Dead file download

&#;or how to f(***)inish your mobile in 10 seconds

Here I am sitting at my desk with my new LeEco Max 2 (x) 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:

1. TWRP image (with installation instructions here)
2. LineageOS image (with installation instructions here)
3. 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 from here or FlashOne 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: