to be recognized by my computer then I think i could save it, but that is where i have my doubts, but would love to try.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you flashed Droid Razr firmware, yes it's bricked. or haven't seen anyone recovery from that yet.
@bean1975, did you have any luck with getting the fastboot cable to recover your phone?

Phone locked at logo boot, usb debugging disabled

Hi all,
I rooted my phone and unclocked bootloader.
My rom is a stock rom.
I managed to install CWM recovery using lg-optimus-4xhd-recovery-v1.0.apk but something happened.
I rebooted my phone in recovery mode and it is always locked to LG logo.
Pressing Volume up and power I can see normal android system recovery, wiping cache and factory reset don't work.
I haven't usb debugging enable so my computer can't see the phone connected with usb cable, and it's impossible for me flashing the phone with kdz rom methods.
What can I do?
Thx in advance for your answers
No one can help me?
Flashing with kdz results in "phone was not found", is there a way to resolve? I've tried with ubuntu, OS (adb) only see my phone if usb debugging is enabled and it isn't, and with a laptop running win8, installing LG drivers and so on, nothing works.
This is salvagable
If you can get the stock recovery mode, all is not lost, all of the important bits are still functioning.
Power down. Hold VolDn and insert the USB cable. If you get the Software Update screen with a green icon you CAN recover the phone. It may require a battle with Windows to get it to play nice, Windows and USB is always a hit or miss affair; but the phone is ok if that screen appears. Do not use the VolUP + Power LG Recovery mode, there isn't a known tool for that in the wild.
I don't normally run Windows and the couple of times I have booted it to do this it required some hassle and usually skipping the nice way since I had never installed the bundled LG Desktop stuff before things went wrong. So just do what I did, pick the Emergency mode that requires inputting the IMEI instead of letting it detect your phone and then let it fix things for you.
jmorris_42 said:
If you can get the stock recovery mode, all is not lost, all of the important bits are still functioning.
Power down. Hold VolDn and insert the USB cable. If you get the Software Update screen with a green icon you CAN recover the phone. It may require a battle with Windows to get it to play nice, Windows and USB is always a hit or miss affair; but the phone is ok if that screen appears. Do not use the VolUP + Power LG Recovery mode, there isn't a known tool for that in the wild.
I don't normally run Windows and the couple of times I have booted it to do this it required some hassle and usually skipping the nice way since I had never installed the bundled LG Desktop stuff before things went wrong. So just do what I did, pick the Emergency mode that requires inputting the IMEI instead of letting it detect your phone and then let it fix things for you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Many thanks for your answer, I resolved the problem late at night, yes, after a hard battle with windows.
I installed windows 7 32 bit, I tried a lot of Lg drivers, 3.8.1 maybe the best, after inserting the USB cable with SW Update screen some LG peripherals were recognized but the result in KDZ_FW_UPD was always "phone was not found", then I tried connecting USB cable with the Phone in Android recovery mode ( power & Vol up), and OS added a couple more peripherals, and attempting again with SW Upgrade mode worked.

Need Help - Dead Moto G2 with bootloop and 0% battery

My Moto g2 was on stock rom with no root. A friend tried to root it with king root and some other things without asking me . My phone ran out of charge and then when i tried to switch it on it went straight to ap-fastboot menu. Now, when i connect charger it shows charging screen at 0% and then goes to fastboot after some time. With some things written.
It says at the end :
1. Hab check failed for boot. 2. Failed to verify hab image boot. 3. Failed to validate boot image 4. Fastboot reason : fall through from mot charger boot mode.
Also it says battery low Device is LOCKED Status code: 0 and connect USB data cable even when connected.
Also i can't install usb drivers as my pc doesn't detect it once did but the Dialog box of "installing drivers" vanished midway.
So my phone won't charge or connect to pc so i can't use some adb and fastboot tool method for charging i found searching on the internet. And also it keep going from fast boot to charging screen and back Been searching all day but have become confused now.
So if someone can help in flashing my stock firmware bypassing all these problems. I'll be thankful.

Can' access bootloader nor recovery...

