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[Q] Has someone attempted to Root and/or Install, Flash a Custom ROM on my phone?

I sold my Android phone recently, which was only 3 months old and in perfect condition. However, the person I sold it to was using it for around a month without any problems. Then all of a sudden he said the phone was stuck on the Android logo/Boot up screen and does not go to the Swipe screen to unlock screen. I am assuming he has tried to root the phone or install, flash a custom ROM, but messed it up. Is it possible to find out whether or not someone has attempted (incorrectly) to root the phone or install a custom ROM, causing it to be stuck on the boot menu, by looking at the phone? Note: Power ON + Volume Up/Down is still functional on the phone. Or is there another possible reason as to why this could of happened?

Chances are the phone has been tampered with and incorrectly.

Just buy the phone back for 1/3 of the original cost informing him that he bricked it and move on. You don't need liabilities like that floating around and coming back to haunt you, or worse, shoot/stab you because they're retarded. I never sell a phone to somebody I know is too stupid to use it properly in whatever fashion they'll likely think of. Just something I found out over the years selling used items to idiots on Craigslist and having to play tech support for them later for stupid simple things.

[Q] Has unrooting for warranty ever worked for anyone?

So I have a new Galaxy S3 I747 Bell Canada, and I'm thinking of rooting it, but I still have 11 months of warranty left. Now I know that I can just follow the complicated guides to 'unroot' it, if I need to send it back, but has that ever actually worked for anyone here?
Because think about it. If you need to send your phone back for warranty, it is probably broken, right? If your phone is broken, how can you possibly unroot it first? Sure there are some non-bricked reasons you could send your phone back, such as a broken camera or a small deadzone in the touchscreen, but I'm just worried that my phone will suffer a NAND flash breakdown (after that whole kefuffle in the news) or a malfunctioning CPU while in a rooted state.
But then I think, well if the NAND flash or CPU completely dies, will THEY even be able to tell if the phone is rooted? I mean sure they have tools where they can rip the flash out of the mobo and read it and see if it's rooted, but to do all that would cost them labour hours. I would imagine if I sent back a rooted phone with just a broken camera, they would turn on the phone and see the big "THIS PHONE IS ROOTED!!!" message and refuse my warranty, but if I can turn my phone on, I will unroot it before I send it in for a broken camera. But if the phone CANT turn on, would they really bother with all those low-level hardware tools to try and fix my phone and see if its rooted? Wouldn't they just send me a new phone, and possibly try and refurbish my broken one to resell, without ever noticing that its rooted?

Depends on what your issue. Most of the buttons on my D2 stopped working and I had to send it in for warranty. Had to sbf and wipe and then it was fine. VZ has additional "root counter" features, but as you aren't using their device the standard unroot procedures should be fine. I think they take care of the on-board root counter.
If your phone is completely unusable then you're just out back. Obviously you can't take care of what you need to do if the phone isn't functioning at all. That said, depending on the damage they might not even be able to check for root anyway, and they just might not care. Also depends on your carrier's policies.

Honestly i don't recomend rooting ur phone on the the warranty period

Wipe Cache / Data without recovery possibly in odin? Or maybe adb?

Hello everyone, I've enjoyed my sgs3 for several years now a few months after its release. It's been through hell and back but has worked never skipping a beat until about a week ago.
The screen suddenly became non-responsive. I'm thinking the digitizer is probably bad or something. Someone recommended restoring the factory rom via odin as a last resort. Although I doubt this will work, because not only was I unable to unlock the phone in the rom, I also was unable to unlock twrp. This leads me to believe digitizer issues. Now I could buy the digitizer with a screen for about 65 dollars or just buy a used sgs3 for a few more bucks from swappa. The problem is I don't have those few bucks to spend. Hell I'm on selectel's cheapest non-data plan for goodness sake.
I have successfully put MB1 back on the phone via odin. However this replaces the stock recovery, and I am unable to wipe data in the stock recovery because you must use the power button to select the options. I ripped that out over a year ago when it was causing me problems with random rebooting. I did all I could to keep the power button going using several methods, which worked for a while but eventually I pulled the damn thing out. I realize I could take apart the phone solder two wires to the board and use that for a makeshift switch but I don't want to go through that in all honesty.
What do you experts here think? Is it now junk ready to be sold for scrap or given away, or does anyone know of a way to wipe data so I can at least get it to boot and maybe just maybe salvage this thing? I just bought a nice new hybrid case about 2 days before this occurred for about 4 bucks because my case was falling apart..
I'd like to be able to wipe data/cache from odin, or somehow use adb from the odin screen. Stock recovery isn't an option and I can't for the life of me get TWRP or CWM touch to flash. I don't know why but it fails every time. I've read and read until I'm blue in the face, and there's a sticky here in this section about using the sdcard to unbrick phones, but my pc doesn't have a card reader so that's a no go too.
Thanks in advance

