[Cover story needed for warranty] Default IMEI/No efs Backup/Soft brick - Galaxy S III Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

As the title says... something majorly messed up on its own. And after getting my phone to boot i find out the imei is reset and i dont even have an efs backup. Cant inject imei as its international version. I do not have any advanced recovery boxes.
At this point I have somehow managed to make Download mode look official:
Custom Binary Download: NO
Custom Binary: Official
System Status: Official.
So I can still claim warranty I guess. So what do I tell the service center? I was updating via Kies and after update the device doesnt have a lockscreen nor can it make calls (noob reason as I cant appear to know what factory mode is). I am downloading Kies to see if I can actually update it officially too.
What happened? Here => http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2208690
Any of you have a better cover up? I know they wont replace my mainboard for free so i have to make them think its their fault. They are not nice people, I have been there before. They love to turn down warranty requests. >.<

My battery was at 1% last night when I woke up and screen was frozen and my phone was hot so I pulled out battery. Let it cool and charge it. Next thing I find out is its just stuck .
That is symptom of sds . Just say you believe it to be the sudden death syndrome and that is not fraud .
jje

I'd go with JJE's story - and you should thank him for it.
But of you need something different, say your phone was constantly crashing, so you did a battery pull. You left it alone for an hour, then charged it up while the phone wasn't booted. Once you had booted it up your IMEI was gone.
CyanogenModded Very China-like, from my Samsung Galaxy S III
LG Familyguy59/Beatsleigher

JJEgan said:
My battery was at 1% last night when I woke up and screen was frozen and my phone was hot so I pulled out battery. Let it cool and charge it. Next thing I find out is its just stuck .
That is symptom of sds . Just say you believe it to be the sudden death syndrome and that is not fraud .
jje
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, I have manged to get it to show the emergency screen that say "Firmware upgrade encountered an issue. Select Recovery mode in Kies and try again". So I am just gonna go there and tell them what you told me except Ill just tell them the phone kept rebooting so I went into recovery and wiped data/reset it. And then it just went into recovery mode and Kies doesnt show any recovery info.
Seems legit?

