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[Dirty-Santa Root] Bricked Verizon LG V20 Please Help!!!

I have rooted many phones before without an issue, and during the root process for this phone, everything was going great, I flashed SuperSU zip in TWRP and rebooted, since it was the first boot I expected a decently long wait, after about 25 minutes I followed the guide's instructions for Verizon since it did say some Verizon users were experiencing long first boot times. I took the battery out like it said, put it back in, then proceeded to fastboot boot2.img, like the guide said. After letting it sit for an hour this time, I got the idea that something was obviously wrong. After multiple attempts with no success I tried to fix it myself. So far I have learned that on the fastboot screen it says my bootloader is locked again, even after unlocking it. I have tried flashing TWRP as a recovery, just to at least have a recovery boot, that does not work either unfortunately. So as of right now, all I have is a v20 that has no OS, a locked bootloader, no way of booting recovery, I can fastboot with no ADB, and its virtually a paperweight. If anyone has a solution to at least get back to Stock, I would greatly appreciate it! Thanks!

First off. It will say: Bootloader Unlocked: No
Thats normal. 2nd. you are not bricked. You have TWRP installed. You just need to redo some steps.
PM me. and I will help you.

Did you get it fixed?

frome901 said:
Did you get it fixed?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
He has not responded to my pm

What roms can we use with dirty santa root?

me2151 said:
First off. It will say: Bootloader Unlocked: No
Thats normal. 2nd. you are not bricked. You have TWRP installed. You just need to redo some steps.
PM me. and I will help you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Bricked 2 LG V20s this way any help would be appreciated lol what steps do I need to redo...

TheDantee said:
Bricked 2 LG V20s this way any help would be appreciated lol what steps do I need to redo...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In his case we needed to redo from step 3.

I managed to un-brick mines after returning sadly from the Sprint store.
First, get to the boot loader screen and try running thru the steps again, especially step 3. You need to make sure you have TWRP.
Use this link to make sure you can get into the different modes (Download mode, fastboot, etc) http://www.hardreset.info/devices/lg/lg-v20/
Once you can get TWRP to show up,then you are good. In the mean time I downloaded "LS997-deODEXd-signed"
When I got into TWRP, I transferred the file to my phone. Rebooted from TWRP back into TWRP and flashed the ROM.
During my reboots, I do get a message saying my phone is corrupt, blah blahblah, but I just wait a few seconds and it will boot up.
Hope this helps.
I had managed to brick mines only 3 hours after upgrading from my Note 4. It took me from 9pm to almost 2am to get it back up again. I can live with the message about my phone being unbootable until someone comes up with a work thru.

Bricked T-Mobile v20
I have rooted many phones before without an issue, and during the root process for this phone, everything was going great, I flashed SuperSU zip in TWRP and rebooted, since it was flash a new rom on it then i get boot loop with TWRP. so i decide to OEM LOCK again after that everything was stuck on my phone just boot loop with LG so any solutions please help me...... THx u for help me.

Kinda nerve wrecking to read about all these "bricked" phones popping up after trying this method lol.. Perhaps I'll just wait until a more tried and true way comes out...

Dirty Santa root is not for the average user who has a couple of experience in rooting.
You have to at least have background on Hard bricking phones to fully understand what you are getting yourself into

For anyone that isnt on sprint that has "bricked" their phone. There are kdz's that will allow you to reflash back to 'stock". Someone had an issue with the kdz, but it was an easy fix. If you failed the process, it can be restored. Just if it doesnt want to boot, just lock and unlock the bootloader...
If your phone doesnt have a kdz, I know TeamDev is working on a custom kdz for such phones. Don't bug him if it isn't finished as I type this.
Anyone that can't get into TWRP, or has failed the process. Either start back at step 3, or if you have TWRP installed but can't get to it, the manual way to get into TWRP is a pain.
Keep your back cover off and hold the volume down button for ease. Now press the power button and as soon as you see an LG logo, let go and repress the power button. Its tricky.... If you get the corrupted screen, pop your battery out and put it back in quick and repress volume down and power. Usually if Im quick enough the first LG logo will hang a lot longer than usual and that gives me time to enter TWRP. A factory reset screen will pop up. Hit Yes twice.

