so today i recieved a notice of an update on my tf201. My tablet is fully stock non rooted and i trusted the actual asus update to work. it downloaded and installed but then hung on the finishing booting screen for 2 hours. reset the tablet and now it boots up goes through the setup wizard and when u click finish it says setup wizard has stopped and goes to a blank black screen. i can still access the settings and notification bar but nothing else. i cant seem to downgrade roms as it was never rooted. somebody PLZ help asap as this is driving me insane!
well i managed to get it reverted back to .15 from this guild http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8R2D8xlbDk well see if upgrading again ruins it all over again
Just do the manual upgrade from Asus website. For some reason, some of the OTA updates were corrupt or not complete. Upgrade through Asus website n you will be fine.
Before Christmas I tried to do a OTA update on my Prime, which has not been successful and I have not been able to use the Prime since.
It has previously been rooted and previously have always been successful in using Voodoo OTA Rootkeeper to retain root after updates. I've not unlocked the Prime.
Now when I try to boot it spends a while 'optimizing' the applications (as if it was the first time i've booted it since the update), and then once it is started, no apps will startup, all of them resulting in saying "unfortunately xyz has stopped"
A video of the problem: youtu.be/e1yfTtGiR78 (sorry can't post full link as am a new user).
I'd like to get it working again, possibly installing the Androwook ROM (or at the very least, just working on the stock rom). What steps do I need to do from where I am at the moment?
There are many threads about flashing roms, brick-fixing (some more up to date than others), but I'd just like a bit of advice about this problem and what I should do next (maybe some good links?). I haven’t gone near doing any flashing on the Prime, and it would be nice to seperate the things I could do, from the things I -should- do (I don't know where to start).
I believe as the Nvidida logo is on the bottom right this means I'm on the JB bootloader? Currently the settings menu shows I'm on android 4.1.1, but not sure if this is pre or post the failed update.
Thanks for any help,
Steve
A factory reset will fix you up. You'll lose your data
Hold vol down + power when booting to access the boatloader menu. Select wipe with vol down and use vol up to confirm.
Hi,
Thanks, I've done the reset, but I still seem to have the same problem.
imageshack.us/photo/my-images/502/imag0217c.jpg
I can't actually proceed throuh the inital set up, because it closes itself when it gets to the account setup page.
Any ideas?
I have resolved this.
I downloaded the latest firmware from the ASUS support website, extracted the zip file from within the downloaded zip file and renamed it to EP201_SDUPDATE.ZIP .
Put this on a microSD card (which I had formatted to FAT32), inserted it into the Prime, then booted into the bootloader menu.
Selected the RCK option, it did the update, and 10 minutes later it was up and running again.
From what I have read, it won't try to complete the update if it thinks you have already got that version installed already, but I guess it knew it hadn't successfully completed the update previously.
Glad it's working again.
Hi all,
I have an interesting problem, but I'll give some background first:
I am running CM10 JB 4.2 (very happy with it).. But I upgraded from HC, before ICS was an official update.
Now that it is available, I thought I would restore the HC backup, and let it update itself. Store it, and then revert back to JB again.
However when it's finished downloading the update, and beginning to install it, it stops at 14% - bombs out, and reboots. Then it complains about not being able to update etc..
I have found the FOTA log file, and can see where it bombs out, but it makes no sense to me. (see attached)
I'm sure you are wondering why I want to do this.. it's simply because if ever I want to sell the tablet, at least it will have the correct SW on it.
Kind regards,
Also, I find that KIES will not connect with the USB cable, and only with Wifi when I'm in HC..
Done everything I know how to get it to work?
Hi.
I found this tutorial on the internet that works 100% for those who have Zenfone 5 with fake firmware. In my case i used the last firmware V2.21.40.44 without flashing older version and then Update to the last one. The original tutorial is as below.
I purchased the Zenfone A501CG 16GB 2GB RAM and I am very happy with this phone.
One of the things I like is the dual-sim setup. Besides the obvious dual-sim functions it lets you set which sim you are going to use for data or you can be prompted every time. As the second sim, I popped in a 3 mobile broadband data-only sim and it worked straight away without manually setting up the APN etc.
