This is my first post to a forum, so please bear with me...
So a few days ago, a friend of mine got a Verizon Samsung Galaxy S4 from someone, for free. He got it for free because the screen's glass is cracked a bit, and the phone is bricked; the previous owner didn't know what to do with it. I decided I would try to fix it, because if I do, I might be able to buy it off him and give it to my little sister, who currently has a dying iPhone 5C.
When I turn on the phone, it boots, showing the samsung logo, showing the red Verizon screen, and playing the boot tune. Then, just when you'd expect it to go to the OS, it shows a screen which at the top reads "Device memory damaged". Below that, it says "The data partition has been corrupted. You need to reset your phone to factory defaults. This will erase all your data." And below that is a button, which says "RESET PHONE". Tapping on it does nothing.
I have worked with android phones before (rooting, ROMs, locked bootloaders, bricked phones; even all these things on a Galaxy Gear smartwatch), and I know what the data partition is. I remembered that the recovery on samsung phones have an option to wipe the data partition. So I tried to access the recovery menu by holding Power, Home, and Vol+ when the phone is off. It doesn't work either . It shows the Andy robot laying on its back with a door open on its belly, with a warning icon popping out. So the recovery is dead...
I thought I could try to fix the recovery by flashing it with Odin :fingers-crossed:; Didn't work. It is blocked because the phone can't verify version . Then, after a little more research, I realized I might be able to fix the recovery by flashing a whole stock ROM. I don't know what firmware the phone is running, because I can't ask the previous owner. So I tried a few KitKat ones, and they were all rejected by the phone. Then I booted the phone back up, and I realized the RESET PHONE button acted like it was part of a Lollipop UI (There is a darker circle that extends from the part of the button where you tap). So I went back into download mode and tried to flash the 2 OTA versions of Lollipop (OC1 and OF1). The error this time was "SW REV. CHECK FAIL : fused : 8 , Binary : 6". This may or may not be the error I got before with the KitKat ROMs. I don't remember, and I'm not at my desktop to try the old ROMs.
After looking up this error, I found no exact results, but there were ones with a similar error. People said that it means a ROM is being flashed that is too old to pass the downgrade prevention system. I've been trying to flash what seems to be the latest firmware revision for this phone (OF1). Any ideas? Are the OSs I'm trying to flash somehow too new for the phone (even though I've tried all of the stock Lollipop ROMs. Should I give the phone back to my friend and tell him it's dead?
Thanks in advance!
I can't post images because I haven't posted here (or on any forum, for that matter) before.
Well, it seems really bad but you can try Samsung Smart Switch or Verizon Wireless Software Upgrade Assistant to repair the phone, else way JTag it's another option
Fuse 8 is OF1
Matthew M. said:
Fuse 8 is OF1
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the info. I tried flashing that version. Didn't work. I ended up taking my own broken S4 I had laying around, which had a smashed screen but a supposedly good Mainboard, and transferred the mainboard to my friend's bricked S4. Now it boots fully, and I made use of my old phone that was laying around.
BTW, do you know where or how you found out which version Fuse 8 represented? I'd like to learn more about this kind of stuff.
you probably needed to flash a lowship odin tar and repartition
Legitsu said:
you probably needed to flash a lowship odin tar and repartition
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, what do you mean by "lowship"? I did use a PIT file to repartition, which didn't work, possibly because the OS being flashed with it wasn't being accepted...
evanzolman said:
Sorry, what do you mean by "lowship"? I did use a PIT file to repartition, which didn't work, possibly because the OS being flashed with it wasn't being accepted...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
a normal odin tar will not fix a bad partition regardless of the .pit you need a tar that s a _user_Low_ship todo a full format odin was failing because the partitions where screwed and you weren't using the correct image
go to sammobile.com they have all the s4 all variants roms.
evanzolman said:
Thanks for the info. I tried flashing that version. Didn't work. I ended up taking my own broken S4 I had laying around, which had a smashed screen but a supposedly good Mainboard, and transferred the mainboard to my friend's bricked S4. Now it boots fully, and I made use of my old phone that was laying around.