Please help urgent
lcovel said:
I managed to un-brick mines after returning sadly from the Sprint store.
First, get to the boot loader screen and try running thru the steps again, especially step 3. You need to make sure you have TWRP.
Use this link to make sure you can get into the different modes (Download mode, fastboot, etc)
Once you can get TWRP to show up,then you are good. In the mean time I downloaded "LS997-deODEXd-signed"
When I got into TWRP, I transferred the file to my phone. Rebooted from TWRP back into TWRP and flashed the ROM.
During my reboots, I do get a message saying my phone is corrupt, blah blahblah, but I just wait a few seconds and it will boot up.
Hope this helps.
I had managed to brick mines only 3 hours after upgrading from my Note 4. It took me from 9pm to almost 2am to get it back up again. I can live with the message about my phone being unbootable until someone comes up with a work thru.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Please can u help ke unbrick mine i bought this mobile in my country its expensive and has no support. I have tried all tools but still getting the error model unknown please help sir

Jaistah said:
Dirty Santa root is not for the average user who has a couple of experience in rooting.
You have to at least have background on Hard bricking phones to fully understand what you are getting yourself into
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What does that mean? Not for the average user who has a couple of experiences in rooting.
I've only rooted 2 phones, this is my 3rd (maybe 4th). I am on Sprint. Instructions worked fine for me. I did have one hiccup, but it was my fault, and I was able to root just fine. I've been running for a few months now.
I have not flashed any custom ROM yet, I'm going to wait for the next major version of Android to come out. The only mods I've done so far are Titanium Backup install so I can remove Sprint crap.

yuppicide said:
What does that mean? Not for the average user who has a couple of experiences in rooting.
I've only rooted 2 phones, this is my 3rd (maybe 4th). I am on Sprint. Instructions worked fine for me. I did have one hiccup, but it was my fault, and I was able to root just fine. I've been running for a few months now.
I have not flashed any custom ROM yet, I'm going to wait for the next major version of Android to come out. The only mods I've done so far are Titanium Backup install so I can remove Sprint crap.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
it means dirty santa root got a high posibility rate of bricking a device compared to other root methods for other devices and if you have no experience in bricking phones before then you're screwed if it happens to you

Actually, if you follow the directions, almost none of the problems create a true brick-- which means unrecoverable. For most of the cases, you might get a soft brick, meaning you have to back out, use a KDZ to repair it or reflash something else, or start over from scratch and try again-- but usually (maybe with some help from here) you can pull the phone back into a usable state.
I would hazard to guess for the vast majority the process works fine, maybe with a hiccup, but I've not seen many reports of a truly unrecoverable brick from this method. It's complicated, yes, and you need to be ready to read a LOT to understand what's going on, but it seems pretty difficult to end up with a $700 paperweight with this.

So i have been trying tonroot my sprint lg v20 and everytime i try and go to the phone on mobile terminal to enter id
Then enter the apply patch /system/bin/atd /storage/emulated/0/dirtysanta i get this message and i cant go to step 2 to boot into recovery

Any help would be appreciated: i have a sprint v20 and i wanted to know if i have to flash the stock sprint rom or can i just flash lineage rom following this guide? I have it running on AT&T and i want to keep it on AT&T...

can you please assist
Could you help out, please? I don't believe I have hard bricked my LG V20 H910. However, I have read and tried all of the unbrick info out. It seems my screw up is unique. I completed dirty Santa then went to flash a custom. in the boot between that. I get a black screen and cant do anything even download mode will not come up. My PC does make its usual noises when i connect or disconnect, but my phone does nothing.