I have been a Galaxy S series fan for a few years and I was worried about switching to ASUS but the excellent Asus GUI (General User Interface) is very neat and works flawlessly. I was expecting a heavily customised (and buggy) GUI but I am very pleased that it turned out to be very smooth with plenty of features and customisation options.
Now the bad part.
The phone is shipped from China and they advertise it as having a WW (WorldWide) firmware installed prior shipping, which it is in part true.
I want to say that I have nothing against phones from China as most of the electronic equipment is manufactured over there nowadays however the phone firmware is a fake WW.
I don't know how they did it but they managed to install a WW 2.99.40.6 ASUS firmware over a CN sku.
This means that the phone originally was a Chinese handset subsequently converted to WW. The resulting phone is indeed in English (or any language you choose to setup), it has access to GooglePlay store, Gmail accounts and all the rest and it works no problem over here. Don't get me wrong, it's still a great kit. You wouldn't notice anything wrong however one of the major flaws of this particular setup is that it will not update over OTA (or manually).
OTA (On The Air) updates works that you simply click “check for system update” and the phone will connect to ASUS and upgrade itself to the latest version available for your handset (JellyBean, KitKat etc...).
ASUS has implemented an alternative way to upgrade its phones: you go the ASUS website, select you model, region/language etc and you can manually download the system update file.
Save this file on your phone internal storage, next time you reboot the phone Android will see that there is an update file waiting to be installed and it will ask you whether you want to upgrade.
You can download this file directly using your phone or if you are on a strict data usage budget (these updates files are about 700 MB in size) using a computer then copying it over to your phone internal storage by connecting the phone to your computer via USB cable.
OK, that's OTA and manual upgrade covered... this phone with WW 2.99.40.6 however will not update, nor over OTA nor by manually placing the firmware file on the internal storage.
I thought, well... why not simply download the latest from ASUS and install it overwriting the existing one? This way I will have the latest clean official up to date firmware... right?
Wrong, the phone will not update simply because its firmware 2.99.40.6 is “too new”, a firmware from the future...
Confused? Let me explain, this is the clever part: in February 2015 ASUS released the (currently) latest firmware update for Zenfone A501CG which is the 2.21.40.44.
Now let me point out that firmware versions always go up, for example:
1.16.40.7 (that was in 2014)
1.17.40.17 (still 2014)
1.18.40.8
1.18.40.9
2.19.40.18
2.21.40.30 (December 2014)
and the latest 2.21.40.44
You noticed that the numbers go UP with every release.. the highest the newest.
Now, if you look at the fake firmware installed on the phone (2.99.40.6) you will see that the 2.99.40.6 (look at the “2.99” bit), is even higher than the very latest 2.21.40.44 so the phone simply will not “downgrade” from 2.99.40.6 to 2.21.40.44. That's because with these android phones you cannot downgrade, only upgrade.
This is how the sellers prevent you from upgrade your phone. You are simply locked to this firmware... but why???
The only reason I can think of is that the operating system has some spyware, tracker or some advertising bloatware they don’t' want you to get rid of upgrading the firmware. This is the only possible explanation in my opinion.
When you upgrade firmware (from JellyBean to KitKat for example) files are kept, apps and their settings are kept and updated, user settings are transferred over. So all the unwanted pre-installed crapware would pass through the new version anyway so why the need to lock the firmware? Perhaps there is something deep down in the system that has been tampered with and will not survive a firmware update. That's what I think.
At the beginning after receiving this phone I didn't spot the fake firmware right away. As many of us do when they have a new phone, I checked for update via OTA, there was none. Actually, the System Update function crashed every time I checked for updates but I didn't bother looking any further into this matter because I was very pleased with the phone, it looked good and performed well.
Nothing seems to be wrong apart from the System Update glitch and Gallery crashing quite often.
It was after a couple of days of use when I started receiving unsolicited popup messages asking me to install additional apps that I started wondering if there was something wrong with my phone after all. These popups used to come up when the phone was idle, 4 popups at a time and sometimes right after rebooting.
I have been installing on the Zenfone exactly the same apps I had on my Galaxy S2 so I knew how these apps behave and what to expect from them so at the beginning I thought it was the ASUS GUI o some other pre-installed app. No, these popups were an issue related to the new phone.
