Motorola "Factory Cable" How To Make One Yourself!

So you flashed your phone and now it thinks the battery is dead (even though it's not) and it won't let you flash it again to fix it?

Or, your battery really is dead and you don't have a way to charge it because your phone is soft-bricked and won't charge the battery. What do you do? Make A Motorola "Factory Cable" of course!

With this cable you don't even need a battery in your phone. This is our clone of what is generally referred to as a Motorola "Factory Cable".

Unlike a normal USB cable these cables are wired in a way that compatible Motorola phones recognize as a "factory" programming cable. This allows the phone to power up and be flashed without having a battery in the phone. Depending upon the model of the phone, it may also boot up differently than it does with a normal USB cable.

For example, a Motorola Napoleon will actually say "Factory Cable Connected" on the display when booting into flash mode with this cable connected. When a Droid X, Droid 2, or Droid Pro boots with this cable, it will only present to the host computer the USB devices necessary for flashing, but none of the other devices like ADB, USB mounting, etc. In fact, if you boot the OS of the phone (instead of to the bootloader) the Droid X doesn't even bring up the USB attached options when using this cable (as though the OS isn't even aware of it). Yet RadioComm, RSD Lite, etc. all recognize and operate with the phone like normal -- even with no battery in the phone.

You cannot use this cable to ADB into your phone, mount your phone's SD card as a volume on the host computer, etc. Your phone came with a normal USB cable for all that -- use it.Remember, you want to have this cable on hand before you need it -- because once you're stuck, you want to be able to whip this out and use it to get back up and running. You can't go to the store and get one of these, so be sure it's in your bag of phone hacking goodies.

Warnings:

1. Don't leave the cable connected to the phone while unattended. Although the cable should not be recognized by the phone for charging purposes, it is supplying operating power to the phone via its USB port (which is not normally the case). If you are using the cable with no battery in the phone, and if your host computer lost power or shut down, your phone would instantly lose power just like a battery pull had happened.
2. Connect the Micro-B end to the phone first, and then connect the USB A end to the computer. The Micro-B connector is very tiny and we want to make sure it is in the phone straight and seated before you apply power to it by connecting it to the computer. Connecting the Micro-B end first protects your phone and your computer.
3. When working on the phone with the cable connected and no battery inside, best to go ahead and put the back cover back on so you don't lay it down on something that touches some contacts in the battery compartment. If you're working on a proper (uncluttered) workbench and you're the careful type, this may not be necessary, but better safe than sorry.
4. Don't plug this cable into any device not designed for it. If plugged into a device not expecting this map you could destroy the device, your computer, or both.

What's very interesting is that the phone definitely knows that it is not in the presence of mere mortals when you use a Factory Cable. The phone knows it is in the presence of Moto gods as it boot differently than normal. Some phones like the Motorola Napoleon actually come right out and say "Factory Cable Connected". Other phones will boot straight to the bootloader for flashing. The various Droids appear to boot normally until you notice that there is no USB connected indicator at the top (once the OS is up) and that the host computer doesn't register all the usual devices. Instead the host computer only registers the bare minimum interfaces needed for RadioComm, RSD Lite, etc. to be able to talk to the phone. This in and of itself simplifies things as you don't have to monkey with setting the phone to the right mode (e.g. "PC Mode") -- it is automatically in the right mode for flashing.

Another interesting thing that is allegedly possible with the Factory Cable is that with the battery removed, it is possible to access some diagnostic pads on the main board of the phone, that when shorted (before connecting the Factory Cable) will boot the phone in a special recovery mode to help recover bricked phones. I say "allegedly" because thus far we've not had much luck with this, and our information is that it may only apply to unsecured phones anyway -- not secured consumer phones. Running around shorting things randomly inside your phone is a very bad idea unless you are willing to risk the phone, your computer, or both -- but sometimes things must die in the name of science --

By now you are probably saying "OK, fine, enough rambling, how the hell do I make one of these things already?"

In a way, I've already told you. You simply need to tie pin 4 of the Mini/Micro end to pin 1 (+5V DC) and you're all set. Unfortunately that is much easier said than done. The big wrinkle is that since in 99% of cables pin 4 on the Micro B is unused, the cables only have 4 wires in them and pin 4 has no wire connected at all.

Important Note: since I have no control over your ability to build this cable, the quality of your soldering, etc., obviously I take no responsibility for your usage of this information. If you do this wrong, you could destroy your phone, your computer, or both. This cable is definitely a cool tool to have, and it is the only way I do flashing anymore, but you have to heed the warnings that I linked to earlier and even then, you're doing something Motorola probably didn't intend anybody outside of their divine provenance to do, so you're on your own.

Anyway, warnings aside, here's the schematic (the "Active Power" schematic is the one for the "Factory Cable"):