Ok, I managed to brick mine too. It's a VS995, it was running stock 1AC. I used the LGUP tool to downgrade it to VS99512A, and then did Dirty Sanata and TWRP. After booting into TWRP I decided to try lineage OS with Android 8.0, I did not make a backup of the Stock ROM, which was very stupid. Lineage OS 15.1 flashed but I had no cell service so I panicked and instead of wiping it in TWRP and using the backup of stock I should have created, I just opened LGUP and tried to downgrade it back to stock VSS99512A. Well LGUP said it worked, but when it went to boot it would hang at the Verizon logo with 4 pastel dots. Device manager could see an ADB device and I could connect to it with ADB. So I did and read the logcat. I could see it was trying to update as part of the rollback, but it appeared that some components from Android 8x could not be "upgraded" to Andoird 7.x. There was a repeated error about failing to update SQLite instance version from 3 to 1.
The one feature that could fix this is if the refurbish function worked with any of the VS995 KDZ files we all have access to. But alas, none work instead we only get the upgrade function... or so I thought. Somewhere in my search for the past 2 weeks I found a modified LGUP https://forum.xda-developers.com/v20/how-to/guide-patch-lgup-to-unlock-features-t3652222
**Please be warned what I did was absolutely ****ing stupid, and it was sheer luck I didn't screw anything up.**
From what I can tell if you only flash ("LGUP Upgrade") the KDZ from the same model it never clears the partition it just adds to it. My problem was there was stuff from lineage OS 15 stuck on one of the partitions that was making the rollback to stock fail because it kept saying it couldn't update the SQLLite DB from 3 to 1. So no "upgrade" within LGUP would work because the upgrade function does not clear internal storage. But the link above is to a version someone modded so you can force a partition update from any KDZ onto the system. So I started playing around with forcing KDZs from other models onto my VS995, and I noticed when using the Partion DL function with non-VS995 KDZ files it would say something about the partition changing. All I can assume is that the partition layout is so different on each model and it forces LGUP to re-partition the storage.
**Again I state for the record this was stupid, and I'm only fortunate it worked.**
I forced Partion DL of H91510d_00_VTR_CA_OP_1110.kdz, then H990N10b_00_OPEN_HK_DS_OP_1017.kdz, then back to VS99512A_06_1114_ARB00.kdz, then when it booted it gave the Verizon hello, and moved on finally but the setting service kept crashing while it was trying to load the Secure Boot screen. So I yanked the battery and went into the boot menu and did the Factory Reset function, and it worked.
Lesson learned, always make a backup and don't be so hasty to use tools that aren't fully functional (LGUP).
Perhaps what I've done may help others, maybe I've found out how to reimage or unbrick our V20s. Or maybe I just got really stupid lucky.

Restore BNTV460 Stock Firmware help

I flashed the extracted aiomobilestuff.com BNTV460-v1.0.0_20180724.zip using spflash tool. However, the tablet now barely runs. The barnes and noble settings and apps crash if I try log in. The startup wizard crashes the first time, and I sometimes get a red border around every time I tap something.
Is there a way to fix this tablet or is it a dud now?
Ive tried factory reset, clear cache, nothing works. Interestingly, if I go to the normal settings app, nothing appears under serial number, etc. So it's no longer being able to read some of the hardware I'm guessing.

hassanhassan said:
I flashed the extracted aiomobilestuff.com BNTV460-v1.0.0_20180724.zip using spflash tool. However, the tablet now barely runs. The barnes and noble settings and apps crash if I try log in. The startup wizard crashes the first time, and I sometimes get a red border around every time I tap something.
Is there a way to fix this tablet or is it a dud now?
Ive tried factory reset, clear cache, nothing works. Interestingly, if I go to the normal settings app, nothing appears under serial number, etc. So it's no longer being able to read some of the hardware I'm guessing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey, if you still have this device laying around somewhere, could you try updating from that firmware to see what happens?

turtleletortue said:
Hey, if you still have this device laying around somewhere, could you try updating from that firmware to see what happens?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can't update, every time I try to access the barnes and noble settings app it crashes, every time I try to open the B&N app to log in, once I enter my username and password it crashes also.

hassanhassan said:
I flashed the extracted aiomobilestuff.com BNTV460-v1.0.0_20180724.zip using spflash tool. However, the tablet now barely runs. The barnes and noble settings and apps crash if I try log in. The startup wizard crashes the first time, and I sometimes get a red border around every time I tap something.
Is there a way to fix this tablet or is it a dud now?
Ive tried factory reset, clear cache, nothing works. Interestingly, if I go to the normal settings app, nothing appears under serial number, etc. So it's no longer being able to read some of the hardware I'm guessing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've been experimenting with my own since I bricked mine as well, and I was able to bring mine to full functionality. Here are a few things I learned. The scatter file in the firmware on the internet is messed up. They made the scatter file incorrectly, so as a result, whenever you flash the device with it you have to completely flash it. Their firmware has also been tampered with and probably doesn't have a serial number in it. So, I bet you wiped all of your partitions, including ones that potentially had the serial number. I dunno how to fix it, maybe see if you can get a new one from B&N for no extra cost. Unless you have a full sp flash tool backup of the device before you bricked it, I'm unsure of what to do for you. I was able to help myself because I only messed up system.img, which I took a backup of before modifying it, and I used the wwr_mtk + sp flash tool guide to make a proper scatter file so I could flash my system.img using download in sp flash tool. (Also sorry that it's been a few months since I've responded, I just thought up how I could fix my own device last night and successfully did it). Also, here is my scatter file.

