[Defy Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] StainlessS:
Some notes I've just made a few moments ago.

I was on Quarx CM9 ICS 4.0.4, and so decided to re-live how I installed 2ndInit as I had a few problems.

(and wanted to make log of what I did a day or two ago, only bought 2nd hand Defy a few weeks back, £8.00 UK).

Below I flash original full SBF file, to get back to Eclair v2.1-update1. (Had only previously flashed Fixed SBF's, ie minus CG 31 and 39)

I got my Motorola Defy MB525 (Green Lens), retail UK, Eclair v2.1-update1 stock,

JRDNEM_U3_2.21.0_SIGNED_UCAJRDNEMARAB1B80AA028.0R_USAJORDANRTGB_P026_A007_HWp3_Service1FF.sbf.gz

from:- https://firmware.center/firmware/Motorola/Defy (MB525)/Stock/

MD5: b42848509d1fb19d746185b79b8e1816 (Did Google search on the MD5 and check matches with droid-developers.org MD5).

(Google HashCheck or HashMyFiles).

With fully Charged defy,

Power down defy, and with Volume+ held, press power key (shows "BootLoader 9.10, Battery OK etc").

Run RSD Lite, v5.6.

Select The .gz file in RSD Lite Filename box, will ask "It may take a while to uncompress, Continue ?",

Select "Uncompress Only" (it will be done, you could have used Winzip or Winrar to extract yourself instead, and chose the extracted sbf).

Connect Defy to USB, it should show "Connected" status in RSD Lite.

Click on the "Connected" line of text to reveal a little more info.

Click "Start", defy will show "SW Update in Progress".

Eventually (after several minutes) RSD will show "Phone[0000]: Phone is being rebooted".

Unfortunately, after some time it looked to RSD as if phone was not rebooting, and suggested Reboot manually.

This I tried multiple times but was in boot loop with MotoBlur animation and eventually black screen and repeating.

I pulled battery, reinsterted battery and attempted manual boot again, no joy, boot looping.

I pulled battery, holding volume down, and power on, and triangle with Exclamation mark (!).

I tapped repeatedly on bottom RHS corner of display and got the "Android System Recovery (2e)"

(some people say to hold down both volume up and down simultaneously, but my works best with bottom RHS corner taps).

Ignore the "E:Can't Open /cache/recovery/command" in yellow on bottom of display.

Select "Wipe Data/Factory Reset", tap OK on bottom left hand side of display (power button does nothing for me within

the system recovery).

After Factory wipe, select "Wipe Cache partition", and tap OK again.

Select "Reboot system now", and OK again.

We were back in business with a properley booting Eclair 2.1-update1 (was a bit tense for a while) :)

(Perhaps I should have done factory reset, cache wipe before RSD lite flashing).

In new flashed Eclair,

Settings/Sound & Display, select "Screen Timeout"=10 minutes.

Settings/Applications, tick "Unknown Sources".

Settings/Applications/Development, tick "USB Debugging".

File Manager app, I selected Framearoot v1.5.2 (others were tried but caused problems).

Choose "Install SuperUser" (NOT "Install SuperSu").

Hit "Gimli" exploit text, should show "Success", Reboot just for the hell of it.

File Manager, Install, SndInitDefy v1.4, and click "Install 2ndInit Recovery" button. (tried others, only this version worked for me)

SuperUser will pop up twice asking to Allow 2ndInit root premissions, grant the request each time.

Light will turn Green. (And read instructions).

Settings/Applications/Development, UN-TICK "USB Debugging", ie turn it OFF.

Reboot, it will auto jump into Custom recovery when Blue light comes on (dont press anything to get there).

With "Boot" selected, press Power key.

With "Set Default" selected, press Power key.

Move cursor up to "2nd boot" selected,, press Power key.

"Go Back", selected,, press Power key.

"Reboot system", selected,, press Power key.

Let it Reboot without pressing Volume-down when blue light comes on, and then reboot again a second time, for good measure

One last time, roboot, but this time when Blue light comes on press Volumn-down botton, and there you are custom recovery.

You will see "Android Bootmenu (v0.6.1)".

I originally had problems trying to "Install zip from SDCard", as it could not find the sdcard, I eventually figured out

that maybe because I had deleted sdcard stuff from previous android installation and that it did not like it.

So, I copied my stuff from sdcard to hard drive, and within settings/storage, formatted sdcard, after that I had no

problems at all. (just a lot of files to copy back to newly formatted sdcard).

Everything hunky dory. :)

EDIT:

ALL software mentioned above was present on XDA at time of writing, lots of defy links are broken here.