@asprin624
Yes, i saw his post and other replies in another forum after i made Post #4 above. He's been assisted.
While i agree on the moral, ethical and legal argument for not patching firmware, i have to correct the record in regard to the implication that a device might be "bricked" by loading firmware which has been patched by either or both of the JNX or Universal Patchers. To some degree it depends what you mean by the term "bricked" of course:
- A device with a hardware failure such as a physically damaged flash is just a paper-weight and not economically recoverable, so it's permanently bricked in the absolute sense that it can't be recovered by software means and the cost of replacing and reprogramming the chip would exceed any 'out-of-warranty' device's working value (definitely won't happen from loading any incompatible modified or patched fw);
- A device that is "soft-bricked" usually cannot boot because of a corrupt file which is essential for it's normal use but cannot be loaded during boot so the device sticks on the splash screen usually and without any error message. That's easily fixed by loading cure fw to re-enable MSM and then removing the problem file (or reformatting the flash memory if there's multiple or unknown problem files) and finally flashing original firmware back to it (also not a problem applicable to modified or patched fw);
- However, loading a problem patched fw is no different to loading a problem original firmware (aka main system software). Because the only part of the firmware patched is the fw_all.bin component which is flashed to the device's region 14 (0x0E) the device with faulty fw may not boot and display a message "System Software Missing" (as said, that's what G calls their firmware). It will have defaulted to preboot mode in that state and is very easily recovered by simply using Updater.exe to flash a proper fw in the form of an RGN file.
From a practical point of view, flashing an incompatible fw_all.bin is only a minor inconvenience. Flashing an incompatible boot.bin (ramloader) is another thing entirely and can result in an irrecoverable device which is "hard-bricked". So barring any really stupid mistake followed by complete and utter disregard for safe flashing practice where a wrong boot.bin is flashed, patched fw flashing is quite as safe as original fw flashing.
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