[Acer Iconia A500] Rockasama:
I’ve been helping a buddy get his A500 back to working order, so I thought I’d add the steps taken here which lead to successful replacement of boot loader and ability to flash roms again.

First off Blackthun3r is a genius and you cats should totally donate and thank him if this stuff helps.

The info is a bit spread out so I hope this helps consolidate things. We all owe big ups to jnktechstuff for starting this post here:

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1699277 go thank him too.

One thing everyone is right about: You must secure your ID just in case, which is needed to properly reprogram the stock/crappy recovery boot. Two options I saw:

1)	From a nandroid backup (inside the clockwork recovery folder or wherever your previous bootloader stored them) there is a uid.txt file.

2)	When you run Afterota if it can’t find a uid it will generate a file “AcerIDs.txt”.

Afterota is great too but wouldn’t fix/attached to our A500 in APEX mode, but this feature alone is huge.

For AfterOTA, Thanks and Salute to Gersma:

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1675939

Next is just getting the thing to boot.

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1699277

Mentioned in “How to unbrick” , as stated they suggest you get 3 files. Here’s what we got :

1)	Decrypter (mandatory)

2)	2 ICS roms (you only need one, but he suggests to get both just in case, or even an older Honeycomb if those fail you).

The one that worked for us was ICS 4.0.3: 7.014.01_41.203.01.

Extract the decrypter and use on the rom/zip you downloaded. It will make a separate rom/zip with the words ‘decrypted’ at the end. EXTRACT THIS FILE!

Inside the newly extracted zip file should be 3 files. If you don’t have it or your zip program says it’s corrupted then you don’t need to decrypt it, use the non-encrypted version of the rom pack you just downloaded (i.e. it wasn’t encrypted)!

3 files will look like:

1)	Update.zip

2)	AMSS.zip

3)	Acer_A500_7.014.01_041.203.01_COM_GEN1.txt (or whatever rom you had downloaded)

These 3 files need to be on the root of your external SD micro card (either put it into a reader for pc access or if your system is functional copy it over via USB cable while mounted in the A500). The basic bootloader does nothing but check for an update.zip and apply it. However, it cannot replace itself (saw with a CWM or TWRP) and thus what I think is the ‘rub’ with this device.

After the update.zip applies, boot the system normally. You should have a locked OTA version of ICS with USB Debugging enabled, if not, hit Options, Developer and turn on USB Debugging. If it doesn’t boot, try another rom/decrypt combo. If it boots moved these three files into a sub folder on your SD Card and save for next time you brick it :)

Next, get the right driver for Windows from Acer site (this is important because it has the ICS USB and the APEX/boot USB driver needed):

http://www.acer.be/ac/nl/BE/content/drivers

You now need to unlock, add SU and Super User. Hit the following link and get Blackthund3r’s Root app (ICS7.1.x for Windows) top of page:

http://forum.tegraowners.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=350

When you hit some of this download links be sure to check for things like the skip ad button top right corner, else you’ll download the wrong thing:

Extract and run “ICS Root 2.exe”

1) DO NOT mess with the bundles tabs right now, but ensure all checks minus bottom two are selected and ‘Do it!’

2) You should see that it does confirm for you that it is connected and USB Debugging turned on.

You should now have the device setup to run a proper APEX adjustment, which lets you replace the bootloader and then apply all the little zips and roms your heart desires. Blackthund3r has the last tools we need:

Get APXFlash: http://a500bootloaderflash.tk/#download-links (again watch out for the adfly and click skip add to get to your zips).

APXFlash has all the bundles from proper Blackthund3r repository, the FAQ below may have suggested certain types but that info is kinda old SO just grab a bundle 15, 16 or whatever you are looking for (16 is a great team wiz recovery version combo Skrilax has done, we used that one).

1) Go to Bundle Market and follow the wizard:

2) After downloading the bundle of choice you’ll now be prompted to put in your SBK number from that Acer ID or uid txt file.

3) You should then back up your dump file as it is recommended in the process.

4) Hit blue arrow ‘next’ to see your flash options below, we used the Automatic method, smooth as butter.

5) Follow the prompts for APX mode and click blue once the device is blacked out and the mode has changed on status. This is where that official Acer driver comes in handy.

6) Complete the process as instructed and you’ll be good to go!

Last tool used is:

A500 Manager: http://a500bootloaderflash.tk/#download-links (again watch out for the adfly and click skip add to get to your zips).

This app rocks to help you get into recovery mode (or test your new bootloader) until you get a rom on there that allows you to do it from the power off button or notification tray.

Most of these links and info are at the bottom of Blackthund3r’s FAQ page, which were also super helpful:

http://a500bootloaderflash.tk/

Again this helped my friend and he was thinking several of you could benefit. Even when typing this up I figured some better/quicker ways to maybe get some of the data but this is the thorough steps we took and I hope it helps you! I also had screen caps so once I figure out how to add those, if it'll help or someone needs it will look into that ;p