Paranoid Android!

October 21, 2011 3:23 PM

I think I've bricked my HTC Desire by following the 'official' procedure to upgrade the OS to Android 2.3. Please help me restore it to its original state or do anything else to make it work again.

I followed the installation procedure from the HTC web site to manually upgrade my HTC Desire to Android 2.3.3. I ran the upgrade and it said that my phone was successfully upgraded, but once my phone started again after the upgrade, it just kept restarting over and over again. I've tried taking out the battery, but that doesn't help at all.

Is there any way I can restore it back to its original state? If not, is there anything I can do to make it work again? I don't really know much about rooting/installing custom ROMs. Is that something I should look into at this point? Any resources that can help me?

Thank you all for your help. I'm freaking out a fair bit.

P.S. Even though the update to Android 2.3 was 'official', I don't think my warranty will cover it.

posted by murtagh to technology (7 answers total)

Err... you could try taking it to the Verizon store, but when my phone was doing what yours is, they said there was nothing they could do and I had to get a new phone. But you could call and see if they have a way to reset the your phone. Mine (HTC Incredible) didn't have a manual way to reset it.
posted by DoubleLune at 3:28 PM on October 21, 2011

Unless you have rooted the phone, the warranty should in fact cover this if it's still under warranty. Unmodified device, official update, should be covered.
posted by kindall at 3:31 PM on October 21, 2011

You could try booting into recovery mode; even non-rooted it might help.
With the HTC desire it looks like you hold down the volume-down button and power at the same time.
Since you've got a boot loop, remove the battery, put it back in, hold down those 2 buttons, and let go when you see the HTC boot logo pop up.
It might or might not give you some options here; not familiar with that phone specifically.
posted by jozxyqk at 3:44 PM on October 21, 2011

I tried the volume down-power button combo. Didn't help.

Thankfully, I seem to have solved the problem now. I don't know why exactly, but I tried removing my SD card and restarting the phone and that seems to have worked. My phone is properly running Android 2.3 now (albeit without an SD card).

Do I need a new SD card? Or can I somehow format this one and use it?
posted by murtagh at 3:52 PM on October 21, 2011

Try simply putting the SD card back in. It may be that now it's rebooted and sorted out all the updatey stuff it has to do, when you put the card back it, it might happily accept it, and/or update something on the card that needs updating.
posted by -harlequin- at 4:12 PM on October 21, 2011

Just to add for other people who might search on this problem in the future... My Samsung Moment required the SD card be removed before I upgraded Android. After the upgrade the SD card could be put back in and worked normally.
posted by Babblesort at 4:20 PM on October 21, 2011

I've reinserted the SD card and erased it from the phone and it works again fine. Thank you all for your patience and help :)
posted by murtagh at 4:24 PM on October 21, 2011