I immediately thought that a reputable brand like ASUS (I own other ASUS products since 2005 and always been happy) wouldn't (or shouldn't) annoy new customers with these kind of nuisance, this would inevitably drive customers away so I decided to run some virus/spyware checks. Nothing major was found and the popups still occurred at least 3 times a day. That was day 4 on my Zenfone.
Almost forgot: the phone came rooted. Apart from the obvious advantages this also means that any virus scan can be performed deep into the system with administrative privileges. Having your phone rooted also means that it is not covered by ASUS warranty but that's another issue...
At this point I decided that it was time to do something about it. First I did a factory reset but this didn't work as this returned the phone at its original state when I took it out of the box 4 days before.
So I decided that I had to force the phone to “downgrade” to a previous ORIGINAL firmware then re-upgrade it installing the latest firmware from the ASUS website and this is how.
First of all you need two tools:
1) the USB drivers for ASUS phones fro Windows. You can download them from the ASUS website or search the internet for “ASUS Zenfone 5 Windows Drivers”.
2) the ADB package, I used the one provided here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2588979
This one actually provides the drivers too. Feel free to browse the internet and find the appropriate source but you will be downloading more or less the same file.
After you installed these two tools you need something called “Recovery Image”, there are some here:
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/cq6wwpya68azb/ZenFone_5_recovery
in my case I used this one: 2.19.40.18_ww_recovery.img
and finally you need an original firmware from the ASUS website here:
http://www.asus.com/uk/Phones/ZenFone_5_A501CG/HelpDesk_Download/
in my case I downloaded this one: UL-ASUS_T00F-WW-2.20.40.13-user.zip
So what we are going to do here is:
we will downgrade the phone from the current WW 2.99.40.6 to WW 2.19.40.18
then install WW 2.20.40.13
and finally we will perform a OTA update to the latest firmware.
The whole process should take about 1 hour.
Please note that this method only works if:
1) your Zenfone 5 is a A501CG (T00F or T00J).
2) your current firmware is WW 2.99.40.6 but it will probably work with other “fake” firmwares too, you just need a different set of files (please note the “WW” bit is IMPORTANT, if your firmware is CN, CHT or TW this will not work and you will damage your phone).
3) your phone is rooted (if you are still reading this it probably is but check if you have an app called SuperSU with a yellow triangle).
4) USB debugging is enabled (do a google search to see how this can be done, enabling debugging mode takes 20 seconds).
..basically this will work if you have received the same phone I got.
If any of the above 4 points is not clear please run a quick google search. There is plenty of literature out there however not much literature on the internet covers what we are going to do now or if there is it is all scattered around various sites. That's why I am posting this, all info in one place.
Procedure:
Find the ADB folder on your computer and place there the file 2.19.40.18_ww_recovery.img you downloaded from mediafire.
The UL-ASUS_T00F-WW-2.20.40.13-user.zip you downloaded from ASUS is a ZIP archive, open it, extract the file fastboot.img and place it in the ADB folder.
Put the UL-ASUS_T00F-WW-2.20.40.13-user.zip you downloaded from ASUS in the ADB folder too (do not extract this file, just place the ZIP archive in the ADB folder).
At the end in the ADB folder (apart from the adb files that were already there) you should have the following files:
UL-ASUS_T00F-WW-2.20.40.13-user.zip
2.19.40.18_ww_recovery.img
fastboot.img
We start with the phone turned OFF. Make sure it has some battery left (more than 50%) turn your Zenfone on in Fastboot Mode (this can be done by pressing and holding at the same time the power Button and Volume UP buttons... together).
Connect the phone to the computer.
In the ADB folder on your computer open a command prompt window (called a CMD window). This can be done by pressing (on your PC keyboard) Shift then right-clicking with the mouse anywhere in the empty space in the ADB folder.
Now in the resulting CMD (black) window write the following command (exactly as it is written here):
fastboot flash fastboot fastboot.img
hit Enter. Then write:
fastboot flash recovery 2.19.40.18_ww_recovery.img
hit Enter and wait until completion.
Do not disconnect your phone and do not close the CMD (black) window on your computer but reboot your phone in Fastboot Mode (there should be a command on the phone screen “reboot fastboot”), navigate up and down with the volumes keys and confirm the selection with the power button).