hassanhassan said:
I can't update, every time I try to access the barnes and noble settings app it crashes, every time I try to open the B&N app to log in, once I enter my username and password it crashes also.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So here is the only solution I can think of (if you still have this device).
Download the latest boot.img and system.img (available here https://androidfilehost.com/?fid=4349826312261752630 ) and use the scatter file to flash them to the device (download mode and check system and boot and select both of the files). Let me know if you encounter any errors if you try this. NOTE: This rom is only for the Oreo version of this device, BNTV460, so for anybody with the BNTV450/Marshmallow device, your device likely will get messed up by this.

turtleletortue said:
So here is the only solution I can think of (if you still have this device).
Download the latest boot.img and system.img (available here https://androidfilehost.com/?fid=4349826312261752630 ) and use the scatter file to flash them to the device (download mode and check system and boot and select both of the files). Let me know if you encounter any errors if you try this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm getting an error, "S_DL_GET_DRAM_SETTING_FAIL - Obtain DRAM Failed" when trying to flash any firmware files. I've tried a few different versions of SP Flasher and drivers... any input on that? How did you power on your device for flashing? My battery is completely dead and I'm plugging it in after hitting Download of SP Flasher... it recognizes the device and begins flashing, but fails.

xKroniK13x said:
I'm getting an error, "S_DL_GET_DRAM_SETTING_FAIL - Obtain DRAM Failed" when trying to flash any firmware files. I've tried a few different versions of SP Flasher and drivers... any input on that? How did you power on your device for flashing? My battery is completely dead and I'm plugging it in after hitting Download of SP Flasher... it recognizes the device and begins flashing, but fails.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Questions I have for you that may influence how you should handle this:
- Is the tablet you are on the Marshmallow Nook Tablet 7 (BNTV450) or the Oreo Nook Tablet 7" (BNTV460)? Ignore the rest of my questions and my advice if it is the Marshmallow BNTV450 one.
- Did you flash the stock rom that the original author of this thread flashed (the shady one that messed his device up) before trying this?
- Are you able to boot into any kind of OS? If so, let it charge and then go into that OS and finish charging before doing anything
That error sounds like a result of the shady stock firmware, since it has a different scatter file. Flashing that rom makes people lose some specific device identifiers that make it so the original firmware from B&N won't work anymore as I have seen so far.
Here is my advice if you have the Oreo Nook Tablet 7": Charge the BNTV460 as much as you can, and follow this guide to make a backup of the exact firmware on that Nook Tablet 7" https://forum.hovatek.com/thread-21970.html If the readback step gives you that same dram setting error, your device is likely a brick if it cannot boot into any OS, and you should try to exhaust any type of warranty or replacement plan with B&N that you have to get a replacement, otherwise you can continue with the rest of the guide to make a proper scatter file and rom backup for your device. I will try to guide you to my best of my ability, but this is a really confusing area due to all of the things that can go wrong and all of the risks of bricking the device permanently.

turtleletortue said:
Questions I have for you that may influence how you should handle this:
- Is the tablet you are on the Marshmallow Nook Tablet 7 (BNTV450) or the Oreo Nook Tablet 7" (BNTV460)? Ignore the rest of my questions and my advice if it is the Marshmallow BNTV450 one.
- Did you flash the stock rom that the original author of this thread flashed (the shady one that messed his device up) before trying this?
- Are you able to boot into any kind of OS? If so, let it charge and then go into that OS and finish charging before doing anything
That error sounds like a result of the shady stock firmware, since it has a different scatter file. Flashing that rom makes people lose some specific device identifiers that make it so the original firmware from B&N won't work anymore as I have seen so far.
Here is my advice if you have the Oreo Nook Tablet 7": Charge the BNTV460 as much as you can, and follow this guide to make a backup of the exact firmware on that Nook Tablet 7" https://forum.hovatek.com/thread-21970.html If the readback step gives you that same dram setting error, your device is likely a brick if it cannot boot into any OS, and you should try to exhaust any type of warranty or replacement plan with B&N that you have to get a replacement, otherwise you can continue with the rest of the guide to make a proper scatter file and rom backup for your device. I will try to guide you to my best of my ability, but this is a really confusing area due to all of the things that can go wrong and all of the risks of bricking the device permanently.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the quick response. It is the BNTV450/Marshmallow, which may be part of the problem. I do get the same error on the readback. It may be time to just retire the thing and grab a new ereader, I got a few years out of it and it was cheap.
EDIT: To respond to your question, I did use the shady ROM above. So note to others: don't do that...

