I look at some forums on how to do it and I'm pretty positive I can do it. But what exactly are the risks?
Is there a chance of brick?
Will I lose data?
Is it even a necessary upgrade?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA Premium App
Yes, there is a chance for a brick but that is rather minimal. It's the same risk that you take each time you use ODIN one click to return to stock.
Before you flash be sure to do a backup using TiBu for your apps and I use "export to external SD card" for my contacts.
Necessary upgrade? That is all up to you to decide. I did it because I wanted something new.
McKillroy11 said:
I look at some forums on how to do it and I'm pretty positive I can do it. But what exactly are the risks?
Is there a chance of brick?
Will I lose data?
Is it even a necessary upgrade?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1.Of coarse there is a chance of a brick. Anytime you flash your device there is a potential of something going wrong. Doesn't happen that often, but it does happen. Luckily, we have lots of ways of getting out of a jam.
2.You shouldn't lose any data if you back up properly. If you need to use a computer and manually drag your pictures and music or whatever to a safe spot, or like the user above me use TiBu and make a backup of your apps and data and stuff.
3.It is not a necessary upgrade, but it is indeed exactly that.. an "upgrade"
I'm not gonna talk up which gingerbread ROMs I like, but I will say i cannot go back to froyo. The smooth, lag-free experience i have had with gingerbread has been more than pleasant.
But as always read the OP and instructions...and of coarse re-read just to be sure.
Like Nike, just do it.
Coreym said:
1.Of coarse there is a chance of a brick. Anytime you flash your device there is a potential of something going wrong. Doesn't happen that often, but it does happen. Luckily, we have lots of ways of getting out of a jam.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. Is not true. You DON'T risk bricking EVERYTIME you flash ANYTHING. The only time you risk a brick (and I mean brick as in not a thing coming out of the phone, nothing not one little sign of life at all. Nothing. Anything other than that is NOT a brick) is when you are flashing bootloaders, but if you are not flashing bootloaders, which most of the time you aren't you can not brick the worst that can happen is a situation that is commonly (and stupidly) called a "soft brick" that's just when something is broken and it can't boot all the way to a functioning OS, but again that example isn't a brick at all because it's 99.9% of the time recoverable.
OP you are flashing bootloaders so in this case there is a small risk of a brick. But like was said it's the exact same risk as odin one click.
studacris said:
1. Is not true. You DON'T risk bricking EVERYTIME you flash ANYTHING. The only time you risk a brick (and I mean brick as in not a damn thing coming out of the phone, nothing not one little sign of life at all. Nothing. Anything other than that is NOT a brick) is when you are flashing bootloaders, but if you are not flashing bootloaders, which most of the time you aren't you can not brick the worst that can happen is a situation that is commonly (and stupidly) called a "soft brick" that's just when something is broken and it can't boot all the way to a functioning OS, but again that example isn't a brick at all because it's 99.9% of the time recoverable.
OP you are flashing bootloaders so in this case there is a small risk of a brick. But like was said it's the exact same risk as odin one click.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I didn't mean to be so critical .. I more meant to say what I said in my second sentence about something COULD go wrong but thanks for explaining it better for the OP
Sent from my SGH-I897 using XDA Premium App
Even if you do brick it's nothing to freak out about. 9 times out of 10 just putting the phone into download mode and using Odin again does the trick. Even if you need to build/buy a jig, the chances that it's so bricked that you'd need to JTAG it or send it in are ridiculously small.
Superalpaca said:
Even if you do brick it's nothing to freak out about. 9 times out of 10 just putting the phone into download mode and using Odin again does the trick. Even if you need to build/buy a jig, the chances that it's so bricked that you'd need to JTAG it or send it in are ridiculously small.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
See it's this kind of stuff I'm talking about. This loose use of the term brick.
If you can recover it by any means other than jtag it's not a brick. There are no different degrees of bricking, if it's bricked it doesn't do a anything. Not a single solitary bit of computing, it just sits there doing nothing no matter what. Dead. A corpse.
