Moto E 2nd Gen 4G LTE model (XT1521) not booting up

Hello folks,

On a fine day when I was disabling the airport mode, I realised the phone is hung as both the home screens - Aviate and Google were not responding. So I forced switched off the phone by holding down the power key for 15-20 seconds. The phone booted in fast boot mode and since then its not starting up.

Note - I never enabled USB debugging (developer mode) in this phone, so ADB will not work and I did not select "Allow OEM Unlock" - obviously I was not hoping this kind of unprovoked crash/bricking.

I am on Mac OS X with USB drivers installed for the device. I have access to a Windows Machine also, in case any of the suggested solutions work with windows tools.

Here is what I have tried so far after reading various threads in xdaDevelopers. Please note I have tried mfastboot on windows as well and have the same output -
(1.) Tried unlocking the phone as mentioned in the Motorola website and elsewhere in the forum. I get an error

Code:

---

$ ./fastboot oem get_unlock_data
...
(bootloader) Failed to get unlock data, please try again!
FAILED (remote failure)
finished. total time: 0.105s

---

The phone is unlockable with a cid of 0x007

Code:

---

$ fastboot getvar all
......
(bootloader) cid: 0x0007
......

---

(2.) Downloaded the MotoE stock firmware from here and followed the "How to flash Stock Firmware". All the commands are failing, below is the output.

Code:

---

$ fastboot devices -l
TA38500WHO            fastboot usb:1D110000
$ fastboot oem fb_mode_set
...
FAILED (remote failure)
finished. total time: 0.023s
$ fastboot flash partition gpt.bin
target reported max download size of 268435456 bytes
sending 'partition' (32 KB)...
OKAY [  0.098s]
writing 'partition'...
(bootloader) Preflash validation failed
FAILED (remote failure)
finished. total time: 0.548s
$ fastboot flash bootloader bootloader.imgtarget reported max download size of 268435456 bytes
sending 'bootloader' (2410 KB)...
OKAY [  0.155s]
writing 'bootloader'...
(bootloader) flashing sbl1 ...
(bootloader) Failed to erase partition
(bootloader) Failed to flash sbl1
FAILED (remote failure)
finished. total time: 1.391s
$ fastboot flash logo logo.bin
target reported max download size of 268435456 bytes
sending 'logo' (679 KB)...
OKAY [  0.137s]
writing 'logo'...
(bootloader) Failed to erase partition
(bootloader) Failed to flash partition logo
FAILED (remote failure)
finished. total time: 0.245s
$ fastboot flash logo logo.bin
target reported max download size of 268435456 bytes
sending 'logo' (679 KB)...
OKAY [  0.175s]
writing 'logo'...
(bootloader) Failed to erase partition
(bootloader) Failed to flash partition logo
FAILED (remote failure)
finished. total time: 0.282s
$ fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
target reported max download size of 268435456 bytes
sending 'recovery' (32752 KB)...
OKAY [  1.108s]
writing 'recovery'...
(bootloader) Failed to erase partition
(bootloader) Failed to flash partition recovery
FAILED (remote failure)
finished. total time: 1.803s
$ fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
target reported max download size of 268435456 bytes
sending 'recovery' (32752 KB)...
OKAY [  1.251s]
writing 'recovery'...
(bootloader) Failed to erase partition
(bootloader) Failed to flash partition recovery
FAILED (remote failure)
finished. total time: 1.947s
$ fastboot flash system system.img_sparsechunk.0
target reported max download size of 268435456 bytes
sending 'system' (262143 KB)...
OKAY [  8.315s]
writing 'system'...
(bootloader) Invalid signed image
(bootloader) Preflash validation failed
FAILED (remote failure)
finished. total time: 8.847s
$ fastboot flash system system.img_sparsechunk.1
target reported max download size of 268435456 bytes
sending 'system' (262141 KB)...
OKAY [  8.331s]
writing 'system'...
(bootloader) Invalid signed image
(bootloader) Preflash validation failed
FAILED (remote failure)
finished. total time: 8.427s
$ fastboot flash system system.img_sparsechunk.2
target reported max download size of 268435456 bytes
sending 'system' (262141 KB)...
OKAY [  8.335s]
writing 'system'...
(bootloader) Invalid signed image
(bootloader) Preflash validation failed
FAILED (remote failure)
finished. total time: 8.453s
$ fastboot flash system system.img_sparsechunk.3
target reported max download size of 268435456 bytes
sending 'system' (256116 KB)...
OKAY [  8.120s]
writing 'system'...
(bootloader) Invalid signed image
(bootloader) Preflash validation failed
FAILED (remote failure)
finished. total time: 8.229s
$ fastboot flash system system.img_sparsechunk.4
target reported max download size of 268435456 bytes
sending 'system' (240640 KB)...
OKAY [  7.653s]
writing 'system'...
(bootloader) Invalid signed image
(bootloader) Preflash validation failed
FAILED (remote failure)
finished. total time: 7.764s
$ fastboot flash system system.img_sparsechunk.5
target reported max download size of 268435456 bytes
sending 'system' (124212 KB)...
OKAY [  3.977s]
writing 'system'...
(bootloader) Invalid signed image
(bootloader) Preflash validation failed
FAILED (remote failure)
finished. total time: 4.064s
$ fastboot flash modem NON-HLOS.bin
target reported max download size of 268435456 bytes
sending 'modem' (54616 KB)...
OKAY [  1.789s]
writing 'modem'...
(bootloader) Failed to erase partition
FAILED (remote failure)
finished. total time: 1.908s
$ fastboot flash modem NON-HLOS.bin
target reported max download size of 268435456 bytes
sending 'modem' (54616 KB)...
OKAY [  1.846s]
writing 'modem'...
(bootloader) Failed to erase partition
FAILED (remote failure)
finished. total time: 1.925s
$ fastboot erase modemst1
erasing 'modemst1'...
(bootloader) Failed to erase partition
FAILED (remote failure)
finished. total time: 0.126s
$ fastboot erase modemst2
erasing 'modemst2'...
(bootloader) Failed to erase partition
FAILED (remote failure)
finished. total time: 0.173s
$ fastboot flash fsg fsg.mbn
target reported max download size of 268435456 bytes
sending 'fsg' (1518 KB)...
OKAY [  0.143s]
writing 'fsg'...
(bootloader) Failed to erase partition
(bootloader) Failed to flash partition fsg
FAILED (remote failure)
finished. total time: 0.247s
$ fastboot flash fsg fsg.mbn
target reported max download size of 268435456 bytes
sending 'fsg' (1518 KB)...
OKAY [  0.189s]
writing 'fsg'...
(bootloader) Failed to erase partition
(bootloader) Failed to flash partition fsg
FAILED (remote failure)
finished. total time: 0.293s
$ fastboot erase cache
erasing 'cache'...
(bootloader) Failed to erase partition
FAILED (remote failure)
finished. total time: 0.167s
$ fastboot erase userdata
erasing 'userdata'...
(bootloader) Failed to erase partition
FAILED (remote failure)
finished. total time: 0.146s
$ fastboot erase customize
erasing 'customize'...
(bootloader) Invalid partition name customize
FAILED (remote failure)
finished. total time: 0.049s
$ fastboot oem fb_mode_clear
...
FAILED (remote failure)
finished. total time: 0.023s

---

Any help in recovering the phone will be appreciated.