In this article, I’ll show you how to remove FRP on Nokia 8 without using any flashing dongle, any box. The method I’m going to use its regardless of android security patch level, the only thing you need to do is enter emergency flash mode. World’s first ever.
To enter Recovery for factory reset if you want to try it out, here’s the method provided by HMD:
1. Power off your phone.
2. Press and hold Volume Up key and connect your phone to PC.
3. Waiting for Android robot on the ground displays along with NO COMMAND, release the Volume Up.
4. Press Volume Up while pressing power key to get Recovery menu.
I found if a bootloader designed for service purposes is downloaded to your phone, you can boot into EDL mode by using fastboot command directly. To do that, you also need to install OST LA and patch it. About how to patch OST LA and the download link of Nokia 8 OFW, read this article.
Choose the firmware, then click edit phone data, when “Boot FTM mode fail” prompts, now you’re able to enter EDL mode with service purposes bootloader.
Open command prompt or PowerShell at the installation directory of OST LA (For 64-bit OS, that’s C:\Program Files (x86)\OST LA), type this command:
.\fastboot-android oem reboot-edl
That will boot your phone to Emergency Download Mode.
Now, if you have Qualcomm emergency flash drivers installed, you will find a serial port displayed in Ports category in Device Manager, called “Qualcomm HS-USB QDLoader 9008” or “Qualcomm HS-USB Diagnostics 9008”. Or, if you have Windows Device Recovery Tool installed since you probably have a Windows Phone of HoloLens. To install required drivers, I recommended you to install Qualcomm emergency flash drivers from MiFlash, a flash tool provided by Xiaomi. The driver included has driver signature, so you needn’t to enter disable driver enforcement mode on 64-bit Windows.
After you update the driver to QDLoader, reboot your phone and reboot to EDL from Download mode again.
I noticed rawprogram0.xml included in the official firmware has a line written, that’s about FRP partition, but there’s no file defined, so normally it won’t be flashed normally. However, I made an empty file that has 512KB by HxD size called FRP.img which could erase the FRP partition.
And that’s how the trick works: Use QFIL included in latest QPST (At least Version 2.7.460) or latest MiFlash to flash them. You have to search for QPST 2.7.460 for yourself.
Download the latest MiFlash from here:
http://en.miui.com/a-234.html
or
http://www.miui.com/shuaji-393.html
Download the FRP removal package I provided, then open QFIL.
http://fds.hikaricalyx.com/private/nokia8_erasefrp_part.7z
In Configuration – FireHose Configuration, choose device type as UFS, then press OK.
Click “Flat Build”, pick the programmer to the firehose file.
Click “Load XML”, then pick rawprogram0.xml, then cancel for patch0.xml selection.
Now click download, an empty FRP.img will be flashed into your phone.
After the FRP.img downloaded, you can disconnect your phone, then press and hold Power Button for 10 seconds to reboot.
You can skip Wi-Fi connection right now, and the FRP is now removed.
That wraps up the whole guide of FRP removal for Nokia 8.
Now, this doesn’t involve any security update, so in theory, it works on any release of security update for Nokia 8, even Google couldn’t prevent from that.
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