[Upgrading, Modifying and Unlocking] CVAngelo:
Well, I'm really happy to hear that you had made a backup and that you were able to flash it! But, I'm not sure what the colors mean. The meaning is less important than the end result...whether you are able to complete the flash to 100% and see the green circle.

The reset button on the back of the tablet is similar to removing the battery but it usually also causes the tablet to turn on. When you are flashing, the device must be completely off. So the reset button doesn't help. With a tablet, it is ok to leave the battery in to flash. The key is you have to be sure the device is completely off. Problem is that with a bricked device, you cannot really tell if the device is on or off because the screen may be black. And the flash will not proceed unless the device is completely off.

SPFT V5.x does have the Write Memory tab, but it is hidden because it is extremely dangerous in the hands of an inexperienced user. The Download tab is much safer and has all kinds of controls. To show the Write Memory tab, you have to enter Advance Mode by pressing the Ctrl-Alt-V keys. Then go to the Window option in the drop down menu bar. You then have to select Write Memory and the tab will magically appear.

This tab is the best way to flash the single-file backup of a ROM. But you must have the preloader.bin in the same directory as scatter.txt file and the Preloader line must be checked on the Download tab. If you don't have the preloader.bin file, you can simply use the Read Back tab to extract it from the device.

Once you flash the stock ROM, it will replace everything that was previously installed in the system partition (and for Alcatel, the custpack partition also). But, if you do not flash the data partition, the data that was previously on the phone will not be replaced.

So, that is the secret to unbricking a device without losing your existing data (if you unfortunately forgot to make a backup)...just uncheck the data partition. But then you should enter recovery and format/wipe the Cache partition before you reboot the system (do NOT factory reset or format data).

On the other hand, if you do want to also replace the data that was previously on the phone, you should perform a factory reset before rebooting the system. The data partition will be formatted and replaced with the data of the stock ROM and the phone will be as it was when it came out of the box.

In other words, you never really need to flash the data partition of a device (it can take a long time) unless you're restoring a backup of your data that you previously made for yourself.

And of course, this also means that you never have to read back the cache and data partitions when you're making a backup of your stock ROM. Excluding these two (cache and data) will result in a much smaller stock ROM backup and the stock ROM can be extracted/read back much faster when you're dumping it, and it can also be flashed much faster when you're unbricking a device. You only need to backup (read back) the data partition when you're backing up your actual personal data. Or if you want to be as efficient as possible, install a custom recovery and use it frequently to backup your data. This is why I prefer TWRP. It allows you to backup only the data segment.

I hope all of this blabbing may help someone in future.