It's either bricked or not. Just because the kernel/rom is broken and it doesn't boot properly does not mean it's bricked at all. If the bootloaders are intact and it tries to boot but fails at the kernel/rom level that is easily fixed. Throwing the term brick around in that situation, even when you add the retarded "soft brick" modifier, will just scare the poop out of a noob who just needs to remain calm and take the proper steps to have a working phone.
studacris said:
See it's this kind of stuff I'm talking about. This loose use of the term brick.
If you can recover it by any means other than jtag it's not a brick. There are no different degrees of bricking, if it's bricked it doesn't do a damn thing. Not a single solitary bit of computing, it just sits there doing nothing no matter what. Dead. A corpse.
It's either bricked or not. Just because the kernel/rom is broken and it doesn't boot properly does not mean it's bricked at all. If the bootloaders are intact and it tries to boot but fails at the kernel/rom level that is easily fixed. Throwing the term brick around in that situation, even when you add the retarded "soft brick" modifier, will just scare the **** out of a noob who just needs to remain calm and take the proper steps to have a working phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I hear ya and totally agree. But you do realize not that long ago, A LOT of people referred to the phone-!-computer screen as being "bricked". We know now that we are pretty far off from having an actual "bricked" phone in a lot of situations. But even the devs used to refer to that as a bricked device. Just gonna take some time for everyone to figure it out.
For me I went on YouTube and found joshs' video on how to flash continuum. It was very helpful and gave me the main idea of how the process is
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
Coreym said:
I hear ya and totally agree. But you do realize not that long ago, A LOT of people referred to the phone-!-computer screen as being "bricked". We know now that we are pretty far off from having an actual "bricked" phone in a lot of situations. But even the devs used to refer to that as a bricked device. Just gonna take some time for everyone to figure it out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Which is why I'm trying to nip that in the bud from now on, or actually about a month ago when I coined the phrase, "soft bricked" is now called "clayed" because there is no such thing as a soft brick in the real world or the phone world, if a brick is soft it hasn't been baked yet in the kiln so it's still just clay, but it works in phone terms too if you have a brick you can't mold it or change anything about it, it's a brick. With clay it's still moldable and able to be worked with.
And the phone....!....pc seen just means a flash was incomplete. flashing anything successfully, even a modem, will get rid of that screen.
Granted if the kernel/rom is still incomplete it won't boot completely and be working, it'll just be "clayed" in a bootloop. So a complete odin rom is probably needed to have a working phone, but like I said flashing anything successfully will at least get rid of that screen.
dreezy1209 said:
For me I went on YouTube and found joshs' video on how to flash continuum. It was very helpful and gave me the main idea of how the process is
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You got that URL for the YouTube video?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA Premium App
McKillroy11 said:
You got that URL for the YouTube video?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOyx5JQ_8_I
in the video he uses talon kernel, i wouldnt suggest that because now most roms are not based on jvb which that talon is, so if yoou fallow the steps with that kernel and flash a jvh based rom it will bootloop, i suggest a kernel in this thread:http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1042543
if its a jvh rom grab this one:I9000_reoriented_vG.1.2_novoo.tar
studacris said:
Which is why I'm trying to nip that in the bud from now on, or actually about a month ago when I coined the phrase, "soft bricked" is now called "clayed" because there is no such thing as a soft brick in the real world or the phone world, if a brick is soft it hasn't been baked yet in the kiln so it's still just clay, but it works in phone terms too if you have a brick you can't mold it or change anything about it, it's a brick. With clay it's still moldable and able to be worked with.
And the phone....!....pc seen just means a flash was incomplete. flashing anything successfully, even a modem, will get rid of that screen.
Granted if the kernel/rom is still incomplete it won't boot completely and be working, it'll just be "clayed" in a bootloop. So a complete odin rom is probably needed to have a working phone, but like I said flashing anything successfully will at least get rid of that screen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
"clayed"... I like it.. It makes a lot more sense than "soft-bricked" I myself will start to use that phrase thanks!
studacris said:
See it's this kind of stuff I'm talking about. This loose use of the term brick.
If you can recover it by any means other than jtag it's not a brick. There are no different degrees of bricking, if it's bricked it doesn't do a damn thing. Not a single solitary bit of computing, it just sits there doing nothing no matter what. Dead. A corpse.
