Last Updated on April 6, 2017 by Mathew Diekhake
The Google Nexus 6 put together by Motorola is one of the most popular smartphones in the world for unlocking. It’s also one of the most popular devices for keeping stock as people love the value for money Google make sure it always comes with out of the box. We’ve already covered how users can unbrick the Nexus 6 with root access, now it’s time to unbrick the same with a locked bootloader, or running official stock Android without any root access.
The folks out of Mountain View make an amazing phone, but sometimes people can get stuck in boot loops after manually flashing firmware or other occasions, find themselves with severe battery draining, general lag in the operating system, force close errors, screen freezes and other software issues. Although they might not technically all fall under “bricking,” the term is widely used to describe a smartphone or tablet that’s suffering from bad symptoms which need addressing. You can apply the following guide on your device no matter the “bricking” symptom.
Don’t start until you have backed up the data with one of the third-party applications available from Google Play. We recommend trying out Helium for Android, Easy backup, G Cloud backup, SMS backup and restore, plus many others if you need them. You can use the built-in backup feature that comes with the handset if you don’t want to install more bloatware.
Remember: the more applications you install on your smartphone the rougher the operating system will run and the more battery draining will occur. You want to cut the amount of apps you are storing. That’s why I have little interest investing in a phone with a lot of memory. If you finish playing with a game or app, just delete it if you don’t think you’ll play it again. Worst case scenario is you take a few minutes to download the same a few months down the track when you need it from Google Play.
You’ll need to enable the USB Debugging option available from the Developer Options menu. Find the latter menu from the Settings menu after turning on the phone.
You must apply the following with a computer. You can choose from any type of OS including Mac, Linux or PC. The same works just as well from notebooks and laptops so long as there’s a USB slot mounted in the side.
You must have the latest USB drivers from Google links. Most of our readers have the proper drivers already without realizing it. Simply plug your phone into the computer and try accessing the pictures from the computer monitor. If you are seeing the phone picture galleries you know the drivers are working!
How to enter stock recovery mode on the Motorola Nexus 6
- Download and install Android SDK and ADB on Windows.
- Connect the phone to the computer with the USB cable.
- Find the fastboot folder on the computer which comes with Android SDK.
- Right-click the mouse and hold down the Shift key on the keyboard and open the command prompt.
- Type “adb reboot recovery”
- You are now running on recovery mode.
Now apply the steps for a hard or factory reset
- Select the “wipe data factory reset” option from the menu in recovery.
- Choose the “yes – delete all user data” if you see the message on the display.
- It is now applying the factory reset.
- Select “wipe cache partition” from in recovery.
- Select ‘wipe dalvik cache” from under the advanced option menu.
- Go back and select reboot system now to boot the device in normal mode.
Lastly, you can check out the new nexus toolkit for re-locking, un-rooting and returning the phone back to stock Android firmware. Visit the page here from XDA Developers and try applying a downgrade of your software. That way if you using a different version which should solve the bugs which are still existing on your phone.