How To Unbrick Nokia Lumia 920 By Flashing New Firmware

Windows Phone 8 has enjoyed a rather successful start, but less than a month has elapsed since the platform was released, and an eerily familiar story has already started developing. Quite like earlier versions of WP7, Windows Phone 8 is not as stable as you would expect it to be. There are complaints of short battery life, random reboots and even devices getting bricked. Since Lumia 920 is probably the most popular WP8 device till now, many of the issues have been reported specifically for it. While the folks at Microsoft have assured users that the reboot and battery issues are being looked into, you are pretty much on your own if your phone refuses to start at all. This ‘bricking’ has been reported to happen when users reset or wipe their Lumia 920. While some retailers and carriers are offering free replacements for such cases, there is a way you can rectify the problem yourself.

Before we proceed any further, let us clarify that not all Lumia 920s are suffering from this issue, and resetting the device does not mean that your device is sure to get bricked. If that does happen, though, here is all you will need to do to get your phone up and running again.

Requirements

• You will have to download NaviFirmPlus, which is a “Full Flash Update” (FFU) file downloader for all Nokia devices.
• Download and install (https://rapidshare.com/#!download|514p9|2665423300|Nokia_Care_Suite_5.0_2012.45.4.5.zip|153354|0|0) Nokia Care Suite, a tool that will let you flash the modified firmware files generated using NaviFirmPlus. Visual C++ 2010 framework is a prerequisite for Care Suite.

Instructions

1. Extract NaviFirmPlus to a location of your choice.
2. Run the .EXE file present in the archive. You don’t have to connect your device to the computer just yet.
3. In the NaviFirmPlus tool, find “Nokia Lumia 920 (RM-820)” in the “Products” column. Holding the mouse over the name will display all the specifications of your phone. If they appear to be correct, proceed.
4. Choose the first option under “Releases” (the one that ends in 1001).
5. The “Variants” section should now become populated. Select the correct variant, depending upon the color of your device. The name of all variants look identical at first glance, but by expanding the window, you will be able to view the complete identifiers, along with the mention of the color.
6. Hit the “Mark All” button located in the top-right corner of the window.
7. Choose the destination folder where you want the firmware to be downloaded by hitting the “Browse” button, click “Download” and brace yourself for a rather long wait.
8. When the download is complete, go to its location, and in the “Packages” folder, create a new one named “Products”.
9. Within Products, make yet another new folder and name it “rm-820”.
10. Now, go back to the NaviFirmPlus folder extracted in step 1. In it, you will find a subfolder named “FW”. Copy this folder, and paste its contents to the rm-820 folder created in the previous step.
11. Now you’re ready to flash downloaded files to your phone with Nokia Care Suite. Launch “Product Support Tool” from within the suite.
12. Navigate to “Product” under the “File” section.
13. Select “RM-820 (Nokia Lumia 920)” as the primary product.
14. Hit the button marked “Programming”, followed by “Recovery”.
15. Clicking the “Start” button after the previous step generates a failure message. Let it stay there for now.
16. Connect your Lumia to the PC via USB.
17. Simultaneously hold down the power and volume down buttons on your phone using one hand, and with the other, hit “Retry” on the Suite’s failure message.
18. When your phone vibrates, release the two buttons you are holding and switch to the volume up one.
19. Keep holding the volume up button for another 20 seconds, or until you see an indication that the flashing process has commenced.

Although we can’t confirm it, our guess is that this procedure will work for other WP8 Lumia devices as well (with a few changes, of course), as long as the NaviFirmPlus tool supports them. If you don’t have a way of getting your bricked device replaced, and are really desperate to get it working again, try out this method and do let us know how it went.

[via WPCentral]

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Hamza Khalid

Handles Windows Phone, iOS and Cydia. A big WP7 fan, who just loves writing about anything and everything. Google+

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