Post #2075666

2026-05-04 20:01 UTC

@oddtail @aoanla Others, simply disable the option to unlock the bootloader. And if you can't unlock the bootloader, don't even think about running any other OS, be it a regular OS or a recovery OS, on your phone. If you're a bit experienced with computers, you might say: "Well, can't I just wipe the hard drive and install a new OS with a new bootloader that's not locked?". That's something you can do very easily on a computer, because it is very easy to access the hard drive of it. But on a phone, don't even think about it. I would say that there is simply no access to a hard drive's phone, but that's not exactly true. All phone processors include a very low-level mode which can be used to access the hard drive of the phone in case it is bricked and unable to boot. This mode is how phone manufacturers are able to repair bricked phones when you send it to their labs. So, can't you use that to access your hard drive? Nope, it's also locked. It requires a key* from the manufacturer to be able to work. 3/?

Replies (1)

@flafflar@tech.lgbt 2026-05-04 20:08

@oddtail @aoanla Unlike the bootloader code, manufacturers will NEVER give this key away. People have managed to hack some of them, but in general they are unavailable. So there goes that option. But again you might say, in a computer, I can pop the drive off and connect it to another computer. Can't I pop off the phone's drive and connect it to another phone? Nope. The drive is a chip soldered to the motherboard. You need very specialized and expensive tools to be able to unsolder it. And even if you do, the interface of each drive is a bit different. Computer drives all have a standard set of pins in a standard order with standard functions, so all computer drives are compatible with each other. This is not the case in phone drives, as eachanufacturer does whatever they want. And of course, what each pin does is a trade secret, so you don't have access to it. 4/?

Open ##2075667