Can't reset Nexus 7 to factory settings no matter which method I try.

**phonetrips** · 01-22-2013, 12:00 AM

I'm having the weirdest problem with my Nexus 7 and I'm wondering whether it is hardware or software. I have searched everywhere and only found one person with a similar situation and he had already sent his back for repair before anyone responded with things for him to try.

My 16gb Nexus 7 is rooted/unlocked using the Nexus Root Toolkit and at the latest OTA version. It had been working fine for months. Suddenly one day I had serious problems (which I can discuss if anyone cares, but I don't think the original problems are relevant at this point.) I gave up troubleshooting and decided to do a factory reset. But no matter what method I do, the next time I boot the device it comes back into my same buggy system with all my stuff intact and nothing was wiped or reset at all. All of these methods appear to work and give the normal progress messages you would expect, but then nothing changed. It's like the Flash ram is somehow set to read-only so attempts to write to it are failing.

What I have tried:

Settings Factory Data Reset and press the Erase Everything button. The tablet pauses a while, then shuts down and reboots. The old system and all my stuff is still there immediately, nothing changed.

I go into recovery mode, choose function wipe data/factory reset, scroll down to Yes to confirm it. A bunch of progress messages show on the screen that the partitions are being formatted. I boot afterwards and the old system and all my stuff is still there immediately, nothing changed.
.

I follow all the steps in articles like this:
Every fastboot command completes normally with progress messages showing that it worked. I reboot and the old system and all my stuff is still there immediately, nothing changed.

Here is another clue: The fastboot oem lock command completes normally, but nothing changes. The padlock icon at the next boot is still open.

That's why I say that the tablet is acting as though the Flash memory is set to read-only somehow because nothing ever changes. Is it possible that this is a hardware problem, or is there something else I can do in software?

**2defmouze** · 01-22-2013, 04:33 AM

Can you use a different computer and complete the fastboot factory image restore? It sounds like for some reason the one you are using is not processing any of the commands correctly. Perhaps removing and reinstalling the drivers would help but I'd rather use a different computer.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

**phonetrips** · 01-22-2013, 01:27 PM

I had been doing all this on a Windows machine. For something completely different, I installed adb and fastboot on my Macbook. I haven't tried everything yet because I am still copying the recovery files to the Mac, but so far I have tried using fastboot on the Mac to oem lock and to format the userdata and system partitions. The commands appeared to work on the Mac just as they did on the PC, but I reboot the tablet and nothing changed at all.

Also keep in mind that one of the symptoms is that I can't erase the userdata from the recovery menu of the tablet itself, so something is going on that is beyond any possible problems with the computer connection.

**2defmouze** · 01-22-2013, 04:04 PM

Originally Posted by phonetrips

I had been doing all this on a Windows machine. For something completely different, I installed adb and fastboot on my Macbook. I haven't tried everything yet because I am still copying the recovery files to the Mac, but so far I have tried using fastboot on the Mac to oem lock and to format the userdata and system partitions. The commands appeared to work on the Mac just as they did on the PC, but I reboot the tablet and nothing changed at all.

Also keep in mind that one of the symptoms is that I can't erase the userdata from the recovery menu of the tablet itself, so something is going on that is beyond any possible problems with the computer connection.

If you are doing "fastboot erase system" correctly you should NOT be able to boot up, period. Are you sure the commands you are entering are completing correctly? No error messages?

**phonetrips** · 01-22-2013, 06:43 PM

Kitchen-2:android admin$ ./fastboot format system
formatting 'system' partition...
Creating filesystem with parameters:
Size: 681574400
Block size: 4096
Blocks per group: 32768
Inodes per group: 6944
Inode size: 256
Journal blocks: 2600
Label:
Blocks: 166400
Block groups: 6
Reserved block group size: 47
Created filesystem with 11/41664 inodes and 5415/166400 blocks
sending 'system' (12416 KB)...
writing 'system'...
OKAY [ 2.227s]
finished. total time: 2.227s

I reboot immediately after that and the tablet boots normally and goes into my old system with all my stuff showing. I also did all of these commands:

./fastboot oem unlock
./fastboot erase boot
./fastboot erase cache
./fastboot erase recovery
./fastboot erase system
./fastboot erase userdata
./fastboot flash bootloader bootloader-grouper-4.13.img
./fastboot reboot-bootloader
./fastboot -w update image-nakasi-jop40d.zip

They all finish with lots of status messages and no errors. But I reboot and nothing changes.

