[Captivate General] McSpammer5:
Am I Bricked?

Many people get confused on whether they are bricked or not, so I am creating this thread to help you see if you are bricked, identify your problem, and fixing it.

The term bricked means that you have "tweaked" your phones software or hardware a little to far, leaving you with a brick, or paperweight.

There are two types of bricks, Soft Brick and Hard brick. Soft Bricks are generally easy to recovery from and can result in an error in flashing kernels, modems, etc.

Soft Brick

To identify a soft brick:

1. Pull your battery.

2. Re-Inster your battery.

3. Power on your device.

If your phone is soft bricked, you will see a image like this:

(phone) /!\ (Computer)

Use One-Click Unbrick by AdamOutler.

Link to full thread: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1153310

Download it here

Watch the demonstration video here

As I have not been bricked in a while, I do not remember if this resets your phone to stock or if it enables download mode. If it does not reset your phone to stock, use Heimdall to do so.

After following all of theese steps, you should be running stock 2.2 froyo rooted.

Hard Brick

To Identify a hard brick:

1.Pull your battery

2.Re-Inster your battery

3.Plug your phone in. (into the wall, Not computer)

3A: If you do not get the battery charging animation, you may be hardbricked.

4:Hold your power button.

4A: If your phone refuses to power on at all, you are hard bricked.(if you can get to the AT&T screen, your are not technicly hard bricked, follow the following bootloop instructions)

Hardbricks are harder to recover from, and you will need a jtag or the unbrickable mod applied to your device. If you do not know how to solder, or you are completely new to it, I suggest you have it jtagged by MobileTechVideos here. If you are an expert at soldering, or have someone you can trust to solder wires to your phones board, then you can attempt the unbrickable mod here.

Bootloop

By definition, a bootloop is not a brick, but can leave your phone as useful as one. Bootloops can be caused by corrupt bootloaders, kernels, Roms, or Roms running on incompatible bootloaders.

Identify a bootloop:

1. power on your device.

2. If your phone does not get past the AT&T screen, you are in a bootloop.

If you are in a bootloop after flashing a new rom:

Try reflashing the Rom, and make sure your kernel and rom are compatible with your bootloader.

If you are in a bootloop after flashing a new kernel:

Try reflashing the kernel, and make sure your kernel and rom are compatible with your bootloader.

If you are in a bootloop after flashing a new bootloader:

Reflash the bootloader, and make sure your rom and kernel are compatible with the bootloader.

If you can not enter download mode after flashing your bootloader:

Try to wait out the bootloop, if you manage to get your phone booted (may take up to 4 hours) download terminal from the market, and use the command: Reboot download, then reflash to stock using heimdal

If you are unable to get your phone into download mode, you will need Jtag or unbrickable mod. (I had this problem, My phone booted after 2 hours from powering it on. since this happened while flashing back to stock, I was unrooted, and had to wait a total of 7 hours, through 3 reboots to get my phone rooted and into download mode.)

If I missed something, feel free to tell me :).

My first post was stickied. ^.^
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