The Story Of A Downgrade Gone BRICKED

[WenWM]

It seems bricking your device is slowly becoming part of our smartphone culture, and with Verizon Wireless not offering phone insurance and other factors... This is a dangerous play ground and one Engadget editor wrote about his experience. Apparently it was a usual day for him, doing his own thing, being cool. He finds out about the OTA update available for the Droid X, and to get that he had to return his device to factory software (he previously flashed a custom ROM to his device). This meant he had to downgrade his ROM to something a bit more made by Motorola.
Doing so takes a bit of power and apparently he forgot that, and went into the process not knowing his device will not charge for the duration of the downgrade. Not knowing that caused his device to die during the process bringing it to the state of what we called bricked, paperweight, child's toy, iPhone, unusable.

To keep this story short, he had to do a lot of research and cable modification to get his device to think it is charging through USB, and at the end... Returning to full batteries, which then allowed him to flash the downgrade successfully and just in time for the update.

To read the full long story, check it out on Engadget.

 

[dieselpowered]

Doing so takes a lot of batterieshttp://www.engadget.com/2010/09/23/editorial-the-dark-side-of-android-hacking/

Really!? I only have one battery and did not have a problem going back to 2.1 in order to receive the 2.2 OTA update.

 

[WenWM]

Doing so takes a lot of batterieshttp://www.engadget.com/2010/09/23/editorial-the-dark-side-of-android-hacking/

Really!? I only have one battery and did not have a problem going back to 2.1 in order to receive the 2.2 OTA update.

Well I am sure he was on lower battery when he did it.

 

[xlivewire7x]

I wonder if he happened to use my guide: http://www.droidforums.net/forum/droid-x-hacks/68222-unbricking-your-droid-x.html. I emailed him to ask about it and if it was the guide he used I asked if he could link to it, would be nice to bring more people to the forums!

 

[danDroid]

Awesome! dancedroid Any response yet?

I wonder if he happened to use my guide: http://www.droidforums.net/forum/droid-x-hacks/68222-unbricking-your-droid-x.html. I emailed him to ask about it and if it was the guide he used I asked if he could link to it, would be nice to bring more people to the forums!

 

[mrksbrd]

Quote from Engadgets Article

"But hacking can definitely go too far, and Google doesn't provide any way for you to return to the original Android experience that shipped with your device -- you're at the mercy of the manufacturer and the carrier. Some manufacturers are better than others -- HTC provides updaters for many of its phones -- but some, like Motorola and Samsung, provide nothing at all. Once I left the reservation and installed that leaked 2.2 build, I was gone for good -- no official path back to the fold exists. That's not true on other platforms: if I was running a jailbroken iPhone, I'd just restore it with iTunes, and it would be factory-fresh with known software. That's simply not the case with Android, and it's a problem -- Google can't keep implicitly condoning Android hacking and trading on the enthusiasm of its community unless it requires manufacturers to provide restore tools for every device"

I couldn't AGREE more !!! Verizon should be required to keep stock images available to public (they do it for Blackberry). If they are looking to keep their releases proprietary then develop software as HTC does to flash the phones in case something goes wrong.

 

[gadgetrants]

I wonder if he happened to use my guide: http://www.droidforums.net/forum/droid-x-hacks/68222-unbricking-your-droid-x.html. I emailed him to ask about it and if it was the guide he used I asked if he could link to it, would be nice to bring more people to the forums!

Call me old-fashioned, but I've never seen anyone go to a hardware store, buy a brick, bring it home, and (magically) turn it into a functioning consumer electronic device. In other words, "unbrick" is not a word that means anything.

It'd be cool if we could agree to reserve the word for it's original use--"beyond repair"--and devise another word for "that which can be salvaged." A few random suggestions:

- broken
- malfunctioning
- snafu'd
- misbehaving
- screwed up
- dead

A note on that last one: there are many reports of "raising people from the dead" (i.e., near-death experiences). But surely no one has ever turned a brick into a phone. :icon_eek:

-Matt

PS Despite the middle name "rants" I'm not trying to be abrasive here. If we agree as a community that "brick" has a new meaning--including harm that can be reversed--then I'm cool with that. But we should at least acknowledge that we've tweaked the meaning.