For example, here is the output from the last command:

Kitchen-2:android admin$ ./fastboot -w update image-nakasi-jop40d.zip
archive does not contain 'boot.sig'
archive does not contain 'recovery.sig'
archive does not contain 'system.sig'
--------------------------------------------
Bootloader Version...: 4.13
Baseband Version.....: N/A
Serial Number........: 015d16895117fa14
--------------------------------------------
checking product...
OKAY [ 0.030s]
checking version-bootloader...
OKAY [ 0.020s]
sending 'boot' (4942 KB)...
OKAY [ 0.604s]
writing 'boot'...
OKAY [ 0.172s]
sending 'recovery' (5444 KB)...
OKAY [ 0.664s]
writing 'recovery'...
OKAY [ 0.181s]
sending 'system' (477136 KB)...
OKAY [ 56.980s]
writing 'system'...
OKAY [ 21.124s]
erasing 'userdata'...
OKAY [ 0.030s]
formatting 'userdata' partition...
Creating filesystem with parameters:
Size: 14442037248
Block size: 4096
Blocks per group: 32768
Inodes per group: 8176
Inode size: 256
Journal blocks: 32768
Label:
Blocks: 3525888
Block groups: 108
Reserved block group size: 863
Created filesystem with 11/883008 inodes and 96825/3525888 blocks
sending 'userdata' (137526 KB)...
writing 'userdata'...
OKAY [ 30.435s]
erasing 'cache'...
OKAY [ 0.022s]
formatting 'cache' partition...
Creating filesystem with parameters:
Size: 464519168
Block size: 4096
Blocks per group: 32768
Inodes per group: 7088
Inode size: 256
Journal blocks: 1772
Label:
Blocks: 113408
Block groups: 4
Reserved block group size: 31
Created filesystem with 11/28352 inodes and 3654/113408 blocks
sending 'cache' (9052 KB)...
writing 'cache'...
OKAY [ 1.679s]
rebooting...

finished. total time: 112.310s
Kitchen-2:android admin$

The tablet reboots and guess what? Nothing changed whatsoever.

**2defmouze** · 01-22-2013, 07:05 PM

Yeah... there is something just plain weird there. I agree your hardware is definitely wonky, might be time to just send it in and get a fresh one.

**phonetrips** · 01-23-2013, 12:14 AM

I bought it from the Play store so I need to call Google for support. My concern is whether they will repair/replace if under warrantee since the bootloader is unlocked. One of my symptoms is that the command fastboot oem lock sppears to work, but nothing happens and the padlock icon is still unlocked. Also I can't erase any of my personal data, which I would usually do before sending something in for repair.

**starleaf1** · 03-13-2013, 09:13 AM

Yo, you guys. I'm having the same problem with my Galaxy Tab 7.7 P6800. It's rooted and unlocked (it's not locked in the first place)

My problem started when my tablet reboots every time I try to browse the Internet, with any browser (actually I only got to try with Chrome and stock browser). I tried force closing, clearing data, clearing cache, but the device rebooted every time. I tried uninstalling via Titanium, but that only seemed to anger the Reboot Deity or something.
So I decided, "Aw, screw this" and tried to reset... to no avail.
I've been factory resetting, wiping from stock recovery, wiping from recovery (both stock and CWM), and I even reflashed it with ODIN.
And guess what? Every single time, it boot up with everything, including the problem, intact. I'm getting desperate.

I'm also hesitant to turn this thing in for repair because all my files and apps and personal data would come right back the next time I boot no matter how much I try to erase it. I don't really trust the service center with my data.

**phonetrips** · 03-13-2013, 01:01 PM

I wish I had good news for you, but I never came up with a solution. I called Google and they accepted this as a warranty problem and exchanged it for another one. I have no idea how Samsung would handle yours.