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[Guide] de-bricking a ZTE Blade


Guest hedgepigdaniel

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Guest saging15

excuse me for posting in an old thread:(. btw i need help with my zte blade (smart netphone701) here in the phils.
it's been handed to me from a friend, because it's already bricked. and it can't boot factory recovery, nor in FTM mode.
luckily i't could boot into cwm recovery by pressing; home, vol (-) key and power button. could anyone help me with this problem / suggest what particular method shall i use?
so far i tried method 1 and method 3 which sadly, doesn't seem to fix it :( 
your comments are highly appreciated, thanks!

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  • 7 months later...
Guest joshmiddlebrooks
How to recover a ZTE Blade/Libra/v880 after a bad flash

This guide is meant to help you to recover from a bad flash. It assumes at the very least that you cannot boot android, and can help you as long as your phone can boot into download mode. I have described many ways to unbrick in order of increasing difficulty and risk. Use only the first method that works. These instructions will wipe everything on your phone’s internal memory. Before you follow any of them, charge your battery and have a good night’s sleep. For the purposes of this guide, a Dell XCD35 is a European GSM Blade.

Hard-brick vs Soft-brick

If your phone is soft-bricked, it has a software problem which is rendering it only as useful as a paperweight (i.e. there is nothing physically wrong with it). If it is hard-bricked, it has a physical problem which is rendering it only as useful as a paperweight. The recovery methods below can only help you to recover from a soft-brick because they do not involve any physical repairs. 99% of bricked phones are soft-bricked, and to my knowledge it is always possible to recover a soft-bricked ZTE Blade of the variants this guide is written for. I can't help you much with hard-bricked phones, but I will say this: batteries break before phones. Your Blade may have an old or damaged battery displays any of the following symptoms:

  • Does not turn on at all, even into download mode as per method 5

  • Turns on initially but does not successfully boot android without repeatedly rebooting or turning off, even after recovery using the methods below

  • Boots successfully but regularly reboots or turns off, even after recovery using the methods below

  • Especially if its behaviour is different depending on whether a charger is connected and/or depending on which charger is connected

    If you suspect that your phone has a bad battery, you may be interested in buying a new battery from eBay, since it's cheaper than buying a new phone. I recovered my old Blade like this. Sometimes the angle at which the battery is inserted can have an impact: moving the battery from side to side or inserting blu-tak to hold the battery closer to the terminals can sometimes fix the problem.

    Special Case: corrupt NV memory

    If your phone was flashed via windows and will not boot into anything except recovery mode (i.e. FTM mode or clockworkmod), even if you install a compatible ROM and boot normally, then the problem is usually corrupt NV memory. You must use method 4 to solve this problem. You can often solve it by following only the instructions to restore your IMEI (skipping the flashing part), but you may need to do the whole lot.

    Method 1: Clockworkmod

    Turn your phone on with volume down held. If it boots into clockwork, then you should be able to fix it from there. In clockworkmod:

    1. Go to “backup and restore” and perform a backup of your current setup.

    2. Go to “mounts and storage” and select mount USB storage. Connect the phone to a computer and copy your backup from the clockworkmod directory to your computer. Download a Gen1 or Gen2 ROM and copy it to your SD card (not a stock ROM, since it will overwrite clockworkmod). If you are not sure, try installing both Gen1 and Gen2 ROMs.

    3. Go to “mounts and storage” and format boot, system, data, cache, and sd-ext.

    4. Go to “install zip from SD card” and install the ROM you have downloaded. Restart your phone when it is finished.

    Method 2: Fastboot

    Fastboot is a method of flashing a recovery image to your phone from a computer (which can be running Windows, Linux, or OSX). It does not work with Blades that are running stock Gen2 firmware (i.e. upgraded to stock Gen2 via windows or upgraded to android 2.2 by an official update) unless both the recovery and boot partitions are completely unbootable.

    For all platforms

    1. Download and extract this file, which contains both fastboot and clockworkmod for Gen1 and Gen2.

    2. Turn on your phone with volume up held and connect it to your computer. It should not progress beyond the green android. Sometimes you have to wait a few minutes for the computer to recognise it.

    For Windows

    1. Download and install the ZTE Handset drivers. Your phone should be listed as "Fastboot Interface" under "ADB Interfaces".

    2. Run windows-flash-gen1-recovery.bat to flash Gen1 clockworkmod, or windows-flash-gen2-recovery.bat to flash gen2 clockworkmod.

    3. After rebooting with volume down held, you should be able to flash a ROM in clockworkmod.

    For Linux

    1. Navigate to the extracted folder and run one of the following commands. To flash Gen1 clockworkmod:
      sudo ./fastboot-linux flash recovery recovery-clockwork-4.0.0.8-blade-gen1.img

      To flash Gen2 clockworkmod:

      sudo ./fastboot-linux flash recovery recovery-clockwork-4.0.0.8-blade-gen2.img

    2. After rebooting with volume down held, you should be able to flash a ROM in clockworkmod.

    For Mac

    I don't know the command but it is probably similar to linux. you need to run fastboot-mac instead of fastboot-linux and flash the appropriate .img file.

    Method 3: TPT

    TPT is a way of flashing part of the low-level firmware on your phone. After successfully flashing the files below you will regain access to clockworkmod. You need a different type of TPT depending on what variant of the Blade you have. If you have a China Unicom v880 or any other Chinese variant then you must not flash a TPT designed for European Blades, and vice versa. Be aware that flashing a modified or corrupt TPT can permanently brick your phone. Choose the appropriate file below.

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    European Gen1 TPT

    Use this if your phone is a European GSM variant and if it is Gen1 or has been upgraded to Gen2 via TPT. This will flash stock Gen1 firmware.

    European Gen2 TPT

    Use this if your phone is a European GSM variant and if it was sold as Gen2 or upgraded to stock Gen2 via windows. This will flash stock Gen2 firmware.

    China Unicom v880 Gen2 TPT

    Use this if your phone is a China Unicom v880 (unsure, but may work on Chinese u880/x880). This will flash the stock Gen2 firmware taken from the B15 android 2.2.2 update.

    Flashing the TPT

    1. Download the applicable TPT file from above.

    2. Unzip and put the “image” folder onto the root directory of your SD card.

    3. Disconnect and reconnect your SD card and check the integrity of the TPT files. There is a file called "image.hash" in the image folder which contains all the files' md5 hashes in plain text. Make sure that the md5 of all the files match, or you may brick your phone.

    4. Turn on your phone with the SD card inserted and with menu and volume up held.

    5. The screen will either stay black or show green text (if you see the green android immediately then it didn't work), and will restart into clockworkmod when done. Wait at least 5 minutes for it to restart if you don’t see anything.

    6. When it is finished (even if it didn't work), then remove the image directory from the SD card to prevent accidental flashing later on.

    You can now flash a ROM using clockworkmod. If it doesn't work, then using a different SD card may help. If you have a European variant then it is safe to try both Gen1 and Gen2 TPTs separately in case you have made a mistake.

    Method 4: Windows upgrader

    This method flashes the entire low-level firmware and maintains the correct IMEI automatically. To use this method you need to be able to boot into stock recovery. This means that when you turn your phone on with volume down held, the words “FTM” must appear on the screen. If you can access clockworkmod then you don't need to use this method - see above. This method requires windows.

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  • 1 year later...
Guest Irfanraaz
On 7/15/2011 at 1:19 AM, hedgepigdaniel said:

 

sir my phone is ZTE V807 .... can i use this Mathod on it?

i can't able to connect my phone with my pc.. 

my phone is made in chaina.

its bricked when im do update it with update.zip...

:(

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