Once you are back in Fastboot Mode go to Recovery. Now you should see the Android logo with a red triangle, press at the same time the Volume UP and the Volume DOWN keys to reveal a hidden menu (try pressing and holding the + and – keys several times if it doesn't come up the first time).
In this menu you need to go to Upload Firmware from ADB (or something similar) and confirm by pressing the power key.
Now, go back to your computer and in the CMD window type the following command:
adb sideload UL-ASUS_T00F-WW-2.20.40.13-user.zip
and hit Enter.
At this point your phone will start loading the original WW-2.20.40.13 we downloaded from the ASUS website. This will take some time, in my case it took about 45 minutes.
Once this is done you can reboot the phone and you will have a brand new Zenfone 5 with a WorldWide (real) 2.20.40.13 firmware, the one before the last one. Now we want to upgrade to the very latest (which is the best for Zenfone 5 in my opinion).
To upgrade now you have two options:
1) start using the phone right away and upgrade to the latest 2.21.40.44 via OTA or...
2) manually download the 2.21.40.44 from ASUS to your computer, place it on your phone internal storage and let the phone update at the next reboot.
In my case I choose the second option, it doesn't really make any difference however...whichever option you choose after the upgrade to the latest firmware you should perform two final last steps. This is to clean up, optimise and make sure the phone system runs smoothly from now on.
Very quickly...
Step 1: (AFTER you upgraded to the last firmware 2.21.40.44 either via OTA or manually) you should reboot to Fastboot Mode, select Recovery and “Wipe Cache Partition”. Wait until completion then...
Step 2: reboot your phone in normal mode and before starting to register and installing all apps go to Settings, Backup & Reset and do a Factory data Reset. Obviously this will wipe all your apps and settings but, as I suggested before, you didn't install anything yet.
Final tip: if you have an external SD card you already used on another phone or even in the Zenfone before the upgrade I would suggest reformat it before starting using it on your “new” phone. Many apps leave things behind on the SD that newly installed versions of the same apps don't like.
After this last two steps your phone is ready, no more suspicious junk and a 100% original ASUS system.
An optional step would be to root your phone again (upgrading firmware disables root or superuser) and put to sleep some of the pre-installed ASUS apps you don't need.
With root (device administrative) privileges you could un-install them but disabling them is enough.
I personally disabled some googleplay services like books, music, movies, games, newsstand, google+ (I never used them) then the following pre-installed apps: weather, asus backup, cloudprint, drive, feedback, hangouts, myasus, pc link, setup wizard, share link, webstorage, what's next, remote link.
But that's me, I don't use these apps and they have the habit to autostart with the phone and stay in the background eating systems resources and battery juice even if you haven't used them in a year.
Ah... rooting your device also allows you to reach and delete the batterystats file dramatically increasing battery performance.
VERDICT:
My opinion is that THE PHONE IS EXCELLENT, it really exceeded my expectations, the only downside is the fake firwmware which spoils the fun until you learn how to fix it. The original ASUS software is well balanced, polished and smooth and not at all bloated. Plenty of customizations too.
Post Scriptum:
Before buying this phone I checked some reviews and I learnt that apparently the battery was weak and wouldn't last a whole day. After 3 weeks of everyday use I have to say that this depends on what you do with your phone (obviously...).
By default ALL is enabled when you take it out of the box because the manufacturer is trying to give you the best (visual, probably) experience.
Without being conservative you have to find out and disable what is eating up your battery and you don't need.
The trick is to use the phone as it is for a whole charge (say, from 100% to 10% but already at around 50% you get an idea of what's going on) then before putting under charge go to Settings, Battery and check the statistic data.
You will see that that nice weather widget giving you the temperature and the rain forecast is sucking 40% of your juice because it is constantly updating... is it worth it? Push sync of 5 email accounts is really necessary..?? Real time travel updates..?
When you learn how to manage your device and what is running and when you will see that the battery life will stretch 3 times over. This applies to all smart phones.
Reading the Zenfone reviews another issue seemed to be quite common: the wifi would disconnect..! Now, that's an issue...! I wouldn't want to buy a phone with a dodgy wifi.
