[WP10] Solution for bricked HTC 8X after windows phone 10 upgrade (updated sept 26)
This is a short blog post for everyone owning an HTC 8X who got their phones bricked by the wrongly installed Windows Phone 10 update two days ago. I’m not taking any credit for this one as the solution was posted by Mevlüt Çayır in this thread on the Microsoft forums.
When your phone is in an endless reboot / upgrade cycle like mine was, here’s what you need to do:
Check out the updates below this post, use the official Windows Phone Recovery Tool to restore you phone!
- Download a RAR file from https://yadi.sk/d/g4sR-Nmoj2y9G (mirror via OneDrive here) (win mobile 8.1 ROM + ROM update utility)
- Unzip the downloaded file to a folder on disk
- Get your phone in recovery mode:
- Turn off phone
- Press VOLUME UP + VOLUME DOWN and hold these while your phone boots. If this doesn’t work, try the following sequence:
- Press VOLUME DOWN + CAMERA + POWER to boot.
- When untill the phone vibrates then release only the POWER button.
- Wait whilst pressing down VOLUME DOWN + CAMERA buttons until a white screen and some tiny sentences appear.
- You’ll know when you’re in boot mode when your screen shows stuff that makes you look like a 1337 h4ck3r.
- Now plug the phone into a computer via usb.
- Double click ROMUpdateUtility.exe
- The screen will switch to black and some text will start appearing. A progress bar in the bottom will show the flashing progress. It took me two tries before it got to 100%.
- Wait until the progress completed to %100. Can take about 10-15 minutes.
And now, when everything went well, you can reboot your phone and you’re back on good old Windows Phone 8.1. I’m definitely not installing the developer preview stuff untill I know for sure that it’s safe this time. Chances are I’ll have a new phone before that and now that its fixed, I might consider Windows again….
Disclaimer: this is NOT my ROM so I don’t exactly know what you’re installing here. It could have a virus, spyware or other software made by NSA. So when going this route, you’re on your own (but it does beat a bricked phone…).
Update: the ROM in this download seems to be limited to only unbranded GSM models. So people who have Verizon phones for instance cannot use it unfortunately. When new ROMs make it to the surface I’ll post some new links.
Update 17-09-2015: The ROM seems to have its origins in Russia. It comes with a preinstalled “Yandex.Search” app which apparently is a Russian search engine. It could be loaded with malware you don’t want, I cannot be sure. Updating this ROM after installing the Preview for Developers app doesn’t work, ends in error 80188301 which indicates a missing base package.
Update 18-09-2015: Gabe Aul (finally) tweeted yesterday that Microsoft is treating this as a high priority issue and they have a dedicated team on it. I guess they’re negotiating with the vendors and carriers to get the right ROMs up in their Windows Phone Recovery Tool servers. Probably there is some testing to be done, etc. etc. Will still take some time I believe. But when the official ROMs are posted, I’d advise everyone to reflash your phones using that one!
Update 21-09-2015: People seem to be getting good result with ROMs downloaded from this Vietnamese forum: http://www.winphoneviet.com/forum/threads/huong-dan-khac-phuc-htc-8x-cap-nhat-windows-10-bi-loi.169585/. I haven’t tried, but people with branded phones are reporting some these ROMs work. This depends on your phone version and radio version, so be sure to check those (settings –> about –> more info). Still no word on an official solution from Microsoft 🙁
Update 26-09-2015: Sure, we had to wait for a while, but Microsoft has now made the correct (official) ROMs available via the Windows Phone Recovery tool you can download here. If you have a running phone, make sure you back-up you settings and then recover to 8.1. After signing in, you can restore the back-up and you’ll see your phone returning into YOUR phone again 🙂
September 16, 2015 at 6:13 pm |
“[ERROR 296] UPGRADE ONLY This NBF file cannot be used for your phone. Please get a new NBF file.”
September 16, 2015 at 6:59 pm |
I’ve updated the post with a mirror to the file on OneDrive. Maybe yours is corrupt. Could also be that this doesnt work for branded (carrier) phones, mine isn’t.
September 30, 2015 at 1:40 pm |
Please tell how to enter bootloader as i had tried all key combination given on sites.
September 21, 2015 at 7:11 am |
Is that possible to install stock android or IoS on my htc8x to solve this problem?
