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Thursday, 14 June 2018

How To Unbrick Lenovo ZUK Phones Qfil Roms + UNBRICK Guide

As you may already know, the ZUK brand belongs to Lenovo. ZUK Z1 came last year with an affordable price and elegant design, including a fingerprint sensor and 64GB storage option powered with Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 and sold many even Lenovo was surprised with the sale numbers. This year, 2 models came from ZUK brand, ZUK Z2 Pro, and ZUK Z2, both having powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 chipset inside, both with minimum 4GB of RAM’s  ( ZUK Z2 Pro has a 6GB Ram variant too) and plus many more new features, you can read full details here :

Today we will learn how to flash ROMs with Qfil, Qualcomm’s own flasher software and this will also will be our “Unbrick Guide” for Lenovo/ZUK Qualcomm-based phones.

So our “How To” guides are unique as they are alternative ROM flashing guides (without the need of flashing recovery’s, without the need of rooting and works even with locked bootloaders) + Unbrick guides in just one single method.

I will use a Lenovo Vibeshot as an example today, came as bricked from a reader, stuck on Lenovo Logo, no recovery menu, no system menu ( volume “-” + power ). so don’t let my ROM files or configurations confuse you.

The method that we will use today is Qualcomm’s own method to flash ROMs to supported models, and it’s not forbidden from the maker if it’s not hidden. I mean you can’t use this method on every Qualcomm based phone like LG, Samsung or HTC. Those makers never will allow their customers to rescue their bricked phones by themselves, they have their service centers worldwide and work so hard to leave Qualcomm’s own structure, in order to create their own ROM structure. So, users have to go to their manufacturer service centers if they brick their phones.

This is why I like Chinese brands much more, most of them are unbrickable in this way, because, again, most of them use Qualcomm’s structure and we can find that kind of  “Qfil” ROMs online. In time we will learn how to unbrick them all.

Most Lenovo Qualcomm models have the same ROM structure and this guide can be applied to all. There may be some exceptions, of course, like some old models running Snapdragon 800’s or some models that are being sold only to network service providers around the world like Vodafone,  and not to customers directly. Remember? Service center policy?



Before we start, let’s take a look at the downloads :
QPST/Qfil Qualcomm Flasher
Lenovo and ZUK phone Windows USB drivers
Qualcomm Diag port drivers
ZUK Z1 CM12.1 Qfil Rom


Download all signed drivers and Files from Google search, so no need to disable Windows driver enforcement like we did in our first guide for Xiaomi.

Before we begin, let me remind you, this method will wipe your phone completely and bring it to “out of box” factory mode. So backing up your important data is a must! If your phone is already bricked and can’t power on or is stuck at logo, there is not much to do for your data.

STEP 1: First, we need to install adb on our computers, and for that, we will use a program called “adb setup“, thanks to Snoop05 from XDA-Developers, this will enable adb and fastboot commands to work on our systems. It will also install necessary adb drivers. There are many ways to do that but what is more important about Snoop05’s solution is that we can use adb and fastboot commands system-wide, this means our old “command prompt” will turn to accept this commands, and no need to work in the “adb” folder like we used to before. Then install Lenovo and ZUK phone Windows USB drivers + Qualcomm Diag port drivers on your system.

STEP 2: On Lenovo, phones to enable USB debugging, click “USB debugging (ADB)” under “USB computer connection” from the pop-up window when you plug the USB cable.  On ZUK Z1, if Cyanogen Rom is installed, go to settings> about the phone, and click “Build number” couple of times till you see “you are a developer“ message. Then back to settings>Developer opitons>USB debugging, click it and allow. Your system will install necessary”adb” drivers. Now open command prompt and type :

“adb devices“
lenovo_adb

Look at your phone for the “Allow USB debugging?“ message, select “Always allow from this computer“ and click OK. If you forget to allow from the phone, the command will return “unauthorized“, if OK you will see your phone as “device“.

STEP 3: Install QPST builds 430 on your PCs. After setup finishes go to “C: Program Files (x86)QualcommQPSTbin” folder and locate QFIL.exe, create a shortcut on your desktop, or continue to work from bin folder, as you like.
locate Qfil


STEP 4: Qfil_browse! After you downloaded your ROM and unzipped it, run “QFIL.exe”.  Select “Flat Build” option under “Select Build Type”, then click “Browse” under “Select Programmer” and locate the mbn file that is starting with “prog_emmc_firehose”. In my example its “prog_emmc_firehose_8936.mbn”, 8936 is the code number for Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 chipset, for ZUK Z1 it will be “prog_emmc_firehose_8974.mbn”, 8974 is the code for Snapdragon 801 series.

browse_rawprogram0
Then, under “Download” click “Load XML” tab at the right end of the window, the pop-up window will locate the rawprogram0.xml that we need. After you select it and click “Open”  another pop-up window will come automatically and show you “patch0.xml” to select.

browse_patch0
After necessary files are selected, the Qfil configuration should look like this :
qfil_conf

STEP 5: Now it’s time to open our so-called Qualcomm HS-USB Qdloader 9008 service port to work with. If your phone is in working condition, we will use an adb command from command prompt :

“ADB reboot EDL”
lenovo_edl
If your phone is bricked / can’t boot up / stuck at logo / restarting itself continuously, then we will use the key combination to open our Qualcomm HS-USB Qdloader 9008 service port. That key combination depends on the ROM that you had on your phone before it’s bricked.
If you were Lollipop :p: Phone must be completely off. Pressing “Volume Up” key plug the USB cable in WITHOUT PRESSING POWER BUTTON !  Port will open.
If you were on Marshmallow : Phone must be completely off. Plug the USB cable in and immediately press Power On button. Port will open.


STEP 6: Qfil_end! Qfil will recognize HS-USB Qdloader 9008 port and “Download” tab/option will be ready to click. Click it immediately if you opened the port with key combination because after 5 seconds phone will restart, if you click “Download” in time, the Qfil will hold the port and start flashing our ROM. If you opened the port with adb command, no need to hurrthe y, port will stay open as long as you press power button long enough to reset.

qfil_start
Look at the “Status” window. If you see “Switch To FireHose and Wait for 3 seconds..” lines then everything seems fine, Qfil will start to flash our Qualcomm Lenovo/ZUK’s.  If you see “Download Fail” line at the end, please press power button long enough to reset the phone/port and try again.

Remember : Phone/port must be resetted after every attempt with Qfil.

Qfil_finish
After Qfil finishes flashing, in our example it took 2 Min. and 58 Sec., the phone will be reset from the program itself. You can close Qfil after you see “Waiting for reset done…”  ignoring any pop-up. Your phone is rescued/unbricked and  will boot with your new ROM. Congratulations !

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