It's either bricked or not. Just because the kernel/rom is broken and it doesn't boot properly does not mean it's bricked at all. If the bootloaders are intact and it tries to boot but fails at the kernel/rom level that is easily fixed. Throwing the term brick around in that situation, even when you add the retarded "soft brick" modifier, will just scare the **** out of a noob who just needs to remain calm and take the proper steps to have a working phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree, but it's a term that everybody uses. Sort of like how a ton of metal music is called "hardcore", even when it's not hardcore. Etc. I guess I just assumed that when I gave different conditions for each degree of "brick"(or clay, whatever the terminology), a noob or otherwise inexperienced person could distinguish the difference rather than see "brick" and freak out.
I dunno, I've "bricked" my phone to the point of requiring a jig before, it's super easy and nothing to get freaked out about. If anything, it's a wonderful learning experience, which is something people should be expecting when they do this sort of stuff anyways. It isn't an iPhone.
I watched the video and I don't know how to downgrade to 2.1. Also will I need to re-root my phone after going to gingerbread or the downgrade?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA Premium App
Superalpaca said:
I agree, but it's a term that everybody uses. Sort of like how a ton of metal music is called "hardcore", even when it's not hardcore. Etc. I guess I just assumed that when I gave different conditions for each degree of "brick"(or clay, whatever the terminology), a noob or otherwise inexperienced person could distinguish the difference rather than see "brick" and freak out.
I dunno, I've "bricked" my phone to the point of requiring a jig before, it's super easy and nothing to get freaked out about. If anything, it's a wonderful learning experience, which is something people should be expecting when they do this sort of stuff anyways. It isn't an iPhone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ive done it on purpose out of curiosity and wanting to see for myself, like i mentioned earlier the phone...!....pc just means a flash was marked incomplete so a fun learning experience: Flash a kernel with odin and yank the chord halfway through the flash. you might get a screen with a pretty color followed by the phone....!.....pc screen. now flash a modem with odin and let that finish like normal, the phone...!...pc screen will no longer be there, it will still be clayed because the kernel is broken, but it wont have that screen anymore. then flash the kernel like normal and it will be fixed likje nothing ever happened. this has no risk of bricking whatsoever because there are no bootloaders involved in the flash.
ive never had to use the jig i built my button combos have always worked, i still built one cause its super easy and handy to have if i ever need it but i just never have
McKillroy11 said:
I watched the video and I don't know how to downgrade to 2.1. Also will I need to re-root my phone after going to gingerbread or the downgrade?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if you are flashing a custom rom and not staying on stock gingerbread then it will already be rooted.
to return to stock everything (stock bootloaders also) use odin one click. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=731989
to return to a stock rom but still retain the gingerbread bootloaders use this package http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=995143
both of those methods of returning to stock would be an out of the box unrooted stock rom.
McKillroy11 said:
I watched the video and I don't know how to downgrade to 2.1. Also will I need to re-root my phone after going to gingerbread or the downgrade?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Use odin3 oneclick downloader. That will put you back at stock 2.1
Here it is. But if you don't know how to use it. You should really learn it.
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=SBSMALFJ
here's a vid for Odin:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDtxnH4lFuk
Sent from my SGH-I897 using XDA Premium App
studacris said:
Which is why I'm trying to nip that in the bud from now on, or actually about a month ago when I coined the phrase, "soft bricked" is now called "clayed" because there is no such thing as a soft brick in the real world or the phone world
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree the term "brick" is thrown around too liberally, but I was under the impression that a "soft brick" was a SOFTware problem, and a "hard brick" was a HARDware problem. I guess I was mistaken, since "hard bricks" can still be the result of software issues. (right?)
Sent from a phone inside a phone inside a KFC inside a McDonald's.
twvance said:
I agree the term "brick" is thrown around too liberally, but I was under the impression that a "soft brick" was a SOFTware problem, and a "hard brick" was a HARDware problem. I guess I was mistaken, since "hard bricks" can still be the result of software issues. (right?)
Sent from a phone inside a phone inside a KFC inside a McDonald's.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A hard brick occurs when the bootloaders are written improperly or gingerbread and froyo bootloaders are mixed. Completely software. If the bootloaders can't load the boot sequence you get absolutly nothing from it.
You can still recover from a hard brick with jtag, if it was a hardware problem like severe water damage there is no coming back from that at all. So I guess that's just called a broken phone.
Related
Does anyone know what will actually brick a Charge. I heard flashing the same radio twice would brick an incredible, or possibly any HTC phones, so I certainly knew to avoid it.
I kind of get the impression that Odin can take care of anything. Although I did read one thread about a perma-brick.
Is there a certain action that people are confident would perma-brick a charge.
Also, Heimdall doesn't seem to work on this thing, I dont know why I still see people in the Charge boards talking about it.
Selecting the Phone option as opposed to the PDA option in ODIN should do the trick..
Danwsim said:
Does anyone know what will actually brick a Charge. I heard flashing the same radio twice would brick an incredible, or possibly any HTC phones, so I certainly knew to avoid it.
I kind of get the impression that Odin can take care of anything. Although I did read one thread about a perma-brick.
Is there a certain action that people are confident would perma-brick a charge.
Also, Heimdall doesn't seem to work on this thing, I dont know why I still see people in the Charge boards talking about it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
things I've seen brick samsung phones (former Fascinate and current Charge user here) Using anything other than the PDA and PIT buttons in Odin, flashing corrupt files in Odin, Odin/CWM flashing numerous different roms one after another without wiping data/cache, sometimes going from voodoo to non-voodoo roms and not disabling lagfix can have bad consequences...
other than that tbh I haven't seen much brick a Charge, lots of soft bricks though (had a few myself)
Danwsim said:
Does anyone know what will actually brick a Charge. I heard flashing the same radio twice would brick an incredible, or possibly any HTC phones, so I certainly knew to avoid it.
I kind of get the impression that Odin can take care of anything. Although I did read one thread about a perma-brick.
Is there a certain action that people are confident would perma-brick a charge.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeaper, the above suggestions would probably do it. I have soft-bricked mine a few times, i.e., boot-loop, seriously looooong lag on start up, etc. nothing major. I pulled the battery, restarted and everything was fine. I am a noob to most rooting seeing as how the only other phone I rooted was my Droid Eris. But I am finding that my Charge is almost bulletproof!!!!!
Rooted Charge
Gummy Charged 1.9.2.3RC
kejar's voodoo lag fix enabled
Flashing firmware from another samsung phone should do the trick.
I've heard that if odin fails while writing the boot img you are permabricked
You aren't bricked until you can't get into download mode.
Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk
Perma-Brick?
The above mentioned items will actually perma-brick a phone, like send back to the company, calling insurance, buying a new phone perma-brick?
I've been reading through the forums and found a number of instances of severely F'ed up devices, but I have not found someone with a Samsung and access to Odin who was unable to get the phone fixed.
The HTC forums have numerous people who seem to brick phones.
I am a former incredible owner. The incredible was nice, but the battery was terrible.
d-loko said:
Selecting the Phone option as opposed to the PDA option in ODIN should do the trick..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've heard of people that have recovered from that. You just need to reflash the package in the PDA spot and it should fix it. But then again, why tempt fate?
hoppermi said:
Flashing firmware from another samsung phone should do the trick.
I've heard that if odin fails while writing the boot img you are permabricked
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Only if it includes boot.bin and sbl.bin, and even then, you may still be able to recover. Some people recovered their fascinates after flashing full at&t firmware to them, they just had to use the download mode jig to be able to get into download mode to fix the issue.
Really, the only way to perma-brick is to corrupt the flash chip, or flash corrupt boot.bin/sbl.bin files. Anything else you should be able to recover from. Flashing incorrect boot.bin/sbl.bin files may be able to be recovered, but it will be more difficult to do.
Danwsim said:
Does anyone know what will actually brick a Charge. I heard flashing the same radio twice would brick an incredible, or possibly any HTC phones, so I certainly knew to avoid it.
