How to Fix an Android Phone or Tablet That Maybe Bricked

So you decided to root (and flash) your Android handset or tablet, and now things don’t seem to be working right. Maybe it won’t start. Perhaps the phone keeps restarting or won’t boot into Android.

It’s time to face the music.. your Android device is bricked. Or is it? In reality, Android is built with flexibility and durability in mind. That means its hard to completely break your Android device.

When fully bricked, your phone is no longer user-repairable in any shape or form. The truth is that many times new modders think that just because a phone appears to be bricked means that all hope is lost. Luckily, this isn’t true.

Fixing a device that appears to be bricked isn’t a one-fits-all approach, but we will share with you some of the general hints and tips that could be used to get your Android device working again:

What to do if Your Phone Boots Straight into Recovery

Right now your phone refuses to do anything other than boot up directly into ClockWorkMod or any other recovery software you chose to use. It’s toast right? Not exactly.

There is a chance that everything is actually fine and the ROM you used simply is designed to boot into recovery the first time after flashing. To test if that’s the case:

Step 1: Load up ClockWorkMod or whatever recovery tool you are using. Keep in mind that how you do this varies, depending on your phone’s make and model.

For most devices, it’s as simple as holding the up or down volume rocker as your phone boots.

Note: Some devices will automatically boot into the recovery tool, but others will require you to first pick recovery from a list of options.

Step 2: Once in, navigate to reboot system now. This should be the first option on the top, for those using ClockWorkMod.

Hopefully that’s it and everything will start working. If not, that means that you’ll want to re-flash the ROM all over again.

While it doesn’t hurt to try re-flashing with the exact same ROM that you used last time, odds are the problem is that the ROM you used was corrupted. If that’s the case, you’ll be better offdownloading a new/different ROM.

If you’ve gotten this far, you should already know how to put a ROM ZIP file onto your device and flash it, but as a refresher:

Step 1: Plug your SD card into your computer and drag the ROM ZIP to your SD card. When it’s finished transferring, eject the card.

Step 2: Place the SD card back in your phone or tablet, while the device is off. Now turn on your phone and boot into recovery. Using the volume keys as buttons, navigate down to Install ZIP from SD card. Select this option by using the power button.

Step 3: Let it go through the process of flashing. When done, reboot. If successful, your device will now boot into the custom ROM you installed.

What to do if Your Phone Won’t Stop Rebooting

The ROM has been flashed, you thought everything went well, but apparently your phone won’t boot into the homescreen and appears to be stuck in a reboot cycle. The problem here could actually be a very simple one.

It’s important to wipe your data and cache before flashing a ROM to your device. Luckily, if you forgot, it’s really not a big deal.

Step 1: Turn your phone off, and then reboot into Recovery. As already mentioned before, how you do this varies depending on your device, though often enough you simply need to hold down either the up or down volume rocker.

Step 2: Navigate over to Advanced. This will bring up a new menu with several options.

Step 3: The second option from the top downward is Wipe Dalvik Cache. Choose this option and follow the prompts. When finished, return to the main menu by selecting Go Back.

Step 4: Once back at the main screen, navigate down to Wipe Cache Partition. Select it now.

Step 5: Head to Wipe Data/Factory Reset. This will wipe all apps and settings, but since this is a new ROM flash this shouldn’t hurt anything.

Step 6: Finally, reboot your device by selecting reboot system now. If all went well, you should now be able to boot directly into the ROM. If not, you might want to re-flash the same ROM, or try a new one.

None of the Above Solutions Seem to Work? Your SD Card could be at Fault

While the odds of this are pretty low, sometimes the SD card itself is causing issues with things like flashing a ROM.

In this event, you might want to put your SD card into your computer and reformat it. If you have a spare SD card, you also might want to try using it instead.

Is Your Hardware Actually the Problem?

If your phone simply refuses to start or the display is being unresponsive, it’s possible that the problem has nothing to do with the root procedure or with flashing your device. Instead, it could just be bad timing that led to your power charger going bad, or perhaps your display is damaged.

Neither of these things are that likely once again, but it always helps to be thorough and consider all possible problems and solutions.

