[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] jivemaster:
Before I give up, I thought I'd check in with the pros here to see if I'm missing something. I have read some of the other threads with similar problems, although they seem to not have solutions either. My situation my slightly differ to theirs, who knows, but I thought I should post to be sure I have tried everything before I give up on this.

I have UK Desire, non-branded, which belonged to the wife. We’ve had the phone since April 2010. (I've since bought her a new phone because things look pretty hopeless.)

The phone initially was on stock 2.1, but it was rooted with unrevoked before the jump to 2.2. We then installed leedroid (can’t remember the version) and had been on that since. The issues began shortly after using leedroid, but that’s likely a coincidence. I think it’s more likely that it has a hardware issue.

The issues started with random reboots for the last few months. It only used to happen once a day, then a couple of times a day, and eventually it occurred during calls or soon after enabling 3g/wifi. The random reboot is followed by 7 vibrations and sits on the htc logo, requiring a battery pull. This may happen once or several times before the phone finally boots again.

Problem: After applying a WWE RUU, the Desire is now bricked (stuck in HTC’s RUU recovery mode, with the /!\ alert signs in each corner of the screen. Pulling the battery and switching the phone brings you back to this screen.).

It is only accessible via pc using fastboot. No adb. This obviously reduces the options to recover to almost zero. Obviously no key combinations work. Turning the phone on simply brings you back to HTC's RUU mode.

The initial RUU failed updating partition Radio_V2. It is the same error for each RUU I have flashed since. I believe this may be due to the initial RUU I flashed containing a lower version of radio that what was currently on the phone.

The result of an RUU flash is as follows:

fastboot oem rebootRUU
fastboot flash zip PB99IMG.zip

sending 'zip' (139552 KB)... OKAY [ 19.153s]
writing 'zip'... INFOadopting the signature contained in this i
mage...
INFOsignature checking...
INFOzip header checking...
INFOzip info parsing...
INFOchecking model ID...
INFOchecking custom ID...
INFOchecking main version...
INFOstart image[hboot] unzipping for pre-update check...
INFOstart image[hboot] flushing...
INFO[RUU]WP,hboot,0
INFO[RUU]WP,hboot,100
....
....
....****Progress lines****
....
....
....
INFO[RUU]UZ,userdata,100
INFO[RUU]WP,userdata,0
INFO[RUU]WP,userdata,100
INFOstart image[sp1] unzipping & flushing...
INFO[RUU]UZ,sp1,0
INFO[RUU]UZ,sp1,100
INFO[RUU]WP,sp1,0
INFO[RUU]WP,sp1,100
FAILED (remote: 51 partition update fail)
finished. total time: 141.361s

I have attempted a number of WWE RUU's to fix the problem (not in order of use):

RUU_Bravo_HTC_WWE_1.15.405.4_Radio_32.30.00.28U_4.05.00.11_release_122704

RUU_Bravo_HTC_WWE_1.21.405.2_Radio_32.36.00.28U_4.06.00.02_2_release_126984_signed

RUU_Bravo_Froyo_HTC_WWE_2.09.405.8_Radio_32.43.00.32U_5.09.00.20_release_140022_signed

RUU_Bravo_Froyo_HTC_WWE_2.10.405.2_R_Radio_32.44.00.32U_5.09.05.30_2_release_142828_signed

RUU_Bravo_Froyo_HTC_WWE_2.29.405.2_Radio_32.49.00.32U_5.11.05.27_release_151783_signed

RUU_Bravo_Froyo_HTC_WWE_2.29.405.5_Radio_32.49.00.32U_5.11.05.27_release_159811_signed

On occasion (it seems random) that the update will fail early with the following error:

sending 'zip' (140724 KB)... OKAY [ 19.306s]
writing 'zip'... INFOadopting the signature contained in this i
mage...
INFOsignature checking...
INFOzip header checking...
INFOzip info parsing...
INFOchecking model ID...
INFOchecking custom ID...
INFOchecking main version...
INFOstart image[hboot] unzipping for pre-update check...
INFOstart image[hboot] flushing...
INFO[RUU]WP,hboot,0
INFO[RUU]WP,hboot,100
FAILED (remote: 90 hboot pre-update! please flush image again immediately)
finished. total time: 45.107s

I am not experienced with fastboot command line commands, so I might be missing something.

I must add that even after a RUU fail, the phone somehow once responded to a 'fastboot oem boot' command and actually booted into android. I should have taken the opportunity to follow one of the usb-brick tutorials, but I stupidly attempted Unrevoked which reboots the phone, which wasted the opportunity (was dumb). An attempt afterwards to repeat the miracle didn't work.

Normally when attempting 'fastboot oem boot', the phone shows the htc logo, and then does 7 vibrations and freezes, requiring a battery pull.

C:\Temp>fastboot oem boot
... INFOsetup_tag addr=0xA0000100 cmdline add=0x8E
07D944
INFOTAG:Ramdisk OK
INFOTAG:smi ok, size = 0
INFOTAG:hwid 0x0
INFOTAG:skuid 0x21F04
INFOTAG:hero panel = 0x0
INFOTAG:engineerid = 0x0
INFOMCP dual-die
INFOMCP dual-die
INFOTAG:mono-die = 0x0
INFODevice CID is not super CID
INFOCID is HTC__001
INFOsetting->cid::HTC__001
INFOserial number: HT03VPL09316
INFOcommandline from head: no_console_suspend=1
INFOcommand line length =421
INFOactive commandline: board_bravo.disable_uart3=0 board_bravo.
INFOusb_h2w_sw=0 board_bravo.disable_sdcard=0 diag.enabled=0 boa
INFOrd_bravo.debug_uart=0 smisize=0 userdata_sel=0 androidboot.e
INFOmmc=false androidboot.baseband=5.11.05.14 androidboot.cid=H
INFOTC__001 androidboot.carrier=HTC-WWE androidboot.mid=PB992000
INFO0 androidboot.keycaps=qwerty androidboot.mode=normal android
INFOboot.serialno=HT03VPL09316 androidboot.bootloader=0.80.0000
INFOno_console_suspend=1
INFOaARM_Partion[0].name=misc
INFOaARM_Partion[1].name=recovery
INFOaARM_Partion[2].name=boot
INFOaARM_Partion[3].name=system
INFOaARM_Partion[4].name=cache
INFOaARM_Partion[5].name=userdata
INFOpartition number=6
INFOValid partition num=6
INFOmpu_nand_acpu_rw A1E 1000
INFOjump_to_kernel: machine_id(2457), tags_addr(0x20000100), ker
INFOnel_addr(0x20008000)
INFO-------------------hboot boot time:18616 msec
****Phone freezes
****Unplug and battery pull
FAILED (status read failed (Too many links))
finished. total time: 5.016s

The phone is currently sitting on the following software:

BRAVO PVT1 SHIP S-ON
HBOOT 0.80.0000
MICROP-031d
TOUCH PANEL-SYNT0101
RADIO-5.11.05.14
Mar 29 2010,21:34:33

I have read that it is useful to flash a RUU which has the same radio as your current radio. I have a goldcard and have been using it to flash other RUU's outside the WWE series which have my radio. All that I could find was the Telstra RUU (RUU_Bravo_Froyo_Telstra_WWE_2.26.841.2_Radio_32.48.00.32U_5.11.05.14_release_150162_signed). I haven't tried others for fear of making things worse.

If anyone is able to provide any advice, or things to try, it would be appreciated, but I think this may be a lost battle. If only I had S-OFF or something.

PS. Warranty isn't really an option as the phone is from the UK and I'm situated in Australia, and it's almost run out. I'm just seeing if I can get it back to life somehow.