[Xperia Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ZeezeeTwentytwo:
Hi All,

I've been a lurker on these pages for quite some time. Thank you for all the wonderful info!

I've having a lot of fun here on my own and think it's about time I invited you to the party....

I have a ZX 6603. It was on .434 when I rooted it, the bootloader has always been locked.

I never really got to know why it was only accessable thru the VM, tho' now I have ideas about that... which are irrelevant here, tho' I am mentioning it because it has always been a little bit 'quirky'.

Anyways, about an hour after rooting it (some weeks ago), I loaded a font on to it which promptly crashed it into a boot loop. Hoo ray.

PC companion was the only thing that saved it - so I move up to .253 :groan: and resign myself to flashing it backwatds to get my root, at a later date. Oh well...

From then on, it starts not wanting to know about the PC.

Unless the thing is turned off when connecting via USB, it did absolutely nothing to acknowledge the PC - not even charge the battery!

So after a bit of leaving it alone, I decided I'd had enough of this nonsense and went back to the task of flashing it back to .434 (forgive me if I got the numbers wrong here...) by flashtool.

That was this afternoon.

Ok, So flashtool had kittens and crashed the VM. From then on, it has only given 'Sony' then switched itself off. It also does that repeatedly whilst attached via USB (tapping it's foot)... It does do hard reset inasmuch as giving the three shakes without starting. It does connect by both fastboot and flashmode, which is beter than I got last time it went down.

I'd learned quite a bit in recent weeks, so I plucked up the confidence to install Flashtool into Linux.

Here, I was greeted with a crash, tho' thankfully only of the tool itself.

I began to doubt the integrity of the ftf and downloaded another.

Flashtool then gave a better performance, claiming a checksum error before giving up on the exercize (see quote below).

19/022/2013 18:22:00 - INFO - <- This level is successfully initialized

19/022/2013 18:22:00 - INFO - Flashtool Version 0.9.11.0 built on 2013-06-04 22:50:00

19/022/2013 18:22:00 - INFO - libusb version 1.0.15

19/022/2013 18:22:06 - INFO - Device connected in flash mode

19/022/2013 18:22:10 - INFO - Device disconnected

19/022/2013 18:22:16 - INFO - Selected C6603 / 10.1.A.1.434 / UK unbranded

19/022/2013 18:22:16 - INFO - Preparing files for flashing

19/024/2013 18:24:07 - INFO - Please connect your device into flashmode.

19/024/2013 18:24:28 - INFO - Device connected in flash mode

19/024/2013 18:24:29 - INFO - Opening device for R/W

19/024/2013 18:24:34 - INFO - Device ready for R/W.

19/024/2013 18:24:34 - INFO - Reading device information

19/024/2013 18:24:34 - INFO - Unable to read from phone after having opened it.

19/024/2013 18:24:34 - INFO - trying to continue anyway

19/024/2013 18:24:34 - INFO - Start Flashing

19/024/2013 18:24:34 - INFO - Processing loader

19/024/2013 18:24:53 - INFO - Checking header

19/024/2013 18:24:54 - INFO - Ending flash session

19/024/2013 18:24:54 - ERROR - S1 Header checksum Error

19/024/2013 18:24:54 - ERROR - Error flashing. Aborted

19/024/2013 18:24:59 - INFO - Device connected in flash mode

19/025/2013 18:25:24 - INFO - Device disconnected

So I went over to the VM and kicked PC companion in the ribs to get the XZ back to life... round and round - I was starting to feel dizzy.

And now the fun begins!

PC companion goes thru it's paces, arrives at the chequered flag, claims an error and aborts. I allowed a second chance before calling it a day and deciding to write you all about how much fun I was having and wondering if anyone has a clue of where to go at it from here? Should I start mixing cement?

Regards and gratitude,

Zz