Bringing LeEco Max 2 (x820) back from the dead…
…or how to f(***)inish your mobile in 10 seconds
Here I am sitting at my desk with my new LeEco Max 2 (x820) in front of me. Nice design, good quality, great screen, even greater resolution and it responds very fast.
With nice feelings come nice ideas and (guess what) I’ve got this nice idea to install LineageOS on the mobile because I was reading the other day about some nice (hmmm…another nice words pops up here) features that I can’t live without. Moreover, I received my mobile half an hour ago and I had only done the initial Android set up, which means I hadn’t copied any personal data yet and…hey…this looks like the best moment to do a flash rom wipe of the mobile and install LineageOS. So, why not?
After some reading I have figured out what I need and had read the instructions a couple of times to make sure I understood the procedure. To install the new OS I downloaded these files:
- TWRP image (with installation instructions here)
- LineageOS 14.1 image (with installation instructions here)
- Google Apps
I install TWRP, I make a backup of the original image of the phone, I run the boot loader and follow the steps at the bottom of the instructions page in point 2 above. I wipe Cache, System and Data partitions (step 6) and move to install LineageOS zip as per step 8.
Wait…the zip file? Where is LineageOS zip file? Can’t see it in sdcard directory. Where is it? Well, after the initial panic attack it looks like I did not copy the file (step 2) before I wiped the system partition. Oh boy, what an idiot…
Here comes the second panic attack…I am in the situation where there is no OS on the mobile and the boot loader is running, which means I can’t connect the mobile to my PC and copy the file I need (or the backup image I created earlier). I restart the device a couple of times with the hope that all the known and unknown forces in the universe will converge and feel sorry for me and make the mobile boot in adb/usb or whatever mode with super fancy initials allows me to copy the file I needed. As you can guess, science and technology are reliable (all the wrong moments :-)) and nothing of this happened.
So, now I am sitting at my desk with my new (and totally dead) LeEco Max 2 in front of me. I would say with high degree of confidence that I’ve got what people usually call a bricked device. After some more reading, what I need is a stock firmware file (that is the original flash rom image from the manufacturer in a specific format) and a flash tool to write the file to the mobile.
The flash tool is easy to find. You can download FlashOne 1.9 from here or FlashOne 2.0 from here and read some instructions here.
The stock firmware file is a kinda nightmare to locate. You have to bounce back and forth among Indian, Chinese and other images with some cryptic 14s, 15s, 16s identifiers. The most complete list with links I found is this but it was not very helpful to me. I downloaded three or four images and tried to install them but they were not the right images for my mobile.
This gives me another wave of disappointment and now I am nearly two days later and my mind starts to settle into the idea that I destroyed my long-waiting mobile and the best thing to do now is to pick up the phone and call the supplier. The time I will take full responsibility of the mess I created is approaching very quickly.
Hope dies last, especially when you combine it with active behaviour, and the forces of the universe I mentioned above felt a bit sorry for me (or for my mental state)…I somehow found an image file which seems pretty suitable for my phone; a chuckle just escaped 🙂
After downloading and installing it I was able to boot the mobile, install TWRP again, copy all the necessary files (now I’ve learnt my lesson) and install the new version of Android.
Ufff….my mobile is back from the dead…what a nightmare…
Here is a list of files I used:
Here are three very useful guides:
- The Unbrick Thread for LeEco Le 2 (x52x) QDloader 9008 Mode
- Le Max 2 All Official Stock firmware links
- Unbrick X82x Le Max 2, Factory Restore, Reset, Qualcomm HS-USB QDLoader 9008
“Here comes the second panic attack…I am in the situation where there is no OS on the mobile and the boot loader is running, which means I can’t connect the mobile to my PC and copy the file I need (or the backup image I created earlier).”
Sorry, but that’s wrong. If you have TWRP running, have a full android minus the usual GUI running.
So you can just connect the phone via USB and push the file via adb.
Or you can go in the mount menu in TWRP and activate “Mount USB Storage” to get normal file access via windows explorer.
Or you can put your files onto an USB stick and connect it to the phone via an OTG adapter (or directly if you got one with a build in USB-C connector).
Copying file on and off the phone so you can flash them if you only have TWRP still running is pretty standard part of flashing a phone.
And even if something broke TWRP, as long as you still can get the phone booted into fastboot mode (that’s pretty hard to break), you can either install TWRP again with a simple “fastboot flash recovery .img” or you can even just boot TWRP once without flashing it onto the device with “fastboot boot .img”.
It is very very rare that you brick a device to the point where you need to get out the tools that you listed.
That’s the thing…I was not able to do any of the options you give. The phone was not responding when I tried to get it into fastboot mode.
After several attempts, the only mode I was able to get into was the Emergency Download Mode (EDL), which is basically what saved the day.
“So you can just connect the phone via USB and push the file via adb…..It is very very rare that you brick a device to the point where you need to get out the tools that you listed.”
Exactly.
Apparently an over reacted response with QFIL.
Overreacted or not guys, I wasn’t able to do anything…
TWRP is designed such a way as to prevent irreversible damage to the phone.
Obviously, you have found a way, if things had developed the way as you described.
Murphy’s Law: Make something idiot-proof, and they will build a better idiot.
Check.
Seriously? There must be a reason why all these apps come with a super huge warning that things can go wrong and leave the phone unusable.
The usual arrogance from developers…they thing they predicted everything and blame the users when things go wrong…
how to push the file via adb.
There are many guides on the internet about this. What have you tried?
Then you must have done more than just wipe “Cache, System and Data”. Also, at that moment, when you found you don’t have the zip on the sdcard to flash, TWRP must have still been running, so at that moment you could have just connected the phone via USB and pushed the file over to flash it.
Anyway, glad you got it all working again.
my phone is stuck in boot logo
i was able to open boot loader and recovary but my phone was stuck in boot loader
i flashed twrp recovery through bootloader and flashed lineage os but it was pass from boot logo when i restart and tried original firmware through original recovary it install succsusfully but it still stuck in boot logo some one tell me a fix for that
Hi,
sounds to me an issue with LineageOS.
Maybe you can use the forums on lineage’s web site
Hello,
my max2 seems dead.
It does not start any more, during an oment a flashing red led lit when I plugged it on the charger, then nothing, it does not charge, does not start.
an idea ?? at least to retrieve the content
I think flashing red led means that the battery if flat. Just leave the device to charge for a couple of hours then start it up.
Hi, I have the same issue with my lemax2 and also happened on the same day. I charged it for more than 10 hours and it shows 98%+ battery when keep charging. I had once entered into recovery mode and it showed either select .zip to restore image OR wipe the data. I selected none and clicked RESTART option, then onwards, i only can see the EUI logo booting and color changing. Sometimes it shows optimizing app 1…4 of 4 type message but so far no booting completed.
I am having windows 8.1 and it has my previous USB drivers installed so when i connect phone while in this booting stage, device manager shows it as LEMAX2 (good thing that pc still knows this phone), so do i still need to download and use Qualcomm Driver 9008 for Windows 10 to continue these steps?
Thanks
So, now you can see the mobile on Windows but it does not boot, right?
Then, it sounds to me that you need to install an OS again
handwritten by the author.
What do you mean?