I kind of get the impression that Odin can take care of anything. Although I did read one thread about a perma-brick.
Is there a certain action that people are confident would perma-brick a charge.
Also, Heimdall doesn't seem to work on this thing, I dont know why I still see people in the Charge boards talking about it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think Pandora radio bricked mine, It was working fine til i used it. I believe it may have been disconnected from the headphone jack while it was playing or something.
Flashing with the battery pulled out is a baaaad idea. It isn't perma-bricked at that point, but it is very close. The only thing that I was able to recover with after lots of attempts was the SamsungPST Flash utility and the Stock EE4 that goes with it AND the .pit file to repartition the device.
So I rooted my Samsung Infuse and installed Clockwork recovery using the appropriate method for flashing the - v3 or ve or what it might be called - recovery. So then using Clockwork I backed up my current ROM (Stock). It acted funny later after so I decided to just go back and restore from a previous ROM. It said there were problems mounting a few things. Don't remember what those were. However, here is the real kicker; I may have used update.zip from the previous phone (Which seemed to be a T-Mobile My touch 3G with a 32A something and a 32B something else, similar to the Fender) I had since all I did was switch out the external SD cards since they were both the same size and I had all of my music on the My Touch.
So, if it did flash the Update.zip, is my phone, for the most part, completely bricked? It's symptoms include:
- Static pictures
- Will not boot into recovery
- Will display 'Samsung' but then cuts to static afterwards.
- Shows Battery meter when plugged in and my computer still recognizes and installs the device drivers.
- It will boot into Download mode. Dunno if that actually will help at this point.
If it still turns on you're golden. Just look for the ultimate unbrick thread in the development section and follow the op instructions to go back to stock. The unbrick also is pre rooted and had the right recovery installed, so you're good to flash stuff after
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997R using XDA Premium App
Cool, so somehow this fixed a phone which had a Fender radio flash. Since that's the case, what should I be worried about in the future that might permanently brick my phone?
Mr.Brosnan said:
Cool, so somehow this fixed a phone which had a Fender radio flash. Since that's the case, what should I be worried about in the future that might permanently brick my phone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Trashing your partitions and bootloaders. Tho I'm not an expert on Samsung devices those seem to be the main causes of true bricks.
Sent from my HTC Thunderbolt
So if I change the partitions to like an ext3 filesystem is that considered trashing it? Yes, I'm fairly new to this entire in depth Android experience. I only took the Android over the iPhone because I am experienced with Linux and only touched a MAC (Referring to the Apple Operating System and not MAC cosmetics) three times.
Well, now I can't download anything in the market due to an 'Unknown error'. I mean, I can receive emails, I think I can call and text. I just can't use my smart phone to do dumb things now. This is a very disturbing complication and I will set off to find the cure for this ailment by posting here again.
Mr.Brosnan said:
Well, now I can't download anything in the market due to an 'Unknown error'. I mean, I can receive emails, I think I can call and text. I just can't use my smart phone to do dumb things now. This is a very disturbing complication and I will set off to find the cure for this ailment by posting here again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you could try a factory reset or
you could just start over
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1116251
and or
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1092021
JBO1018 said:
Trashing your partitions and bootloaders. Tho I'm not an expert on Samsung devices those seem to be the main causes of true bricks.
Sent from my HTC Thunderbolt
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mainly bootloaders, and ours have enough protection that it's difficult to trash them.
It's next to impossible to hardbrick our phone. Worst case you put it in a state where you need to Odin/Heimdall something to fix it.
Entropy512 said:
Mainly bootloaders, and ours have enough protection that it's difficult to trash them.
It's next to impossible to hardbrick our phone. Worst case you put it in a state where you need to Odin/Heimdall something to fix it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good stuff to know considering my next phone is a toss up at this point between the Prime and Vigor.
Sent from my HTC Thunderbolt
I think I posted this in the wrong forum, I suppose I was a little confused on my phone
I have a US AT&T version of the i727 Skyrocket. I think i accidentally flashed an improper kernel:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1369977
I didn't realize I was browsing the wrong forum *sigh*.
