[Acer Iconia A500] TravAndAlex:
I'll preface this with a "I might be missing something obvious, because I'm new to this". However, I've read and searched extensively and tried everything that I can find. Here's the details:

Acer Iconia Tab A500-10S08c (MFB date: Dec 2011)

Purchased used and bricked. Story goes that was playing Netflix and froze.

Now: hangs on boot on Acer logo. Vol- and Power load into Android robot logo, but will not load update.zip from SD card, and changes to dead Android robot logo with red exclamation mark.

Can boot into APX mode (reset+power 3 seconds – white power led – blank screen).

Can wipe cache (power+vol up+toggle lock switch).

Was able to get UID and SBK from Linux.

However that is where the good news ends. It gets stuck regardless of method I’ve tried. Below are the results from all the methods I’ve tried:

:good:Manual Flash with V8-UNL-ICS-HC-Bootloader-MULTI-cwm

Goes smoothly until in “Acer Iconia APX Mode” (on screen with yellow acer logo). Results:

Flashing bootloader: bootloader_v8.bin ...

Nvflash started

[resume mode]

Formatting partition 4 please wait.. Command Execution failed cmd 13, error 0x12

0002

FAILED!

command failure: format partition failed (bad command)

bootloader status: unknown operation (code: 1) message: flags: 0

Nvflash started

[resume mode]

Flashing recover: recover_thor1.7.3.img

Nvflash started

[resume mode]

Formatting partition 6 please wait..

And… nothing. The cursor continues to spin and hang here.

:good:Afterota 1.09

Driver: OK- driver installed

Usb: ERROR – connect usb cable and enable usb debugging

:good:BadSector

A501a.bat

****************************************************************

* Before executing, be sure to delete recovery-from-boot.p *

* from /system to ensure recovery will stick *

****************************************************************

****************************************

* Reboot your tablet into APX mode *

****************************************

Nvflash started

rcm version 0X20001

System Information:

chip name: t20

chip id: 0x20 major: 1 minor: 4

chip sku: 0x8

chip uid: 0x042800c142400417

macrovision: disabled

hdcp: enabled

sbk burned: true

dk burned: true

boot device: emmc

operating mode: 4

device config strap: 0

device config fuse: 0

sdram config strap: 0

sending file: flash.bct

- 4080/4080 bytes sent

flash.bct sent successfully

odm data: 0xb00d8011

downloading bootloader -- load address: 0x108000 entry point: 0x108000

sending file: bootloader.bin

| 714409/714409 bytes sent

bootloader.bin sent successfully

waiting for bootloader to initialize

bootloader downloaded successfully

setting device: 2 3

creating partition: BCT

creating partition: PT

creating partition: APP

creating partition: EBT

creating partition: GP1

creating partition: SOS

creating partition: LNX

creating partition: CAC

creating partition: MSC

creating partition: FLX

creating partition: AKB

creating partition: UDA

creating partition: GPT

failed executing command 12 NvError 0x120002

command failure: create failed (bad data)

bootloader status: fatal failure to read / write to mass storage (code: 9) messa

ge: nverror:0x8 (0x19000008) flags: 0

Press any key to continue . . .

:good:Blackthunder (A500APXFlash.exe)

Enters bootloader (on screen is Acer Iconia APX Mode and acer yellow logo). Blackthunder continues to:

Flashing Bootloader (EBT) stage two – uploading image

Green bar at approximately 50%. Hangs and freezes.

:good:TimmyDean tdv4_rollback_rom (root-3.2.1)

Upgrade is under way. It may take more than 10 minutes.

Tablet reboots and shows a white acer logo and Entering Acer Download Mode.

Acer Iconia Tab Software Upgrade Utility stops: We are sorry! The upgrade process failed. Pleaes follow the instructions for recovery.

:pI found this thread which sounds scarily familiar. Unfortunately, there was no follow-up after the issue was resolved to explain how this is done. As the memory chip is surface mounted – this isn’t likely to be a fix I can do.

[Q] totally bricked a500

I have a fully bricked Acer A500. It works only APX mode. It isn't rooted and there isn't USB debug...

I tried repartitioning with the Badblock (A501.bat) but it didn't work. I get an error message, when it tried to format the partition 2 (BCT): BCT write failed. After that I tried A500 APX flasher. It didn' work too. Same error in the debug window. After that I tried manually upload the bootloader, boot image, ...etc. The error message was same. (Downoad sucessfully. BCT write failed)

I tried to use the root-3.2.1-V4 DotNetDetecter.exe but the issue was same....

Of corse I have UID and SBK.

Does anybody have any idea?

I'm not understanding it!

solved

ISUE solved!

It was a hardware problem. The flash memory chip's solder was broken. I resoldered it. After that it works again!

So is there anything else to try, or is this a hardware issue?

If it is a hardware issue, any tips and tricks for dealing with Acer? How much should I expect a repair to cost?