xKroniK13x said:
Thanks for the quick response. It is the BNTV450/Marshmallow, which may be part of the problem. I do get the same error on the readback. It may be time to just retire the thing and grab a new ereader, I got a few years out of it and it was cheap.
EDIT: To respond to your question, I did use the shady ROM above. So note to others: don't do that...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, your device may be completely bricked. The Nook Tablet 7's are confusing due to the two of them being only slightly different, but different enough for disaster to happen.

LG V20 H910 Root attempt fail, any plan of recourse?

Hi. I'm just gonna say this first: I didn't know entirely what I was doing when beginning this operation. I was just trying to do something fun and new, and it didn't pan out. I fully acknowledge that I am an idiot.
Now, the story. I was attempting to root my LGV20 with this guide: https://forum.xda-developers.com/v20/how-to/root-h910-v10m-t3664500 .
I have read over this thread more times than countable and thought I was doing everything correctly. I got to the "STEP3.BAT" portion of the guide and long story short, my phone crashed during it and somehow got foobarred.
It *kinda* works (as in it will boot for around a minute) and then blue/black screen into a reboot.
Is there any way I can save this phone? Hard resets, going into software, more dumb computer stuff, anything. I don't *need* to get this phone working again but it would be really preferable.
Simultaneously I fully accept the responsibility in failing the operations. I know that somewhere I must have messed up. If no-one wants/ can help me, tell me so. Just means new phone time.
If any more detail on what happened is needed, tell me.

First off: that guide is ONLY for the H910 (AT&T) variant, so make sure with your model
and also, when you said a "blue or black screen" it also has very small writings too, right? If so, then you may have faced a kernel/bootloader panic
Technically your phone is *still* alive, and your best method is to start over again, assuming if you read the whole guide carefully then you have backed up your firmware and can still access download mode.
Flash your stock firmware back (or use the H915 firmware provided by the guide), wipe and setup your phone again, then root the phone again.
I also suggest replacing the TWRP recovery inside the provided Dirtysanta folder cuz that's what i did when i faced the kernel panic

MEMO#22 said:
First off: that guide is ONLY for the H910 (AT&T) variant, so make sure with your model
and also, when you said a "blue or black screen" it also has very small writings too, right? If so, then you may have faced a kernel/bootloader panic
Technically your phone is *still* alive, and your best method is to start over again, assuming if you read the whole guide carefully then you have backed up your firmware and can still access download mode.
Flash your stock firmware back (or use the H915 firmware provided by the guide), wipe and setup your phone again, then root the phone again.
I also suggest replacing the TWRP recovery inside the provided Dirtysanta folder cuz that's what i did when i faced the kernel panic
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks so much. Freaked out over this for a good bit. Came back, did what you said and we're back at that step fully working. Life saver.
Now my first guess as to why step3 failed is that i didn't have the latest version of TWRP. How can I set that up?

Inside the root package folder you can see an .img file named twrp 3.0.2-1- us996.img
What i did was downloaded a later version
(not latest cuz my phone won't boot at the latest version for some reason), copied the name of the original twrp and renamed it, paste it to the folder, overwrite the old one, and try to root it again

MEMO#22 said:
Inside the root package folder you can see an .img file named twrp 3.0.2-1- us996.img
What i did was downloaded a later version
(not latest cuz my phone won't boot at the latest version for some reason), copied the name of the original twrp and renamed it, paste it to the folder, overwrite the old one, and try to root it again
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Alright, i've done that now too. Thanks. Is there anything else i should/need to keep in mind to ensure failure is not going to happen? I want to make 100% sure I get everything right this time.

reptarien said:
Alright, i've done that now too. Thanks. Is there anything else i should/need to keep in mind to ensure failure is not going to happen? I want to make 100% sure I get everything right this time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No i don't think there is more things to do, the guide you're following is pretty much straightforward already.
100% guarantee is always a stretch here in XDA. But if you're still facing problems you can ask for help on that guide's thread.