Anyway, when I went to reboot after installing the kernel in CWM, I get a black screen. If I hold down both volume buttons and plug in USB, I get nothing. It doesn't seem to put it in download mode. There, it doesn't get recognized in ODIN.
What are my options here? Would a "jig" actually do anything in this case? I can't tell the scenarios it can actually recover from and not.
Hard brick, its done
Jtag or send to samsung
hedpe said:
I think I posted this in the wrong forum, I suppose I was a little confused on my phone
I have a US AT&T version of the i727 Skyrocket. I think i accidentally flashed an improper kernel:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1369977
I didn't realize I was browsing the wrong forum *sigh*.
Anyway, when I went to reboot after installing the kernel in CWM, I get a black screen. If I hold down both volume buttons and plug in USB, I get nothing. It doesn't seem to put it in download mode. There, it doesn't get recognized in ODIN.
What are my options here? Would a "jig" actually do anything in this case? I can't tell the scenarios it can actually recover from and not.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If it does absolutely nothing, i'd say you bricked it which is quite possible if you flashed something for another phone. I don't think a jig will do you any good, based on things i've read before. Not 100%. Maybe someone else will give you some better input.
thanks for the replies. I can't get it in to download mode at all, so I'm afraid it's hard bricked.
Are there any guides to doing the jtag repair yourself? I'm pretty tech-savvy and comfortable opening up the phone, etc. I could get my hands on a jtag unit.
I just don't want to keep bricking it and sending it out for another $50. I'd rather have a solution where I can fix it myself.
hedpe said:
thanks for the replies. I can't get it in to download mode at all, so I'm afraid it's hard bricked.
Are there any guides to doing the jtag repair yourself? I'm pretty tech-savvy and comfortable opening up the phone, etc. I could get my hands on a jtag unit.
I just don't want to keep bricking it and sending it out for another $50. I'd rather have a solution where I can fix it myself.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know any off hand, but why would you keep bricking it?
xcrazydx said:
I don't know any off hand, but why would you keep bricking it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd hope not to, but on my first try I bricked it. I've never bricked my Nexus S after a ton of crappy kernels. Sigh...
Doesn't look like anyone has figured out a homebrew JTAG solution.
hedpe said:
I'd hope not to, but on my first try I bricked it. I've never bricked my Nexus S after a ton of crappy kernels. Sigh...
Doesn't look like anyone has figured out a homebrew JTAG solution.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, jtag for this phone was just made possible only a month or two ago. There may be a guide somewhere, but I dunno. You flashed something from a completely different phone, any time you do that you are pretty much guaranteed a brick. Just pay attention to what you're doing, man. Read more and flash less.
xcrazydx said:
Well, jtag for this phone was just made possible only a month or two ago. There may be a guide somewhere, but I dunno. You flashed something from a completely different phone, any time you do that you are pretty much guaranteed a brick. Just pay attention to what you're doing, man. Read more and flash less.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Right, understandable. Lesson learned there.
I can't tell if this is legitimate or not:
http://www.jtagbox.com/2012/03/page/2/
$50 isn't too bad. Obviously doing it yourself, if you could, would be better. I'd be on the safe side though and have mobiletech (i'm assuming you know about them), do it.
Looking through the forums can be a little scary...mostly because of all the "phone stuck" and "PLEASE HELP" threads. My old phone was pretty much hard to brick, if something went wrong... just flashed back to stock (using ODIN). But the risk seems greater with the Hox. I can understand why people root and flash, obviously. But theres always that little voice saying, "If you f**k up, then you dont have a phone". How did you convince yourselves to take the risk?