All Else Fails, Time to Restore from the Original ROM

Ran into a problem that seems to have no possible fix? If so, the solution might be to simply restore the original ROM. This will break your root, get rid of ClockWorkMod and otherwise return your phone or tablet to the same exact state in which it was purchased.

How do you go about this process? Unfortunately, it would be impossible to walk you through this step by step without knowing exactly what handset or tablet you are using. In this case, a search engine like Google or Bing could prove to be your best friend. You’ll want to use a search term like: How to restore original ROM for ( your phone model).

Conversely, you might want to head to a trusty Android community resource like the XDA Developer’s forum, where you will likely be able to find additional help or the tools needed to restore your device.

Conclusion

Never give up! Odds are, your so-called bricked phone can be unbricked without sending it in and paying top dollar for repairs.

If you really are at a dead end here, you can always try returning your phone, but remember that mentioning a phone has been rooted/flashed will void your warranty.

Anyone else out there have any other suggestions for fixing a device that – at first glance – appears to be bricked?  TechProceed.com readers and I would love to hear all about it in the comments below.

Share Files of Any Size Online via Private Torrent in uTorrent/BitTorrent

Nowadays, transferring a file from one computer to another through the internet is hardly uncommon. Cloud services like Dropbox and Google Drive have bumped the few MBs of file size limit associated with emails to a few GBs. But then, there are always caveats.

Though these services make gigabytes of file transfer possible, they come with limitations like maximum file size, upload limit and free account storage threshold. Sure we can split the file and transfer them one by one but that’s a harassment for both the uploader and the downloader.

Today I am going to show you how you can create a private torrent file in uTorrent and send gigabytes of data, without any restriction, to anyone over the internet. Seriously… No Restrictions! So let’s see how we can make this happen.

Creating Private Torrent in uTorrent

Step 1: Download and install the latest version of uTorrent on your computer. I am sure many other torrent clients might support this feature but I personally prefer uTorrent because of its ease of use. After you install uTorrent on your computer, launch it.

Step 2: You will need your global IP address for the task. If you don’t know the external IP address of your computer, open the What is my IP homepage on your browser. The page will display your IP address on the home page. Make sure you are not under any proxy settings and if you are using a firewall, add uTorrent to the whitelist.

Editor’s note: An easier way to find your IP is to type “what is my ip” on Google. Yep, that’s it. Google will show your public IP address on top of the results. 

Step 3: We will now need the port number uTorrent is using for the incoming connection. To know the port number, open uTorrent preferences from Options and click on the Connection tab. Here look for the section Port used for incoming connection under Listening Port settingsand make a note of the port number.

Step 4: When you have your external IP address and the port number, open uTorrent preferences again. Navigate to Advanced and look for the property bt.enable_tracker. The property will be false by default, toggle the value to true to enable private tracking for torrents. Restart uTorrent after making the changes.

Step 5: We will now create a torrent file. Click on File on uTorrent and select the option Create New Torrent. In Create New Torrent window, select the source folder you want to send to your friend. Always make sure you send a folder and not an archived file.

Step 6: Now add these two lines in the trackers text box.

http://External-IP:Port-Number/announce

http://localhost:Port-Number/announce

Replace the External-IP and the Port-Number with the values related to your connection. Finally check the box Start Seeding and Private torrent and click on the button Create and save as.

Step 7: uTorrent will now ask you to save the torrent file on your computer and start seeding.

That’s all, you can email the torrent file to your friends and ask them to run it on their torrent clients. All of your friends can download the file simultaneously but their download speed will depend on your upload speed.

The guide works best for users who have a static IP address. If you have a dynamic IP address, you will have to update the torrent tracker option manually each time your external IP changes. This can be done by right-clicking the torrent in uTorrent and selecting properties. Here update the tracking information. The same should be done when you switch your incoming port.

Conclusion

So that was how you can transfer GBs of files without using any file hosting service. As we are using a torrent file, all the rules followed by them apply here. The best thing about the process is that you can pause and resume the download and set file priority. The files will be transferred as long as all the devices are connected to the internet and uTorrent is running on them.

The Best Way To Send Text and Files From Browser To Android

Over the last few years, the openness of Android has enabled us to do all sorts of crazy things natively. Accessing root and playing around with the core system, something that’s frowned upon the other side of the pond.