Truth is that if you enable the Power Saver in Ultra-saving Mode the wifi will cut off when the screen is turned off (this is also written in small letter on the on/off button). Obviously you won't receive any notification during scree-off time and connectivity will resume as soon as you turn the screen on.
Luckily to save extra battery life it's not all-or-nothing there is a Power Saving scheme (the third one) which is called Customized Mode where you can pick what you want to run or stop during power saving mode.
Good Job
Hay, nice info and tutor.. my problem is same with you.
Can you make video tutorial please?
Thanks.
enea009 said:
Hi.
I found this tutorial on the internet that works 100% for those who have Zenfone 5 with fake firmware. In my case i used the last firmware V2.21.40.44 without flashing older version and then Update to the last one. The original tutorial is as below.
I purchased the Zenfone A501CG 16GB 2GB RAM and I am very happy with this phone.
One of the things I like is the dual-sim setup. Besides the obvious dual-sim functions it lets you set which sim you are going to use for data or you can be prompted every time. As the second sim, I popped in a 3 mobile broadband data-only sim and it worked straight away without manually setting up the APN etc.
I have been a Galaxy S series fan for a few years and I was worried about switching to ASUS but the excellent Asus GUI (General User Interface) is very neat and works flawlessly. I was expecting a heavily customised (and buggy) GUI but I am very pleased that it turned out to be very smooth with plenty of features and customisation options.
Now the bad part.
The phone is shipped from China and they advertise it as having a WW (WorldWide) firmware installed prior shipping, which it is in part true.
I want to say that I have nothing against phones from China as most of the electronic equipment is manufactured over there nowadays however the phone firmware is a fake WW.
I don't know how they did it but they managed to install a WW 2.99.40.6 ASUS firmware over a CN sku.
This means that the phone originally was a Chinese handset subsequently converted to WW. The resulting phone is indeed in English (or any language you choose to setup), it has access to GooglePlay store, Gmail accounts and all the rest and it works no problem over here. Don't get me wrong, it's still a great kit. You wouldn't notice anything wrong however one of the major flaws of this particular setup is that it will not update over OTA (or manually).
OTA (On The Air) updates works that you simply click “check for system update” and the phone will connect to ASUS and upgrade itself to the latest version available for your handset (JellyBean, KitKat etc...).
ASUS has implemented an alternative way to upgrade its phones: you go the ASUS website, select you model, region/language etc and you can manually download the system update file.
Save this file on your phone internal storage, next time you reboot the phone Android will see that there is an update file waiting to be installed and it will ask you whether you want to upgrade.
You can download this file directly using your phone or if you are on a strict data usage budget (these updates files are about 700 MB in size) using a computer then copying it over to your phone internal storage by connecting the phone to your computer via USB cable.
OK, that's OTA and manual upgrade covered... this phone with WW 2.99.40.6 however will not update, nor over OTA nor by manually placing the firmware file on the internal storage.
I thought, well... why not simply download the latest from ASUS and install it overwriting the existing one? This way I will have the latest clean official up to date firmware... right?
Wrong, the phone will not update simply because its firmware 2.99.40.6 is “too new”, a firmware from the future...
Confused? Let me explain, this is the clever part: in February 2015 ASUS released the (currently) latest firmware update for Zenfone A501CG which is the 2.21.40.44.
Now let me point out that firmware versions always go up, for example:
1.16.40.7 (that was in 2014)
1.17.40.17 (still 2014)
1.18.40.8
1.18.40.9
2.19.40.18
2.21.40.30 (December 2014)
and the latest 2.21.40.44
You noticed that the numbers go UP with every release.. the highest the newest.
Now, if you look at the fake firmware installed on the phone (2.99.40.6) you will see that the 2.99.40.6 (look at the “2.99” bit), is even higher than the very latest 2.21.40.44 so the phone simply will not “downgrade” from 2.99.40.6 to 2.21.40.44. That's because with these android phones you cannot downgrade, only upgrade.
This is how the sellers prevent you from upgrade your phone. You are simply locked to this firmware... but why???
The only reason I can think of is that the operating system has some spyware, tracker or some advertising bloatware they don’t' want you to get rid of upgrading the firmware. This is the only possible explanation in my opinion.
