Did factory reset, attempted to flash CWM using SP Flash Tools and fastboot but to no avail. How to unbrick Lenovo A316i than? Phone isn't mine, nephew got it bricked and doesn't know what was the  reason of it.

Well, phone shows some life, if booted in normal way logo appears (for some reason instead of "Lenovo for those who do" there is "Globe" text appears) and it probably indicates custom firmware, though I didn't found one with this name in internet. Now - list of what I can:


Can start device in normal way,  but it freezes on logo screen
Can enter the recovery mode, but it is stock version and capable of quite few things!
Can enter the diagnostics mode, but it's quite useless.
Can charge phone, related animation with battery shown whilst.
Can do something with ADB or fastboot, as Ubuntu recognizes device normally (I've set up /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules)
Can do something with SP Flash Tool 5.1532 (and probably older versions of 5.x, but I didn't try them).


Device is - Lenovo A316i, based on MediaTek MT6752, with Android 4.4.2.
PC: Ubuntu 14.04.1 x64

What I've tried:


To wipe all data and set settings to factory default - didn't change a thing
To change default Recovery with CWM Recovery using SP Flash Tool, but it freezes on red load bar, console output tells that COM Port is opened and program is waiting for something: 

USB port is obtained. path name(/dev/ttyACM0), port name(/dev/ttyACM0) 
USB port detected: /dev/ttyACM0
BROM connected
Downloading & Connecting to DA...
COM port is open. Trying to sync with the target...

This doesn't help much and doesn't hurt too;
To flash Recovery with fastboot tool, using command 
"fastboot flash recovery recovery.img" and here some bug appears too:


  sending 'recovery' (5394 KB)... OKAY [  0.252s] writing 'recovery'...
  FAILED (remote:  partition 'recovery' not support flash) finished.
  total time: 0.267s



I spent about 6 or 7 hours on it, reading tons of text and my head slowly started to melt, so I decided to ask about this to specialists.

Is there any way to upload firmware knowing there is no way to root it first since OS doesn't load, probably impossible to upload CWM Recovery tool, and there is fastboot mode which doesn't work properly?
I spent another few hours trying things, and ended up going to a friend who had Windows on PC, with this guide: Lenovo A316i Stock Firmware - xdafirmware on this site placed archive which had everything needed in it:


Unmodified stock firmware which doesn't require modified Recovery
Lenovo USB Driver executable
Smart Phone Flash Tool 3.x (probably 3.1336 I didn't watch concrete version)


And guess what? I managed to install driver and flash firmware in matter of minutes, and got phone booting fixed!

P.S. So, the solution is to use 3.x SP Flash Tool and right firmware, but since 3.x isn't runnable on GNU/Linux, well you have to install windows first!