[corydunbar]

How to SBF your Droid 2 [as well as Global] (back to stock)


* I am not liable for any damages that you incur to your device. These instructions have no malicious intent, and i will try to help with any problems that arrise.

Note: this is written while using ClockworkMod as the recovery image, not the stock image just in case problems arrise we can narrow them down quicker

Things that will be needed
* RSDlite v4.9 download :
* Motorola Drivers download :
* Droid 2 (A955) v2.3.20 .sbf download : -----OR-----Droid 2 Global v2.3.29 .sbf download
* Droid 2 / Global
* micro USB cable

Setup steps:
1) open and install RSDlite
2) install motorola drivers to your windows computer, Instructions if needed:
3) move “Verizon Droid 2 (A955) v2.3.20.sbf” or "Verizon Droid 2 Global (A956) v2.3.29.sbf" to your desktop for easy access.

Steps to SBF
4) Open RSDlite
5) Connect Droid 2 to PC using the micro USB cable
in PC mode (from Notifications bar under USB connnections)
with USB debugging mode on (from settings, applications, development, then check usb debugging)you can also put your device into the bootloader by powering on and holding the power button and the up button on the keyboard
6) allow your device to sit connected for up to 15 min. if RSDlite doesn’t see your device immediately. (going into the bootloader on your device ensures RSDlite sees your device when connected)
7) select the “...” button next to the filename text feid to browse for the .sbf on your desktop.
8) select the 2.3.20.sbf (D2) or 2.3.29.sbf (D2G) file you downloaded and placed on your desktop.
9) select start and allow RSDlite to run fully to completion. ~ 5 - 20min.
10) your device may bootloop continuously when RSDlite finishes, if so you’ll need to wipe data and cache. (dont continue to the next step until RSDlite has finished or begins to bootloop on your Droid eye)
11) bull battery and replace it.
12) enter recovery by holding power and volume down. or by holding power and X on the physical keyboard
13) when the android guy with a caution triangle around him appears click press either (power and volume down, or power and volume up, or volume up and down) [sorry about that i cant remember which one it is off hand] simultaneously until the blue menu fonts appear. or you can just press the search button (the magnifying glass on the physical keyboard)
14) use the volume down button to hover over “wipe data/ factory reset” and click the power button to select. then confirm your selection by following the commands. you may have to use the camera button to select instead of the power button.
15) then choose “reboot system now”

and wallah, your device should reboot back to the official verizon wireless software and they wont be any wiser.

thanks to sankeyr for the hardware keyboard controls




HELP WITH ISSUES If you run into problems here are a few fixes



battery low code error

Ok so after leaving it charged a few hours I got nothing. I was able to again launch into the bootloader with the "Battery Low Cannot Program" message.

After googling around for a good while I found an interesting new way to fix or bypass that error message.

Links here:



This is a little tricky but for those of you unable to get a new battery, or borrow one and would have an extra usb cable around this is a good fix.

1. Take your USB cable and keep the USB end while cutting the opposite end.
2. Strip rubber/plastic coating of the cable till you see the metal/aluminum wire.
3. Remove or simple peel open the metal/aluminum coating until you expose all four wires.
4. You should have a RED, BLACK, GREEN, & WHITE wire, we will be using the Red (Vcc+5) and Black (Ground)
5. Strip the red and black wire.

From here you can do 2 things.

A. Remove the battery from your phone. At the top of the battery you will see the contact pins.
The far left should have a + sign, while the far right should say -.
Tape the Red wire making sure it makes contact with the + pin, and do the same with the Black wire and the -.
Once you are sure the wires are only touching the + & - contacts, pop the battery back into the phone. You should have something like this:



B. Remove the battery from you phone. Inside the battery compartment you will see the 4 contact pins. (the pins that have contact with the battery)
Take the red wire and thread or loop it around the pin furthest to the left making sure it only has contact with that pin.
Take the black wire and thread or loop it around the pin furthest to the right. Again making sure it only makes contact with its specified pin.
Once done you should have something like this:


(different phone, same process)

Now plug in the USB into the computer which should hopefully solve the battery problem.

Then plug the USB data cable to your computer and your phone.
Boot into the the bootloader and reflash or do whatever needs to be done.

Once all is done, make sure you unplug both USB cables prior to removing our make shift charge/bypass cable.

I hope this helps anyone having the Low battery cannot program issue!

Will report back when I solve my own issue.

Thanks.
-human

Corrupt Code

For the record, my process was the following to repair a "Code Corrupt" in bootloader on the Droid 2:

- Download , the , and the from MDW.
- Turn phone on, load bootloader SBF via RSD Lite
- The phone will restart, hold "X", and boot into recovery.
- Wipe all
- Pull battery
- Replace battery, hold "Up" on power up (back to flash mode, "Code Corrupt" should be gone)
- Flash SBF
- Pull battery when completed, ("Code Corrupt" will show back up)
- Reload bootloader SBF
- When completed, phone should boot back into a freshly flashed 2.3.20

This was my process, but yours may differ slightly.

[thefever23]

It's nice to see a guide written recently instead of from back in September of 2010 like everywhere else. I'm gonna give it a go tonight.

[thefever23]

I can't get the debugging icon in the notification bar to stay up in PC mode even though it's checked as enabled.

[cucabueno]

Does this unroot your phone? Will I still see the Superuser icon after all this?

[corydunbar]

I can't get the debugging icon in the notification bar to stay up in PC mode even though it's checked as enabled.

Sorry you're right, its been updated

sent from my Motorola DROID X / DROID 2

[corydunbar]

Does this unroot your phone? Will I still see the Superuser icon after all this?

You will lose root, if you want it back follow these Instructions: http://forum.androidcentral.com/droi...2-newbies.html

sent from my Motorola DROID X / DROID 2

[jocko]

So there's no native R2D2 file? I only ask because I know that the D2's and R2's exact system version is slightly different.

[corydunbar]

I think you could possibly use this on a R2D2, because the only difference to my knowledge is wallpapers, ringtones, and boot animation. Plus a different chassis. Burt as long as the R2D2 is still a (A955) and not something different like the D2G (A956) i think it will work. you will lose all your Starwars extras though. so back them up on your computer first

[Karlito]

Im having trouble with my global right now. I impulsively installed liberty and never backed my old rom up up. Now im stuck with liberty which does nothing to me because the phone is stuck on airplane mode and the physical keyboard doesnt work properly. Should i start from scratch like how this post suggests or should i just install a rom that is stable with my global (something like Fission 2.5.3)?

[corydunbar]

I'm not sure what was in the file you actually flashed, so i'm not sure what damage was done. So an SBF like above will be the safest bet for a complete fix. But i'd try the other ROM method first because RSDlite can be irritating at times.

[thefever23]

It took me a while to actually get the SBF to go through. I was using a file that I found in a different forum. Once I downloaded the .zip file you posted it went through RSD lite pretty painlessly. When it booted back up (no bootloop) all my settings and apps loaded back up too. I noticed Blockbuster and a few other bloatware apps didn't pop back up bet they're in Manage Applications so I'm sure a factory reset would put me back 100% stock.

Thanks again for the guide!

[jonnylemons]

For some reason when I click the RSDlite V4.9 link, I'm told the link is not available

[corydunbar]

For some reason when I click the RSDlite V4.9 link, I'm told the link is not available

I'll update it with a new link until i upload RSDlite 4.9 myself

UPDATE: I have now uploaded RSDlite v4.9 to megaupload and it is ready to go. Its replaced the original source in the OP.

[freddyfromutah]

I downloaded and extracted the .zip of the sbf, but it wont show in rsd lite, what am I doing wrong?

[freddyfromutah]

let me rephrase, I extracted the files but do not see an .sbf file

[freddyfromutah]

I was using the wrong file, sorry guys

[nctyson]

Hi. Noobie here. I've been trying for a couple of days to find a straightforward, nicely articulated piece such as yours for resetting my D2G. Thank you.

I've had my D2G less than 2 months, basically is still stock. However, a couple of days ago, it smart bombed and only goes to the motorola M screen (bootloop?) when it's plugged in (getting "no" power from USB or brand new battery). I had earlier learned how to get to the blue font screen (bootloader?), and tonight I found your instructions. I was able to download RSD Lite and sbf through your links to my laptop, no problem (Win7).