When you upgrade firmware (from JellyBean to KitKat for example) files are kept, apps and their settings are kept and updated, user settings are transferred over. So all the unwanted pre-installed crapware would pass through the new version anyway so why the need to lock the firmware? Perhaps there is something deep down in the system that has been tampered with and will not survive a firmware update. That's what I think.
At the beginning after receiving this phone I didn't spot the fake firmware right away. As many of us do when they have a new phone, I checked for update via OTA, there was none. Actually, the System Update function crashed every time I checked for updates but I didn't bother looking any further into this matter because I was very pleased with the phone, it looked good and performed well.
Nothing seems to be wrong apart from the System Update glitch and Gallery crashing quite often.
It was after a couple of days of use when I started receiving unsolicited popup messages asking me to install additional apps that I started wondering if there was something wrong with my phone after all. These popups used to come up when the phone was idle, 4 popups at a time and sometimes right after rebooting.
I have been installing on the Zenfone exactly the same apps I had on my Galaxy S2 so I knew how these apps behave and what to expect from them so at the beginning I thought it was the ASUS GUI o some other pre-installed app. No, these popups were an issue related to the new phone.
I immediately thought that a reputable brand like ASUS (I own other ASUS products since 2005 and always been happy) wouldn't (or shouldn't) annoy new customers with these kind of nuisance, this would inevitably drive customers away so I decided to run some virus/spyware checks. Nothing major was found and the popups still occurred at least 3 times a day. That was day 4 on my Zenfone.
Almost forgot: the phone came rooted. Apart from the obvious advantages this also means that any virus scan can be performed deep into the system with administrative privileges. Having your phone rooted also means that it is not covered by ASUS warranty but that's another issue...
At this point I decided that it was time to do something about it. First I did a factory reset but this didn't work as this returned the phone at its original state when I took it out of the box 4 days before.
So I decided that I had to force the phone to “downgrade” to a previous ORIGINAL firmware then re-upgrade it installing the latest firmware from the ASUS website and this is how.
First of all you need two tools:
1) the USB drivers for ASUS phones fro Windows. You can download them from the ASUS website or search the internet for “ASUS Zenfone 5 Windows Drivers”.
2) the ADB package, I used the one provided here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2588979
This one actually provides the drivers too. Feel free to browse the internet and find the appropriate source but you will be downloading more or less the same file.
After you installed these two tools you need something called “Recovery Image”, there are some here:
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/cq6wwpya68azb/ZenFone_5_recovery
in my case I used this one: 2.19.40.18_ww_recovery.img
and finally you need an original firmware from the ASUS website here:
http://www.asus.com/uk/Phones/ZenFone_5_A501CG/HelpDesk_Download/
in my case I downloaded this one: UL-ASUS_T00F-WW-2.20.40.13-user.zip
So what we are going to do here is:
we will downgrade the phone from the current WW 2.99.40.6 to WW 2.19.40.18
then install WW 2.20.40.13
and finally we will perform a OTA update to the latest firmware.
The whole process should take about 1 hour.
Please note that this method only works if:
1) your Zenfone 5 is a A501CG (T00F or T00J).
2) your current firmware is WW 2.99.40.6 but it will probably work with other “fake” firmwares too, you just need a different set of files (please note the “WW” bit is IMPORTANT, if your firmware is CN, CHT or TW this will not work and you will damage your phone).
3) your phone is rooted (if you are still reading this it probably is but check if you have an app called SuperSU with a yellow triangle).
4) USB debugging is enabled (do a google search to see how this can be done, enabling debugging mode takes 20 seconds).
..basically this will work if you have received the same phone I got.
If any of the above 4 points is not clear please run a quick google search. There is plenty of literature out there however not much literature on the internet covers what we are going to do now or if there is it is all scattered around various sites. That's why I am posting this, all info in one place.
Procedure:
Find the ADB folder on your computer and place there the file 2.19.40.18_ww_recovery.img you downloaded from mediafire.
The UL-ASUS_T00F-WW-2.20.40.13-user.zip you downloaded from ASUS is a ZIP archive, open it, extract the file fastboot.img and place it in the ADB folder.
Put the UL-ASUS_T00F-WW-2.20.40.13-user.zip you downloaded from ASUS in the ADB folder too (do not extract this file, just place the ZIP archive in the ADB folder).