roguly said:
Looking through the forums can be a little scary...mostly because of all the "phone stuck" and "PLEASE HELP" threads. My old phone was pretty much hard to brick, if something went wrong... just flashed back to stock (using ODIN). But the risk seems greater with the Hox. I can understand why people root and flash, obviously. But theres always that little voice saying, "If you f**k up, then you dont have a phone". How did you convince yourselves to take the risk?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
right now, there honestly is really little chance for you to f**k up the hox unless you do something really stupid like flash an international hox rom or... idk what. stick to the tried and true methods: use twrp, wipe before flashing, and stick to att hox roms. Worst case scenario, if you get into a situation where you cannot boot and recovery says sd card not mounted (like I did a few weeks ago), easy peasy. Boot into bootloader and fastboot, then oem fastboot relock and flash ruu. RUU right now is almost like a get-out-of-jail card for any soft brick you might have (unless you hard brick it or mess with hboot). tbh, I know that I bought this phone to be able to flash roms and mod. If I am scared of that little risk, then I should go back to my iPhone LOL
roguly said:
Looking through the forums can be a little scary...mostly because of all the "phone stuck" and "PLEASE HELP" threads. My old phone was pretty much hard to brick, if something went wrong... just flashed back to stock (using ODIN). But the risk seems greater with the Hox. I can understand why people root and flash, obviously. But theres always that little voice saying, "If you f**k up, then you dont have a phone". How did you convince yourselves to take the risk?
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Click to collapse
Read and reread if you don't know what your doing. It's pretty hard to brick this phone. Just read the install instructions. The benefits out way the risks.
Sent from my HTC One X using xda premium
When I joined I never flashed a rom before let alone root and unlock and soff.
I found this forum and read the helpful guides, read them again asked my questions before I proceeded and have never had a problem.
You'll find 99% of the time when someone posts a problem its because they didn't follow instructions.
roguly said:
Looking through the forums can be a little scary...mostly because of all the "phone stuck" and "PLEASE HELP" threads. My old phone was pretty much hard to brick, if something went wrong... just flashed back to stock (using ODIN). But the risk seems greater with the Hox. I can understand why people root and flash, obviously. But theres always that little voice saying, "If you f**k up, then you dont have a phone". How did you convince yourselves to take the risk?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ya know, this forum is a funny place. For each one of those help threads you see there is someone trying to intentionally brick their phone so they can send it back for replacement.
Personally I think they're scumbags for doing so and should have to live without a phone, but there's nothing you can really do about that.
I guess I convinced myself to start flashing stuff on my brand new $600 gadget because I had something else in line if something went wrong. I had my eye on this super neat Sony Experia Active phone, which is only $250 new (its waterproof and scratch proof. You should check it out!). If something goes wrong I can always get that. My financial situation this summer is pretty good (for once) so I can afford the risk.
Sent from my HTC One X using xda premium
Flashing something on the HOX is safe compared to the thought of randomly losing your imei like on the sgs3. Just stay with stuff you find in these forums.
The steps seem complicated but the guides are pretty much step by step, you just have to be patient. There was a couple times where I thought my phone wasn't going to boot back up because it was taking too long, but I just gave it time. Flashing new ROMs every couple days is a habit for me, so there's no way I could own an Android device and not root. Right now the benefits may not be good enough for you to flash because we still lack source code, but to me the ROMs we have now are 100000000x better than the stock ROM. Yeah stock is fast, but these are much faster and have tweaks that really make the phone "you" and not something you can just pick up off the shelf.
roguly said:
Looking through the forums can be a little scary...mostly because of all the "phone stuck" and "PLEASE HELP" threads. My old phone was pretty much hard to brick, if something went wrong... just flashed back to stock (using ODIN). But the risk seems greater with the Hox. I can understand why people root and flash, obviously. But theres always that little voice saying, "If you f**k up, then you dont have a phone". How did you convince yourselves to take the risk?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
All those "phone stuck" and "PLEASE HELP" threads are posted by n00bs who jump in the deep end without learning to swim. Or even READ about swimming. If you follow the instructions for whatever you are trying to do to your HOX, be it root, unlock, flash a ROM, etc., there is very little risk of turning your phone into a paperweight. Even if something goes wrong, a RUU will fix your problem 99 times out of 100. There is always a risk, but the very minimal risk is well worth the boundless gains. You think the HOX is a bad ass device stock? It's 1000 times better rooted and ROM'd.
