[ZTE Axon 7 Questions & Answers] Knight1314:
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NOTE : YOU MUST BE IN BOOTLOADER / FASTBOOT MODE.[/QUOTE]

Hi DrakenFX,

Thank you for the response. I did try the above, but unfortunately, it didn't work. I tried this on my Surface Pro 4, and when I enter fastboot mode, I get error 43 (device descriptor request failed). I can manually install the drivers from 2014, but if I do, I get error 10. I can uninstall the drivers and reinstall them, but to no avail. I tried this on my PC also, and I don't get error 43. Instead, there is no indication at all when entering fastboot mode. On my PC, I updated the BIOS and the USB 3.0 firmware thinking that would help, but it didn't. This is an Asus 970 Pro Gaming/Aura motherboard. I've tried it in multiple USB ports, both 2.0 and 3.0. Previously I reinstalled Windows (Windows 10) several times on my PC and that didn't help, either. I had drivers from another phone installed (HTC One M9) and thought that might be conflicting, and removed them, but that didn't do anything either.

I know I've got to be missing something totally obvious but I can't for the life of me figure out what that is. The phone is recognized just fine normally, but as soon as I enter fastboot mode, it's no longer recognized. Is it a problem the fastboot partition itself? I've done cat/proc/partitions and it shows a size of 512 for sde6 (which, I believe, is the fastboot partition), so there does appear to be data in it.

Here is the output of cat/proc/mounts:

1|shell@ailsa_ii:/ $ cat /proc/mounts

rootfs / rootfs ro,seclabel,size=1824140k,nr_inodes=456035 0 0

tmpfs /dev tmpfs rw,seclabel,nosuid,relatime,size=1893300k,nr_inodes=473325,mode=755 0 0

devpts /dev/pts devpts rw,seclabel,relatime,mode=600 0 0

proc /proc proc rw,relatime 0 0

sysfs /sys sysfs rw,seclabel,relatime 0 0

selinuxfs /sys/fs/selinux selinuxfs rw,relatime 0 0

debugfs /sys/kernel/debug debugfs rw,seclabel,relatime 0 0

none /acct cgroup rw,relatime,cpuacct 0 0

none /sys/fs/cgroup tmpfs rw,seclabel,relatime,size=1893300k,nr_inodes=473325,mode=750,gid=1000 0 0

tmpfs /mnt tmpfs rw,seclabel,relatime,size=1893300k,nr_inodes=473325,mode=755,gid=1000 0 0

none /dev/cpuctl cgroup rw,relatime,cpu 0 0

pstore /sys/fs/pstore pstore rw,seclabel,relatime 0 0

adb /dev/usb-ffs/adb functionfs rw,relatime 0 0

/dev/block/dm-0 /system ext4 ro,seclabel,relatime,discard,data=ordered 0 0

tmpfs /data tmpfs rw,seclabel,nosuid,nodev,noatime,size=262144k,nr_inodes=473325,mode=771,uid=1000,gid=1000 0 0

/dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/cache /cache ext4 rw,seclabel,nosuid,nodev,relatime,data=ordered 0 0

/dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/persist /persist ext4 rw,seclabel,nosuid,nodev,relatime,data=ordered 0 0

/dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/dsp /dsp ext4 ro,seclabel,nosuid,nodev,relatime,data=ordered 0 0

/dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/modem /firmware vfat ro,context=u:object_r:firmware_file:s0,relatime,uid=1000,gid=1000,fmask=0337,dmask=0227,codepage=437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=lower,errors=remount-ro 0 0

/dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/bluetooth /bt_firmware vfat ro,context=u:object_r:bt_firmware_file:s0,relatime,uid=1002,gid=3002,fmask=0337,dmask=0227,codepage=437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=lower,errors=remount-ro 0 0

tmpfs /storage tmpfs rw,seclabel,relatime,size=1893300k,nr_inodes=473325,mode=755,gid=1000 0 0

/dev/block/dm-1 /data ext4 rw,seclabel,nosuid,nodev,relatime,discard,noauto_da_alloc,resuid=1000,resgid=9990,data=ordered 0 0

/dev/fuse /mnt/runtime/default/emulated fuse rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,noatime,user_id=1023,group_id=1023,default_permissions,allow_other 0 0

/dev/fuse /storage/emulated fuse rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,noatime,user_id=1023,group_id=1023,default_permissions,allow_other 0 0

/dev/fuse /mnt/runtime/read/emulated fuse rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,noatime,user_id=1023,group_id=1023,default_permissions,allow_other 0 0

/dev/fuse /mnt/runtime/write/emulated fuse rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,noatime,user_id=1023,group_id=1023,default_permissions,allow_other 0 0

I also wanted to do ls -al /dev/block/platform/*/by-name but it returns 'permission denied', which means it needs root, which I don't have.

What do you recommend I should do next?

Edit: for what it's worth, I have a backup of fbop.img prior to unlocking the bootloader, even though I can't do anything with it at this time. The bootloader is still unlocked and 'OEM unlocking' has been left in the on position on each attempt I've made. I've also been able to flash back to B20 using the stock update and that didn't help either.