Related

XDA GENIUSES PLEASE HELP! Hard Bricked i9100

Hey guys.
I made a stupid error last night when I tried going from ICS CM9 back to ICS STOCK LPQ.
I forgot to wipe data and just wiped cache and dalvik cache.
The connection broke whilst flashing through ODIN and now I have a blank black screen and the phone won't turn on...((( (It does technically as when I try pressing the on button later on the phone would get hot - meaning its on but BLACK SCREEN)
I have tried taking the battery out for hours and putting it back in...nothing is working.
I don't know what to do...I'm in uni where I have fast wifi. Please help. Any advice would be grateful
EDIT:
Ok.
So usb jig arrived this morning. Ripped it open. Popped my sgsII from charger (fully charged I think!) took battery out - 15 secs
placed battery back in.
Inserted USBJIG. . .
. . .
. . . . BLACK SCREEN OF DEATH
Nothing....Still the same. No screen activity...sad...
only way is either JTAG or Samsung service center right?
I used to have yellow exclamation mark + 4 counts....but they can't see anything so they won't know right?
or did the usbJig work but just the fact that I can't see anything on the screen??
...sad I hated seeing noobs flashing phones improperly and crying when it got softbricked....well even though mine is a straight hardbrick i still feel sad....noob
update.
I've taken it to SSCentre on tuesday. I called them yesterday and they said they couldn't fix it over there and had it shipped somewhere else...is that bad?
it could take upto 2 weeks!!!!!!
I rememeber the engineers working on my friends Galaxy S last year and they didn't have to send it to somewhere else. (he had the soft brick 3 yellow logo icons) and didn't have the version where the download/recovery mode didn't work) The engineer just flashed it with latest stock sgs firmware (ignoring that csc was orange lol)
Maybe my flash was so impeccable I fried the motherboard? I'm one kick ass bricker....
dk206 said:
Hey guys.
I made a stupid error last night when I tried going from ICS CM9 back to Gingerbread Stock JVU.
I forgot to wipe data and just wiped cache and dalvik cache.
The connection broke whilst flashing through ODIN and now I have a blank black screen and the phone won't turn on...((( (It does technically as when I try pressing the on button later on the phone would get hot - meaning its on but BLACK SCREEN)
I have tried taking the battery out for hours and putting it back in...nothing is working.
I don't know what to do...I'm in uni where I have fast wifi. Please help. Any advice would be grateful
dk206
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm assuming download mode and recovery also don't work when the device is powered off?
dk206 said:
Hey guys.
I made a stupid error last night when I tried going from ICS CM9 back to Gingerbread Stock JVU.
I forgot to wipe data and just wiped cache and dalvik cache.
The connection broke whilst flashing through ODIN and now I have a blank black screen and the phone won't turn on...((( (It does technically as when I try pressing the on button later on the phone would get hot - meaning its on but BLACK SCREEN)
I have tried taking the battery out for hours and putting it back in...nothing is working.
I don't know what to do...I'm in uni where I have fast wifi. Please help. Any advice would be grateful
dk206
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm have you tried getting into download mode to see if the device shows up in odin?
dk206 said:
Hey guys.
I made a stupid error last night when I tried going from ICS CM9 back to Gingerbread Stock JVU.
I forgot to wipe data and just wiped cache and dalvik cache.
The connection broke whilst flashing through ODIN and now I have a blank black screen and the phone won't turn on...((( (It does technically as when I try pressing the on button later on the phone would get hot - meaning its on but BLACK SCREEN)
I have tried taking the battery out for hours and putting it back in...nothing is working.
I don't know what to do...I'm in uni where I have fast wifi. Please help. Any advice would be grateful
dk206
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you can get into download mode then there is still hope. If you can't then your only option is either warranty repair of Jtag service. If download mode then works then just reflash using Odin.
You flash i9000XXJVU to your i9100 phone? So you need JTAG or do service. Your bootloader is totally dead
hiepgia said:
You flash i9000XXJVU to your i9100 phone? So you need JTAG or do service. Your bootloader is totally dead
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Didn't even notice that XXJVU was an i9000 firmware.
To OP: Yup nothing to do, but send it in for repairs.
yeah sorry not JVU LPQ (I was getting mixed up with firmwares)
Yeah phone not going into download or recovery mode.
I think when I press the power button the phone does turn on but I get nothing but black screen....(the phone warms up)
So shall I order a JTAG to flash? or take it to repair centre?
Will they know I've been flashing this thing to death? Counter is on 4 at the moment..... so worried!
dk206 said:
yeah sorry not JVU LPQ (I was getting mixed up with firmwares)
Yeah phone not going into download or recovery mode.
I think when I press the power button the phone does turn on but I get nothing but black screen....(the phone warms up)
So shall I order a JTAG to flash? or take it to repair centre?
Will they know I've been flashing this thing to death? Counter is on 4 at the moment..... so worried!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are u sure?
vol down+power+home button is download mode
Check it once again if it doesn't work...
maybe u can try some usb-jigg ?!
so you can come in to download-mode and then flash with odin =(
dk206 said:
ye
So shall I order a JTAG to flash?
JTag is not Samsung warranty its a paid for service .
or take it to repair centre?
Will they know I've been flashing this thing to death? Counter is on 4 at the moment....
.
Warranty is void with custom rom root or rom counter above zero .
Will they know yes counter is on 4 .
Will they ignore it and put it through as warranty they may but dont count on it .
USB jig would be the starting point .
That fails you could go to warranty repair if thats rejected then pay for JTag repair .
jjue
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Any place or website where I could buy a USB JIG?
Not really keen with solders....
Thanks guys
dk206 said:
Any place or website where I could buy a USB JIG?
Not really keen with solders....
Thanks guys
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
eBay. Or Google.
first charge it. Then try to enter download mode again. I have exp. 1 time battery low and phone just warm up and black screen. After Charge, it's ok till now!
dk206 said:
Any place or website where I could buy a USB JIG?
Not really keen with solders....
Thanks guys
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Read the post USB jigs to loan out
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1495867
jje
if you have adb maybe you could try:
1. Connecting your device to PC while turned off,
2. CMD > adb devices
* If you see your device connected, proceed with:
adb reboot recovery or adb reboot bootloader
* If you don't see any device connected, try googling for qhsusb_dload driver for your device, and after you install them (and maybe a couple of PC restarts) repeat step 2
3. if you manage to get to recovery, i hope you have your nandroid backup so you could restore them.
my HTC sensation 4G had this situation few days ago, couldn't go to recovery/bootloader, blanked out when turned on and had fever
i fixed it using those steps, i wish i could remember where i got the qhsusb driver thingy from.. i'll let you know when i remember.
edit: it might work on S2, or might not.. i don't know this will help or not, but you could read adb/fastboot/bootloader/android 101, maybe you could get something from there
hiepgia said:
You flash i9000XXJVU to your i9100 phone? So you need JTAG or do service. Your bootloader is totally dead
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The bootloader death thing is not 100% true. When I first got my phone, (when there wasn't any rom for it) I tried flashing a I9000 rom. I was so stupid and luckily it didn't break my phone. After the flashing it turned on and stayed on bootlogo.
It was a miracle for me!
Ok.
So usb jig arrived this morning. Ripped it open. Popped my sgsII from charger (fully charged I think!) took battery out - 15 secs
placed battery back in.
Inserted USBJIG. . .
. . .
. . . . BLACK SCREEN OF DEATH
Nothing....Still the same. No screen activity...sad...
only way is either JTAG or Samsung service center right?
I used to have yellow exclamation mark + 4 counts....but they can't see anything so they won't know right?
or did the usbJig work but just the fact that I can't see anything on the screen??
...sad I hated seeing noobs flashing phones improperly and crying when it got softbricked....well even though mine is a straight hardbrick i still feel sad....noob
You just got to hope for the guy that repairs it not to see or not to care about custom roms etc .
jje
JJEgan said:
You just got to hope for the guy that repairs it not to see or not to care about custom roms etc .
jje
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok update.
I've taken it to SSCentre on tuesday. I called them yesterday and they said they couldn't fix it over there and had it shipped somewhere else...is that bad?
it could take upto 2 weeks!!!!!!
I rememeber the engineers working on my friends Galaxy S last year and they didn't have to send it to somewhere else. (he had the soft brick 3 yellow logo icons) and didn't have the version where the download/recovery mode didn't work) The engineer just flashed it with latest stock sgs firmware (ignoring that csc was orange lol)
Maybe my flash was so impeccable I fried the motherboard? I'm one kick ass bricker....
you should have tried download mode blindly first. as i have flashed once blindly and it fixed my all dead screen.

