I created this post when my Nubia Z9 Mini was stuck at Nubia logo. How my phone got bricked?
NOTEs: At end of page i have pasted links which may get outdated. Use Google in that case. Also write IMEI of device somewhere because it has to be put back to device. This page doesn't handle IMEI process. Kindly take help on XDA platform for same in detail. This page is for quicker help.
I tried installing superuser.zip from Nubia's internal stock recovery options and after that whenever Nubia booted it showed "Android is updating 3 of 3". This always occurred may be because package was for TWPR and i used Nubia stock recovery. But after that i used "Nubia Z9 Mini Recovery Tool V4.0" and installed TWRP custom recovery. Phone ran fine for many days and suddenly it stopped at "Android is updating 3 of 3". After this phone stopping booting after Nubia logo.
Before i proceed with recovery process here is quick information of system. Android devices have internal memory with multiple partitions. These partitions are for various purposes. If you have studied Linux you will know what they are for. For these partitions there are files. Below are most important files -
boot.img, recovery.img.
As the name says boot.img is boot image and recovery.img is for recovery. Any non booting phone must FIRST be fixed to contain VALID boot.img and recovery.img files. This can be done by flash tools made for the devices. Lets fix them for Nubia Z9 mini.
Download below files using Google search as i cannot post links as they keep changing.
Time for real work. Connect Phone to PC because even if battery is down it will keep charging. Press POWER + VOLUME DOWN + VOLUME UP. This will restart phone in FLASH mode to edit its partitions. Run Nubia Tool Studio and Select phone model. In my case it was NX511J_V3.
NOTEs: At end of page i have pasted links which may get outdated. Use Google in that case. Also write IMEI of device somewhere because it has to be put back to device. This page doesn't handle IMEI process. Kindly take help on XDA platform for same in detail. This page is for quicker help.
I tried installing superuser.zip from Nubia's internal stock recovery options and after that whenever Nubia booted it showed "Android is updating 3 of 3". This always occurred may be because package was for TWPR and i used Nubia stock recovery. But after that i used "Nubia Z9 Mini Recovery Tool V4.0" and installed TWRP custom recovery. Phone ran fine for many days and suddenly it stopped at "Android is updating 3 of 3". After this phone stopping booting after Nubia logo.
Before i proceed with recovery process here is quick information of system. Android devices have internal memory with multiple partitions. These partitions are for various purposes. If you have studied Linux you will know what they are for. For these partitions there are files. Below are most important files -
boot.img, recovery.img.
As the name says boot.img is boot image and recovery.img is for recovery. Any non booting phone must FIRST be fixed to contain VALID boot.img and recovery.img files. This can be done by flash tools made for the devices. Lets fix them for Nubia Z9 mini.
Download below files using Google search as i cannot post links as they keep changing.
- Download & Install "Nubia Tool Studio V4.7.04" ~30-35MB.
- "Nubia_Restore_Tool_V1.0.5" its around 185MB. Its 185 MB because it contains many stock rom images of multiple devices. 1 device ROM files may be around 50MB or less.
- Download Official ROM from Nubia website. For Z9 Mini Indian version its NX511J_INCommon_V4.0.4. Zip file NX511J-update.zip is 898MB.
Time for real work. Connect Phone to PC because even if battery is down it will keep charging. Press POWER + VOLUME DOWN + VOLUME UP. This will restart phone in FLASH mode to edit its partitions. Run Nubia Tool Studio and Select phone model. In my case it was NX511J_V3.
- Double click "Firehose Download". It will start showing Port, USB number etc information.
- Go to location where Nubia Restore Tool was installed. Its generally installed in "C:\Program Files (x86)\nubia\BackupRecoveryTool".
- Locate Recovery folder and inside it you will find phone models and inside the desired model recovery.img and boot.img files. Create a folder and copy these files there.
- TRICK: Here is the real trick which works. Unzip the Nubia Official Stock ROM and copy boot.img and recovery.img files and paste inside the Recovery folder of device in BackupRecoveryTool above. This will replace the old img files with new img files.
- Its time to start updating partitions. In Tool Studio click browse button in Firehose Download tab. Select the folder where we just paste img files from Stock ROM. Press START.
Tool Studio will show messages like this :
[00001]18:58:25:808 [COM3] Starting...
[00002]18:58:28:121 [COM3] Start to download...
[00003]18:58:28:293 [COM3] Downloading prog_emmc_firehose_8936.mbn...
[00004]18:58:28:590 [COM3] Waiting for firehose mode...
[00005]18:58:31:981 [COM3] Start to download...
[00006]18:58:32:059 [COM3] Downloading boot.img...
[00007]18:58:35:106 [COM3] Downloading recovery.img...
[00008]18:58:38:466 [COM3] Downloading recovery.img...
[00009]18:58:41:826 [COM3] Downloading gpt_main0.bin...
[00010]18:58:41:889 [COM3] Calculating gpt_main0.bin MD5...
[00011]18:58:41:935 [COM3] Reading gpt_main0.bin back...
[00012]18:58:42:951 [COM3] Calculating 52425252_gpt_main0.bin MD5...
[00013]18:58:42:998 [COM3] Verify gpt_main0.bin succeed
[00014]18:58:42:998 [COM3] Downloading gpt_backup0.bin...
[00015]18:58:43:076 [COM3] Calculating gpt_backup0.bin MD5...
[00016]18:58:43:107 [COM3] Reading gpt_backup0.bin back...
[00017]18:58:44:123 [COM3] Calculating 52425252_gpt_backup0.bin MD5...
[00018]18:58:44:170 [COM3] Verify gpt_backup0.bin succeed
[00019]18:58:44:545 [COM3] Resetting...
[00020]18:58:44:623 COM3[USB6] disconnected
[00021]18:58:54:689 [COM3] Reset failed
In my case "Reset Failed" but even after that phone was fixed. The phone is NOT fixed yet.
Now keep pressed these buttons POWER+VOLUME DOWN. This will boot into recently flash recovery.img. Copy our downloaded NX511J-update.zip into SDCARD. Now put SDCARD into phone. Goto option update from EXTERNAL SDCARD. Select NX511J-update.zip and start. It will take time. Again restart phone. If phone boots well then fine otherwise keep POWER+VOLUME DOWN pressed and WIPE Cache, data etc i.e. factory reset. Now restart phone and it must boot. If it takes many minutes at "Be yourself" or other boot animation let it stay there. After these phone will boot.
In this post you must have known that boot.img and recovery.img must be FIXED first. If you are done phone can then be fixed. I hope this will help not just for Nubia but others also. Kindly use Google to download all relevant files. However below are some links.
Tool Studio etc: Use the versions i have used.
