Reboot loop trying to downgrade for root

[jpj_69]

This is my first post here, hopefully it will both be informative and help someone and perhaps I can learn a few things too. Since is this my first rooting attempt.

I have been running a bone stock Optimus S for a while No root, sprint upgrade to ZVJ (I am on an MVNO). I wanted to root and try out some different roms. Following the guide here, I learned to root I would have to downgrade from ZVJ, and a link was provided to sprint to get the old ZVD rom. I put the update.zip on my SD, went to the Stock recover, updated from the update zip and rebooted.

At this point the phone rebooted, went briefly to stock recovery again where it updated the radio and cleared the cache. Then it rebooted again, showed the LG logo, the Sprint flash screen, then went to the animated android logo screen that normally shows briefly before boot. It stayed here forever. After a minute or two the screen would blink, but it would be right back to the android logo and not boot. It seemed it was stuck at some point in the boot process.

I am bald, but I was still almost pulling out my hair. This was not supposed to be the most dangerous part of rooting my phone I thought. After much searching I thought, perhaps the zip file was corrupt. I redownloaded it, put it on a different SD card, and repeated the process. No dice.

Now I was really starting to freak. I was afraid I might have to do a factory reset (my sd was backed up but not my apps and data). After much searching I came across a thread on lg-phones.org. I was looking for a ZVJ update zip to see if I could bring things back. I found a ZVH update zip here: LG Optimus S ZVD / ZVH update.zip Download - LG Cell Phones Blog

Using this update, my phone rebooted, the first boot took a while but it came up. My understanding is ZVH was the failed Froyo rollout that was buggy, and I have a notification to get ZVJ now on my phone.

What I hope it that this helps someone who gets in the same situation. I also hope someone can tell me why the Sprint provided ZVD update.zip appears to be broken.

Thanks, and great forum. Hopefully I will be able to contribute more. Especially once I start bricking er updating my girlfriend Verizon Droid Incredible 2!

 

[jpj_69]

Just a little update. I figured out my problem. It was not clear from the downgrade thread instructions, I had to dig in the replies. Apparently when applying the sprint ZVD update.zip there are files from ZVJ still in the phone that cause this. I had to do a factory wipe. I was trying to avoid that, but I had most of my stuff backed up. Since I wasn't rooted yet I could not use titanium backup, I was downgrading so I could root.
Anyway, I am proud to report I got my phone, downgraded, rooted, and now I am happily running a cyanogen9 ICS alpha on it and considering an overclock. Who would have thought you could do all that on a $49 dollar phone. Wow.