griz.droidx said:
Hello everyone, I've enjoyed my sgs3 for several years now a few months after its release. It's been through hell and back but has worked never skipping a beat until about a week ago.
The screen suddenly became non-responsive. I'm thinking the digitizer is probably bad or something. Someone recommended restoring the factory rom via odin as a last resort. Although I doubt this will work, because not only was I unable to unlock the phone in the rom, I also was unable to unlock twrp. This leads me to believe digitizer issues. Now I could buy the digitizer with a screen for about 65 dollars or just buy a used sgs3 for a few more bucks from swappa. The problem is I don't have those few bucks to spend. Hell I'm on selectel's cheapest non-data plan for goodness sake.
I have successfully put MB1 back on the phone via odin. However this replaces the stock recovery, and I am unable to wipe data in the stock recovery because you must use the power button to select the options. I ripped that out over a year ago when it was causing me problems with random rebooting. I did all I could to keep the power button going using several methods, which worked for a while but eventually I pulled the damn thing out. I realize I could take apart the phone solder two wires to the board and use that for a makeshift switch but I don't want to go through that in all honesty.
What do you experts here think? Is it now junk ready to be sold for scrap or given away, or does anyone know of a way to wipe data so I can at least get it to boot and maybe just maybe salvage this thing? I just bought a nice new hybrid case about 2 days before this occurred for about 4 bucks because my case was falling apart..
I'd like to be able to wipe data/cache from odin, or somehow use adb from the odin screen. Stock recovery isn't an option and I can't for the life of me get TWRP or CWM touch to flash. I don't know why but it fails every time. I've read and read until I'm blue in the face, and there's a sticky here in this section about using the sdcard to unbrick phones, but my pc doesn't have a card reader so that's a no go too.
Thanks in advance
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Hmm, not sure, can you get the phone to boot? You have touch access still?
You could simply reroot the thing without touching the phone at all, then use Odin to flash twrp to your phone once it's rooted. Before you can use adb you have to activate debugging, which is impossible without being able to use the touch screen.
There is no adb command for what you're asking for. However, it's possible through fastboot. But I don't think we ever got fastboot to work for the S3. It's a specific bootloader menu similar to download mode.
If you cant do it in an easy way, I'd suggest getting another phone.

Thanks, yeah, I'm not going to repair it when I can buy one for 69-70 or get a better one for a little more. I'm not crazy about some of the newer devices being locked down so hard or not having removable batteries or sd card slots. I know they exist. Guess I'll have to do some homework if it comes to that. The touch access is the issue along with not having the power button, and no it won't boot. It goes past two boot images, static images, then loops during the boot ani. I've let it sit for about 10 minutes. This should be plenty of time.
Thanks for the reply

griz.droidx said:
Thanks, yeah, I'm not going to repair it when I can buy one for 69-70 or get a better one for a little more. I'm not crazy about some of the newer devices being locked down so hard or not having removable batteries or sd card slots. I know they exist. Guess I'll have to do some homework if it comes to that. The touch access is the issue along with not having the power button, and no it won't boot. It goes past two boot images, static images, then loops during the boot ani. I've let it sit for about 10 minutes. This should be plenty of time.
Thanks for the reply
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sounds like you're doing everything you can.
As a last ditch effort to give your phone a bit of life, you could just load the newest version. Sure it'll lock your phone and you won't be able to unlock it anymore, but if you load all the latest software it'll be completely stock. I'm sure it'll boot up then, then you can see exactly what you have to work with.

Thanks for the reply again, I think I'm going to stick with MB1 for now. I don't want to lock it up at the moment. Although I doubt the experience could be that much different, better in some ways and worse in others by doing that, I prefer freedom if I can keep it. ha ha. Master Cylinder has mentioned a few more things to try and should they work, I'll post the results here.
I did use a paper clip to activate a data cache wipe in stock recovery since I don't have a power button. This was the first time I needed the button in over a year, I was going to solder two pieces of wire to use as a power button but my soldering iron is shot.
thanks again

hard brick - any hope?

