[Moto G Power Questions & Answers] ScienceStoleYourPrivacy:
Picked up a Moto G8 Power off Ebay and I havent touched an Android since I flashed a HTC Desire with Cyanogen Mod years ago.

Product/Variant: sofair XT2041-3 64GB PVT

?BootLoader? BL:MBM-3.0-sofiar-reteu-0f8934adaf8-210928

BaseBand: M6125_43.45.03.48R Sofia_rowdsds_cust

Recovery mode shows: RPES31.Q4U-47-35-9/54bc43

oem_locked

Spent all of today going around in circles.

Google Locked = it wants a pin to verify. Ebay ad stated it was google locked house clearance and not stolen. Nothing shows up in CheckAmend.com

On an offline PC

Android Studio installed - strangely ADB nowhere to be found.

ADB installed separately.

Got Magisk apk

Got from lolinet mirrors

XT2041-3_SOFIAR_RETEU_11_RPES31.Q4U-47-35-9_subsidy-DEFAULT_regulatory-DEFAULT_CFC.xml

blankflash_sofiar_RPE31.Q4U-47-35

From Motorola

Motorola_Mobile_Drivers_64bit

Rescue_and_Smart_Assistant_v6.3.2.12_setup - This will not install and I find this error in the Windows eventlog

MDM Declared Configuration: Function (checkNewInstanceData) operation (Read isNewInstanceData) failed with (The parameter is incorrect.)

Motorola support cant help until monday, but it might be a ASLR or some other MS security thing.

TWRP is missing the Motorola G8 on their website, G7 and G9 and others exist, so this is not an option.

Followed some of those youtube videos showing how to bypass the FRP, which appear to use a variety of tricks to either disable the Google Play Service or use an app to launch another app, a bit like getting the 2nd dial tone by calling a business freephone number, and hacking their phone system to get an onward outbound dial tone in the 80's.. Showing my age!

Before I put the device online using wifi and no sim for mobile data, I could get access to the Androids settings, where I could list apps, set permissions and other things so I'd tried to disable the play store, but these tricks wouldnt work. Put it online and it appears Android has been updated so those previous tricks for getting all the apps listed and makiing changes to their permission etc is no longer there. One of them was using the emergency phone, getting to the contact detail and then choosing a pic to gain access to other apps and that also stopped working and has disappeared which is why I say I think its been updated in all but version number!

I can access a fat32 sd card in recovery mode, but the apk files I put on it dont show, just the folders Android created on blank Fat32 partitions.

USB and ADB dont detect this device so I cant use the Wireshark USB to watch what is going over the USB connection.

AFAIK Android DeveloperMode/Debugging Mode is disabled.

I havent touched an android since the HTC Desires appeared and then I ported it Cyanogen Mod, but I subsequently learnt the UK Police had access to my phone even back then!

Not taking it apart to get access to the JTAG (just yet), I bought a few broke Pixel4A to see what I could learn about them when they arrive as well.

I see in fastboot, the mention of a "console [NULL]:null" is this the fastboot.exe alongside adb.exe in android tools, or something else?

So is there any other way or suggestion to get root for this device?

I fancied looking at LineageOS, or maybe some other OS like an unofficial port of GrapheneOS. I've found the device tree info put up by someone on here which would suggest its possible to port from Android 10Q to an Android11 distro/os, but my first hurdle is my stumbling block, I cant get the USB to work and have not found any other way to get beyond this stage to poke around with the OS and phone.

So any pointers, suggestions, advice, will be much appreciated!

TIA

Edit. It looks like Android/Google/Motorola have done a good job at locking down this OS and phone.

Edit2

Saw this thread here about making sure the Motorola drivers are installed properly.

https://xdaforums.com/t/help-i-seem...its-stuck-on-bootloader.4518037/post-87757435

On Win10x64 I've been into c:\windows\system32\DriverStore\FileRepository, sorted the subfolders by todays date/time and can see a number of subfolders like

motoandroid.inf_amd64_dd80f24dcfb3dc931

motoandroid2.inf_...

motodrv.inf_....

motousbnet.inf....

and when inspecting one of the .inf files in notepad I can see there appears to be a service linked to the driver, but when I check the services, there isnt any services installed.

So I'm starting to think maybe Motorola's installation software doesnt work on windows with the default windows security settings, like exploit protection running.

More investigations...

Edit4

In the Control Panel (yes its still there in Win10), Device Manager, Other Devices are a couple of entries which the latest attempt to install the Motorola USB x64 msi installer created.

These are:

Mot Composite ADB Interface

Motorola ADB Interface

In c:\Windows\system32\drivers are a couple of 0KB wdf files (Windows Driver Foundation) files:

Msft_Kernel_WinUSB_01009.Wdf

MSft_Kernel_motoandroid_01009.wdf

Msft_User_WpdFs_01_11_00.wdf

So when looking at the c:\windows\system32\DriverStore\FileRepository I think the driver that needs to be installed can be found in the subfolder:

motoandroid.inf_amd64_dd80f24dcfb3dc931

However opening the motoandroid.inf file inside I can see lines like

DriverVer=03/25/2013, 1.3.0.0

As this folder was created about 30mins+ earlier, am I correct to believe the actual motorola driver was created back in 25th March 2013 and is version 1.3?

I know its possible to edit inf files to make drivers W2k and XP drivers work on later versions of windows, but the motorola website has the version number 6.4 but is this 6.4 the version number of the installation program?

Anyway scrolling further down the motoandroid.inf I can see towards the bottom instructions to install a service

"Mot ADB Interface Installation Driver" and it needs to find the actual driver in %root%\System32\Drivers\motoandroid.sys

Various paramaters, like a transfer size 4096bytes, a debug level of 2 and plenty of guids which will be found in the registry.

Anyway uninstalling the software as now removed these subfolders from the DriverStore\FileRepository, so a reboot and another attempt to see where its failing.

I just hope it doesnt need an internet connection, as this offline pc is a dev machine.

Onwards and upwards....

Edit 5

So the Windows 10 setting which prevents the Lenevo Rescue and Smart assist from installing is the Windows App and Browser Control > Exploit Protection > Force randomisation for images (Mandatory ASLR) when its on.

You can have every other windows setting on, like ransomware protection, normal ASLR, DEP etc etc and LMSA installs fine, right now its downloading an image to flash from FastBoot, but its not got the Developer mode/USB debug enable in android to make this possible.

Now lets see if I can get the Motorola USB drivers to work with ADB...