But that is just one of its plethora of benefits that it beholds. It has proven to be equally impressive in custom development as well. Be it for installing a custom recovery like TWRP or gaining access to the system partition, there’s a lot to try out. Likewise, you may even root the device via Magisk [Read: Unlock Bootloader and Root Asus ROG Phone 5/Pro/Ultimate via Magisk]. Doing so will make it possible to flash Magisk Modules, Xposed Framework, Viper4Android, Substratum Themes, etc. However, on the flip side, it might prove to be a little bit risky as well. If you don’t perform the steps correctly, or flash the file to an incorrect partition, then there’s every chance of the device getting boot looped or soft-bricked. Fortunately, there’s a way out. You could easily unbrick the Asus ROG Phone 5/Pro/Ultimate devices via Fastboot Commands. And in this guide, we will show you how to do just that. So without further ado, let’s get started.
Unbrick Asus ROG Phone 5/Pro/Ultimate via Fastboot Commands
The below instructions are listed under separate sections for ease of understanding. Make sure to follow in the exact same sequence as mentioned. Droidwin and its members wouldn’t be held responsible in case of a thermonuclear war, your alarm doesn’t wake you up, or if anything happens to your device and data by performing the below steps.
Install Android SDK
First and foremost, you will have to install the Android SDK Platform Tools on your PC. This is the official ADB and Fastboot binary provided by Google and is the only recommended one. So download it and then extract it to any convenient location on your PC. Doing so will give you the platform-tools folder, which will be used throughout this guide to unbrick the Asus ROG Phone 5/Pro/Ultimate devices via Fastboot Commands.
Download Asus ROG Phone 5/Pro/Ultimate Firmware
You will now have to download the firmware for your device from the below official links. Once downloaded, extract it to any convenient location on your PC. Doing so shall give you a couple of files, including the all-important payload.bin.
ROG Phone 5: Stock Firmware CollectionROG Phone 5 Pro: Stock Firmware CollectionROG Phone 5 Ultimate: Stock Firmware Collection
Extract Asus ROG Phone 5/Pro/Ultimate Payload.bin
Once you have got hold of the payload.bin file, you need to extract it. This is turn will give us all the partition files (boot, system, vendor, etc). So please refer to our detailed guide to How to Extract payload.bin and get Fastboot Files.
Once you have successfully extracted the payload bin, you will get all the files inside Python’s Output folder (as explained in the linked guide). Make sure to transfer all those files to the platform-tools folder.
Boot Device to Fastboot Mode
Since your device is currently soft-bricked, you wouldn’t be able to boot to Fastboot Mode the normal way. Rather you would have to take the help of hardware keys. So start by powering off your device. Then press and hold the Power and Volume Up keys for a few seconds and your device shall boot to Fastboot.
Flash Asus ROG Phone 5/Pro/Ultimate Firmware via Fastboot Commands
Head over to the platform-tools folder, type in CMD in the address bar, and hit Enter. This will launch the Command Prompt. Now type in each of the below commands, one at a time, to flash the files to their respective partitions and hence unbrick the Asus ROG Phone 5/Pro/Ultimate devices via Fastboot Commands. So with this, we round off the guide on how to unbrick the Asus ROG Phone 5/Pro/Ultimate devices via Fastboot Commands. If you have any queries, do let us know in the comments. We will get back to you with a solution at the earliest. If you face an error or two while executing any of the above commands, then here are a few workarounds that you could try out.
First and foremost, if you face any issues while executing the command for the ‘not so important files’ (files apart from system, boot, vbmeta, vendor), then skip that error and move over to the next command. Then complete the rest of the commands and try powering on your device.Next up, you may also consider wiping the mdmddr and ddr partitions of your device. For that, execute the below two commands and then execute all the other ones:fastboot erase mdmddr fastboot erase ddrYou may also consider manually setting Slot A as the current active slot and then proceed with the other Fastboot Commands. So use the following command for that:fastboot set_active aIf none of the above tweaks worked out, then you would have to wipe off all the data from your device. For that, start off by using the below command and then use the rest of the commands:fastboot -w
So these were the various workarounds that will help you to unbrick the Asus ROG Phone 5/Pro/Ultimate devices via Fastboot Commands.