So, I flashed my S8+ onto BatMan-Rom today with no apparent issues. Clean flash, booted with no problems. While restoring apps (not system data) with Titanium Backup, my phone's screen switched off and I couldn't get it back on. The phone got really hot but would not reset with holding power+vol+bixby or any other button combination. Tried plugging into my PC, ADB didn't detect the phone. Desperate, I disassembled the phone far enough to disconnect the battery from the mainboard and then reconnect it, hoping that would force some kind of reset. Instead, I went from a hot phone I couldn't do anything with to a cold one. No button combo gets me anything - no recovery, no odin mode, nothing. Am I as screwed as I think I am? It seems to me I'm out $900 on a paperweight, and I can't even figure out what went wrong since I wasn't messing with anything at the system level when this happened.

tardis_42 said:
So, I flashed my S8+ onto BatMan-Rom today with no apparent issues. Clean flash, booted with no problems. While restoring apps (not system data) with Titanium Backup, my phone's screen switched off and I couldn't get it back on. The phone got really hot but would not reset with holding power+vol+bixby or any other button combination. Tried plugging into my PC, ADB didn't detect the phone. Desperate, I disassembled the phone far enough to disconnect the battery from the mainboard and then reconnect it, hoping that would force some kind of reset. Instead, I went from a hot phone I couldn't do anything with to a cold one. No button combo gets me anything - no recovery, no odin mode, nothing. Am I as screwed as I think I am? It seems to me I'm out $900 on a paperweight, and I can't even figure out what went wrong since I wasn't messing with anything at the system level when this happened.
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Oh, dude...I feel your pain....wish I could help.
Can't you just contact the retailer and sort of, ahem, forget to tell them that you rooted it and took it apart and that it just, well, simply broke?
Surely there's some kinda warranty?
Or claim on home contents insurance?
Sorry i can't be more help..but hopefully some of the XDA experts will be replying very soon.
Come on guys, try and help this guy out:good:
Matt

matthew33 said:
Can't you just contact the retailer and sort of, ahem, forget to tell them that you rooted it and took it apart and that it just, well, simply broke?
Surely there's some kinda warranty?
Or claim on home contents insurance?
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You're proposing fraud, which is a form of theft. And ultimately, it's all the other customers who subsidize such acts.

What we customers are subsidizing is Samsung's greedy bull**** of producing different versions of a product specifically so they can get away with not offering warranty coverage for unlocked/rooted devices in North America. If there were a way for me to game the system to force them (or a retailer) to replace my phone, believe me, I would, especially since this happened when I was restoring apps and not in the course of flashing a rom or otherwise messing with anything at the system level; it does feel like a defect in the device to me at this point.
That's all academic though, since I'm outside the retailer's return window and there's not going to be anything accomplished through that angle. Worst case scenario at this point is selling the device for parts and going back to my Nexus 6P with all its battery issues until I can get my hands on a phone made by a company that doesn't pull this "no warranty for power users" crap - an Essential Phone or a Pixel 2 XL, I guess. But I would of course prefer to find a way to fix my S8+. At the moment I think the first problem is that it's not charging - battery doesn't even get warmer than room temperature after being plugged in for hours. I'm going to try a wireless charger tonight and see if the charger lights up saying it's connected to the device, but I'm not holding out much hope.
I've read that previous Galaxy devices could be reflashed to stock with special USB devices that repair shops had access to...do we know if there's anything like that with the S8?

"Power users" amount to nothing now with all the millions sold and billions made. They make more locking down there stuff. Doing the stuff we do now is considered a security risk.

Look, this is getting off topic. Whether or not you think billion-dollar corporations should be able to artificially create situations that drive certain customers to purchase devices without warranty coverage so they can ignore us when things go wrong and make another easy $800 is not really important. The situation I'm in is what it is, and I imagine others might find themselves in that situation sooner or later, so does anyone have any ideas on a) how this might have happened in the first place or b) what I might try in the way of repairs, short of replacing the mainboard?

tardis_42 said:
Look, this is getting off topic. Whether or not you think billion-dollar corporations should be able to artificially create situations that drive certain customers to purchase devices without warranty coverage so they can ignore us when things go wrong and make another easy $800 is not really important. The situation I'm in is what it is, and I imagine others might find themselves in that situation sooner or later, so does anyone have any ideas on a) how this might have happened in the first place or b) what I might try in the way of repairs, short of replacing the mainboard?
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just sent it to change/repair using ur garant...it seems a phisical problem more than firmware/software issue...if not go to a repair service so they can check wich piece is making the problem.
Theres a posibility is the mainboard so dont waste more time asking here and go to a repair center in or out of warranty.