MEMO#22 said:
No i don't think there is more things to do, the guide you're following is pretty much straightforward already.
100% guarantee is always a stretch here in XDA. But if you're still facing problems you can ask for help on that guide's thread.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I really want to give up on this. This time I successfully made it through all Step 3, but I also noticed that my screen was kind of glitched and not rendering properly at that stage. After it rebooted, I unplugged my micro usb cable and it gave me an angry green warning message I will attach here.
If you/someone can tell me what to do with this message from here or instruct me on how to flash stock H910 10 q back onto the phone without doing TWRP (since i'm evidently incapable of installing it) I would be most appreciative.

Slightly better picture without anything cut off.

reptarien said:
I really want to give up on this. This time I successfully made it through all Step 3, but I also noticed that my screen was kind of glitched and not rendering properly at that stage. After it rebooted, I unplugged my micro usb cable and it gave me an angry green warning message I will attach here.
If you/someone can tell me what to do with this message from here or instruct me on how to flash stock H910 10 q back onto the phone without doing TWRP (since i'm evidently incapable of installing it) I would be most appreciative.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The screen glitching is normal, the green text after boot however is somehow not.
Sad to hear that it still didn't work, there something seems to be interrupting the process of rooting your phone. I dunno if it has something to do with ARB (anti rollback) preventing you to root
If you want to go back to your stock firmware that you backed up, you can:
-Carefully flash each file of your backed up firmware through adb and fastboot mode
-build a zip file of your firmware and flash through TWRP (since it didn't succeed tho)

MEMO#22 said:
The screen glitching is normal, the green text after boot however is somehow not.
Sad to hear that it still didn't work, there something seems to be interrupting the process of rooting your phone. I dunno if it has something to do with ARB (anti rollback) preventing you to root
If you want to go back to your stock firmware that you backed up, you can:
-Carefully flash each file of your backed up firmware through adb and fastboot mode
-build a zip file of your firmware and flash through TWRP (since it didn't succeed tho)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Could you reply with any links with a tutorial on how to do the first thing? Or describe it. Sorry for being so dumb i'm a total newbie lol

reptarien said:
Could you reply with any links with a tutorial on how to do the first thing? Or describe it. Sorry for being so dumb i'm a total newbie lol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately i can't find any guides when it comes to flashing the back up.
I did read something back then on turning it into a zip file, but even if you can build one you still need TWRP, in which case you haven't successfully installed, so that's no option
Flashing the backup files requires specific commands, especially to the part on what partition should it be flashed to
When LGUP backs up your phone's firmware, you can see a vast number of files(i can't remember how were they named, I'll look up a reddit post about it)
The files where named based on what partition it came fom (H910_modemxx_COM12, H910_system_COM12 or something like that)
These are image files, what i did as far as i can remember was rename these files by adding an IMG extension for ADB to recognize
Flash them according to it's partition name:
"Fastboot flash system H910_system_COM12.img"
"Fastboot flash recovery H910_recovery_COM12.img'
Etc.
To go to fastboot, turn off your phone and hold the volume down button , then plug your phone to the PC.
But i really cannot guarantee this, because for all i know, in order to flash this you need fastboot, and to get fastboot you need to root your phone, because only the engineering bootloader has it (i'm sorry if it's wrong tho), and flashing these files to fastboot might be a bit dangerous because it will not verify the files, there may be chances that you might flash a corrupted file. so flashing via LGUP is the safest option so far if you don't know what you're doing

Help I broke my boot loader

Okay, so this is an interesting story...
I helped a friend out because he wanted to root his tablet bad for some reason, he knew I was a nerd, so he trusted me with this task. It's a delicate process, I know, but the next day I gave it back to him, successfully rooted (TWRP recovery and Magisk installed) a few days later he gave it back to me again saying I should adapt the storage. Samsung locked this function long ago, I told him it's risky, but he still insisted on doing it. I used a program called Root Essentials. It needs a plugin to use adaptive storage. This is where the tablet started acting up. I couldn't install the plugin, or for that matter anything in TWRP, because it constantly failed. The installation through Root Essentials failed immediately, it just booted my device into TWRP recovery, doing nothing. I tried making a backup, failed, because it couldn't access the "/data partition" or whatever. I tried going back to Root Essentials and I must have accidentally clicked on something I shouldn't have, because after I turned off the tab, it wouldn't boot again. It would put me in ODIN mode saying
"Invalid boot image header
Can't get fdt" (I have a pic of this)
Twrp still works, tried everything from wiping the cache to wiping the full device and factory reset it. Considered flashing a new boot image, but I'm not sure where to get it from. (i can't confirm the build number and stuff like that)
I hope I could give y'all a decent explanation, because I honestly have no clue where I messed up.
We're talking about a Samsung Galaxy Tab A (2017) SM-T380
Whoever helps me out, god bless you...