At the end in the ADB folder (apart from the adb files that were already there) you should have the following files:
UL-ASUS_T00F-WW-2.20.40.13-user.zip
2.19.40.18_ww_recovery.img
fastboot.img
We start with the phone turned OFF. Make sure it has some battery left (more than 50%) turn your Zenfone on in Fastboot Mode (this can be done by pressing and holding at the same time the power Button and Volume UP buttons... together).
Connect the phone to the computer.
In the ADB folder on your computer open a command prompt window (called a CMD window). This can be done by pressing (on your PC keyboard) Shift then right-clicking with the mouse anywhere in the empty space in the ADB folder.
Now in the resulting CMD (black) window write the following command (exactly as it is written here):
fastboot flash fastboot fastboot.img
hit Enter. Then write:
fastboot flash recovery 2.19.40.18_ww_recovery.img
hit Enter and wait until completion.
Do not disconnect your phone and do not close the CMD (black) window on your computer but reboot your phone in Fastboot Mode (there should be a command on the phone screen “reboot fastboot”), navigate up and down with the volumes keys and confirm the selection with the power button).
Once you are back in Fastboot Mode go to Recovery. Now you should see the Android logo with a red triangle, press at the same time the Volume UP and the Volume DOWN keys to reveal a hidden menu (try pressing and holding the + and – keys several times if it doesn't come up the first time).
In this menu you need to go to Upload Firmware from ADB (or something similar) and confirm by pressing the power key.
Now, go back to your computer and in the CMD window type the following command:
adb sideload UL-ASUS_T00F-WW-2.20.40.13-user.zip
and hit Enter.
At this point your phone will start loading the original WW-2.20.40.13 we downloaded from the ASUS website. This will take some time, in my case it took about 45 minutes.
Once this is done you can reboot the phone and you will have a brand new Zenfone 5 with a WorldWide (real) 2.20.40.13 firmware, the one before the last one. Now we want to upgrade to the very latest (which is the best for Zenfone 5 in my opinion).
To upgrade now you have two options:
1) start using the phone right away and upgrade to the latest 2.21.40.44 via OTA or...
2) manually download the 2.21.40.44 from ASUS to your computer, place it on your phone internal storage and let the phone update at the next reboot.
In my case I choose the second option, it doesn't really make any difference however...whichever option you choose after the upgrade to the latest firmware you should perform two final last steps. This is to clean up, optimise and make sure the phone system runs smoothly from now on.
Very quickly...
Step 1: (AFTER you upgraded to the last firmware 2.21.40.44 either via OTA or manually) you should reboot to Fastboot Mode, select Recovery and “Wipe Cache Partition”. Wait until completion then...
Step 2: reboot your phone in normal mode and before starting to register and installing all apps go to Settings, Backup & Reset and do a Factory data Reset. Obviously this will wipe all your apps and settings but, as I suggested before, you didn't install anything yet.
Final tip: if you have an external SD card you already used on another phone or even in the Zenfone before the upgrade I would suggest reformat it before starting using it on your “new” phone. Many apps leave things behind on the SD that newly installed versions of the same apps don't like.
After this last two steps your phone is ready, no more suspicious junk and a 100% original ASUS system.
An optional step would be to root your phone again (upgrading firmware disables root or superuser) and put to sleep some of the pre-installed ASUS apps you don't need.
With root (device administrative) privileges you could un-install them but disabling them is enough.
I personally disabled some googleplay services like books, music, movies, games, newsstand, google+ (I never used them) then the following pre-installed apps: weather, asus backup, cloudprint, drive, feedback, hangouts, myasus, pc link, setup wizard, share link, webstorage, what's next, remote link.
But that's me, I don't use these apps and they have the habit to autostart with the phone and stay in the background eating systems resources and battery juice even if you haven't used them in a year.
Ah... rooting your device also allows you to reach and delete the batterystats file dramatically increasing battery performance.
VERDICT:
My opinion is that THE PHONE IS EXCELLENT, it really exceeded my expectations, the only downside is the fake firwmware which spoils the fun until you learn how to fix it. The original ASUS software is well balanced, polished and smooth and not at all bloated. Plenty of customizations too.