[Q] I9300 - What's wrong with my phone

Hello,
I've got Samsung Galaxy S3 i9300 and don't realy know what happend to it...
I left it charging all night and next day in the morning it didn't boot up - not even a wibration after 8 sec holding power
Yesterday I was able to turn it in download mode but didn't got any proper stock *.tar to flash onto it via ODIN so I downloaded one and wanted to flash today but phone is not turning in download mode anymore
Phone with stock firmware = no rooted
I don't know what to do?
Any thoughts?
left it charging all night and next day in the morning it didn't boot up
Typical see sudden death syndrome post return to vendor under warranty .
jje
JJEgan said:
left it charging all night and next day in the morning it didn't boot up
Typical see sudden death syndrome post return to vendor under warranty .
jje
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you sure about that?
Everything seems like that. You can always pull out battery for about half a minute, put it back in and try to boot. If this doesn't help then nothing will.
JustArchi said:
Everything seems like that. You can always pull out battery for about half a minute, put it back in and try to boot. If this doesn't help then nothing will.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It didn't help so I'll return it to vendor under warranty...
Hope it'll be over soon :fingers-crossed:

No boot or recovery

Hi everyone,
Complete Noob here, and not proud of it.
I've been searching through your awesome forum now for the past few days trying to get an answer to a problem I have with my GT-I9300, but unfortunately i just seem to keep coming up with more and more problems. So begrudingly I have come to beg for help in the form of a new thread.
I had the phone running rooted with CWM and Cyanogen 10.1 with a fair amount of problems, it kept locking up.
So i was advised one of the best solutions would be to use a more stable version of Cyanogen so re flashed with 9. It worked pretty brilliantly up until some apps were updating and it just completely froze, at the time this was not a strange occurance because of the previous freezing issues i had. So i just restarted the phone.
I then get a message that the firmware has become corrupted and i need to re-install emergency firmware with Kies, tried this. nothing happened.
It has now come to only allowing me to boot into download mode, if i attempt a standard boot, or a recovery boot it goes into a white screen, which almost looks like static on an old analogue TV.
I am at my complete end with this phone, I have tried many re-flashes and versions of PDA files via ODIN and nothing has worked, I always seem to get a PIT Partition error.
I have now been trying to get this to work for at least 20 hours of my life and its finally enough, I would just be incredibly thankful if someone could let me know the problem and if there is a solution to this, I am yet to find anyone else suffering with this white static picture on boot.
When i boot into download mode, i get the red ODIN MODE setting, no product name, no custom binary download, the current binary is 'Samsung official' and the system status is custom.
I have tried reflashing to samsung stock, and that even fails.
Many thanks in advance. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Reads as you need a service centre either damaged PIY or more likely damaged Nand .
jje
JJEgan said:
Reads as you need a service centre either damaged PIY or more likely damaged Nand .
jje
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agreed.
Please people, don't go back to ICS! It is unable to prevent your eMMC from death.
I heard that version 9 doesn't have the sudden death fix :/ Sorry mate you gotta take to to repair center.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda app-developers app
cheers everyone. I think deep down i knew that this would be the case.
Big expensive bill for me coming up i imagine.
Thanks again.
Service centre say my phone wont boot i this the sudden death syndrome .
Is what i would ask and just look dumb .
jje
coop_80 said:
cheers everyone. I think deep down i knew that this would be the case.
Big expensive bill for me coming up i imagine.
Thanks again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sudden death :/