BTW, do you know where or how you found out which version Fuse 8 represented? I'd like to learn more about this kind of stuff.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am not aware of a definitive guide on the fuses. I found it by trial and error
Envoyé de mon SM-G903F en utilisant Tapatalk
Related
I recently bought an S4 on eBay, and the phone activated and is working perfectly fine minus one thing: it won't update. The update downloads and starts to install, but about ten seconds into the install the "falling Android" logo appears, indicating that something went wrong. Upon reboot it tells me the software update was unsuccessful.
I don't know if the phone is currently or was previously rooted. Could this have something to do with the failed update? If so, how would I go about getting the phone back to stock? I have previous experience with rooting Android devices, but never anything in the Galaxy family. Also, because this is my girlfriend's phone, it doesn't need to be rooted, only upgraded.
If it has nothing to do with it being rooted, what's the problem here, and how do I fix it?
Sportsmaniac13 said:
I recently bought an S4 on eBay, and the phone activated and is working perfectly fine minus one thing: it won't update. The update downloads and starts to install, but about ten seconds into the install the "falling Android" logo appears, indicating that something went wrong. Upon reboot it tells me the software update was unsuccessful.
I don't know if the phone is currently or was previously rooted. Could this have something to do with the failed update? If so, how would I go about getting the phone back to stock? I have previous experience with rooting Android devices, but never anything in the Galaxy family. Also, because this is my girlfriend's phone, it doesn't need to be rooted, only upgraded.
If it has nothing to do with it being rooted, what's the problem here, and how do I fix it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you know how to get into download mode, get there and tell me what it says in the upper right hand corner.
If it's been rooted and has a high flash count it might prevent the upgrade.
If there is a custom recovery installed it would prevent it as well. You can check on that by turning the phone off then holding power and volume up until it says REBOOTING RECOVERY in blue letters at the top. Once it boots into recovery see if it's the stock recovery or a custom one.
Skipjacks said:
If you know how to get into download mode, get there and tell me what it says in the upper right hand corner.
If it's been rooted and has a high flash count it might prevent the upgrade.
If there is a custom recovery installed it would prevent it as well. You can check on that by turning the phone off then holding power and volume up until it says REBOOTING RECOVERY in blue letters at the top. Once it boots into recovery see if it's the stock recovery or a custom one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not quite certain what you're referring to when you say "download mode". Do you mean just starting the download of the update?
As for the recovery, it looks stock to me. It's titled "Android system recovery <3e>".
Sportsmaniac13 said:
I'm not quite certain what you're referring to when you say "download mode". Do you mean just starting the download of the update?
As for the recovery, it looks stock to me. It's titled "Android system recovery <3e>".
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Power off again, hold power and volume DOWN this time until it says ENTERING DOWNLOAD (or something like that).
In the upper left corner there will be a bunch of tiny writing.
Skipjacks said:
Power off again, hold power and volume DOWN this time until it says ENTERING DOWNLOAD (or something like that).
In the upper left corner there will be a bunch of tiny writing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay, after doing that the top-left says this:
ODIN MODE
PRODUCT NAME: SCH-I545
CURRENT BINARY: Samsung Official
SYSTEM STATUS: Official
CSB-OEM_CONFIG_LSB: 0x30
WRITE PROTECTION: Enable
Also, I just emailed the guy I bought the phone from, and he informed that that it was indeed rooted, but he flashed it back to stock before selling the phone. He suggested to wipe the cache, but after trying that in recovery the error logo came up again.
Sportsmaniac13 said:
Okay, after doing that the top-left says this:
ODIN MODE
PRODUCT NAME: SCH-I545
CURRENT BINARY: Samsung Official
SYSTEM STATUS: Official
CSB-OEM_CONFIG_LSB: 0x30
WRITE PROTECTION: Enable
Also, I just emailed the guy I bought the phone from, and he informed that that it was indeed rooted, but he flashed it back to stock before selling the phone. He suggested to wipe the cache, but after trying that in recovery the error logo came up again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You have the Verizon version of the S4. This is a forum for the international version.
Version may have tweaked the software update to require you to do something else. I think you are best off asking this question in the Verizon S4 forum.
It's not that I don't want to help you, but without knowledge of what Verizon might have done I'm just shooting in the dark. The users on the Verizon forum might have an immediate answer for you as this might be a common problem with a simple fix for all I know.
Here's the link...
http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s4-verizon/help
Skipjacks said:
You have the Verizon version of the S4. This is a forum for the international version.
Version may have tweaked the software update to require you to do something else. I think you are best off asking this question in the Verizon S4 forum.
It's not that I don't want to help you, but without knowledge of what Verizon might have done I'm just shooting in the dark. The users on the Verizon forum might have an immediate answer for you as this might be a common problem with a simple fix for all I know.
Here's the link...
http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s4-verizon/help
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay. Thanks for the help anyways, I appreciate it.
Sportsmaniac13 said:
Okay. Thanks for the help anyways, I appreciate it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK, you've been moved to the Verizon forum.
The OTA failing quickly as you describe usually means that one of the files that the OTA is trying to update has been modified.
What you should do is figure out what build your phone is running (Settings, More, About phone, then look at "Build number").
That will tell you what you need to flash to restore the phone to stock, hopefully with a no-wipe image.
Thanks for all your help guys. I finally solved the issue, so I figured I'd post how I did it in case anyone else runs into something similar.
I actually updated the phone through Verizon Software Upgrade Assistant. I'm assuming that through doing this I flashed the phone back to stock. Once this was over, the phone notified me of another update, and this time everything went smoothly. The phone is now completely stock and completely up-to-date.
So if anyone has a similar problem, give Verizon Software Upgrade Assistant a shot.
I recently went to unlock my phone via Z3X box, my phone was on 4.3 they said to downgrade to 4.1, I followed the steps using Cygwin Terminal in making a custom firmware, I flashed it via Odin and it passed, however was stuck at the Samsung Logo, no usally in this case I would boot into recovery and wipe data and cache, however my Home Button does not work, so I used my Jig to force in to download mode and flashed stock I747m 4.3, went to boot and same thing stuck at the Samsung logo???? any ideas what's wrong here???
mza2k9 said:
I recently went to unlock my phone via Z3X box, my phone was on 4.3 they said to downgrade to 4.1, I followed the steps using Cygwin Terminal in making a custom firmware, I flashed it via Odin and it passed, however was stuck at the Samsung Logo, no usally in this case I would boot into recovery and wipe data and cache, however my Home Button does not work, so I used my Jig to force in to download mode and flashed stock I747m 4.3, went to boot and same thing stuck at the Samsung logo???? any ideas what's wrong here???
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tried to factory reset after the 4.3 upgrade? Sounds like you might have borked your EFS partition with the z3x box, if a reset doesn't help...
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2471421
Some info from there might be helpful if you are still stuck. I know it is for the Note 3, but many of the same ideas apply, though the mount points are most likely different thus you can't just copy and paste those commands and hope it works (might even make it worse if the partitions are that different).
Is the Home button broken or just stopped working after trying to do this stuff?
Yeah the Home button just doesn't work when you press it that's why I needed the Jig to get in to Download Mode, and the phone was fine after trying with Z3X box it didn't do anything with Samsung tools because I was on 4.3 it started when I created that custom firmware and flashed it, haven't been able to get it to boot since that even with Stock Firmware..
Think you might need to check out this thread then:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2549068
Sounds like an issue with the downgrade / bootloader deal. No Home button sounds like it might really cause some issues here though. Owning a repair shop, I'm pretty familiar with the S3 construction and it's pretty rare that the Home button stops working. Has it been repaired or gotten wet or something?
the phone was water damaged I just replaced the main board with a new one and the phone was fine minus the Home Button, and I have tried the SD card thing about 3 times now and it doesn't do anything???
Hey, so I was trying to flash my friend's s3, and apparently, I did something wrong which got me stuck up at odin mode.
Initially, I could hold the vol up + home + power button to go to recovery, but now, even that won't work as it would just show me
Samsung's logo and a red exclamation mark on top left corner.
I've downloaded the firmware stock and tried to flash it using odin however it just won't work.
It says "NAND Write Start!!!" and it just stops there (stuck forever). It should (as I know it) show a progress bar on my android and
on it's interface to tell how much it has been done, but as soon as I start, the progress bar instantly fills up (on my android, the blue line)
and its just stuck there.
I've tried to take out the battery, clear cache/reset factory, take out sd and sim. But it simply won't work.
It's just stuck on "Downloading....do not turn of target!!!"
I cannot even get the flash counter to reset (I don't know how, since I can only open up odin mode)
counter: 4
binary: yes
Currently, I don't even know if it's suppose to be charging or the battery is just draining out.
Region for this phone is Turkey.
Yes I've also unrooted the phone using KingoRoot (previously, when it could go into recovery) but no luck.
Note: I have searched other threads on this forum but I cannot get anywhere around even close to fix my device.
It's soft-bricked (I assume, of course it is).
Any idea how to fix this?
Odin Screenshot (since it's my first post, it won't allow me to post outside links, sigh,):
http: // i.imgur .com/eBVZ3NN . png
^^ Just been stuck there....
Meanwhile on my android, it just shows a full-blue progress bar. And that downloading do not turn of target.
UPDATE:
THE PROBLEM HAS BEEN RESOLVED. I DOWNLOADED A CUSTOM FIRMWARE, (LUCKILY, CLOCKWORK MOD WORKED, JUST HAD TO WAIT AFTER GOING TO RECOVER)
FLASHED IT THROUGH THERE, WAITED FOR IT TO INSTALL, RESTART. BAM.
Did the 'something wrong' include flashing a firmware for another model?
What does the model number in download mode read?
You can try the rescue firmware, search general forum,.
Yeah, wrong firmware I suppose
boomboomer said:
Did the 'something wrong' include flashing a firmware for another model?
What does the model number in download mode read?
You can try the rescue firmware, search general forum,.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was seeing this tutorial on how to install KitKat (4.4.4) on Galaxy S3. I must've made a mistake while trying to do so.
In other words, yes, flashing a firmware for another model.
You have a hard brick, sorry.
Yeah, no.
boomboomer said:
You have a hard brick, sorry.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No I don't lol. The problem has been solved anyway.
Im' glad to see you didn't give up on this, and came back to let us know what was wrong
I know this could be seen as off-topic, but the reality of devices becoming bricked isn't really possible luckily, it just takes longer to get around sometimes. If the item is worth fixing, then I always say keep at it, because I've never had an android device stay stuck so far. The only thing that really went nuts and refused to work, were 2 of the Iconia A500 tablets that lost access to their memory - but this is a common hardware fault as the RAM chips break away and need reflowing before you can even format the internal memory (it cant even see the SD cards either because the RAM comes and goes - same idea as plugging/unplugging a USB drive in Windows/Linux - it just doesn't know what to believe lol).
Great forum by the way, there's so much great information on here I get lost reading
Hi all,
I am stuck. Here is my sad story.
I have an ATT S7 that I was attempting to load the S7 Tmobile image using Odin. After hitting the encryption error in odin, my searching led to the PrinceComsey version and that got around that problem. I then hit a Fail(Auth) error and tried a few other suggestions that I found. The last part I tired as ticking the "update phone bootloader" option. Odin failed again, this time, the phone was stuck in recovery menu loop. I tried to clear and restore to factory settings, but couldn't get out the loop. Finally, it stopped booting the base menu and now I get the wonderful blue screen exclamation mark that tells me I need to use Samsung's Emergency recovery. I can't even turn the device off now. The only other thing I can get it to do is to get to the download screen.
From all I have read, it seems the next step is to upload a valid stock image with Odin and that should be that. So that's where I am stuck. I have tried a couple different images, but they all fail in one way or another. I think what I need help with is figuring out which image is the right one to install. At this point I just want to get back to a working phone, so an ATT image is fine for now, but would ultimately want to get to a Tmobile image now that I have switched carries.
Any help is much appreciated!
Use smartswitch to restore stock software.
Also, try to use the right forum , you probably get more help
Oh dang... I claim temporary insanity for putting this in the S6 forum. ugh.
In any case, thanks for the response. I got it all figured out. Here are some tidbits in case it is helpful to someone in the future.
1) Yes I tried the emergency recovery using smart switch. It turns out that you need the device serial number. It also turns out that on my ATT supplied S7, there is no s/n etched on the back. And just for laughs, it isn't even printed on the original box. So if you do not have it written down and your device isn't functioning. You are SOL.
2) After several failed attempts, the magic formula was the modified Odin and the Jan'17 SM-G390T build that I found. I selected all four files for flashing and the n-th time was the charm.
3) I am now running the Tmobile build of Nougat on my ATT S7 with everything working as it should. That includes the phone using the tmobile signal booster that the ATT build couldn't find and has wifi calling available. It is exactly as I wanted.
Hi guys.
My uncle gave me his Galaxy S3 GT-i9300, asking me to fix it. The reason is that when turned on it is stuck at the Samsung Galaxy S3 logo, without booting to the system. I can boot to Download Mode, speaking about it later. I can boot to recovery, but it gives a lot of errors about can't mount partitions or directory and files not found (such as the photo below in the attachments). Searching a while I understood that these errors are caused by broken partitions. I've successfully booted in Download Mode, but I can't flash any file with odin. If using the .pit file to repartion the eMMC, it stucks to "Get Pit For Mapping" step or it fails with "Re-partition operation failed", it depends on the Odin version I use to do it. I've let the computer to his things with the "Get Pit For Mapping" for over a night, without success. Still stuck. I've tried to flash stock boot.img, stock recovery.img and various other single images from the Stock Firmware downloaded from Sammobile. I've also tried to flash twrp and cwm. No succes, all of them stock at a certain percentage. Boot and Recovery Image always fail at 2/3 of the operation with "Complete(Write) operation failed". Neither "Nand Erase all" option works, it also fails.
I've tried so many things, including booting from the SdCard short-circuiting a resistance ç(found a giude about it on xda), no success also with this. I can't neither flash bootloader or so.
Tried to flash change cable, change port or so. I've also changed computer, no success.
My idea was to boot into TWRP (my favourite custom recovery) to save at least the photos and the music, and then flash the stock firmware.
I actually can't resolve this. Can you please help me? All help will be appreciated.
P.S.: I could try to ADB Sideload the rom, but I couldn't find .zip packages of official OTA updates.
P.P.S.: Is there a way to pull out files through ADB Sideload? I couldn't find one...
Thanks, EmaMaker.
It really looks to me like the internal memory chip has failed.
audit13 said:
It really looks to me like the internal memory chip has failed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agreed. All options have been exhausted. It's dead.
As for the adb question, only if you have a working recovery that is adb enabled like twrp or cwm..
audit13 said:
It really looks to me like the internal memory chip has failed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh come on, it can't be dead after a trivial recharge...
My s3's memory chip is still alive after 6 years and only the power button broke. And my new s3's main board (which was produced in 2012 as by written on the board) works perfectly.
Isn't there a way of completely erase the memory and reflash it, without problems?
