Wireless3811 Suppose the flashed OS is unable to boot, and OEM unlocking is reporting as disabled. Would my phone be hard bricked in this situation or is there anything I'd be able to do to save the phone?
Two actions are possible with the bootloader locked.
- If the problem is a bad user-data partition, a so-called "factory reset" should be available via Recovery.
- If the problem is a bad system image, it is often possible to sideload an OTA image via adb.
Nothing is perfect, so there is no way to guarantee that a working phone won't be permanently bricked. But it is genuinely very rare, especially if the web installer is used. If there is a hardware failure, e.g., a critical part of the flash memory goes bad, that can be disastrous, but an unlocked bootloader is not likely to help.