September 21, 2015 at 7:26 am |
I don’t think so, check out this thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2491425.
September 16, 2015 at 6:33 pm |
I’ve just tried a couple of times and once i click on ROMUpdateUtility.exe and the poccess start it reboots every time.
September 16, 2015 at 7:00 pm |
That’s too bad. It is the application rebooting, or your phone? I needed to run the app in administrator mode. Have no clue where it comes from, seems like an engineering tool of some sort.
September 16, 2015 at 7:04 pm |
The smartphone reboots once gets the 2%…so bad 🙁
September 16, 2015 at 7:29 pm |
Hmmm that sucks. Don’t know dude, sorry. Probably have to wait for MS to fix the Windows Phone Recovery Tool so it has the appropriate images.
September 17, 2015 at 8:53 am
I have the same problem, ive got everything ready then i start to do it, get to 1% and then phone shuts down/reboots every time, tried like 5+ times and still never past 1% ughhh this sucks 🙁
September 16, 2015 at 9:14 pm |
Hey Jasper,
thanks a lot ! also for that OneDrive mirror.
For me it worked, but after second attempt ( first stopped at 90% )
But are you sure that there is no backdoor in it ?
I will probably re-flash it with original when microsoft wakes up.
Thanks again mate. 😉
September 17, 2015 at 6:52 am |
Nope, I’m not sure and I also don’t know how to be sure. So I will be reflashing too as soon as Microsoft fixes the Windows Phone Recovery Tool. Just have to wait a bit I guess, their radiosilence up to now is really annoying.
September 16, 2015 at 10:52 pm |
It gives me… ‘ERROR 294 Invalid Vendor ID”
Definitely not my day….
September 17, 2015 at 5:55 am |
same here. and it’s a unbranded phone. f*ck me….
September 16, 2015 at 11:01 pm |
Thank you for this !
I’ve got a retail european HTC 8X from United Kingdom (CID HTC_001), model C620e.
I’ve searched a lot of RUUs yesterday, but no flash was permitted (error 270, corrupted image I think).
On first launch, my device rebooted at 15-20%, and the process failed. On second launch, no problem. Several minutes after, my device rebooted normaly on Windows Phone 8.
Again, big thanks !
September 30, 2015 at 7:11 am |
how you get in bootloader mode to flash it.mine only stuck in reset mode.same phone as yours
September 30, 2015 at 7:34 am |
Press the VOLUME UP and VOLUME DOWN buttons at the same time during boot. So when it’s doing the spinning gears, start pressing and wait until the phone reboots. Keep pressing and then you should get a white screen with some tiny text and barcodes instead of the normal HTC screen. When you’re in this mode, you can connect via USB and the windows phone recovery tool should now recognize your phone and allow you to flash.
October 8, 2015 at 2:00 pm |
tried all but can’t get bootloader. Any other trick.
September 17, 2015 at 10:13 am |
My model is c625b. Will that work for me?
September 17, 2015 at 10:31 am |
Sorry, I don’t have any info yet on which models are supported by this method and which are not. It seems to work for most EU GSM carrier-free phones. Check out the forum thread for some more info: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/insider/forum/insider_wintp-insider_update/getting-an-error-80188301-when-installing-an/82b18020-9811-45b0-a374-3eac9207f52a
September 17, 2015 at 1:55 pm |
i have tried both methods.. according to link (other than onedrive link) the process has stopped at 1% and the process which is done acc. to program in onedrive the progress has stopped at 24% .. and again rebooting.. please help me……
September 17, 2015 at 6:04 pm |
Thanks this worked on my uk unlocked phone.. This did fail 3 times but changed usb cable and completed . Cheers
September 19, 2015 at 12:44 am |
Not working with my At&t 8x…………
September 19, 2015 at 10:25 am |
I could not install this rom with the ROMUpdateUtility (“invalid vender id”), but worked from a y-cable + pen drive. Now I’m worried about the windows update error which others also get. It downloads something, prepares its installation, that aborts with the missing module message.
September 19, 2015 at 1:48 pm |
Thank You very much! I worked for me too, but only second time, the first I got an error at 90%.
September 21, 2015 at 6:39 am |
Hi
Thanks for this training
but this link https://yadi.sk/d/g4sR-Nmoj2y9G (mirror via OneDrive here)
has a problem.