MrUncle said:
Okay, so this is an interesting story...
I helped a friend out because he wanted to root his tablet bad for some reason, he knew I was a nerd, so he trusted me with this task. It's a delicate process, I know, but the next day I gave it back to him, successfully rooted (TWRP recovery and Magisk installed) a few days later he gave it back to me again saying I should adapt the storage. Samsung locked this function long ago, I told him it's risky, but he still insisted on doing it. I used a program called Root Essentials. It needs a plugin to use adaptive storage. This is where the tablet started acting up. I couldn't install the plugin, or for that matter anything in TWRP, because it constantly failed. The installation through Root Essentials failed immediately, it just booted my device into TWRP recovery, doing nothing. I tried making a backup, failed, because it couldn't access the "/data partition" or whatever. I tried going back to Root Essentials and I must have accidentally clicked on something I shouldn't have, because after I turned off the tab, it wouldn't boot again. It would put me in ODIN mode saying
"Invalid boot image header
Can't get fdt" (I have a pic of this)
Twrp still works, tried everything from wiping the cache to wiping the full device and factory reset it. Considered flashing a new boot image, but I'm not sure where to get it from. (i can't confirm the build number and stuff like that)
I hope I could give y'all a decent explanation, because I honestly have no clue where I messed up.
We're talking about a Samsung Galaxy Tab A (2017) SM-T380
Whoever helps me out, god bless you...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just flash the latest stock firmware. The build number doesn't matter...
you can get the stock firmware here: https://www.sammobile.com/samsung/galaxy-tab-a-2017/firmware/#SM-T380

JJcoder said:
Just flash the latest stock firmware. The build number doesn't matter...
you can get the stock firmware here: https://www.sammobile.com/samsung/galaxy-tab-a-2017/firmware/#SM-T380
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ur like 9months late replying lol way to revive dead thread

Phone won't boot after TWRP restore

I really need help. I don't have a usable phone.
It's a long sad story but I had a working rooted phone with stock Android 9 and Magisk. Because I could not get OTA updates I wanted to update the old version installed, but never succeeded. To make a long story short, since I had a recent Twrp backup so I did a twrp restore.
Rebooting after that caused a boot loop. I finally flashed a stock boot.img using adb and ended with either a boot loop or just the Moto image staying static.
I gave up and decided to do a factory restore.
TWRP is no longer available as recovery. I now get the dead android with red exclamation mark. I got to the options and selected factory restore with wipe user data. Reboot now gives me a static Moto image and nothing further.
I repeated factory restore with wipe user data 2 more times with same result.
How do I get a working phone again?
Please help. Thank you.

Hi there,
I had a similar problem with my phone a few days ago.
Did you try to flash back your stock os with a blank flash? for me this worked, I just had to make sure that ALL files of the Rom image were included in the batch/shell script. For me with a reteu image one was missing (I think the vendor.002 or something like that), otherwise my phone was also stuck at boot.
Maybe that helps! good luck!

Blankflash can be complicated; at least it was for me. Do a Google search, maybe, for LMSA. It's a software program from Lenovo (make sure when you find it that it is lenovos website) and download this app on your windows PC. Normally, and with a little luck, you can put your phone in fastboot mode (it instructs you through all this, too), go-to Restore and LMSA will download the most recent firmware and flash you back to stock. Hope you have some luck! if not I can try to be more helpful with blank / because it took me months to figure out and find a compatible one but I still have it somewhere.

DrHelicopter said:
Hi there,
I had a similar problem with my phone a few days ago.
Did you try to flash back your stock os with a blank flash? for me this worked, I just had to make sure that ALL files of the Rom image were included in the batch/shell script. For me with a reteu image one was missing (I think the vendor.002 or something like that), otherwise my phone was also stuck at boot.
Maybe that helps! good luck!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I finally was able to flash stock rom again, re root and restore my apps with Titanium backup. I remembered a partially broken old phone I had and got it working. That relieved the stress of not having a phone and allowed me to work more calmly on my main phone. Still don't know why the twrp restore messed the phone up. Makes me bother why I'm using twrp for backups.

