How to brick your SE X8 (E15i)... and recover it.

Obviously, how-to for bricking your Android phone is meant as an unintentional happening here, but it helps to know what kind of stupidity leads to such disastrous effects. I could give many reasons as to how I managed to do so, such as being sleepy, unalert, whatever, but the fact remains that I was stupid enough to click a wrong version of ROM to download for my kernel. To be specific, I downloaded GingerDX v029 (to upgrade from my earlier v028) meant for Alfs/nAa kernel than my stock SEMC kernel. For one, I didn't know that there are two different versions (my ignorance) and for another, the fellows who named the file, in their wisdom, decided that one file should be called GingerDX-v029-shakira.zip and the other as GingerDX-v029-shakira-stock.zip (a nomenclature mistake, I must say). Of course, I accept all the blame for being unalert, yet I wish to point out that if a person were to use the file looking at its name, maybe years later, still he should know that just shakira means Alfs/nAa! Thats very unlikely. Be it as it may, lets just say that I bricked the X8 when I loaded the shakira ROM instead of shakira-stock ROM onto my SEMC stock kernel.

For those who don't know what a (soft) bricked phone looks like, it looks just like an X8 (no, really, it doesn't look like a brick :P) which shows a Sony Ericsson logo that comes up during the boot cycle and just that. It hangs in there, without even the power off working. You ought to remove the battery to let it power down. For all practical purposes, its a brick.

The options available for you to unbrick the X8 (using "Windoze") are:

(If you have Sony PC Companion installed, try Option 2 directly).

1. Flashtool: 
1. Download Flashtool (107MB) (or a newer available version) & install it.
2. Download stock ROM E15i_X8i_2.1.1.A.0.6_Baseband_015.7z (or your E15a, etc, version of X8 or a valid custom ROM such as shakira-stock) and unzip it, getting its ftf file.
3. Copy/move that file to Flashtool's /firmware folder.
4. Run Flashtool/drivers/Flashtool-drivers.exe, choose your X8 phone drivers and install them.
5. Run Flashtool.
6. Choose to flash, selecting X8. Follow Flashtool instructions on when to power off X8/connect/unplug USB cable/hold back button of X8/plug USB cable, etc.
7. If this works, well and good, unplug USB cable, power up X8 and you're done (Note: First boot takes a long time, giving symptoms similar to a bricked phone!
8. If it doesn't boot up even after a long time or Flashtool gave an error at step 6 above as to drivers not being found, USB debugging being off, 2011 mode blah-blah or whatever, follow next set of instructions below.
2. Sony PC Companion (PCC):
1. If you don't have it already, download PCC (26MB) & install it
2. Run it & try its update/ repair options.
3. If that doesn't unbrick the X8, move on reading below to last option that worked for me.
3. Sony Upgrade Service:
1. Download Update Service (38.1MB) or later version & install it. Takes a while if the service app itself has another update due.
2. Run Update Service application, selecting the device as X8 from many SE phones listed. Connect the X8 device via USB cable following instructions on when to power off, hold the back button, etc.
3. Let it install drivers.
4. Now, you have a choice to go back to option 1 of Flashtool and burn available stock or custom ROM, or continue with this service and let it update the X8 after downloading 120MB stock ROM.
5. If you go with latter, let the update download finish and flash your connected X8.
6. Unplug the USB cable, power up X8 and wait long for first run. You'd be back with factory X8 settings.

Hope this blog entry helps some other sleepy head like me, who'd rather have postponed upgrading his X8 to a day when he felt more wakeful! :)

Happy unbricking! Cheers!!