I can,t download it completly.
Can you help me?
September 21, 2015 at 7:26 am |
Both are not working correctly? In that case I think your connection might be faulty in some way. At least one of two should work.
September 21, 2015 at 10:44 am |
I tried this solution with my HTC 8x and the only problem is that i cant make working Access point (internet sharing over wifi) It shows wifi network but my computers cant connect there… Can you help me?
September 21, 2015 at 5:38 pm |
I tried with the above steps but I couldn’t find 1337 h4ck3r but I viewed tiny sentences which includes IMEI, SN, MB and serial. when I connect the device with the computer .A pop-up appears ( one of the usb devices attached to this computer has malfunctioned and windows doesn’t recognise it ). Can you please add a video tutorial ?
September 21, 2015 at 9:22 pm |
With my HTC 8x (T-Mobile Branding) all these solutions don’t work. does anyone have other suggestions? Thanks a lot!
September 22, 2015 at 6:15 pm |
Perhaps this link is useful:
http://forum.gsmhosting.com/vbb/f98/how-flash-original-rom-bricked-htc-8x-after-updating-1795249/
September 23, 2015 at 5:53 am |
Hello did the procedure and the phone tries to make the process but to reach 1% restarts and PC tells me ERROR 294: INVALID SELL ID. please I need your help!
September 24, 2015 at 5:55 pm |
I’m at a loss trying to follow instructions in Vietnamese with no working translation…
September 28, 2015 at 2:24 pm |
Jasper Could you please provide source link for the news that we have official ROMS for HTC 8x in windows phone recovery tool
September 29, 2015 at 6:56 am |
Hello Subash, I do not have an official source as there is none so far (to my knowledge). My guess is they are collecting all of the ROMs for different 8X models and carriers and they probably won’t communicate an official fix until they know all phones have been covered.
September 29, 2015 at 9:26 am |
ok. Thank you
September 29, 2015 at 6:10 am |
My phone is not getting detected in recovery tool. So I clicked on the other option and it asked me to enter into bootloader mode. EVen after that, recovery tool did not detect my phone
September 29, 2015 at 6:57 am |
It took a while for my PC to detect my phone. But as I indicated in my other reply, I suspect they do not have all the images yet. So you might have to wait some more until the proper image for your phone becomes available.
September 29, 2015 at 9:27 am |
I tried in other computer. After the phone went to boot loader mode, PC showed installation of drivers failed:(
September 29, 2015 at 11:18 am |
Please help. I think even if MS uploads proper image for my phone, it wont be detected. Because it shows drivers not found when I connect in boot loader mode. THis msg is not shown by recovery tool but the PC
September 30, 2015 at 8:28 am |
Here’s a Microsoft-Solution für bricked HTC 8x:
http://download-fds.webapps.microsoft.com/supportFiles/phones/files/recovery/WindowsPhoneRecoveryToolInstaller.exe
It work’s!
September 30, 2015 at 8:18 pm |
Hello
thank u for ur guides.
how can I recognize my phone ROM location or version? I can go boot loader by VOL+&VOL-&PWR
I see some numbers and bar codes.
Thank u
October 2, 2015 at 6:56 pm |
WDRT works. Its cool. TRY it. Make sure you are connected to internet when u connect ur phone to computer
October 3, 2015 at 10:02 am |
I am getting error 294 invalid vendor id.
Is there any other image available for HTC 8x sold in India.
October 6, 2015 at 8:50 am |
I’ve just managed to restore my At&t branded 8x using WDRT!!!
October 9, 2015 at 12:25 pm |
could someone suggest how to enter bootloader while it’s stuck in spinning gears & restart automatically Until battery die.
October 10, 2015 at 11:25 am |
Windows Device Recovery Tool is of no use for my HTC 8x India image. No carrier locked.
December 17, 2015 at 11:48 pm |
Thaaaaaaaanks
April 4, 2016 at 3:43 pm |
It worked. Thanks a lot Sir.
May 16, 2017 at 1:27 pm |
has anyonefound the solution for the htc 8x which is dead after a windows 10 update mine has been in the drawer for almost a year now and i loved that phone can anyone help please if you have fond a solution plz reply