clintongsan said:
Blankflash can be complicated; at least it was for me. Do a Google search, maybe, for LMSA. It's a software program from Lenovo (make sure when you find it that it is lenovos website) and download this app on your windows PC. Normally, and with a little luck, you can put your phone in fastboot mode (it instructs you through all this, too), go-to Restore and LMSA will download the most recent firmware and flash you back to stock. Hope you have some luck! if not I can try to be more helpful with blank / because it took me months to figure out and find a compatible one but I still have it somewhere.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried LMSA. It had entries for several Moto G7 phones (plus, etc) but not the plain G7. Strange.

maybeme2 said:
I tried LMSA. It had entries for several Moto G7 phones (plus, etc) but not the plain G7. Strange.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know if you still want to flash via fastboot, but there is a good guide for the g7 plus here .
You just need the last part, if your bootloader is working. Just keep in mind you need another image from lolinet, the standard G7 is codenamed 'river' as far as i know, so this should be the place for you.
And remember to check if all files (of the extracted image) are included in the 'flashfile.bat' to ensure the flash is complete, otherwise it maybe won't boot.
Hope this helps recovering your phone!

RE:
maybeme2 said:
I tried LMSA. It had entries for several Moto G7 phones (plus, etc) but not the plain G7. Strange.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm, okay. That is strange but maybe you have the G7 Plus variant? I don't know that model but the regular G7 is codenamed to (river) xt1962-1. So if you boot into fastboot (from power off; volume down and power held until the fastboot screen appears), look for the third or fourth line down, it will read something like "Product/Variant: river XT1962-1 64GB..." just to ensure that you are looking at the right forum/device. If you are still having issues and if all else does not prove successful, let me know and I can share the blankflash that worked for me along with the best instructions from memory on how I did it. My phone was once bricked to the point where no screen came on at all and I thought it was a goner (actually did it to two seperate G7s as I was learning why Lineage isn't my favorite custom ROM at the time lol) so I know the blankflash I have will work but I would recommend it as a last measure due to the fact that any and all data will be wiped so you won't be able to hold onto anything that is on the device's storage, itself. Hope you got it fixed and wishin you luck!
---------- Post added at 11:13 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:10 PM ----------
DrHelicopter said:
Hi there,
I had a similar problem with my phone a few days ago.
Did you try to flash back your stock os with a blank flash? for me this worked, I just had to make sure that ALL files of the Rom image were included in the batch/shell script. For me with a reteu image one was missing (I think the vendor.002 or something like that), otherwise my phone was also stuck at boot.
Maybe that helps! good luck!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey there; do you happen to have a page or website handy that explains blankflash and how the script runs? I remember there being so much confusion over it such as some people had me thinking I needed to find an external firehose program, codes, etc., and as it turned out I only needed the correct blankflash. I was able to fix my devices a couple of months ago but I was just still a bit curious as to the behind-the-scenes details that the software runs in order to be such an awesome fix. Thanks, in advance. Take care!

Fortunately I was finally able to download the latest stock android 9 from Lolinet and flash it to the phone with fastboot. I rooted again with Magisk, flashed copypartitions, and restored my apps and data from a recent Titanium Backup. So I am good now. But, it was very stressful for 2-3 days because I'm not an expert.
Yes the phone is river XT1962-1 64GB, but for some reason my LMSA did not recognize it. Extremely strange but unimportant now since I'm now back in business. I don't know for sure what happened but I suspect it may have had something to do with Moto G7's A / B partitions getting mixed up.

LMSA needs to be updated if there is no Moto g7 option. I just checked on my install and the option was there.

Has anyone ever actually used a TWRP restore? I have tried numerous times to no avail. It's rather annoying but I hope it'll get fixed one day to do backups/restores...same goes for adb backups.

clintongsan said:
Has anyone ever actually used a TWRP restore? I have tried numerous times to no avail. It's rather annoying but I hope it'll get fixed one day to do backups/restores...same goes for adb backups.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've successfully used twrp restores several times on previous phones. Saved me many times. But they were all on Nexus phones and earlier android versions.
The only time I used it on the Moto G7 I got stuck in a bootloop. Maybe it's the newer A B dual partitions causing my problems. Don't know for sure. But without a dependable system restore capability, twrp loses its value to me.
Now I am even afraid to try another twrp restore as a test in case I get thrown back into a boot loop. See my note on
https://forum.xda-developers.com/g7-plus/development/recovery-twrp-3-3-0-moto-g7-plus-t3930050/page9