[Honor 9  Guides, News, & Discussion] Soupape50:
Introduction

THIS METHOD IS NOT FREE. I HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO DO THIS FOR FREE, EXCEPT MAYBE WITH THIS : https://forum.dc-unlocker.com/forum/modems-and-phones/huawei/162196-free-hcu-license-offer

Oh my god. I just come out of 3 days of trying to get this to work, non-stop. I feel the need to write this guide so people in the exact same configuration as me won't have to go through what I did.

Yes there are many tutorials about unbricking your Honor 9, but few are very detailed, and I couldn't make them to work for my european STF-L09. Plus, very few of them have a solution for updating to the very latest version (9.1.0 as the time of writing). So here we go.

The device I did this with, and the situation I was in.

There are so many variants of the Honor 9, and I've tried tutorials that weren't the same model as me, they just wouldn't work.

Honor 9 STF-L09, Europe version, Kirin960.

Previous installed ROM before brick was Oreo (the Pie update I tried to make bricked the phone), but I think you can do that on any previous version.

After the brick, I had a completely dead Honor 9 : no reaction at all, whether I plugged it in or tried any buttons combination.

What you need

- The correct Drivers

- A HCU Client Timed License, which is 19 EUR for 72h, and is going to give you access to the main software we need, DC-Phoenix.

- The correct .dgtks Repair File

- The correct ROM file to flash

- HiSuite

- Tools to open the back of your phone

- A metal object to connect the testpoints (anything will do : tweezers, copper cable, paperclip, sim-tool...)

- Read these two tutorials from www.dc-unlocker.com :

https://www.dc-unlocker.com/dc-phoenix-flash-repair-tutorial

https://www.dc-unlocker.com/flash-bricked-huawei-phones-in-huawei-1-mode

Step 1 - Connect the testpoints

Then open the back of your phone to reveal the testpoints that you can see on the image below (thanks to the user 4r44444 for the picture).

Then, open the Device Manager on Windows, and reveal the COM and LPT Ports (so you can see if you failed at connecting the testpoints or not).

You don't need to connect the two testpoints shown in the picture : you only need to connect the bottom one with anything else that's metal inside the phone.

It will take you some trial and error but eventually, your Device Manager should refresh and show you an unknown device called "SER".

Step 2 - Install the drivers

First, install the latest version of HiSuite to get the basic drivers. Make sure to close it completely (taskbar) and disable the fact that it opens itself when you plug your phone, or it might screw things up.

Then, install the two drivers that are on both dc-unlocker.com tutorials I've linked above.

https://files.dc-unlocker.com/share.html?v=share/984CE114852148B5B9A9CDD918BEC235

https://files.dc-unlocker.com/share.html?v=share/18B15B9D02C945A79B1967234CECB423

The first one "Huawei_Android_phone_drivers.rar" was not useful for me, but the second one, "Huawei drivers testpoint.rar", is to make your COM port recognizable instead of this unknown "SER" in device manager.

In Device Manager, right click on "SER", "Update driver", and locate the extracted folder on your computer.

This is all you need I think, but I installed so many random drivers (which I would not recommend) that I'm not even sure anymore.

Step 3 - Repair the phone with DC-Phoenix

Following "Method 3" from this link, but with some differences : https://www.dc-unlocker.com/dc-phoenix-flash-repair-tutorial

As I said, this method is not free. You can buy credits to make DC-Phoenix work for 72 hours (you need 15 of them for that I think), but since we need HCU, you're better off buying a timed license which gives access to DC-Phoenix.

Open DC-Phoenix, and click on the "Download files" button on top. There, search for the file "STF-Full-Repair-NV-included-Board-A051-7.0.0_r1.dgtks" and download it, it's the Repair File.

https://get-file.org/search#q|STF-Full-Repair-NV-included-Board-A051-7.0.0_r1|1

With your phone connected via testpoints (it has to appear in the Device Manager in the COM Ports, and I recommend changing the COM Port to 1 (right click, Port settings, advanced,...)), go to the "Update OEMINFO" tab, and check "Use BOOTLOADER". There, choose "Kirin960_T2_A7.0_V4" (maybe it's a different one for you, but for me only this one worked).

Then check "Update OEMINFO and unlock Huawei ID", and choose "STF-L09". Click Update, and this should run without errors. If it doesn't recognize your device, that means that it's not turned off and connected via testpoints.

Once that is done, your device may show a sign of life by booting into fastboot mode (or sometimes not). Anyway, you can go directly to the "Update Firmware" tab, and in the "Update file" field, choose the file "STF-Full-Repair-NV-included-Board-A051-7.0.0_r1", check "Rescue Revovery" and "Old slow algo", and click "Update".

After completion, your phone should be able to boot (after a very long press) into a chinese test ROM.

Step 4 - Repair the phone infos with DCU

Follow this tutorial : http://hcu-client.com/huawei-phone-repair-as-empty-board/

Don't forget to change your phone to Manufactured mode (as explained) so you can read your phone info.

In the Step 4, they let you choose between Repair UMTS or CDMA tab, I chose CDMA because I think the phone has a MEID.

Then, when they tell you that you just have to click on "Repair as empty board" to make everything fill in automatically, for me this was complete bs : only my IMEIs were added.

So what you have to do is fill your original SN, WiFi and BT MAC adresses, and so on. But since your phone is bricked and you probably dumped the box that states the SN, you're outta luck like me. It seems like it's illegal to change a MAC or SN number, so I can't recommend it, but I personally just chose random numbers (that have the same number of digits).

For model I entered "STF-L09", for vendor "hw", and for country "eu". Don't check "Erase restricted ver.", since it's only for Qualcomm CPUs. Click on Repair.

Once this is done, your phone should be resetting, and able to boot in the same ROM as before, except in english.

Step 5 - Upgrade to the latest Android 9.1.0

Normally you'd have to do this step with DC-Phoenix : just flash one of their Full Stock Roms they have on their file database (click Download Files on DC-Phoenix, and search for "STF-L09").

You can try that (don't forget that you have to be in fastboot mode (Vol down + plug USB) to install), but it really didn't work for me, and even if it did, I don't know how you'd update after it, because your phone probably won't receive OTAs.

So the solution I found was this one : https://www.reddit.com/r/Huawei/comments/az4bl7/finally_managed_to_update_my_mate10_pro_to_pie/

First, uninstall your latest version of HiSuite to be able to follow this tutorial and install the old version.

Then, the file I chose in Firmware Finder was this one :

STF-L09 9.0.1.175(C432E2R1P5)

STF-L09C432E2R1P5B175 (9.0.1.175)

STF-L09C432E2R1P5T8B175 (9.0.1.175)

I chose the "full" version, which gave me this link :

http://update.dbankcdn.com/TDS/data/files/p3/s15/G3757/g1699/v260353/f1/full/update.zip

After following this tutorial, your phone should boot normally. You can then installs OTAs to update to 9.1.0. I'd recommend resetting the phone after this last step, to have a clean install.

If it doesn't work for you, you can also try this method : https://www.getdroidtips.com/full-guide-install-stock-firmware-huawei-smartphone/

I'll try to answer as many questions as fast as possible (since the Timed License is quite stressful), so feel free to ask !