Verizon has released a minor update to the Droid 2 that it says will help improve battery life and patch up some security issues, but it also puts a bit of a death knell in the phone to users who are toying around with it.
However, Droid-Life.com issued a warning to “rooted users” of the Droid 2, meaning users who have tinkered with the device to allow unofficial software on it. The new Droid 2 update does not include what’s called an SBF file. That’s the file used in case you need to reboot your phone and restore everything to factory defaults.
So, current Droid 2 owners with that SBF file installed will find themselves in hot water when they install the new update. Because the SBF file is not being updated along with the rest of the phone, if a factory reset is performed, it will completely and permanently brick the phone.
That should only affect a very small proportion of Droid 2 owners, but it does show a fundamental flaw in the update process. Droid-Life notes that because the way the SBF files work on the device, there needs to be a new one every time the phone gets an update.
This is not an issue on most other Android phones, with the exception of the Droid X, which has had far greater problems than any other Droid device on the market.
