Adb can't detect my Android Phone. Damn.

So you open a command line and type in adb devices and, guess what, it can't detect your Android phone. This could be because of a variety of reasons like you installed a custom ROM. In any case, adb can't detect your device. Fortunately, the fix is just to install a driver. The bad part is the phone manufacturers sometimes don't post their USB drivers on the net.

How do we fix this?

1. Identify who really makes your phone. Like mine, which is sold as the Cherry Mobile Magnum HD but its actually a Foxconn phone. Do a google search or a lsusb command if your running a Linux box. You should be able then to get the ATTR{idVendor} value.

2. With that, go to this webpage. That should explain how to get your device recognized and help you figure out who made your phone.

3. You should be able to figure out which OEM driver to get.

Install and then you might have to do a reboot. When you get back, your Android phone now should be recognized by running adb devices again. You should be looking at something like below.

adb devices

This is related to my older post: Getting Ubuntu to play nice with your Android device.