MoDaCo ROM installation failure San Fran bricked?

[Guest thegom]

I tried to install MoDaCo custom ROM on my Orange San Francisco by following the instructions here

http://android.modaco.com/content/zte-blad...zte-blade-gen1/

having first established that it is a GEN1 phone.

I got to "Step 2. How to Install a ROM using Clockwork via Recovery Manager" with no trouble but when I got to "Choose Install Firmware" a message came up saying "Error" "Sorry" plus some further words that I can't remember exactly but were along the lines of "only Clockwork Recovery can install the ROM"

I eventually resorted to manually booting into Clockwork (hold Vol minus down when switching on) This entered Clockwork recovery and I selected “install zip from sdcard” and navigated to the MoDaCo zip file on the SD card and set it going. A short while later a message appeared to say the ROM was successfully installed. At this point I went back one Menu and selected "reboot" and the phone attempted to reboot but it got stuck at a screen showing a man holding a phone and "www.MoDaCo.com" underneath. Except for the screen occasionally going blank momentarily and on a couple of occasions the green android appearing briefly nothing else has happened. It won't switch off other than by removing the battery.

I've tried switching on with the vol minus button held down to get back to Clockwork but the green android appears for a few seconds before being replaced by MoDaCo man again.

Is this phone recoverable or do I just have an expensive paperweight?

[Guest wayno33]

I tried to install MoDaCo custom ROM on my Orange San Francisco by following the instructions here

http://android.modaco.com/content/zte-blad...zte-blade-gen1/

having first established that it is a GEN1 phone.

I got to "Step 2. How to Install a ROM using Clockwork via Recovery Manager" with no trouble but when I got to "Choose Install Firmware" a message came up saying "Error" "Sorry" plus some further words that I can't remember exactly but were along the lines of "only Clockwork Recovery can install the ROM"

I eventually resorted to manually booting into Clockwork (hold Vol minus down when switching on) This entered Clockwork recovery and I selected “install zip from sdcard” and navigated to the MoDaCo zip file on the SD card and set it going. A short while later a message appeared to say the ROM was successfully installed. At this point I went back one Menu and selected "reboot" and the phone attempted to reboot but it got stuck at a screen showing a man holding a phone and "www.MoDaCo.com" underneath. Except for the screen occasionally going blank momentarily and on a couple of occasions the green android appearing briefly nothing else has happened. It won't switch off other than by removing the battery.

I've tried switching on with the vol minus button held down to get back to Clockwork but the green android appears for a few seconds before being replaced by MoDaCo man again.

Is this phone recoverable or do I just have an expensive paperweight?

[Guest mikeeo19]

One thing u should know about changing roms... ALWAYS do a full WIPE before flashing a rom. There are several wiping options in CWM recovery. Two of these are absolutely needed when going from a rom to another. these are "Wipe data/factory reset" "Wipe Cache files"

[Guest thegom]

One thing u should know about changing roms... ALWAYS do a full WIPE before flashing a rom. There are several wiping options in CWM recovery. Two of these are absolutely needed when going from a rom to another. these are "Wipe data/factory reset" "Wipe Cache files"

Since my my botched attempt I have been searching around and concluded this was part or all of the problem. I do remember doing a cache wipe along the way but not "wipe data/factory reset".

I have tried many times to get into Clockwork but no key combination I have tried gets me in. Do you know of any way in?

I have seen references to a reset button at the side of the camera lens and there is a button there but all it seems to do, on mine anyway, is turn the phone off (the regular power switch doesn't now).

Obviously I would like to get the phone functioning again but it would be helpful if someone could tell me for certain that I've taken it beyond the point of no return so I can swallow my pride and move on. A Google search turned up one or two people offering mobile phone repairs. Is it likely a specialilst repairer could bring it back to life at an economic cost (given that a new SF is available at £99)?

Any suggestions/help/advice welcome.

[Guest flshg]

You could look at using ADB to try to boot into recovery. I think there will be a download somewhere on the interweb for adb without having to install the whole android SDK. You'll also need the ZTE USB drivers, which should be somewhere in these forums.

Using ADB you can initiate a reboot into recovery with a command from a windows command prompt.

[Guest thegom]

You could look at using ADB to try to boot into recovery. I think there will be a download somewhere on the interweb for adb without having to install the whole android SDK. You'll also need the ZTE USB drivers, which should be somewhere in these forums.

Using ADB you can initiate a reboot into recovery with a command from a windows command prompt.

Thank you for this.

