Help Help unbricking my Moto G

[Android Question]

Hi guys,

I inadvertently bricked my 1st gen Moto G when retrying to reinstall a stock OS after using Cyanogen for a while.

Here's a summary of events:

• Bought the phone new with stock Android 4
• Updated the phone to stock Android 5
• Rooted the phone
• Installed Cyanogen Android 5 (from a file named cm-12.1-20151117-SNAPSHOT-YOG7DAO1K9-falcon.zip)
• Everything was working great
• I wanted to sell the phone and decided to put back the original OS
• I tried to reinstall XT1032_FALCON-RETEU_5.0.2_LXB22.46-28.1_1_cid7_CFC_1FF.xml, following those instructions
• I had a problem with the follow command: "fastboot flash partition gpt.bin" (something about a "remote error"). Then I noticed the warning to not run this command in case of downgrade. I guess I didn't think I was downgrading but I might have had stock Android 5.1 and so effectively downgrading to Cynogen 5.0. I decided to keep going, just skipping the following command (fastboot flash bootloader bootloader.img), as advised in case of downgrading
• Then getting to the command "fastboot erase userdata" I had another error. At this point I was quite uncertain about what to do but since it was the last command, I decided to reboot. The OS did not load but instead the phone went back to fastboot.
• I though everything had gone wrong because of trying to restore to a earlier version. I decided to try the same thing with stock Android 5.1, which wouldn't be a downgrade. This time, the "fastboot flash partition gpt.bin" command went through without an error, but the following one, "fastboot flash bootloader bootloader.img", did not run. I have no bootloader.img file in the archive I downloaded (XT1032_FALCON_RETFR_5.1_LPBS23.13-56-2_cid7_CFC.xml.zip). There is a motoboot.img file so I tried to use that instead. I had an error. I decided to keep going and run all of the other commands successfully.
• However, the phone still doesn't boot to OS

Currently the phone boots to fastboot [screenshot]. If I chose any of the first options (normal boot, recovery, factory), I get a screen saying "Warning - Bootloader Unlocked". I always had this screen when booting my phone after rooting, except that now it doesn't get past this screen.

I wanted to try to reinstall Cyanogen but I'm supposed to "adb push" the archive onto my phone, and adb doesn't seem to recognize the phone.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[Jfalls63]

Looking at the instructions in your first link,
fastboot oem fb_mode_set
Makes it boot into fastboot at each reboot. To clear this, the next to last command should be
fastboot oem fb_mode_clear

These are the mfastboot commands I used on my XT1034

mfastboot flash partition gpt.bin
mfastboot flash motoboot motoboot.img
mfastboot flash logo logo.bin
mfastboot flash boot boot.img
mfastboot flash recovery recovery.img
mfastboot flash system system.img_sparsechunk0
mfastboot flash system system.img_sparsechunk1
mfastboot flash system system.img_sparsechunk2
mfastboot flash system system.img_sparsechunk3
mfastboot flash modem NON-HLOS.bin
mfastboot erase modemst1
mfastboot erase modemst2
mfastboot flash fsg fsg.mbn
mfastboot erase cache
mfastboot erase userdata
mfastboot reboot

 

[dotnet4]

Thank you for helping!

I ran all those commands, and they all went through OK this time. I was missing the proper name for motoboot and I also ran the "fastboot oem fb_mode_clear" before rebooting. But now the phone keeps flashing this screen, for like half a second every 5 seconds. It looks like it it trying to boot and crashing?

 

[Jfalls63]

That is usually what you see when trying to get into recovery, but not flashing.
Catch it when it comes up and press and hold the power button then tap volume up and see if it will finish booting into recovery.
If it does, try a factory reset.

Are you positive you have the correct firmware?
You can do fastboot getvar all and use this guide to double check
http://forum.gsmhosting.com/vbb/f783/how-download-motorola-correct-fimware-2028182/

 

[dotnet4]

Thanks again.

I can only seem to break the loop by holding power + volume down, which brings me back to the fastboot menu (the volume up button didn't seem to work, the the "no command" message really only stays a fraction of a second so it's hard to catch).

From the fastboot menu I selected recovery (is it the same as what you advised?), but it only sends the phone back into the "no command" loop.

From the getvars I got:
(bootloader) product: falcon
(bootloader) emmc: 16GB Toshiba REV=06 PRV=01 TYPE=17
(bootloader) ro.build.fingerprint[0]: motorola/falcon_retfr/falcon_umts:
(bootloader) ro.build.fingerprint[1]: 5.1/LPB23.13-56/57:user/release-ke

And I'm taking the firmware from:
XT1032_FALCON_RETFR_5.1_LPBS23.13-56-2_cid7_CFC.xml

So it seems to match? or are the variables only showing the last firmware I flashed?

(But I realize that I did flash the wrong firmware before, from XT1032_FALCON-RETEU_5.0.2_LXB22.46-28.1_1_cid7_CFC_1FF.xml, could it be a problem or it would now be completely replaced by the new one?)

 

[dotnet4]

Ok so I redid the whole thing, starting with erasing stuff, all together:

fastboot erase system -w
fastboot erase boot
fastboot erase recovery
fastboot oem fb_mode_set
fastboot flash partition gpt.bin
fastboot flash motoboot motoboot.img
fastboot flash logo logo.bin
fastboot flash boot boot.img
fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
fastboot flash system.img_sparsechunk.0
fastboot flash system.img_sparsechunk.1
fastboot flash system.img_sparsechunk.2
fastboot flash system.img_sparsechunk.3
fastboot flash modem NON-HLOS.bin
fastboot erase modemst1
fastboot erase modemst2
fastboot flash fsg fsg.mbn
fastboot erase cache
fastboot erase userdata
fastboot oem fb_mode_clear
fastboot reboot

From the XT1032_FALCON-RETEU_5.0.2_LXB22.46-28.1_1_cid7_CFC_1FF.xml archive

But the phone keeps flashing the "no command" message

 

[Jfalls63]

Not sure if it's a typo, the 5.1 firmware you listed as LPBS23 and I've found LPB23.
I have had good results using firmware from this site, try this one
https://firmware.center/firmware/Mo...FALCON_RETFR_5.1_LPB23.13-56_cid7_CFC.xml.zip
Partition may fail because of downgrade but everything else should work ok. If it will boot after, should be able to take OTA .

 

[Jfalls63]

I never do fastboot erase system, boot or recovery.
Heard bad things can happen with Motorola.

 

[dotnet4]

Ok I applied this firmware but I am getting the same result. I give up, the phone isn't worth much anyway, I will just give it away at a phone repair shop and they can do what they want with it. I take it that after "fastboot erase userdata", all personal data should be wiped out, right?

Thanks again for your help.

 

[Jfalls63]

Everything should be wiped clean. Sorry you couldn't get it to work. I think I had picked mine up at a pawn shop for $60. Needed something to learn fastboot on. Borked it more times than I can count.
You could hold on to it a while and try again later.