Hi,
I have a major issue since the update to CM13.0-20160524-NIGHTLY-huashan. I litteraly spent the whole week trying everything I found on internet in order to solve it without success.
My problem is the following one: I uninstalled the gapps to manually update it for the latest version of Android (Android 6.0.1), when I tried to boot to the recovery nothing happened the phone just restart, same when trying to boot to the bootloader. I tried everything adb reboot recovery adb reboot bootloader, I tried flashtool, I used the developper options to reboot to recovery, I tried manually by holding the volume button while restarting, I tried the flashify application. Nothing, I am not able in anyway to access neither the recovery nor the bootloader. The phone is just restarting, the led is first blue then goes red then green then red and restart. However, I have a root shell on the phone with adb shell.
If anyone have a solution, can help me please do it. An Android phone without the gapps is quite useless.
Thank you very much,
same problem,my phone is now without working android (after i tried instal CyanogenMod 13.0 Unofficial SaberMod.....still loading cyanogenmod logo) and without working fastboot and recovery so im lost :/
Hello, since the LED bar lights up this means your device is soft bricked, in which, mostly are recoverable.
What interests me is that you tried to, quote, "uninstall gapps".. If you previously have gapps, you don't need to "uninstall" gapps in order to update to the next build. Just flash the new build zip and gapps will be preserved. Also I am quite skeptical about what you did, as I never heard of a way to actually uninstall gapps. Basically if someone wants to remove gapps, he needs to format the System partition and then flash the ROM zip again..
Are you sure you failed to boot into flashmode? the correct procedure to do so is
Make sure the device is turned off
Make sure the USB cable is connected to your PC
Hold the volume DOWN button
Still holding the button, insert the USB cable to the XSP
LED will light up green, indicating flashmode
But even so, since you are on an unlocked bootloader, recovering from this brick is rather easy.
Get yourself a TWRP img file from the TWRP basketbuild folder
Open flashtool
Make sure the device is turned off
Make sure the USB cable is connected to your PC
Hold the volume UP button
Still holding the button, insert the USB cable to the XSP
LED will light up blue, indicating fastboot mode
On flashtool, click the lightning icon and select fastboot mode
On the right of the new window that appears, select "Select kernel to flash"
Navigate to your TWRP img file and select it
When flash completes, unplug your XSP from the USB cable
This will flash TWRP into /boot partition. So when you start your device, it will go straight to recovery.
Now, flash the ROM zip
Thanks for your help TechnoSparks, however, as I told you and expected even following your exact procedure my phone just restart. The led brights up bleu for few seconds then the phone put itself in charging mode. And when I said I delete the gapps, I meant that I deleted the google play store from my phone (this app was anyway not working after update). I tried to use flashtool but it is the same, can't get into fastboot mode, the phone just normally starts or put itself in charge. Isn't a manual solution on how to flash a recovery only using adb shell?
AresS31 said:
Thanks for your help TechnoSparks, however, as I told you and expected even following your exact procedure my phone just restart. The led brights up bleu for few seconds then the phone put itself in charging mode. And when I said I delete the gapps, I meant that I deleted the google play store from my phone (this app was anyway not working after update). I tried to use flashtool but it is the same, can't get into fastboot mode, the phone just normally starts or put itself in charge. Isn't a manual solution on how to flash a recovery only using adb shell?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That seems to be related to your USB cable (since that is the famous issue). Can you try to charge your phone WITHOUT it stop charging (i mean suddenly the LED disappears and when you tap the screen the charging icon doesnt show)?
If it so does happens that your device doesnt want to charge, it seems to me that you are having a loose USB port which possibly from your XSP, or, your USB cable is no longer up for the challenge
You will need to find another reliable USB cable for you to try. Try to charge your XSP to see if that particular USB cable is reliable for you. Try to wiggle the wire a little bit, moving the XSP from different directions and see if it would still charge. If it still charge, then this is the USB cable for you to use. Do the mentioned steps above again.
If you insist and want to use the same USB cable, you will need to find a "sweet spot" so that the connection between your XSP and the USB cable will remain reliable.

Galaxy S3 softbrinck hard after ADB bootloader command

Well, I'd like to say that I know little English. And I'm using google translator.
The problem is the following
I have a Galaxy S3 LTE I9305T. It was working perfectly. Then I installed a custom rom. I installed a custom recovery then went to the custom rom, the device rebooted and worked normally. The problem came next.
I decided to test some adb commands. I installed all the drivers on the computer. The cell was recognized on the computer as an ADB device. And then I went to do the test, with the command adb reboot download ... then the device went into download mode ... great worked ... it goes out that way ... then I tried the recovery mode, to see if the device I was directed to the personalized recovery of the cell phone ... that's when the problem happened ...
After the adb reboot bootloader command ... the device did not work anymore. When and connected it is only on the screen Samsung Galaxy SIII GT-I9305T, and it is in infinite loop until discharge the battery.
Already tried to get into downloader mode. Power button + homer + volume button down and nothing happens besides continuing on the screen. Trying the keys to recovery mode same problem ...
With the cell phone turned off when I plug in the charger, does not appear charged signal, connects directly to the SAMSUNG GALAXY boot screen, when USB cable on the pc, do not hear the connected noise, just the same problem the screen on and off written Galaxy SIII...
Odin does not work because the cell phone is not recognized when connected in the computer, nor in the charger, but the screen turns on at boot. All drivers are installed
@magogm
That doesn't sound promising....
Firstly, you wanted to reboot to recovery, why didn't you use "adb reboot recovery"? AFAIK, and I might be wrong, but I don't think "adb reboot bootloader" works on Samsung phones anyway. I don't think it should have broken anything though.
If you can't enter system, recovery, or download mode, the next thing I would try is a usb jig to try to force the phone into download mode. If that works, try flashing the stock rom for the region from where the phone is from originally. That is the only thing I can think of that might work considering the device is not recognized by your pc in any state.....
You can get usb jigs cheap on ebay or amazon or elsewhere and instructions if you search. Good luck

Categories

Resources