[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Britton Burton:
A bit to much fiddling resulted in disaster

Hello XDA forum users,

I'm about ready to toss this phone in the trash. I have an AT&T Avail 2 with model number z992, which is apparently manufactured by a company called ZTE. First I think it would be helpful to explain what I've done to the phone and perhaps others out there can tell me if I've destroyed the phone or if it can be fixed.

A friend of mine sold me the phone for 10 bucks, its in great condition which is why its such a shame that it seems perma-bricked. I have no need for the phone aspect of the device, I simply wanted to "convert" it to a handheld media/application player, like an ipod or tablet for example. The phone comes with several bundled software applications that I find completely useless and wanted them removed, EX. AT&T Navigator and other AT&T software, plus a bunch of google applications.

The first thing I did when I decided to try and customize it was to use Kango's root tool which worked and rooted the phone. I was all excited that it worked and continued by installing the Super User application which allowed me to gain full control over the device. (I should have stopped there.) After the successful phone root I then installed a 3rd party app called NoBloat and used its uninstall options to remove a lot of stuff. I couldn't tell you exactly what all was removed but looking back, it must have been more important than I realized at the time. I know I took out all the AT&T software, then all the Google stuff to, which destroyed the play store. I didn't take out anything that seemed like a system file but apparently the Google stuff is the system files. The phone still worked in this state but it was erratic and things like Contacts would crash even if it was not running. So I considered that a failed attempt and commenced to do a factory reset using the recovery menu (Vol Up + Menu Key + Power button) but the factory reset didn't work, well not like it was supposed to. I had used the restore option before and it made the phone work like it was brand new. Now when the phone is powered on it will boot to the initial setup and ask me to choose a language, then it will get as far as the wireless connection screen (sometime not even that far) and the phone reports that "Unfortunately, Setup Wizard has stopped." and then I tap OK and the setup wizard restarts at the language screen. This is the state it is in now and I do not know how to fix it, I'm beginning to think there currently is no method to fix this.

Things I've tried so far include installing minimal ADB-Fastboot to try and sideload various ROM images, the ones I found here and other places. The phone is not recognized by Windows 7 though and the ADB does not work like it did on a motorola phone I did this to before. I've also purchased an inexpensive 8GB microSD chip with an adapter so I could put the ROM info on that and tried the "Update from external storage option" and that seems like it would work but none of the ROM's I've used will install. I guess because there is some kind of security feature built into the phones hardware which checks the data files for specific tags/sizes and therefore won't accept any of the ROMS I've tried.

There is no means to access the old file system anymore like most guides show, I do not have any CWM's installed nor any backup data whatsoever. It's been reset and now it seems the data it used to restore itself is, while not completely missing, damaged and will not reload anymore. All the guides I've read or watched usually show the user in the operating system or using software on a PC to type out commands. None of that works on this phone though, the phone as I just described it is basically bricked. Is there anything that can fix this, or is the phone a paper weight now? A functional ROM image from AT&T seems unlikely as they have absolutely no relevant information about this on the commercial website and the help and support seems like it's setup for old people who don't understand technology at all. If anyone out there has experience with issues like this then by all means let me know. If more information is necessary then I will be glad to provide it if available.