_MetalHead_ said:
All those "phone stuck" and "PLEASE HELP" threads are posted by n00bs who jump in the deep end without learning to swim. Or even READ about swimming. If you follow the instructions for whatever you are trying to do to your HOX, be it root, unlock, flash a ROM, etc., there is very little risk of turning your phone into a paperweight. Even if something goes wrong, a RUU will fix your problem 99 times out of 100. There is always a risk, but the very minimal risk is well worth the boundless gains. You think the HOX is a bad ass device stock? It's 1000 times better rooted and ROM'd.
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Click to collapse
I agree, it gets much better with a rom and radio installed. Also the main bricks out there arent from everyday rom flashing. They are from s-off attempt testing and yes from not following instructions. Be careful with apps from playstore that install a recovery. Best to do that manually.
roguly said:
Looking through the forums can be a little scary...mostly because of all the "phone stuck" and "PLEASE HELP" threads. My old phone was pretty much hard to brick, if something went wrong... just flashed back to stock (using ODIN). But the risk seems greater with the Hox. I can understand why people root and flash, obviously. But theres always that little voice saying, "If you f**k up, then you dont have a phone". How did you convince yourselves to take the risk?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Read before you flash and you'll be okay.
Sent from my HTC One X using xda app-developers app
Root & Rom is synonymous with Android. I can't imagine owning an android device and not rooting it. I normally give every device the prerequisite 2 weeks stock before I root. The hox I gave a month because I was loving it so much.
Eventually though I always root. Been doing since the days of the G1 when htc actually came pre installed with aosp lol.
Sent from my HTC One X using xda app-developers app
Everything has a risk to it. Change a light bulb in a lamp, and you run the risk of knocking the lamp over and breaking it. But nobody in their right mind is going to replace the whole lamp whenever it needs a new bulb, just because they are afraid of breaking it. Overly simplistic comparison, for sure. But you see what I'm getting at.
Follow instructions, read the warnings, and read up as much as you can on each step along the way, and you will most likely be fine. If things go wrong, flashing the RUU will fix a soft brick 99% of the tiime.
Read and read more. Watch a you tube tutorial maybe. I did both for days and got my hox, then I read more on here for 3 days before starting. Went slow, took me 2 hours to root, unlock bl, install recovery and finally a rom I liked and still liked.
Print out the directions if you have to. I had my iPad out open to the problems others had lol.
Is really not all that hard overall
Sent from my HTC One X
I just want to know cuz I'm a coward and I don't want to flash my own roms
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 2
cpu999 said:
I just want to know cuz I'm a coward and I don't want to flash my own roms
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 2
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Click to collapse
You are my hero of the day
Seriously though, a couple things can cause bricks. Battery pull during radio flash. Flashing a kernel with the wrong mount points. Formatting internal memory is a good way. Not like normal in recovery when you wipe, but in the way when you make your updater-script and aren't paying close attention to what your doing, lol. Yes, I have done this, haha.
There is plenty more ways for sure, but just pay close attention to what your doing and watch other devs around you and learn what they are doing and you'll be fine.
And how do you recover? USB isn't an option anymore and you need a JTAG or similar?
lap777 said:
And how do you recover? USB isn't an option anymore and you need a JTAG or similar?
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Click to collapse
Well normally there isn't a way to recover, hence "hard bricked". But, if there is a way there will be a recovery method posted somewhere in your device forums to recover bricks. Its a hard thing to come back from though.
Here is a pretty good example of a hard brick that a fix was eventually found for quite awhile after the device was released, went through eol, and people started leaving for newer devices. All credits go to the legend, Doug Piston of course. HTC Droid Incredible and its 5 vibe hard brick: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1110865
I heard jcase (teamandirc) say the GS3 is pretty easy to recover though, so I'm not sure you'd have much issue if you did brick. I'm not familiar with Samsung, I use HTC devices, so I'm not sure what method you boys would use.
I know for HTC devices, bricks most commonly occur when we accidentally mount something wrong, format something incorrectly, or a lot here lately, libs. Libs can cause issues to. The good thing though is we have the protection of a secure bootloader, s-on, which means if something harmful is flashed it won't hurt the phone since the bootloader is unlocked through HTC but still s-on. I think Samsung is about the same in this area. But I don't know. I'm just bored and felt like typing a bunch of text, lol
Good man.
Sent from my ZTE N881E using xda premium