HOW TO Unbrick LG Optimus L3 Android Phone

Posted September 23rd, 2012 by Lalit Indoria & filed under Optimus L3.

LG Optimus L3, a relatively new Android phone in the market is facing some issues as I can see in the CWM installation tutorial I wrote a while back. The issue which people faced was that their LG Optimus L3 reboots into recovery and does not boot into system normally. Perhaps, this was due to incorrect compilation of the recovery by the developer. As promised, I am posting a tutorial to unbrick LG Optimus L3 here at Hack My Android. Hopefully, this will get you your phone back working as usual. In case you face any issues, let me know in the comments below.

An Alternate to KDZ Method

Quite a lot of you have commented that you are stuck in CWM. So before you try the KDZ method which seems to be difficult, our reader Boris Blagojevic has an alternate method for you. Download the stock ROM zip file and flash it via CWM (since you have access to it) and reboot your phone. It will boot normally. You can now connect your phone to PC and run the LG PC suite to update your firmware and you should be good to go with the stock unrooted ROM.
I have tried the same method on LG Optimus Me P350 and the same can be applied to LG Optimus L3. All LG phones can be flashed to the stock firmware using a KDZ updater.

Before you Begin

Sit and relax. I will get you your phone back, but promise me that you will follow all the steps properly and comment below if you face any issues. You don’t  believe me? Read the 250+ comments at my unbricking & rooting tutorial for LG P350. No bragging, it’s a matter of trust. However, some mistakes can not be rectified and I will let you know if you have committed such mistake. Now, identify the problem you are facing. Some issues, can be solved easily and do not require you to flash the stock firmware. For instance, if you are stuck on the boot animation it does not mean your phone is bricked. You can wipe cache and boot into system again. If you find no method to boot into the system, follow this tutorial. However, I always advise you to comment and ask before you do this because this method is a little risky but you’ll end up with a working phone if you follow all steps properly.
A video of this tutorial is available at BlogoTech.

Flash Stock Firmware on LG Optimus L3

1. Download LG Optimus L3 USB Driver  from here.
2. Download official LG Optimus L3 stock firmware from this page. The file would be a .kdz file. Download the appropriate firmware according to your network provider and country.
3. Download KDZ updater and install it on your computer.
4. The zip file has a Microsoft XML parser, make sure you run it and restart your PC. This will solve the wparam 100 and lparam 6 issue mentioned in a comment below.
5. The next step is to put your phone into emergency mode. To do this, remove the battery of your phone and re-insert it (don’t turn it on). Press and hold Volume Up button and Volume Down button. While you are pressing the two buttons, press the Power button. So now, you must be pressing all three buttons together.
6. Your phone will boot into emergency mode and you should see a yellow screen with Emergency mode written on it.
7. Pick up the USB Cable and connect your phone to the computer via the USB Cable.
8. Run KDZ updater as Administrator.
9. Choose the following options in KDZ Updater: Type: 3GQCT Phone Mode: DIAG and KDZ file is the one you downloaded in step 3. Click on the image below for a better view.
   
10. Re-check with the image above and ensure that you have the appropriate settings on the KDZ updater.
11. Take a deep breath and click on “Launch Software Update” button.
12. This process is usually long. It take quite a long time for the firmware to be flashed on your phone.
13. If everything goes well, you will see “Finished” written in the log screen and your phone will change to switched off mode from Emergency mode.
14. The next time you turn it on, your phone will take a lot of time to reboot. This is normal!

So there you get a working LG Optimus L3 phone. Go ahead and hack it because you can always unbrick it using this tutorial.

Update

So we found that quite a lot of them are complaining that their LG Optimus L3 is booting back into recovery mode even after trying this  tutorial. I thank Mohammed Yaser for his comment below who has found a solution to this on XDA-forums. If you face this issue, follow the steps given below:

1. You will be using ADB and fastboot commands in this. So if you are not familiar with it, head over to this tutorial.
2. Download recovery.img and place it in the folder where you have the ADB files. I have named the folder as C:Android in the aforementioned tutorial.
3. Open Command Prompt and type “cd C:Android” or the path to the folder. Alternatively, you can open the folder that has the ADB files and Shift+Right Click to select “Open Command Window here”.
4. Make sure your phone is in CWM (it has to be) and connect it to PC via USB Cable.
5. Type the command “adb reboot bootloader”. Your phone will now be in bootloader mode.
6. Now type “fastboot flash recovery recovery.img” (Without quotes please).
7. You should see some file transfer being done. If you see something else, post it in the comment below.
8. Now type “fastboot reboot”.

Your phone will now reboot normally.

A comment from Kiryuchamo below might be helpful to you in case you face some problems:

i read about this post after searching lots of forums in the internet.
we had the same problem. i followed the tutorial and then i got an error and then the kdz updater crashes.. then the phone reboots and goes into an endless bootlop..
what i did is i pressed the vol.down+home key+power button (hard reset). i know u’ve probably did this but the phone will just vibrate and the LG logo will appear then it will automatically shutdown.. thats why all who experienced this cant enter into recovery mode. only emergency mode is working.
but the trick for you to be able to do a hard reset using the 3 buttons goes like this:
push the three buttons and when u felt the phone vibrates(its just only half a second, i guess) release the buttons right before the LG logo appears.. it will take you to an android unpacking a box screen.. wait for it to finish and your phine will reboot and will now work fine with stock rom.
this guide is for those who got the same error during updating with kdz. i hope it really helps.
i just got my brother’s L3 back after bricking it. and also thanks to the author of this tutorial. i salute you. goodluck guys on unbricking your phones

Do you face any issues? Please post them on our forum to get quicker replies!