[HTC Sensation] onemanshow85:
I see a lot of posts in both general and Q&A from people who state their device to be bricked. The contents of the topic are very divers, from actual bricks to a plain boot loop. I wanted to create this topic to shed some light on the whole Bricked concept. There's a lot of information the be red in this forum, a lot of different concepts with different definitions in diffirent context. The same goes for the concept Bricked.

so, what is bricked?

The term is actually derived from the baked lump of clay itself. A device is messed up in such a way, it serves no greater purpose then being a rectangle shaped object (which most electronic objects are) with mass, like a brick.

So how does a device become bricked?

This can be caused by multiple reasons, but the nr. 1 being; you probably weren't aware of all the ins and outs of the proces you were doing. In other words, you didn't read thoroughly enough.

Other, more technical reasons can be:

- a disruption during a firmware update in power or transfer,

- faulty application of a firmware version (incompatible),

- corrupted files,

- faulty command input with signature checking disabled (S-OFF),

- and probably more...

Most bricks, if not all, can be avoided by reading every line of a how-to, guide, ROM-topic etc. very thorough. Reread everything at least one more time and understand the thing you are doing. a good starting point to understanding what you are doing and the risk involved can be found here. Although not specifically related to Sensation, it's a general warning and self-test to those who just heard the concept 'rooting'.

The mother of all questions, when is my phone bricked?

There are actually two types of bricked devices, a hard brick and a soft brick.

Soft brick

This the type of brick that I encounter most in this forum. well, presumed by the owner that is. This is a state of the device where it's unable to boot the ROM, and in some cased the recovery aswell. It is however, still able to boot into the bootloader. This means that your phone is not dead. It can be saved. Since bootloader still works, fasboot will to and thus fasboot flashing.

Hard brick

this the type of brick that all people fear. The phone doesn't show any sign of life and doesn't respond to anything. It won't boot, not in recovery and not even in bootloader. Not even with a fully charged battery, replacement battery, wall charger plugged or USB plugged. When in this state, there's only one spark of hope and that's the Sensation Unbricking Project. If that doesn't work, well, let's just say you can use your phone the next time you're building a house.

Then I guess I'm soft bricked, so I'm still screwed right?

No. Considering bricked devices I like to refer only to the hard brick, meaning a soft brick isn't really a brick. You are still able to flash firmware, recovery and gain S-OFF if you're hboot 1.17 or higher. Search the forum for related issues and if you're lost, the brilliant contributers can most likely help you out.

As long as your phone starts the bootloader, you're not bricked.

I hope people will find this topic a source for better understanding of a bricked device.