While different services have enabled us to wirelessly send files, notes, share clipboard and even access notifications from PC, Pushbullet gives us all of that bundled in a neat little app with a fresh perspective towards sharing data between the phone and the PC.

You’ll need to download the Pushbullet app and also the corresponding extension for Google Chrome or Firefox. You’ll also need to sign up for an account, which you can do with your Google log in, which is the only way to enable the service. Once you’ve done that, Pushbullet will ask you if you want to mirror your notifications using the Chrome browser on your computer. This is an incredibly useful feature and works well in my testing. The notification mirroring is also customizable. You can disable mirroring for any app and you can also dismiss the notification right from your desktop.

How To Push Text and Files



To push anything from Chrome to Android, just click on the Pushbullet icon from the extensionbar. A neat little window will popup. In here you will find the link to the page you are currently visiting already filled in, or you can paste in something else entirely if you want. You can also add a note or a list, an address or even a file (as long as it’s less than 25MB).

Pushbullet is contextually aware, so any link that’s pushed to your phone’s notification bar opens directly in your default browser when tapped. Similarly, addresses open in Maps and files start downloading through Android’s Download Manager instantaneously.




To push anything from your Android phone to Chrome on your computer, fire up the Pushbullet app and tap the handy Pushbullet button with a + on the lower right corner. This will bring up a new menu. From here select your option, add some information, tap push and you are done!

Cool Tip: You may also try DeskNotifier to push Android notifications to your Windows desktop. That’s an interesting tool too.

The Good

History: Whether you are using the website or the Android app, Pushbullet always shows you ahistory of everything you’ve pushed through your devices. They stay here even after you’ve dismissed the notification. Pretty handy.

Push To Friend: Push to friend allows you to push data just like you do between your devices but with your friends. This can be useful to send directions or files directly to your friend without using email. But do make sure your friend isn’t a troll (I know, goes without saying).
The Really Good

Notification Mirroring : Apps like AirDriod use your IP address to connect your Android phone and PC. But because the data here passes though the Pushbullet servers, the notification mirroring is available even when your phone is using data instead of Wi-Fi. You can of course disable this feature and mirror only via Wi-Fi from settings.

Cloud Based Reminders: Sending notes and lists directly to the notifications bar is Pushbullet’s subtle feature. But once you start using it the right way, you start seeing its genius. When you push any kind of text through your browser, it stays there in your phone’s notification bar till you swipe it away. So if you have something important to do, just push it forward and it will stay there haunting you every time you pull down the notifications bar, which if you are a normal mobile user, is every 5 minutes.

The Bad

Pushbullet’s biggest feature is also its weakest. Pushbullet uses its own servers to send data and files even when all your devices are connected on the same network. While this feature gives you a good amount of flexibility, it also means that the 25MB file will take a couple of minutes to push between devices instead of a couple of seconds.

You Push?

You’ll find the word Push being used 15.6 jillion times (mathematically sound) across its services and throughout this article as well. But what we’d like to know is how you send small chucks of information from your PC to your phone and if you think Pushbullet will make your life a bit easier in this regard.

How to Make Money From Your Youtube Videos

Wonder how charlie earned millions simply biting fingers? Well there are two main ways by which you can earn money from your published youtube videos.

One is the Youtube Partner Program and another one is connection your youtube account with a adsense account. First one sounds all good, but its not easy as it sounds. Youtube doesn’t accept everyone as its partner unless you really talented and have a super popular youtube channel with lots of subscribers. If you by any chance have one such channel, Click YouTube Partner Program to can sign up for this program.

For the second way, you need to have an adsense account. If you don’t have one, Sign Up

Now that you’ve a adsense account google, here’s how you connect your youtube and adsense accounts:

1. Go to account monetization page and enable monetization to your account in case it isn’t.

2. Now go to Adsense connection page and follow the onscreen instructions.

3. Choose your option from the bottom of the page to choose your Google Account you like to use. Confirm with your Google account password. Accept the association and you’re good to go.

4. Now go to your Video Manager and click small ‘$’ symbol next to your videos and follow on screen instructions.

Make sure your videos are original and doesn’t have any copyright infringements otherwise youtube won’t accept them. Have Fun!