[Q] Galaxy s3 screen bootloop

Hey guys,
I have a galaxy s3 (I9300) and I've had it rooted for some time now. I started using CyanogenMod 10.2 nightlies a few months ago and they've mostly been fine. The odd issue comes up but I've been able to work it out. So, a few hours ago my phone just turned off of its own accord and started to bootloop, but on the "Samsung Galaxy S3 GT-19300" screen, not the CyanogenMod screen (to clarify, this screen comes up first then the cyanogenmod one usually). I've tried booting into recovery (CWM 6) but it just shows the CWM boot logo thing (that cog with the hat) and then loops back to the galaxy s3 page. I've also tried putting it in download mode, and it seems to stay on the warning page longer than it does anywhere else, but it wont let me actually put in it download mode from there.
I had a look around google and saw people have had the same problem, but everything I could find was when people had flashed a new rom/kernel etc. and something had gone wrong in the process. The weird thing about mine is that I haven't changed anything, even downloaded any new apps, for maybe a week, so it's not like something suddenly changed. I also wasn't using it when it started, it was just sitting on the table next to me.
Usually I can work these things out, but I'm stumped here. Any help would be really appreciated.
Thanks in advance!
danielbollom said:
Hey guys,
I have a galaxy s3 (I9300) and I've had it rooted for some time now. I started using CyanogenMod 10.2 nightlies a few months ago and they've mostly been fine. The odd issue comes up but I've been able to work it out. So, a few hours ago my phone just turned off of its own accord and started to bootloop, but on the "Samsung Galaxy S3 GT-19300" screen, not the CyanogenMod screen (to clarify, this screen comes up first then the cyanogenmod one usually). I've tried booting into recovery (CWM 6) but it just shows the CWM boot logo thing (that cog with the hat) and then loops back to the galaxy s3 page. I've also tried putting it in download mode, and it seems to stay on the warning page longer than it does anywhere else, but it wont let me actually put in it download mode from there.
I had a look around google and saw people have had the same problem, but everything I could find was when people had flashed a new rom/kernel etc. and something had gone wrong in the process. The weird thing about mine is that I haven't changed anything, even downloaded any new apps, for maybe a week, so it's not like something suddenly changed. I also wasn't using it when it started, it was just sitting on the table next to me.
Usually I can work these things out, but I'm stumped here. Any help would be really appreciated.
Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
can you at least enter download mode after a long time you said? if not, try pulling out the battery for 5 minutes or more and re-insert and enter download mode. i hope it's not sds! good luck
sriram231092 said:
can you at least enter download mode after a long time you said? if not, try pulling out the battery for 5 minutes or more and re-insert and enter download mode. i hope it's not sds! good luck
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope, if I press the volume up button to go into it, it just goes back to the bootloop. I'll try the battery thing though, thanks!
Nope, it didnt work, I left it out for maybe half an hour and nothings changed :/ anyone else got any ideas?
SDS thread and BootLoop identical questions posted .
What does Product Code say in download mode .
But if you cannot get to download mode then you need a service centre repair .
looks like u are facing SDA but a bit diffrend than a normal SDS.. mine still can go into download mode with blank product name..
If product name is blank in download mode then you got sudden death, consider a phone as a brick. Nothing will help, including repartitioning.
You need to contact service centre.
I'll check it in a minute, but if it is bricked, will any service center actually help me seeing as it's rooted and all?
danielbollom said:
I'll check it in a minute, but if it is bricked, will any service center actually help me seeing as it's rooted and all?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
AFAIK if it's sudden death then it's not possible to detect root and other modified things, or in other words - nobody has money to prove that you have been using unofficial firmware .
JustArchi said:
AFAIK if it's sudden death then it's not possible to detect root and other modified things, or in other words - nobody has money to prove that you have been using unofficial firmware .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ahhhh, well that is handy then
In terms of a service centre, will samsung have a list of them somewhere so I can find one near me?
So I contacted samsung and they gave me the link to book into a service centre etc, but I just realised that when I try to go into recovery mode, the CWM recovery logo comes up before going back to bootloop. Is there any way to get rid of that so that my root is completely untraceable?
danielbollom said:
So I contacted samsung and they gave me the link to book into a service centre etc, but I just realised that when I try to go into recovery mode, the CWM recovery logo comes up before going back to bootloop. Is there any way to get rid of that so that my root is completely untraceable?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you can't flash anything with Odin (stock software) then you're screwed. Eventually you can try to enter recovery and flash "eraser" of recovery, but this requires working recovery... So if you actually can enter recovery then you can also flash anything, which will literally delete everything.
In other case, no, no way. But if you're lucky enough you may break it just by leaving your phone on for some hours in bootloop, haha.
JustArchi said:
If you can't flash anything with Odin (stock software) then you're screwed. Eventually you can try to enter recovery and flash "eraser" of recovery, but this requires working recovery... So if you actually can enter recovery then you can also flash anything, which will literally delete everything.
In other case, no, no way. But if you're lucky enough you may break it just by leaving your phone on for some hours in bootloop, haha.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is there any way to wipe it with magnets or anything? hahah I'm clutching at straws now, but otherwise I'm just left with an expensive paperweight so I'm trying to find anything I can
danielbollom said:
Is there any way to wipe it with magnets or anything? hahah I'm clutching at straws now, but otherwise I'm just left with an expensive paperweight so I'm trying to find anything I can
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To be honest think twice before physically crashing your internal memory, as it may void your warranty at all.
I'd try flashing stock firmware through odin, if it doesn't work I'd try flashing anything through recovery. If both of these methods fail just leave your phone in bootloop and hope that it'll automatically destroy everything... :laugh:
Seriously though, you can either physically destroy internal memory or leave it in bootloop and hope for the best, eventually send them device in current status. Up to you, because you won't have a possibility to do anything else.
JustArchi said:
To be honest think twice before physically crashing your internal memory, as it may void your warranty at all.
I'd try flashing stock firmware through odin, if it doesn't work I'd try flashing anything through recovery. If both of these methods fail just leave your phone in bootloop and hope that it'll automatically destroy everything... :laugh:
Seriously though, you can either physically destroy internal memory or leave it in bootloop and hope for the best, eventually send them device in current status. Up to you, because you won't have a possibility to do anything else.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If I send it back to them as it is now it'll take them about 20 seconds I reckon before they see the CWM logo, realise its rooted and send it straight back, so I dont know what I'm gonna do hahah

