N7 (2012) Stuck at Recovery Mode factory reset

[KansasMatthew]

N7 gen 1

I can get to Fastboot screen, and see the following:

Product Name - grouper
Variant - grouper
HW version - ER3
Bootloader version - 4.23
baseband version - n/a
s/n - xxx
signing - not defined yet
lock state - locked

Then select Recovery Mode. Get the "lying down android", but not the message "no command".

Get to the System recovery screen by power/vol +, and see:
KTU84P

I select wipe data/factory reset, select "YES"

I then get:
-- Wiping data...
Formatting /data

And that's as far as it goes, will not continue. If I press and hold down the power button, I can eventually get to the "Google" logo, but then nothing else unless I get back to Fastboot screen.

Any ideas on how to proceed?

This started when the N7 was intermittently freezing or turning off, even in Safe Mode. I did a factory reset and that helped for a few days, then it started again even in Safe mode. I was going to try one more time and this is where I am now.

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! How long did you wait to see if the reset completed? Also, what happens if you select Wipe Cache Partition? The same thing?

 

[KansasMatthew]

I waited minutes - maybe 5? Maybe 10?

Wipe cache and did the same thing - that's why I tried to clean it to factory reset.

I'm might try to re-flash the whole thing sometime today. At this point I don't think I can make anything worse.

I don't know if it's h/w or s/w that glitched. My N7 is a gen 1 and gets used pretty hard pretty much every day.


edit: I'm wiping again, will let it go for a while and see what happens Up to 5+ minutes already. Around 30 min now, still on the same screen "-- Wiping cache... Formatting /cache..."

 

[B. Diddy]

Yeah, sounds like flashing the factory image might be a good idea. http://forums.androidcentral.com/go...1477-guide-nexus-7-factory-image-restore.html

 

[KansasMatthew]

No good.

I've tried a couple of the fastboot versions out there.

I follow the steps (unless I am missing one). I open a cmd window, and enter "fastboot devices". I get "< waiting for devices >". My N7 is in fastboot mode, I connect the USB cable, but fastboot never sees the device. Win7 will display the device in Control Panel>Hardware and sound>Devices and Printers as "unspecified" and "Android".

Device manager shows "Other Devices > Androud" with an exclamation and a message that "The drivers for this device are not installed (Code 28)."

It looks like Win7 recognizes something is out there, that it is an Android device, but fastboot won't see it.

I don't know enough about how to use the Android SDK or Nexus Root Toolkit to know how to get any farther.

Any other ideas? I think I'm pretty close, I just need to be able to get the Nexus/PC communications worked out.

Thanks.

 

[KansasMatthew]

OK - step by step action:

Installed Android device drivers and now can communicate.

First step in the document is to type "fastboot oem unlock". I get the unlock screen on the N7, select "unlock" and wait. I see in the upper left corner "Unlocking now......" and wait..........

Does this take minutes? Tens of minutes?

On the CMD window I get this:
(bootloader) erasing userdata...
(bootloader) erasing userdata done
(bootloader) erasing cache...
(bootloader) erasing cache done
(bootloader) erasing userdata...
(bootloader) unlocking...
FAILED (remote: (Unknown error code))
finished. total time: 18.217s

And the N7 still sits "Unlocking now......"

 

[B. Diddy]

I've never actually flashed the factory image, so I can't really help any further. I'll see if anyone else has any ideas.

 

[KansasMatthew]

bump.

I've tried a couple of different USB ports, I'll be trying again with different cables and PCs.

 

[KansasMatthew]

No joy,

Multiple computers, multiple USB ports, multiple cables.

All result in the same thing - unable to unlock:

(bootloader) erasing userdata...
(bootloader) erasing userdata done
(bootloader) erasing cache...
(bootloader) erasing cache done
(bootloader) erasing userdata...
(bootloader) unlocking...
FAILED (remote: (Unknown error code))
finished. total time: x.xx s

 

[B. Diddy]

Frustrating. Sorry, I haven't been able to find any help either.

 

[KansasMatthew]

I really think it's dead.

I can communicate with it via USB, and I doubt it's anything to do with ports or cables. At the point of the failure, there is no data being transferred so I don't think it's a USB issue, the unit should be going through an internal process of unlocking itself. I can get the "are you sure you want to unlock" screen, and when I select "yes", the N7 will go through the process until it finally fails with an "unknown error". I'm going to assume there is something really wrong with the hardware. I've already got an N7 2013 waiting for me to pick up at Microcenter, but I'll keep trying to follow up with the problem system. It would be great to get it working again.