Unfortunately, at step 5, my laptop does not detect the droid. I have a concern...like I said, I learned to get to the blue font screen first, and eventually went for the factory reset, full monty; wipe data, wipe cache, reboot, but no change from the eventual M screen. Since the droid does not power up on the USB (don't understand why), I think it's undetectable. (I've never connected the droid to my laptop before.)

One question, if you don't mind, do you have an opinion on whether my factory hard reset made my D2G undetectable? And a follow up, if so, is there a way to make it detectable again? Sorry for my poor knowledge of the current vocabulary.

Thanks again.

tyson

[corydunbar]

Hi. Noobie here. I've been trying for a couple of days to find a straightforward, nicely articulated piece such as yours for resetting my D2G. Thank you.

I've had my D2G less than 2 months, basically is still stock. However, a couple of days ago, it smart bombed and only goes to the motorola M screen (bootloop?) when it's plugged in (getting "no" power from USB or brand new battery). I had earlier learned how to get to the blue font screen (bootloader?), and tonight I found your instructions. I was able to download RSD Lite and sbf through your links to my laptop, no problem (Win7).

Unfortunately, at step 5, my laptop does not detect the droid. I have a concern...like I said, I learned to get to the blue font screen first, and eventually went for the factory reset, full monty; wipe data, wipe cache, reboot, but no change from the eventual M screen. Since the droid does not power up on the USB (don't understand why), I think it's undetectable. (I've never connected the droid to my laptop before.)

One question, if you don't mind, do you have an opinion on whether my factory hard reset made my D2G undetectable? And a follow up, if so, is there a way to make it detectable again? Sorry for my poor knowledge of the current vocabulary.

Thanks again.

tyson

the wipe should have had no effect on whether your laptop could read your device. but i think the device cannot be read from the bootloader

[nctyson]

Understood, thanks. Not to worry. I took it into a verizon store and they couldn't do anything with it either. It's a brick. I returned it under warranty for a new one, no problems.

Thanks.

[boilerman540]

I have been searching everywhere without any luck on how to fix my phone that I believe is bricked. I tried loading GB last week and somewhere during the process my phone rebooted and now says "error, USB OK, Battery OK, etc.".

I have read online of this issue before and everyone suggests that I dl RSD Lite, drivers, and the stock boatloader. When I try this though I cannot get RSD Lite to successfully load anything onto my phone, always giving me a JUMP command error or 0x007 error. Whenever I load my phone with the up key and power, everything shows up the same, minus the error codes.

Regardless, I cannot figure out what to do with my with phone and how to fix it.

Any feedback would be much appreciated!

[nubee]

First off, THANKS for the guide.

Now for my questions.
Because my phone is not displaying the menu buttons, I can't get set turn on debugging mode in PC mode. (1) Does my phone need to be in debug mode to flash successfully?

I also tried to enter bootloader by way of the power/up button. The phone just shows the Moto Logo. RSD shows connected. (2) Am I good to load the SBF?
How do I exit this mode? None of the buttons worked and only way to get the phone to respond again was battery removal.

(3) Lastly, RSD showed different phone data when connected in PC mode and power/up button. Is this normal? Is there a better/preferred way to flash?

Thanks.

[nubee]

"10) your device may bootloop continuously when RSDlite finishes, if so you’ll need to wipe data and cache."

So how do you know when its done?

[nubee]

another question, i clicked the link for droid 2 sbf file, but it shows the following: Monster_2.3.2_4.5.153_updater_Rooted.zip

can you please confirm its correct. Thanks.

[corydunbar]

another question, i clicked the link for droid 2 sbf file, but it shows the following: Monster_2.3.2_4.5.153_updater_Rooted.zip

can you please confirm its correct. Thanks.

this is correct

[corydunbar]

"10) your device may bootloop continuously when RSDlite finishes, if so you’ll need to wipe data and cache."

So how do you know when its done?

if you don't have to wipe data and cache then it will just say complete. Occasionally it will hang at rebooting the device after reaching 99%. In which case you can disconnect and just do a battery bull and a wipe data and cache through the recovery image.