GS3 Stuck on Samsung logo and wont charge

Hey everyone, i have an issue that i have searched for and can't seem to find anything exactly the same so thought id just jump and ask.
I have a GS3 that has suddenly decided to stop working. It is un-rooted and was stock. I had it on charge over night and woke up to find it like this.
When i try to power the phone on it simply goes to the samsung logo and stops there and if i try to charge it all i get is the initial battery image but it does not move to indicate that it is charging.
I have tried going into the recovery mode to reset data etc but when i do it is covered with red writing saying that it cant find system files and folders, so im thinking somehow the system has corrupted itself..
I have also tried to reload the defauly system os via odin but cant get the computer to even recognize the device..
Can anyone help?
MattMcGoogan said:
Hey everyone, i have an issue that i have searched for and can't seem to find anything exactly the same so thought id just jump and ask.
I have a GS3 that has suddenly decided to stop working. It is un-rooted and was stock. I had it on charge over night and woke up to find it like this.
When i try to power the phone on it simply goes to the samsung logo and stops there and if i try to charge it all i get is the initial battery image but it does not move to indicate that it is charging.
I have tried going into the recovery mode to reset data etc but when i do it is covered with red writing saying that it cant find system files and folders, so im thinking somehow the system has corrupted itself..
I have also tried to reload the defauly system os via odin but cant get the computer to even recognize the device..
Can anyone help?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does it look like this >> View attachment 3274198 << if so your emmc could be damage/ corrupt. There are things you could try but all need odin if you can't get odin to recognize your phone then I recommend a service repair.
Thanks for the reply.
That's exactly what it looks like.
By service repair do you mean a service centre?
MattMcGoogan said:
Thanks for the reply.
That's exactly what it looks like.
By service repair do you mean a service centre?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep i'm afraid so :crying: You could try reinstalling drivers on your pc or try a different pc etc to try and get odin to see your phone but it's a bit of a long shot.
What can a service centre do to fix that though?
Thay can replace emmc chip, but usually they are replacing whole motherboard, reprogram efs and flash newest stock firmware.
I hope your phone is under warranty.
____________________________________________
P3110 / I9300 / I9100 / NEXUS 5 / iPAD2
Damn... Unfortunately it's not any more...
Might have to see how much a board is or just upgrade

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