[G2 and Desire Z Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] shin-baka:
Hi, everybody!

As a long-time-lurker I find myself now in the position to need serious help. I'm completely new to flashing and all that stuff, so you can imagine how happy I was when I managed to unlock, root and install a custum rom on my TF700 tablet. When I proudly told that a friend of mine, he handed me his old, half-bricked (I assume) Desire Z, where he tried to do the same and... well it ended up pretty much FUBAR. But he said I can play around with it if I want and keep it if I get it running again. So much for motivation!

Sooo, the problem with the whole thing:

When booting the phone won't pass the HTC boot-screen.

What has been done to the poor phone:

The bootloader was unlocked

A custom recovery was installed

The version-info was altered (at least it shows version 1.00.000.0 in the RUU-updater)

He tried to install a custom rom while still being S-ON, which seems to be the cause of all the trouble.

What I have tried:

Different recovery-versions (at least THEY work fine)

Install the original ROM* with a RUU.exe-file (fails after sending it to the phone with Error [155] )

Install the original ROM* with fastboot and a zip (fails with an "remote: 99 unknown fail" error while info parsing)

Install the original ROM* with bootloader and a PC10IMG.zip on the SD-card (fails after reading the zip with invalid file or something like that)

Install the original ROM and different custom roms through the recovery (some seem to install fine but in the end is still freezes on the boot screen)

Tried the unlock/root/downgrade process following Strawmetal's all-in-one guide, with no success whatsoever.

Issues with the all-in-one-guide:

First of all, since the phone doesn't boot, I can only access the adb-tool when in Recovery (right now using CWM v5.8.1.0)

But already trying the first command (adb shell cat /dev/msm_rotator) I don't get the /dev/msm_rotator: invalid length-response, but cat: read error: Invalid argument instead.

Strangely enough, when entering the adb shell-command, the lines don't start with "$", but with "~ #".

So I thought, maybe temp root already has been activated. That's why I tried to continue with the creation of a goldcard. Didn't work either. Here is a copy of the process:

C:\platform-tools>adb devices
adb server is out of date. killing...
* daemon started successfully *
List of devices attached
SH0C3RT00139 recovery

C:\platform-tools>adb push misc_version /data/local/tmp/misc_version
adb server is out of date. killing...
* daemon started successfully *
211 KB/s (15837 bytes in 0.073s)

C:\platform-tools>adb push flashgc /data/local/tmp/flashgc
492 KB/s (712688 bytes in 1.414s)

C:\platform-tools>adb shell chmod 777 /data/local/tmp/*

C:\platform-tools>adb shell
~ # cd /data/local/tmp
cd /data/local/tmp
/data/local/tmp # ./misc_version -s 1.00.000.0
./misc_version -s 1.00.000.0
/sbin/sh: ./misc_version: not found
/data/local/tmp #

As for further inormation:

The bootloader shows this info here

****Unlocked****
Vision pvt ship s-on
HBOOT-0.85.0015
MICROP-0425
RADIO-26.10.04.03_M
eMMC-boot
Dec 20 2011,16:21:13

There is no option for System Info, but the Image CRC output is as follows:

osbl: 0x7EE4ED8C
amss: 0xB7A63815
hboot: 0x6659C31C
boot: 0x4CB9BC27
recovery: 0x97231AF1
system: 0x3B27E2FE

Also, I cannot flash single radio or hboot files with fastboot commands, because it gives me an remote: signature verify fail error every time.

So the question is: what should I do now? Any hope? Or did I just receive a nice paperweight? Any help is highly appreciated!

* tried the RUU_Vision_Gingerbread_S_HTC_WWE_2.42.405.2_Radio_12.56.60.25_26.10.04.03_M_release_199043_signed and RUU_Vision_HTC_WWE_1.34.405.5_Radio_12.28b.60.140e_26.03.02.26_M_release_155556_signed roms, both as *.exe and extracted zip.