Factory reset a Phone with broken screen

Hey guys.
I have a Samsung Galaxy a51 but last week the screen broke. I cant see anything besides green lines and such.
Now i wanna either repair the screen or throw it away. But i wanna do factory reset in all cases. I think there might be possibility in recovery Mode but on this phone seems difficult.
So anyone with a Galaxy a51 can you probably tell me what and how i have to press to get blindly to recovery in order to execute the factory reset?
As another notice: i never used any unlock code, but since digitizer is broken also i cant use touch. Vol+/- and Power is working, device is powering up but not adb . It shows as symbol on pc but since i cant swype to top to get off Lockscreen i cant access the folders.
Maybe someone can help

If you're going to throw it away simply use the 5 pound sledge clean wipe technique.
Otherwise you'll need to bring up the boot menu and count down the menu mentally as you click the volume key... you get the idea.
The 5# sledge is a lot easier

Okay so destroying the device is easier? I thought so. But maybe i can even do better and fix the screen myself, this would be another way.
Another idea would use otg with HDMI and usb but not sure if it would work

I'm just saying if you're not going to try and repair it... not saying it's the wisest course of action.
If you change your Google and Samsung passwords most of the links will be locked out anyway.
This is another overlooked advantage to having an SD card and using it as a data drive.
You can simple physically remove the data.

Humm. I think it will depend on how much i wanna spend on it. I dunno how much is it worth? I think it was around 280€ (Well yes euro, im from Germany anyway).

I got my phone (a samsung galaxy note 5 (sm n920c)) bricked while flashing stock firmware with odin. The process ran successfully but the phone couldn't boot further after showing the Samsung logo. I can't go into developer options and enable usb debugging or enable oem, unlock bootloader and boot a custom rom etc since the phone won't work and everything is locked.
I tried to flash twrp with odin but no success. On top of all these things now the phone won't stay for longer in the download mode (odin mode) except for few seconds, may be I have lost support for the battery, and I can't get to try a different method such as custom cwm recovery for getting into the recovery mode and installing a custom rom. I have tried to remove the battery and rely on external power but I don't know why the phone doesn't even go into the odin mode without battery.
Is there a possible solution or I should feed my dustbin something valuable.

p0w3r_off said:
Humm. I think it will depend on how much i wanna spend on it. I dunno how much is it worth? I think it was around 280€ (Well yes euro, im from Germany anyway).
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Add to that thought there may be more damage than just the display. Tough call especially if money is tight.

@blackhawk we're still not done. Add costs for the necessary tools. And think about the working time humm. Doesnt fit the bill. Suddenly the 5 pound sounds pretty good. Maybe i Just lay it under the wheel of my car, just drive over it. Might work as well lol

p0w3r_off said:
@blackhawk we're still not done. Add costs for the necessary tools. And think about the working time humm. Doesnt fit the bill. Suddenly the 5 pound sounds pretty good. Maybe i Just lay it under the wheel of my car, just drive over it. Might work as well lol
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Microwave oven, bonfire... ideally you want to destroy the flash memory chipset but that's probably way over kill.

I wonder if i break the phone if the battery could potentially explode. This is why i would simply deassemble the device and kill the board

p0w3r_off said:
I wonder if i break the phone if the battery could potentially explode. This is why i would simply deassemble the device and kill the board
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Just drain the battery before hand. Or set it aside for now, no rush.

Yes there is really no rush. Luckily i have a second phone which with im writing currently. This is working very fine.

I always use a case. They've saved my devices countless times.

This time i used one with only back protection. I should have known better. But the flip books are Always getting dirty. Feels dirty after few months but well this one here now at least have a flip book cover

This one. Easy to hold, clean and doesn't attract dirt. Pretty good heat dissipation.
Excellent drop protection. Never comes apart in a drop. The case kick stand eventually breaks but it's not needed.
My N10+ has taken close to a dozen 2-4 foot drops onto concrete with zero damage. It wuvs to corner hit when it's not face planting.

Nice. Thanks for the recommodation i might as well try this one.
Btw, i did what i mentioned First.
For all ppl that wanna factory reset their phone blindfolded, whyever:
1. Let the battery die
2. Charge it for ca 5 min
3. Connect to pc, hold power and vol up until it vibrates. Let go of power button as soon as it vibrates.
4. Press vol down exact one time and then press power button
5. Start fastboot on pc, Check if device is connected
6. Execute fastboot -w for purgeing userdata
7. Reboot with fastboot reboot
Now the 5 pound can work as well
But one thing is certainley strange. After i played around with fastboot oem unlock without activating unlock oem in debug menu it shows on every pc as unknown device and never boots up. Feels like its bricked. Very strange thou. Probably the battery died while try to execute fastboot unlock or sth
And yeah its starting to turn into a hobby of mine to play with devices til they get Hardware bricked. The Huawei p20 suffered a bit different but also somehow relateable damage (tried to unlock bl but short circuited everything on the PCB lol). I cant deny its fun to Check out the edge of possibilities there are in android phones