[myTouch 3G, Magic General] johngt:
During an upgrade where I tried to S-OFF an HTC Magic I got to a point where I was installing from the SAPPIMG.nbh for 32a devices when it hung on the radio update (last of the main changes).

Long and short of it, is that the phone now has no recovery, boot loop and S-ON.

I can use fastboot only for booting to RUU mode and erasing the cache.

SAPPHIRE PVT 32A SHIP S-ON H
HBOOT-1.33.0010 (SAPP10000)
CPLD-12
RADIO-6.35.08.19
Jun 2 2009, 17:28:28

I have tried following the examples of mumilover and also jeBach from this thread (http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1231297&page=2).

On jeBach's suggestion I have tried flashing rom and rom1.zip but both times I get Checking Main Version... Update Fail! Errors.

fastboot getvar version-main
6.35.16.19

Which seems to be wrong/much higher - akin to a radio number?

\tools>fastboot oem boot
... INFOsetup_tag addr=0xA1200100 cmdline add=0x98072208
INFOTAG:Ramdisk OK
INFOTAG:smi ok, size = 32
INFOTAG:hwid 0x1
INFOTAG:skuid 0x21401
INFOTAG:hero panel = 0x0
INFOTAG:engineerid = 0x2
INFODevice CID is not super CID
INFOCID is HTC__506
INFOsetting.cid::HTC__506
INFOserial number: HT96VKF02168
INFOcommandline from head: no_console_suspend=1 console=null
INFOcommand line length =339
INFOactive commandline: board_sapphire.disable_uart3=1 board_sap
INFOphire.usb_h2w_sw=1 board_sapphire.disable_sdcard=0 smisize=3
INFO2 androidboot.baseband=6.35.08.29 androidboot.cid=HTC__506
INFOandroidboot.carrier=COMMON androidboot.keycaps=qwerty androi
INFOdboot.mode=normal androidboot.serialno=HT96VKF02168 androidb
INFOoot.bootloader=1.33.0010 no_console_suspend=1 console=null
INFOPARTITIOM_NUM_MAX =6 Valid partition num=6
FAILED (status read failed (Too many links))

I have tried mumilover's suggestion of special_sappimg.zip. It looks the most promising

\tools>fastboot flash zip "special_sappimg.zip"
sending 'zip' (11094 KB)... OKAY
writing 'zip'... INFOadopting the signature contained in this image...
INFOsignature checking...
INFOzip header checking...
INFOzip info parsing...
INFOchecking model ID...
INFOchecking custom ID...
INFOchecking main version...
FAILED (remote: 43 main version check fail)

Which makes sense as the number is much higher. I have tried this with and without two different GoldCards.

When I create a zip myself with the files contained but modify android-info.txt with the higher version it is no longer signed and I get the following error.

sending 'zip' (11094 KB)... OKAY
writing 'zip'... INFOsignature checking...
FAILED (remote: 12 signature verify fail)

I've looked at using nbhextract but it doesn't work on the nbh file.

I think the main issue is that HBOOT is looking for a signature and when it doesn't find it, stops the process. I have no way of installing a recovery/hboot/spl that I know of after looking through a large number of pages here.

Is there any way to modify the sappimg.zip file with the special bootloader etc to have a higher version check whilst maintaining signature/or bypassing it such that the bootloader can be recovered. I need to fix the SPL/Radio before unlocking the bootloader from what I can tell but if it helps I did create an unlock_token before getting into this bricked state.

I have seen and read about the XTC clip. Would that work in unlocking to S-OFF and allowing for recovery/rest of the process to continue.

Failing that are there any people in the South East of England (Hertfordshire), who can recover through JTAG or other means for a price lower than the XTC clip?

Thank you in advance - any questions about other details - please post them and I can reply with answers, subject to the above limitations.