The USB drivers are already on but when I connect the two the phone does't appear to recognise that the PC is there (presumably because it hasn't completed its boot processes) and doesn't ask if I want to mount the SD card which it always used to. Consequently I can't 'see' the SD card from the PC (I can take the card out and use a card reader of course but that doesn't help). I presume this means the two aren't talking to each other and thus ADB won't be able to do its stuff (athough I've heard if ADB I've never used it and I'm not really sure what it is) I shall do a some research.

[Guest flshg]

Thank you for this.

The USB drivers are already on but when I connect the two the phone does't appear to recognise that the PC is there (presumably because it hasn't completed its boot processes) and doesn't ask if I want to mount the SD card which it always used to. Consequently I can't 'see' the SD card from the PC (I can take the card out and use a card reader of course but that doesn't help). I presume this means the two aren't talking to each other and thus ADB won't be able to do its stuff (athough I've heard if ADB I've never used it and I'm not really sure what it is) I shall do a some research.

The computer doesnt need to access the sdcard, adb works fine without the sdcard mounted. If you dont have the full android sdk installed (its quite a large download) then here's a link to an older cut-down version of adb, which I think should work without the sdk (not tested this).

Once installed, connect the phone via usb (with the phone on, probably stuck at your loading screen). On the PC navigate to your adb install directory, open a command prompt and try the command "adb devices". Hopefully adb will find your phone, in which case you could issue the command "adb reboot recovery".

Failing this, you might need some other method, perhaps fastboot, to reinstall a recovery image. Other people will have more knowledge about this method.

[Guest thegom]

The computer doesnt need to access the sdcard, adb works fine without the sdcard mounted. If you dont have the full android sdk installed (its quite a large download) then here's a link to an older cut-down version of adb, which I think should work without the sdk (not tested this).

Once installed, connect the phone via usb (with the phone on, probably stuck at your loading screen). On the PC navigate to your adb install directory, open a command prompt and try the command "adb devices". Hopefully adb will find your phone, in which case you could issue the command "adb reboot recovery".

Failing this, you might need some other method, perhaps fastboot, to reinstall a recovery image. Other people will have more knowledge about this method.

Thanks for the information and advice.

Connecting PC and SF by USB suggests the two are talikng to each other on some level as "Removable Disk(F:)" appears in windows explorer and disappears when I break the connection.

I installed adb from the link you provided and tried "adb devices" which produced the line "List of devices attached" followed by two blank lines and the command prompt. My very limited knowledge suggests that the communication is not good enough for adb to find the phone.

I installed Clockwork on the machine during my ill-fated attempt to install a new ROM. If this could be persuaded into action it should be possible to reinstall the new ROM and progress from there but even if there is a command to get Clockwork running the lack of proper communication between PC and SF would prevent it working.

I shall research fastboot to see if this can provide a method.

Thank you again for your time and trouble.

[Guest thegom]

Thanks for the information and advice.

Connecting PC and SF by USB suggests the two are talikng to each other on some level as "Removable Disk(F:)" appears in windows explorer and disappears when I break the connection.

I installed adb from the link you provided and tried "adb devices" which produced the line "List of devices attached" followed by two blank lines and the command prompt. My very limited knowledge suggests that the communication is not good enough for adb to find the phone.

I installed Clockwork on the machine during my ill-fated attempt to install a new ROM. If this could be persuaded into action it should be possible to reinstall the new ROM and progress from there but even if there is a command to get Clockwork running the lack of proper communication between PC and SF would prevent it working.

I shall research fastboot to see if this can provide a method.

Thank you again for your time and trouble.

PROBLEM SOLVED

My research into fastboot indicated this wouldn't work if the PC wasn't talking to the SF so I had concluded that my SF was bricked and was searching the web for information on unbricking it - to see if was possible. I didn't find any help on that as such but reading one page I came across I saw that to enter recovery mode you should press and hold the vol down and then press the power switch then let go of the power switch ONLY and continue holding vol down button until it enters recovery. I did this and the recovery menu appeared.

Next "wipe the cache" then "wipe data/factory reset"

Bingo! A functioning SF

It's obviously important to keep pressing vol down after releasing the power switch. I'd not picked this up before but I've since seen this on another web page.

Thanks to everyone who offerred suggestions and apologies if this should have been obvious to me before.

Just got to find my way around the MoDaCo ROM now

[Guest flshg]

Doh, that had flashed across my mind that you might not be holding down the vol button long enough, but it seemed like that was too simple to be the cause of your problems.

Anyway good that you managed to get it sorted. Now that you have a properly functioning system you should think about upgrading it to a newer rom as the one you have is quite old and might have some bugs.

Edited June 23, 2011 by flshg