Post Scriptum:
Before buying this phone I checked some reviews and I learnt that apparently the battery was weak and wouldn't last a whole day. After 3 weeks of everyday use I have to say that this depends on what you do with your phone (obviously...).
By default ALL is enabled when you take it out of the box because the manufacturer is trying to give you the best (visual, probably) experience.
Without being conservative you have to find out and disable what is eating up your battery and you don't need.
The trick is to use the phone as it is for a whole charge (say, from 100% to 10% but already at around 50% you get an idea of what's going on) then before putting under charge go to Settings, Battery and check the statistic data.
You will see that that nice weather widget giving you the temperature and the rain forecast is sucking 40% of your juice because it is constantly updating... is it worth it? Push sync of 5 email accounts is really necessary..?? Real time travel updates..?
When you learn how to manage your device and what is running and when you will see that the battery life will stretch 3 times over. This applies to all smart phones.
Reading the Zenfone reviews another issue seemed to be quite common: the wifi would disconnect..! Now, that's an issue...! I wouldn't want to buy a phone with a dodgy wifi.
Truth is that if you enable the Power Saver in Ultra-saving Mode the wifi will cut off when the screen is turned off (this is also written in small letter on the on/off button). Obviously you won't receive any notification during scree-off time and connectivity will resume as soon as you turn the screen on.
Luckily to save extra battery life it's not all-or-nothing there is a Power Saving scheme (the third one) which is called Customized Mode where you can pick what you want to run or stop during power saving mode.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
im stack at the final step
adb sideload UL-ASUS_T00F-WW-2.20.40.13-user.zip
and hit Enter.
then i get
error: device not found.
Any ideas?
plus my device in fast boot has no option reboot fastboot but "reboot droidboot" wich i used...
thnx in advance for everything
I m stuck at status 7 installation aborted....
Last week on Thursday, I allowed Verizon to install their Software Update 21 (April 2020.) It made it as far as the going through the optimizing apps and then was stuck in a boot loop. The phone would be usable for about a minute, then would freeze, and then reboot. If I clicked on the System Update option in settings, it would say that a system update was in progress. I chatted with Verizon, and they ended up telling me that the only way to stop the update was to do a factory reset, which I am doing everything I can not to do that as I don't want to lose my data.
I changed it into maximum power mode and it did stop the update for that time being and I was able to use the phone, texting, etc. This allowed me to at least connect the phone to my computer to backup all of the directories. After many reboots, on Friday it finally stopped doing the update and gave me an error which I think was 410. It thought it was updated, though did show as failed. When checking for updates, it said it was the current version. Twice I was able to get the phone to stop by freezing when going to the app and stopping some programs (sadly, I was not able to remember the exact combination that worked) which allowed me to use the phone like normal. All this while, I was uninstalling a large amount of the apps that I had installed hoping that would minimize whatever may have been causing the problem.
Went to each of the google and samsung apps, stopped, disable, and reverted them all back to factory defaults. Guess that was a bad idea, from then on I received an error as soon as the phone started which caused it to go directly into recovery mode. I chatted with samsung and they thought it might be a hardware issue. I still think it is related to their software update, so not a hardware issue.
By using Odin, I loaded the firmware from March 2020, and when it rebooted, it did go as far as optimizing the apps, though anytime it booted up, it would never get past the white verizon loading screen. It took me hours before I discovered that Odin was failing to load the firmware on the phone as the Windows 10 laptop only had USB 3.0 ports which don't always work with Odin, and ended up being successful using my old Windows XP laptop as the USB 2.0 ports worked fine. After a bit hanging on the verizon loading screen, it would reboot and never went past. I have been able to load the March and April 2020, though none of them will ever get past that white verizon loading screen. I did see something say that in loading TWRP, I could possibly do a full backup of the phone which is what I would like to do.
One time I only loaded the AB file for a different version than I had loaded, and it was the first time it went beyond the white screen, only to tell me that the verification failed and it would need for me to do a factory reset. I was able to reboot the phone without actually doing the reset.
I have read many posts here and the forums on androidcentral, and with so many things, I really needed to post to get guidance from people here that can point me in the right direction for any other things that I can try. As you have read, doing everything that I can to get the phone working by keeping my data. Any help would really be appreciated.