 

[mrksbrd]

I wonder if he happened to use my guide: http://www.droidforums.net/forum/droid-x-hacks/68222-unbricking-your-droid-x.html. I emailed him to ask about it and if it was the guide he used I asked if he could link to it, would be nice to bring more people to the forums!

Call me old-fashioned, but I've never seen anyone go to a hardware store, buy a brick, bring it home, and (magically) turn it into a functioning consumer electronic device. In other words, "unbrick" is not a word that means anything.

It'd be cool if we could agree to reserve the word for it's original use--"beyond repair"--and devise another word for "that which can be salvaged." A few random suggestions:

- broken
- malfunctioning
- snafu'd
- misbehaving
- screwed up
- dead

A note on that last one: there are many reports of "raising people from the dead" (i.e., near-death experiences). But surely no one has ever turned a brick into a phone. :icon_eek:

-Matt

PS Despite the middle name "rants" I'm not trying to be abrasive here. If we agree as a community that "brick" has a new meaning--including harm that can be reversed--then I'm cool with that. But we should at least acknowledge that we've tweaked the meaning.

LOL...Point well taken

 

[gadgetrants]

I wonder if he happened to use my guide: http://www.droidforums.net/forum/droid-x-hacks/68222-unbricking-your-droid-x.html. I emailed him to ask about it and if it was the guide he used I asked if he could link to it, would be nice to bring more people to the forums!

Call me old-fashioned, but I've never seen anyone go to a hardware store, buy a brick, bring it home, and (magically) turn it into a functioning consumer electronic device. In other words, "unbrick" is not a word that means anything.

It'd be cool if we could agree to reserve the word for it's original use--"beyond repair"--and devise another word for "that which can be salvaged." A few random suggestions:

- broken
- malfunctioning
- snafu'd
- misbehaving
- screwed up
- dead

A note on that last one: there are many reports of "raising people from the dead" (i.e., near-death experiences). But surely no one has ever turned a brick into a phone. :icon_eek:

-Matt

PS Despite the middle name "rants" I'm not trying to be abrasive here. If we agree as a community that "brick" has a new meaning--including harm that can be reversed--then I'm cool with that. But we should at least acknowledge that we've tweaked the meaning.

LOL...Point well taken

Thanks. I felt like such a d*** (rhymes with brick) after I posted that! :biggrin:

-Matt

 

[overtsilence]

with Verizon Wireless not offering phone insurance and other factors...​

Since when is this? I've never heard of not getting insurance on any android devices on verizon? Or am I just missing some kinda sarcasm?

 

[pwrdbykyank]

plus worst case scenario he could have just bought a new battery or used someone elses and flashed it then charged his battery.

 

[KZIWarrior]

with Verizon Wireless not offering phone insurance and other factors...​

Since when is this? I've never heard of not getting insurance on any android devices on verizon? Or am I just missing some kinda sarcasm?

I was wondering the same thing? I have insurance on my Droid, did something change?

 

[Eousphoros]

No offense, but this engagdet guy isnt the sharpest tool in the shed. There are so many ways he could have recovered his phone that have a far smaller chance of permenantly destroying his phone. You know, like buying a new battery. Or find a friend with the same phone and borrow his battery for five minutes. Best yet, make sure your battery is fully charged before you try to flash. You would think that last bit would be common knowledge by the point.

 

[DF Smod]

Not knowing that caused his device to die during the process bringing it to the state of what we called bricked, paperweight, child's toy, iPhone, unusable.

Now that's funny

 

[Juicemane]

plus worst case scenario he could have just bought a new battery or used someone elses and flashed it then charged his battery.

exactly. he could of walked into verizon and asked them for a new battery. 50% charge out of the box is more then enough. What a waste of the authors time and the d bag at engadget for not having a brain. He probably wasted more time messing around trying to charge the phone then he would of had he just found someone with a DX and used there battery for 5 minutes.