[Acer Iconia A500] whats_cookin:
I created an account here just to post this.

For a long time I have been try to fix my a500. About a year ago it was attached to my wall. One day I turned it on after having been away for a while and it was broke. I tried to reset it, but saw the dead droid, then got stuck at the acer screen.

For 2 straight days I tried to fix the issue. I learned more than I care to know about nvflash, "babsector", blackthunder, and jimmydean or whoever. I had lots of nvflash issues. Everyone said you could just solve all your problems with it but I kept getting

sending file: flash.bct
- 4080/4080 bytes sent
flash.bct sent successfully
odm data: 0x100c0105
downloading bootloader -- load address: 0x108000 entry point: 0x108000
sending file: bootloader.bin
| 714385/714385 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: EBT
creating partition: GP1
creating partition: SOS
creating partition: LNX
creating partition: APP
creating partition: CAC
creating partition: MSC
creating partition: FLX
creating partition: AKB
creating partition: UDA
creating partition: GPT
Formatting partition 2 BCT please wait.. FAILED!
command failure: create failed (bad data)
bootloader status: specified partition is invalid or does not exist (code: 7) message: nverror:0x42008 (0x6042008) flags: 0

...or some other similar nvflash error. I put the tablet away (as I began to go crazy) for about 4 months. 3 days ago I took it out again. Again I tried messing with nvflash ... I got very close to loading an ICS ROM on but it would never boot. At some point I got stuck in APX mode and nvflash wasn't working... again same error.

Today I had a breakthrough

I was searching through results for the BCT error in Google that I had not clicked before when I came across a Russian site with the following comment:

"There was a problem:

"Formatting partition 2 BCT please wait ... FAILED!!!

Replies (except carry screenplay) is not found, he decided to try it myself.

turned to revive in the following way:

make out about 24 hours warmed hairdryer (took my wife) motherboard within 30 minutes, collected and made ​​UnBrick. All went well until the works)) I do not know what helped warm or disable the battery on the day.

luck and ATP for UnBrick."

Fortunately Google translate provided me with this translation, as my Russian isn't very good. The post made me remember putting hard drives in the freezer to make them work just long enough to get data off them.

I took my a500 and put it in the freezer. After a few hours I tried nvflash again... same issue. So I figured cold didn't work I should try heat like my Russian comrade. I turned my oven to 200 degrees (F). I put the tablet in for 20 minutes. When I took it out I could barely hold it due to the heat. I plugged it in and ran nvflash... IT WORKED!

...at least long enough to get past the BCT partition. Then it gave another error. I restarted into recovery (which now worked) and loaded my ROM. (twrp couldn't load my sdcard so I had to load the ROM from USB mounted as sdcard). The rom installed went through and booted into ICS!

tl;dr; - If you are having trouble with nvflash and you suspect hardware failure put your a500 in the oven @ 200 deg F for 20 minutes. I call this the Russian sauna technique.