Moto Droid Boot Issue

[Kapland]

Hi all,

I am a long time software engineer who decided to do 4 years in the Navy to help out while I was still young enough. Anyway, somehow my moto droid crapped out and now it won't boot -- it shows the initial M logo and then the screen blanks and then the M logo comes back, over and over.

So here I figured, "hey, I'm a techie, I'll just reinstall the OS, no problem!". Boy was I wrong. I've been going nuts trying to get my phone to connect to the PC. First, let me say, the only two stable modes I can boot into are bootloader and recovery. Also, I'm using WinXP.

First I went to the moto site and tried to get it to restore the OS. Drivers install fine but the web app won't see my phone -- in bootloader it says it's not getting a device ID and in recovery it says the phone isn't in USB mode.

Ok, so then I tried using the SDK. Well, the drivers won't install. So I wiped the moto drivers. When I put the phone in bootloader mode and plug it in, it says it found an "SE Flash" device. When I direct it to the SDK drivers, it says it can't find any drivers for the device. When I try it in recovery mode, it finds a "Motorola A55 USB Device" and I can't update the drivers to the SDK ones either. Heck, even with the A55 drivers, I can't access the "Removable Disk" from Explorer.

Anyway, I'm stuck and I really need this phone to work since being in the military means I have to be reachable at all times. I'd really appreciate any help you can give me. Ultimately I just need to get the OS back in regardless of how -- maybe I've been going about it wrong?

Thanks for any help,
Dave

 

[Backnblack]

Welcome to the site...

What did you do to the phone before it quit?

Did you Root?
Custom Roms?

 

[Kapland]

No I haven't done any modification of my phone. It was stock with the 2.0.1 update. It rebooted in my pocket and I couldn't get a signal so I rebooted it myself. After that it went to the bootloader screen so I went online and saw how to reformat. Tried that but it didn't work. After a while I tried again and it started doing the M logo thing I described. That's where I'm at now.

Thanks,
Dave

 

[hookbill]

No I haven't done any modification of my phone. It was stock with the 2.0.1 update. It rebooted in my pocket and I couldn't get a signal so I rebooted it myself. After that it went to the bootloader screen so I went online and saw how to reformat. Tried that but it didn't work. After a while I tried again and it started doing the M logo thing I described. That's where I'm at now.

Thanks,
Dave

Sounds like a warranty exchange issue if I ever saw one.

 

[Backnblack]

If you call VZW support they will have you do a hard reset, You might as well start with that.

Open the keyboard and press the X key while pressing and holding Power. The device will power on. Keep holding the buttons down until a yellow triangle appers.

Press the Camera and Volume Up buttons at the same time to get to the menu.

Use the direction pad to the right of the keyboard to select the Format option.

 

[Backnblack]

Sounds like a warranty exchange issue if I ever saw one.

Well there is that also...

 

[hookbill]

If you call VZW support they will have you do a hard reset, You might as well start with that.

Open the keyboard and press the X key while pressing and holding Power. The device will power on. Keep holding the buttons down until a yellow triangle appers.

Press the Camera and Volume Up buttons at the same time to get to the menu.

Use the direction pad to the right of the keyboard to select the Format option.

I'm not trying to hijack the thread but I tried this the other day. I got the triangle but pressing the camera button and volume up button didn't do anything for me. I was trying to make sure SPRecovery was no longer in my Droid.

 

[Kapland]

I tried the format thing. Didn't work. It seems like the OS is corrupted somehow. I live on base and don't have a car so I'd like to see if I can handle the issue on my own. Seeing as Android is so open, I thought I might be able to do it. No advice on manually reinstalling the OS? No advice on getting the phone to connect to my PC? Does the phone have to be booted into the OS to make changes? I figured that the bootloader mode was a way to make OS changes...

 

[hookbill]

I tried the format thing. Didn't work. It seems like the OS is corrupted somehow. I live on base and don't have a car so I'd like to see if I can handle the issue on my own. Seeing as Android is so open, I thought I might be able to do it. No advice on manually reinstalling the OS? No advice on getting the phone to connect to my PC? Does the phone have to be booted into the OS to make changes? I figured that the bootloader mode was a way to make OS changes...

I don't have any answers for you, other then that if you do decide you want to exchange it you can do it all by phone (another phone of course). Verizon Customer Service can ship you out a new phone overnight for a replacement.

You probably know that already, just thought I'd mention it.

 

[Backnblack]

Not an expert here by any means but maybe this might help.

http://www.droidforums.net/forum/droid-news/7522-manually-update-2-0-1-a.html

might need a card reader to get the update.zip file on the Droid tho, if You can't mount.

I am sure more users will speak up...

 

[Kapland]

Not an expert here by any means but maybe this might help.

http://www.droidforums.net/forum/droid-news/7522-manually-update-2-0-1-a.html

might need a card reader to get the update.zip file on the Droid tho, if You can't mount.

I am sure more users will speak up...

hmmm... if i can get a reader i'll definitely try this. why i can't connect to the sd card thru the usb is beyond me. maybe the sd card is bad.

 

[Backnblack]

Not an expert here by any means but maybe this might help.

http://www.droidforums.net/forum/droid-news/7522-manually-update-2-0-1-a.html

might need a card reader to get the update.zip file on the Droid tho, if You can't mount.

I am sure more users will speak up...

hmmm... if i can get a reader i'll definitely try this. why i can't connect to the sd card thru the usb is beyond me. maybe the sd card is bad.

You would need the phone to completely boot up to be able to mount it.

 

[Kapland]

Not an expert here by any means but maybe this might help.

http://www.droidforums.net/forum/droid-news/7522-manually-update-2-0-1-a.html

might need a card reader to get the update.zip file on the Droid tho, if You can't mount.

I am sure more users will speak up...

Backnblack, thanks for the suggestion. I did the update but the phone still won't work. Not sure why, but I can rule out an OS glitch now. Time to get a new phone it seems.

One thing to note that might help someone else: if you can't get an SD reader, do what I did. I put my SD card into a friend's phone and downloaded the OS that way. Then I used AndroZip to rename and move the file. Worked like a charm -- except for the not getting my phone to boot part.

Thanks to everyone for the assistance,
Dave