Bricked my FP3 during installing /e/ OS

steviexo · August 18, 2020, 5:51am

Dear FP fellows,

yesterday I tried to install /e/ OS: downloaded the latest zip-file for FP3 from their website and followed their instruction to install it via bootloader. Though I didnt really understood the first step of unzipping the file because adb always responds to the command “unzip” that there is no such command. So I unzipped it to the platform-tools folder and started with the commands of step 2 in the installation process, heres my documentation of it:
"D:\adb-fastboot\platform-tools>fastboot -w
Erasing ‘userdata’ OKAY [ 0.856s]
mke2fs 1.45.4 (23-Sep-2019)
Creating filesystem with 12777209 4k blocks and 3194880 inodes
Filesystem UUID: 405fb234-e0b1-11ea-a30f-0f2322c0ac46
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208,

    4096000, 7962624, 11239424

Allocating group tables: done
Writing inode tables: done
Creating journal (65536 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

Sending ‘userdata’ (316 KB) OKAY [ 0.030s]
Writing ‘userdata’ OKAY [ 0.024s]
Finished. Total time: 11.765s

D:\adb-fastboot\platform-tools>fastboot flash system system.img
Sending sparse ‘system’ 1/4 (522236 KB) OKAY [ 24.783s]
Writing ‘system’ OKAY [ 2.378s]
Sending sparse ‘system’ 2/4 (522236 KB) OKAY [ 23.756s]
Writing ‘system’ OKAY [ 2.368s]
Sending sparse ‘system’ 3/4 (522236 KB) OKAY [ 23.702s]
Writing ‘system’ OKAY [ 2.364s]
Sending sparse ‘system’ 4/4 (246188 KB) OKAY [ 11.428s]
Writing ‘system’ OKAY [ 1.124s]
Finished. Total time: 92.264s

D:\adb-fastboot\platform-tools>fastboot flash boot boot.img
fastboot: error: Couldn’t parse partition size ‘0x’.

D:\adb-fastboot\platform-tools>fastboot flash boot_a boot.img
Sending ‘boot_a’ (65536 KB) OKAY [ 2.897s]
Writing ‘boot_a’ OKAY [ 0.314s]
Finished. Total time: 3.281s

D:\adb-fastboot\platform-tools>fastboot flash vendor vendor.img
Sending ‘vendor’ (363560 KB) OKAY [ 29.497s]
Writing ‘vendor’ OKAY [ 1.662s]
Finished. Total time: 31.254s

D:\adb-fastboot\platform-tools>fastboot flash dtbo dtbo.img
Sending ‘dtbo’ (8192 KB) OKAY [ 1.320s]
Writing ‘dtbo’ OKAY [ 0.048s]
Finished. Total time: 1.429s

D:\adb-fastboot\platform-tools>fastboot flash product product.img
Sending ‘product’ (2148 KB) OKAY [ 0.097s]
Writing ‘product’ OKAY [ 0.028s]
Finished. Total time: 0.215s

D:\adb-fastboot\platform-tools>fastboot flash vbmeta vbmeta.img
Sending ‘vbmeta’ (4 KB) OKAY [ 0.028s]
Writing ‘vbmeta’ OKAY [ 0.014s]
Finished. Total time: 0.103s

D:\adb-fastboot\platform-tools>fastboot flashing lock
OKAY [ 0.077s]
Finished. Total time: 0.080s"

This brought me to a bricked FP3. Same problem as here Please Help, I bricked my Fairphone 3 while installing /e/OS but I dont think that I downloaded a bad zip-file because from the start I used the file from e’s website. So I just tried the whole process again and now Im stuck here:
"
D:\adb-fastboot\platform-tools>fastboot flashing unlock
OKAY [ 0.094s]
Finished. Total time: 0.094s

D:\adb-fastboot\platform-tools>fastboot -w
Erasing ‘userdata’ OKAY [ 0.187s]
mke2fs 1.45.4 (23-Sep-2019)
Creating filesystem with 12777209 4k blocks and 3194880 inodes
Filesystem UUID: 80b5ffca-e113-11ea-a4bf-bf64b1413d8f
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208,

    4096000, 7962624, 11239424

Allocating group tables: done
Writing inode tables: done
Creating journal (65536 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

Sending ‘userdata’ (316 KB) OKAY [ 0.047s]
Writing ‘userdata’ OKAY [ 0.031s]
Finished. Total time: 0.780s

D:\adb-fastboot\platform-tools>fastboot flash system system.img
Sending sparse ‘system’ 1/4 (522236 KB) OKAY [ 24.913s]
Writing ‘system’ FAILED (remote: ‘partition ta
ble doesn’t exist’)
fastboot: error: Command failed"

I also send a mail to e-foundation yesterday when I discovered that my phone is bricked but maybe one of you can give me some advice? Im so grateful to have this active community of Fairphoners so that I know Im not alone when I did something to my FP

Alex.A · August 18, 2020, 1:35pm

You never know. It’s very rare, but there can be a download problem and the file you downloaded isn’t exactly the same as the original. An it can cause great problems. That’s why you usually check the sum of the file (on windows I used a program called HashMyFiles), and check if the mid5sum for example is the same as the one given by /e/.
Download the file again, check the sums if you understood what I meant, and try again.

steviexo · August 18, 2020, 4:44pm

Thanks for your advice. In the meantime I did it all by myself with well research it was a torture, but /e/ is now running on my FP3. First, I flashed back to the original ROM (FP OS, latest version), then installed TWRP. I tried again to install /e/ via TWRP through the zip-file but it didnt work so I went for the installation through the bootloader. Again, I ran into the same mistake as the first time, that booting the boot.img wasnt working, solved that through adding the active partition to the command (in my case “boot_a”). I left the device status unlocked in case something goes wrong again. First, the phone booted two times to the black Fairphone screen and I thought “Ok, failed again.” but suddenly a recovery screen appeared asking me if I want to do a factory reset which I confirmed and then the e-Logo appeared and the OS started! Oh, Im so relieved! 26 hours breakdown and desparation are finally over Still, I dont know what made the OS in the end running - or not - and that is something that bothers me because I feel that I learned nothing if this ever happens again. Well, just hope that it doesnt.

<3

system · November 16, 2020, 4:44pm

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