ZTE Blade - Anbdroid - Interesting Problem

Cash-Strapped.T32

By interesting I mean bamboozling..
I lurk a bit on this section so I know that some posters *really* know their stuff; I'm hoping to god someone can help me out as I can't afford to replace my phone - But more than that, until now I thought I had a clue about computers, phones & OS's..
Seems I don't.

Forgive the bit of intro, but it's worth explaining what happened from the start imo.

[ZTE Blade gen1 / Japanese Jellyfish android v2.2]
Ok, so last night I used android's USB storage mode to copy a few files to a friend's laptop, phone up till now has been problem free for over a year.
As soon as I plugged it in & autorun popped up straight away I noticed he had an autorun.inf virus infecting the laptop, the sort that plays about with the "hidden" attribute of all the files/folders on any removable storage; You know the one*.

Sorted it out on his lappy, then before I took the phone anywhere near my own computer, I unmounted the SDCard from USB mode and used the basic Android "Filer" file-browser app to delete all the "new" files the worm had written to my SDCard while it was temporarily in my mate's lappy.
I deleted the files that make up the virus (a few .exes and a .scr) - Because it's a different OS the files were perfectly visible & deletable under Android - "cleaning" the card of any trace.

The content of my card was still hidden (my file/folders), due to their "hidden" attribute having been toggled by the virus while it was plugged into his computer, which meant my MP3 player app couldn't see the MP3s, nor could Filer see my personal files & folders;
But otherwise, no harm done because the content still exists, the virus has been cleaned & I can toggle the hidden attributes back later, and Windows malware can't harm an Android phone, right?

So far so good I thought, problem averted.

However this morning I rebooted my phone (it had been on overnight), and all of a sudden it won't power-up when I press the button. These are the symptoms;

*] It seems utterly dead & will not respond when the power button is held, or if any compination of power/vol/home buttons. It will only respond if it's first plugged into my computer via usb or the usb wall charger and *then* power is pressed.

*] I took the battery out, and charged it fully in a spare phone (dead screen), but get the same result. It will only power-up if plugged in first.

*] When it does respond, all I get is infinite boot-loop mode, where it shows the green android, then the ROM's splash screen, and then resets, starting the loop again..


To try & fix the problem, I booted into ClockworkMod, formatted "boot", "system", "data", "cache", and "sd-ext", and then I re-flashed a new ROM (ModacoCustomROM android v2.2 - I didn't have the .zip for Japanese Jellyfish to hand).

Installation went perfectly. Rebooted.
Still no dice; I get exactly the same behaviour, only this time it goes Green Android>Modaco Logo>Reset>Green Android>etc..

Also, the same behaviour re; The plug. The phone had to be plugged in the whole time I was re-flashing the ROM, and continues to be plugged in while trying to boot - If pulled out the phone just goes dead in my hand.


Anyone got any ideas?
I've tried to explain all this as logically & fully as I could, but I must admit I'm stumped.. :huh:
Any advice would be gratefully received.

Pikeyp

I'm no expert by any means , but I do have the same phone and have flashed it a couple of times so have some experience!

A couple of things spring to mind ..

1 .. I have ClockworkMod 5.0.2.0 on this phone and it seems have a 'Wipe Dalvik Cache' option under the 'Advanced' menu .. have you cleared this as well? I haven't got a clue what it means but I have seen it mentioned in the forums before!

2 .. You say your phone is Gen1 , are you certain about that , and is ModacoCustomROM android v2.2 suitable for it? Trying to flash the wrong thing on your phone could be why you are having problems!

I'd suggest trying a different ROM to see if that helps first , and it might be an idea to use a fresh Sdcard till you get the phone working properly!

Good luck.

Cash-Strapped.T32

Pikeyp wrote: »

1 .. I have ClockworkMod 5.0.2.0 on this phone and it seems have a 'Wipe Dalvik Cache' option under the 'Advanced' menu .. have you cleared this as well? I haven't got a clue what it means but I have seen it mentioned in the forums before!

No, I haven't tried that - Will do again & post back results.

Pikeyp wrote: »

2 .. You say your phone is Gen1 , are you certain about that , and is ModacoCustomROM android v2.2 suitable for it? Trying to flash the wrong thing on your phone could be why you are having problems!

Fairly sure, but what I can be 100% certain of is that the ROM is compatible - I used to use the exact same ROM previously (in fact this is the original backed-up file I'm flashing from).

Pikeyp wrote: »

Good luck.

Cheers mate.

S0litaire

FYI
"Dalvik Cache" is a section of the phones that actually stores all the apps and programs your phones uses.

"Dalvik" is a Java Virtual Machine (a Virtual Machine or VM is program that runs other code.)

The Cache is just an area of the phone that this VM stores all your apps in a format that it can run quickly

So wiping it forces the phone to "rebuild" the cache with hopefully clean programs!

Wiping this cache is generally seen as one of the first things to do if you have problems with an Android phone.

Cash-Strapped.T32

No joy from trying to restore the phone unfortunately, thanks to everyone to tried to help.
Still no idea really what caused the issue.. ???

Anyway, had a most satisfying week sans-phone, but today I got down to it.
Stripped the phone down & replaced the knackered logic board (the one that holds the SIM, flash memory etc..) with a working one from I have from when I broke my first blade's screen (but the rest of that phone was ok).

So, back in business! :cool: