[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] fofopuka:
Hi all, I will try to be as detailed as possible.

I have a MetroPCS LG MS323 which I bought as a second phone to use when I travel as my regular phone is CDMA and I wanted a GSM phone that I could use with a sim card. While on an overseas trip I paid a cellphone place to unlock the phone so I could use other carriers' sim card, it was working fine since then. However, as I don't use the phone on a regular basis it ended up sitting and the battery lost its charge. When I tried to charge it by usb, it started bootlooping (vibrate, LG logo, repeat). After that I pulled the battery and charged it using an external charger. The phone is not rooted. I tried the factory reset key combo, but it gets stuck on the screen which says factory reset processing........ endlessly. I tried to download kdz file and flash with LG flash tool but phone cannot get into download mode. When I press vol key and plug usb cable, it says LOADING.......... press volum up key until download mode starts But it gets stuck there and download mode never starts.

I downloaded adb and fastboot to a Windows 7 laptop, and LG drivers, but when I connect phone and open a terminal adb devices shows no phone connected.

I also downloaded Laf.img for this phone and Laf recovery tool for Windows but again I cannot seem to get computer to see the phone. If I try to use the tool it says "waiting for device"

One difficulty is to trying to plug phone to computer the right way.

Most of the threads say to have phone in battery charge mode with usb debugging enabled, but I can't select any settings if the phone is bricked.

If I just plug the phone to usb when it is turned off it shows a picture of battery but no sign of charging, and computer doesn't detect phone.

If I plug phone to usb first, then hold vol and power key the LG logo will go black and it vibrates, in that case sometimes the Windows laptop will see 2 folders, verinfo and image.

When I plug usb cable to Linux computer and phone is off, same thing just picture of battery but terminal only shows sda1 sda2 sda3 etc no sdb no sdc just like not detected.

If I hold vol down then plug usb it vibrates and stuck on LG logo.

I have also tried to plug usb, then press vol down and power until phone vibrates, then try to let go buttons before LG logo shows up. but it doesn't mount.

If I hold vol up and power, then plug usb. it vibrates and goes to LG logo.

Last night somehow I got it to mount on the linux computer but the file manager was going crazy opening multiple windows and a list of folders would show up for a second, disappear and reappear as if the system was trying to read the folders but having difficulty. Today I am not able to get it to mount.

I have downloaded a linux livecd with adb and fastboot, I haven't tried it yet because I am not sure the path to flash an img file from a different directory on the hard drive on the windows laptop.

I have downloaded aboot.img but don't know how I can flash it if I can't see the phone on any computers.

I have spent days searching for solutions but have not seen the exact same problem, other threads suggest things but often the symptoms are slightly different or with a different phone. So, first of all I need to know what kind of brick I have, because other solutions I have seen posted for completely black screen, or phone detected as qhsusb qualcomm etc. which seems like a different problem.

So the 2 main things are 1, to know which kind of brick because many of the solutions I see posted seem like a different problem.

second, what is the best way to plug to computer so I can see the phone?