[ASUS ZenFone 7 / 7 Pro Questions & Answers] arpaham:
Hi!! Sorry, If I made myself unclear, and sorry If I misunderstood something. It's the first time I deal with this EDL stuff.

I received this bricked device as a gift from my sister :D and when I posted my first message (post #115) I was talking about the same tools and resources you were already talking about, the firehose files pointed here: https://www.temblast.com/ref/loaders.htm

I was happy then because I thought I'd finally find in that git repo a patched firehose file with the exact same hash codes of my device. But unfortunately after downloading the file, I discovered that the file wouldn't work for me.

I tried several tests; using the 'edl.exe' utility, QFIL, and other methods like commands QSaharaServer.exe and & fh_loader.exe. The file would load without error, but when trying to flash it would report always the same Message:

Only nop and sig tag can be received before authentication

And as I could understand from this message, it means that it is probably a STOCK firehose and not a patched one. And only an authorized Xiaomi repair center would be able to flash with an auth loader.

After that, I had spent several days searching until late in the night trying to find another firehose file, and I was able to find more 3 files, with performed exactly like the first one. Too bad, the same annoying message! I used the tool "qcomview.exe" (from Renate) to exam their inner info and what I saw was almost the same with different date releases, I guess, in each one (2019, 2019, 2020, 2022), I'm attaching these tests along with the qcomview utility here just in case it might be of use for research.

My hopes renewed, with the help of the "firehose-finder" utility downloaded from here: https://github.com/hoplik/Firehose-Finder . It helped me to find in the same git repo mentioned above, a lot of other firehose files from other Xiaomi models, which were reported as possible "candidates" for flashing my device, but after exhaustive tests none of them worked. This time I didn't get the authentication error, but a a lot of different errors, some would not even load and other files would load but give errors and fail in recognizing the device.

Here some other links, that I visited and are worth to share, (but none worked for me):

Xiaomi No Auth Firehose File Collection_MobileRdx.com

MediaFire is a simple to use free service that lets you put all your photos, documents, music, and video in a single place so you can access them anywhere and share them everywhere.

www.mediafire.com

and

Xiaomi No Auth Firehose Files for Qualcomm based phones.

What is this file? As we all know that Xiaomi has blocked offline flashing with authentication to flash their device. This files will ultimately help you to fix the Mi Account Authorization issue and hence unbrick your Xiaomi device via EDL mode...

xdaforums.com

And bellow attached my tests with the supposed stock firehoses and other candidates from other models that didn't work for my device:

# My Device is a Xiaomi Redmi 7A (pine)

C:\opt\EDLtools\bin>edl /l
Found EDL 9008, handshaking... version 2.1
HWID: 000bf0e100720000, JTAG: 000bf0e1, OEM: 0072, Model: 0000
Hash: 57158eaf1814d78f-d2b3105ece4db18a-817a08ac664a5782-a925f3ff8403d39a (x3)

Conclusion:

Anyway, I'm happy because I learned something, and, as I've wrote in my previous post, I'm even more happy because when I was about to quit, I came across an unexpected very easy solution which solved my problem in 15 minutes! (link for the tool in post # 116)

With that tool I was able to flash my bricked Redmi 7A in EDL mode with an official Stock Rom (downloaded from Xiaomi: Miui v12.5.2 with an official firehose file in it).

Isn't it frustrating? So much effort trying to become admin of my own device!

Now first thing I'm going to do is unlock, root and take control.

Thanks you all!🙏