[One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Mikey899:
yes i was thinking that and i tried it, but rather than load it onto the device as it usually would, this is what i got

"adb flash recovery twrp-recovery-2.8.6.0-m8s-qlul.img"

Android Debug Bridge version 1.0.31

-a - directs adb to listen on all interfaces for a connection

-d - directs command to the only connected USB device

returns an error if more than one USB device is present.

-e - directs command to the only running emulator.

returns an error if more than one emulator is running.

-s <specific device> - directs command to the device or emulator with the given

serial number or qualifier. Overrides ANDROID_SERIAL

environment variable.

-p <product name or path> - simple product name like 'sooner', or

a relative/absolute path to a product

out directory like 'out/target/product/sooner'.

If -p is not specified, the ANDROID_PRODUCT_OUT

environment variable is used, which must

be an absolute path.

-H - Name of adb server host (default: localhost)

-P - Port of adb server (default: 5037)

devices [-l] - list all connected devices

('-l' will also list device qualifiers)

connect <host>[:<port>] - connect to a device via TCP/IP

Port 5555 is used by default if no port number is specified.

disconnect [<host>[:<port>]] - disconnect from a TCP/IP device.

Port 5555 is used by default if no port number is specified.

Using this command with no additional arguments

will disconnect from all connected TCP/IP devices.

device commands:

adb push [-p] <local> <remote>

- copy file/dir to device

('-p' to display the transfer progress)

adb pull [-p] [-a] <remote> [<local>]

- copy file/dir from device

('-p' to display the transfer progress)

('-a' means copy timestamp and mode)

adb sync [ <directory> ] - copy host->device only if changed

(-l means list but don't copy)

(see 'adb help all')

adb shell - run remote shell interactively

adb shell <command> - run remote shell command

adb emu <command> - run emulator console command

adb logcat [ <filter-spec> ] - View device log

adb forward --list - list all forward socket connections.

the format is a list of lines with the following format:

<serial> " " <local> " " <remote> "\n"

adb forward <local> <remote> - forward socket connections

forward specs are one of:

tcp:<port>

localabstract:<unix domain socket name>

localreserved:<unix domain socket name>

localfilesystem:<unix domain socket name>

dev:<character device name>

jdwp:<process pid> (remote only)

adb forward --no-rebind <local> <remote>

- same as 'adb forward <local> <remote>' but fails

if <local> is already forwarded

adb forward --remove <local> - remove a specific forward socket connection

adb forward --remove-all - remove all forward socket connections

adb jdwp - list PIDs of processes hosting a JDWP transport

adb install [-l] [-r] [-d] [-s] [--algo <algorithm name> --key <hex-encoded key> --iv <hex-encoded iv>] <file>

- push this package file to the device and install it

('-l' means forward-lock the app)

('-r' means reinstall the app, keeping its data)

('-d' means allow version code downgrade)

('-s' means install on SD card instead of internal storage)

('--algo', '--key', and '--iv' mean the file is encrypted already)

adb uninstall [-k] <package> - remove this app package from the device

('-k' means keep the data and cache directories)

adb bugreport - return all information from the device

that should be included in a bug report.

adb backup [-f <file>] [-apk|-noapk] [-obb|-noobb] [-shared|-noshared] [-all] [-system|-nosystem] [<packages...>]

- write an archive of the device's data to <file>.

If no -f option is supplied then the data is written

to "backup.ab" in the current directory.

(-apk|-noapk enable/disable backup of the .apks themselves

in the archive; the default is noapk.)

(-obb|-noobb enable/disable backup of any installed apk expansion

(aka .obb) files associated with each application; the default

is noobb.)

(-shared|-noshared enable/disable backup of the device's

shared storage / SD card contents; the default is noshared.)

(-all means to back up all installed applications)

(-system|-nosystem toggles whether -all automatically includes

system applications; the default is to include system apps)

(<packages...> is the list of applications to be backed up. If

the -all or -shared flags are passed, then the package

list is optional. Applications explicitly given on the

command line will be included even if -nosystem would

ordinarily cause them to be omitted.)

adb restore <file> - restore device contents from the <file> backup archive

adb help - show this help message

adb version - show version num

scripting:

adb wait-for-device - block until device is online

adb start-server - ensure that there is a server running

adb kill-server - kill the server if it is running

adb get-state - prints: offline | bootloader | device

adb get-serialno - prints: <serial-number>

adb get-devpath - prints: <device-path>

adb status-window - continuously print device status for a specified device

adb remount - remounts the /system partition on the device read-write

adb reboot [bootloader|recovery] - reboots the device, optionally into the bootloader or recovery program

adb reboot-bootloader - reboots the device into the bootloader

adb root - restarts the adbd daemon with root permissions

adb usb - restarts the adbd daemon listening on USB

adb tcpip <port> - restarts the adbd daemon listening on TCP on the specified port

networking:

adb ppp <tty> [parameters] - Run PPP over USB.

Note: you should not automatically start a PPP connection.

<tty> refers to the tty for PPP stream. Eg. dev:/dev/omap_csmi_tty1

[parameters] - Eg. defaultroute debug dump local notty usepeerdns

adb sync notes: adb sync [ <directory> ]

<localdir> can be interpreted in several ways:

- If <directory> is not specified, both /system and /data partitions will be updated.

- If it is "system" or "data", only the corresponding partition

is updated.

environmental variables:

ADB_TRACE - Print debug information. A comma separated list of the following values

1 or all, adb, sockets, packets, rwx, usb, sync, sysdeps, transport, jdwp

ANDROID_SERIAL - The serial number to connect to. -s takes priority over this if given.

ANDROID_LOG_TAGS - When used with the logcat option, only these debug tags are printed.