I could make a friend change the emmc for me, replacing it with my old main board's one. Once an emmc is extracted and works as a stand-alone chip, can i try to recover files from it?
There are many s3 users whose phones are completely functional after many years of use but failed memory chips in any phone is possible.
I have a nexus 5, Samsung s4, and Samsung note 2 with defective internal memory chips. These were given to me by family and friends to use for parts. Before taking them apart, I tried everything I could to flash the phones without luck.
By normal means the phone is f00ked. Once you get to the point where it asks for pit file 9 times out of 10 the nand is corrupt. The problem is how sd memory works in the first place and its inherent flaws. That is why some phones work forever while others can die within days.
As the phones were built in many different factories using many differently sourced parts the chances of "Sudden Death Syndrome" is quite high. Some manufacturers actually purchase prebuilt cheap Chinese phones and rebrand them as their own.
If you wanted to change the nand I'm not sure if any of the chips are married to each other so that's a risk in itself. You can swap the board out with a salvage phone. You can try jtag. All of which could cost you the same as buying another s3. They are too cheap nowadays.
If you want a wierd example, my stock rooted s3 borked royally from turning off in the middle of the night due to no power. Turned it on and it puked a load of errors "e: unable to mount /****". I flashed the latest official cwm and then flashed the stock recovery and as I rebooted thinking that it was dead it booted to os!. All errors solved!. Lost root completely but at least I could flash it back to stock and start over.
That was when I started to see a pattern on the forums where twrp was the common denomination between the cases of borked phones so I googled it and there is documentation on twrp github which states the same but the cause is currently unknown. This is where I always state to be careful rooting your phone in the first place as twrp is the only recovery for nearly all phones, it has an inherent fault that no-one knows the cause of and it can lead to a dead phone. Where any other recovery is available I'd recommend that over twrp. I also noticed that the most common combo is twrp and custom roms as THE most likely to go tits up across all devices. If you must root keep it stock root.
Otherwise if twrp didn't kill it then its genuinely a dead nand, probably faulty at birth and it was a matter of time. I honestly think Samsung cheaped out on parts for the s3 and that is why so many fail.
shivadow said:
By normal means the phone is f00ked. Once you get to the point where it asks for pit file 9 times out of 10 the nand is corrupt. The problem is how sd memory works in the first place and its inherent flaws. That is why some phones work forever while others can die within days.
As the phones were built in many different factories using many differently sourced parts the chances of "Sudden Death Syndrome" is quite high. Some manufacturers actually purchase prebuilt cheap Chinese phones and rebrand them as their own.
If you wanted to change the nand I'm not sure if any of the chips are married to each other so that's a risk in itself. You can swap the board out with a salvage phone. You can try jtag. All of which could cost you the same as buying another s3. They are too cheap nowadays.
If you want a wierd example, my stock rooted s3 borked royally from turning off in the middle of the night due to no power. Turned it on and it puked a load of errors "e: unable to mount /****". I flashed the latest official cwm and then flashed the stock recovery and as I rebooted thinking that it was dead it booted to os!. All errors solved!. Lost root completely but at least I could flash it back to stock and start over.
That was when I started to see a pattern on the forums where twrp was the common denomination between the cases of borked phones so I googled it and there is documentation on twrp github which states the same but the cause is currently unknown. This is where I always state to be careful rooting your phone in the first place as twrp is the only recovery for nearly all phones, it has an inherent fault that no-one knows the cause of and it can lead to a dead phone. Where any other recovery is available I'd recommend that over twrp. I also noticed that the most common combo is twrp and custom roms as THE most likely to go tits up across all devices. If you must root keep it stock root.
Otherwise if twrp didn't kill it then its genuinely a dead nand, probably faulty at birth and it was a matter of time. I honestly think Samsung cheaped out on parts for the s3 and that is why so many fail.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your exausting answer. I will search more about jtag in the next days. I tried to flash both twrp and cwm, none of them worked.