Restore Moto E to Stock Firmware 2014 (1st Gen)

It is unfortunate how low-end devices do not tend to attract much of developers crowd or, are even left to die at some side of the forums. But not all of them get the same treatment, some powerful devices like the Moto E do get the privilege to receive a wide variety custom ROM and recovery support. I bought a Moto E last year when its was launched and must say, I was pretty impressed with the hardware configuration and performance that was offered at the price.

The phone went smooth in terms of user interface, which is basically the plain AOSP layout offered majorly by the Nexus devices (My personal favorite). It delivers a generic Snapdragon 200 Dual-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A7 processor with Adreno 302 graphics unit for a decent gaming experience, and a 4.3 inches Gorilla Glass display, along with Android 4.4.2 KitKat out-of-the-box and 1GB user-available RAM.

Thanks to the amazing ParanoidAndroid team, I installed the ROM on my Moto, played on it for a while, got bored and shifted to CyanogenMod for Android Lollipop experience, but didn’t even settle then. Being a flashaholic, I couldn’t resist myself from flashing just another ROM and so, at last, I decided to bring back and restore my Moto E to stock firmware and wait for the official Lollipop update.

Today, I will demonstrate the complete procedure that I followed to restore Moto E to stock firmware. I am personally gonna use the Retail Android 4.4.4 firmware to instruct the process, whereas you might need to download the one corresponding to your device model and carrier, and for this, some file names may be different, so make the changes wherever needed (I believe you’re sensible enough). Post that, We will re-lock the device’s bootloader using a plain fastboot command.

Warning!

The below process has been performed on a Moto E XT1022. Restoring or installing the firmware manually involves formatting and re-installing the partitions. Messing with these or damaging these partitions may ultimately damage your device. So perform everything as stated. Proceed only at your own risk, DroidViews or any of its members shall not be liable for any damage to your device. However, even if you manage to get yourself somehow into such trouble, we will provide our best assistance to pull you out for good.

Prerequisites

• Download Motorola drivers from the official website or visit our USB driver compilation.
• Charge your device to at least 60% battery level to avoid any interruption during the process.
• Make sure to backup your device’s internal storage as it will be wiped off completely.
• Pull out your Micro SD card, if it is already inserted in the phone.
• Enable USB debugging on your Moto E. Go to Settings > Developer options and check the USB debugging box.
• Download the firmware and extract it.
• Extract the fastboot tools package and copy all its content to the folder where the firmware files have been extracted.

Downloads

Stock Firmware:

RETAIL-DSDS_CONDOR_KXC20.82-14_cid7_CFC_1FF.xml.zip | Mirror 1 | Mirror 2

Motorola Fastboot Tools:

mfastboot-v2.zip | Mirror

How to choose correct firmware for your Moto E (2014)

1. If you are unsure which one is your firmware, go to Settings> About Phone> System Version the text written there will be similar to the version you want to choose!
2. If You cannot access your phone or have changed ROM, then please go to bootloader mode using the steps from instructions given below.
3. Open command window and type the following command:

   fastboot getvar ro.build.version.full

   You will see the version to choose in output.

Steps to Restore Moto E to Stock

1. The process will take place while your device is in fastboot mode/bootloader mode. So, it’s time to enter into fastboot mode, which can be done through two ways – using  ADB command or by pressing the physical button combo.
   
   • Connect your Moto E to the PC via USB cable, open the command prompt window and enter the following command.

     adb reboot bootloader

   • Power off your phone completely. Press the Volume down and Power keys altogether for about 5-6 seconds. After that, release the power key and the fastboot screen shall appear.
2. Note that, the sequence of flashing the files is important and it is advised to follow the same sequence of flashing the partitions.
3. Open the folder where all the firmwares files were placed along with fastboot tools. Press the SHIFT key and right-click on an empty space inside the folder. Select Open command window here from the pop-up menu that appears.
4. Now, enter the following commands one after the other to restore Moto E to stock firmware.

   mfastboot oem lock begin

   mfastboot flash partition gpt.bin

   mfastboot flash motoboot motoboot.img

   mfastboot flash logo logo.bin

   mfastboot flash boot boot.img

   mfastboot flash recovery recovery.img

   mfastboot flash system system.img_sparsechunk.0

   mfastboot flash system system.img_sparsechunk.1

   mfastboot flash system system.img_sparsechunk.2

   mfastboot flash modem NON-HLOS.bin

   mfastboot erase modemst1

   mfastboot erase modemst2

   mfastboot flash fsg fsg.mbn

   mfastboot erase cache

   mfastboot erase userdata

5. The next step is to relock the device’s bootloader. Enter the following command while the device is in fastboot mode:

   mfastboot oem lock

6. And finally, reboot your device when all the above commands are done.

   mfastboot reboot

7. In case the device is stuck at the boot logo, reboot back into bootloader mode and enter the following commands

   mfastboot cache
   mfastboot userdata

Congrats! All is done here.

Now that we’re done with everything, you will have your Moto E restored completely to stock KitKat firmware. You can now either wait for the Lollipop update to reach your region or carrier, or even update it manually using the soak test available at XDA forums. It’s not necessary to always use a custom ROM, after the update, you could just follow the Moto E rooting guide, to simply root your device on Lollipop. Thereafter, you can also install Xposed Framework on your rooted Moto E to attain a lot of custom ROM features without the need to install one.

Tell us how this tutorial has worked for you and provide your valuable feedback via comments. Help us build a better community.