Windows Phone Recovery Tool is causing more drama than originally thought...

[IIMurphaII]

A week or so ago, I heard the Denim update was finally released for my Lumia 820 product code. OTA update was not finding anything (I was still on Cyan), so I thought I'd try my luck with the WPRT. So I quickly backed up my phone, attached to the PC and to much joy saw an update was available (possibly Denim?). I left my PC to let the ~1.5GB download complete only to come back later to find that WPRT had 'lost connection' to my phone. Not to worry I thought, I will just attempt the update again. Much to my dismay, I discovered my phone was now completely unresponsive and not even the hard-reset of volume down + power button would bring it back - no lights, black screen, no vibrate. It is currently sitting in a repair center (it was out of warranty so was going to cost $$$ to fix). Warranty or not, I believe the phone should be repaired for free as it was Microsoft's tool that bricked my phone.

Moving on, a few days ago I saw the article here linking to the "Lumia 520/521Devices Unusable After Using Windows Phone Recovery Tool: Please Read" thread on the Microsoft Community site. Reading through the comments, there has been many other people, not just with Lumia 520/521 devices, having issues with this tool. A fair majority claim, like me, the WPRT has bricked their devices. The general consensus is that their phones have entered a 'Nokia Emergency Connectivity' mode and is detected by the PC as a 'QHSUSB_DLOAD' device. In some cases this mode was entered when trying to recover from the red Nokia screen some people have experienced, using the latest 1.2.4 tool.

Have any of you experienced the same issues?
Perhaps it's best to steer clear of these tools until a solution is found?
What are your thoughts?

Cheers.

 

[The Extreme G]

Use the Lumia Software Recovery Tool instead. Without your phone connected it should have an option the reads "My phone does not start up or respond". Select that and follow the directions. When asked to connect the phone, the software should detect whatever state the phone it's in then recover and flash accordingly.

Hopefully this will work for you.

 

[spaceOpia1]

I have a Lumia 1020 from AT&T and it bricked the same way as the 520/521 (QHSUSB_DLOAD).
I do not want to make accusations or anything, but if the bricking of these devices is due to the Windows Phone Recovery Tool, shouldn't Microsoft be responsible for repairing the phones?
Even if the phone shouldn't be our main phones or anything, it broke the phones. It is not like loosing data. It is a piece of hardware, now unusable, unless we buy another piece of hardware (Advance Turbo Flasher) which costs more than 150 US $, to flash the Nokia firmware back into our phones (correct me if I'm wrong here, I'm not 100% sure about that).

How many of you have bricked your phone?
It would be interesting to have a representative number here. Are we just a dozen ? a hundred ? or more ?
Share if need be.

 

[hotphil]

So,
Had a working phone.
Couldn't get an update through normal channels.
Used a tool designed for another purpose.
Broke phone.

I'm gonna say that at least some of the responsibility isn't on MS.

 

[mjperry51]

I have a Lumia 1020 from AT&T and it bricked the same way as the 520/521 (QHSUSB_DLOAD).
I do not want to make accusations or anything, but if the bricking of these devices is due to the Windows Phone Recovery Tool, shouldn't Microsoft be responsible for repairing the phones?
Even if the phone shouldn't be our main phones or anything, it broke the phones. It is not like loosing data. It is a piece of hardware, now unusable, unless we buy another piece of hardware (Advance Turbo Flasher) which costs more than 150 US $, to flash the Nokia firmware back into our phones (correct me if I'm wrong here, I'm not 100% sure about that).

How many of you have bricked your phone?
It would be interesting to have a representative number here. Are we just a dozen ? a hundred ? or more ?
Share if need be.

The "bricking" of phones was due to a problem with the recovery tool -- the need to use the recovery tool as necessitated by a user installing pre-release software that was clearly described as potentially damaging the phone. And you want to make it Microsoft's fault???

Fascinating. . .

 

[Unkitjc]

As far as I have searched, there are about a few thousand people with bricked devices, caused by WPRT - now Windows Device Recovery Tool - including my Lumia 820. Most people face the problem while attempting to roll down from W10M, but I too face the same problem - trying to get the denim update it bricked.

I have found articles with ways to revive the phone without other extra hardware, simply using a USB cable...

But I never seem to get the right HEX files for it and so am not able to revive it. But the method has been successful for a good number of people.

The Care Centre asked for a hefty amount for repairing, because they need to replace the chipset, since they didn't have the capability to flash the phone. I feels bit cheated and let down. All of us users could have been a bit valuable, running W10M but MSFT is ruining it. Gabe Aul said on twitter there would be a fix for the problem, and latest updates of WPRT have revived some devices. Mine starts the emergency flashing but ends with "operation failure" OR "device not found"