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[q] please please please help** i can only go as far as the bootloader

PLEASE PLEASE HELP i tried unlocking and rooting my nexus s, but i epic failed... now i can only access the bootloader... so i accessed it... unlocked it.. then tried to flash the clockworkmod recovery.. it said OKAY but then just gets stuck at the google screen with an unlocked lock.. i can't even access my phone.. i can only access the bootloader and im freaking out please help !

I don't like 3.0.2.4 so download http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=988686 corresponding to your Nexus S model
rename it to recovery.img [assure that you have extensions shown otherwise it'll be recovery.img.img]
put it in /sdk/tools/
set your phone in bootloader mode
cd <wherever your SDK is>
fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
go into recovery

OH MY GOSH, KAY NOW I HAVE CLOCKWORK MOD but i can't access my internal SD card.. and it still won't fully boot.. again it just gets stuck at the google bootscreen.. but atleast i have clockwork mod.. so whats next ? :O

so i got clockwork recovery, and as soon as i get into it.. it gives me a bunch of errors about not being able to mount cache and find it and find the recovery.log (about 8 or 9 lines of code).. but the recovery still works.. and i found a stock zip from google search.. now i tried to flash it (by first mounting my storage.. then putting the zip on my storage).. then tryed to a restore from the recovery.. it checks MD5 sums.. then it gives me a lot more error codes... could you please help ?

Well, to begin with, you should specify your phone model and provider because each build needs different ROM. And you shouldn't flash any random ROM from google. Instead try to lookup for the correct stock ROM in the Nexus S Development forum.

well im with Rogers Wireless (From Canada) and my phone model is the GT-I9020 and the problem im pretty much getting now is that it can't find boot and cache partitions...
EDIT** i can access adb aswell now

Have you tried downloading and flashing a custom rom from the nexus s android development section? (CM7 for instance) You mentioned previously that you put a stock zip to your internal storage but ended up restoring instead? Try downloading a custom rom, mount USB drive, copy the rom to the sdcard, unmount USB drive, wipe factory, wipe cache, advanced>wipe dalvik, choose zip to install, install the custom rom. Ideally that should get you past the Google logo and into a working build.
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App

the thing is.. it can't even restore the original zip.. like the partitions can't be found.. and it seems like its a brick now plus the phone isnt rooted... i was trying to root it.. then this whole thing came up...

When you say restoring from original zip, are you talking about a nandroid backup? Or a stock rom you downloaded? In any case, I would still recommend doing what I mentioned earlier. And no, your phone is not bricked at all.
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App

it's a nandroid backup ( i took the img. bundle in the folder thats labeled with the date *ie. 2010-12-22.21.06.07*).. i tried installing this as a backup.. and it wouldn;t work.. i got *checking md5 sum.. then 6 or 7 lines of code all seeming to relate to not being able to mount the cache partition and not being able to find recovery.log in the /cache... so i think my cache-ext is screwed up.. I tried using the sdpart script in adb.. and it didnt help matters... so im not sure what to do now

Returning to stock + clean memory

Cant find an answer for my question:
I am reinstalling some ROMs. Came from Captivate a few days ago (dropped in in the toilet and didnt think it would come back to life, it did lol, after i bought an infuse)
When flashing captivate roms the return to stock odin/heimdalls also format your sd cards, I noticed when returning to stock on the infuse my sd card is still full of crap from the last rom, how do I go about fixing that, can I just format it in CWM or will that ruin ROM install, as I had to modify the 3e recovery to even get CWM on?

votum said:
Cant find an answer for my question:
I am reinstalling some ROMs. Came from Captivate a few days ago (dropped in in the toilet and didnt think it would come back to life, it did lol, after i bought an infuse)
When flashing captivate roms the return to stock odin/heimdalls also format your sd cards, I noticed when returning to stock on the infuse my sd card is still full of crap from the last rom, how do I go about fixing that, can I just format it in CWM or will that ruin ROM install, as I had to modify the 3e recovery to even get CWM on?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
sdcard will format if you do reset phone in the phone menu /settings/privacy/reset
you can also format what you want in cwm

qkster said:
sdcard will format if you do reset phone in the phone menu /settings/privacy/reset
you can also format what you want in cwm
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the answer mate, just wanted to make sure formatting in CWM wouldnt ruin anything, like CWM lol

votum said:
Thanks for the answer mate, just wanted to make sure formatting in CWM wouldnt ruin anything, like CWM lol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So...I formatted the SD card in CWM, but now when I try to install any rom after running Heimdall One-Click, I can't get past the SAMSUNG logo screen. I get the robotic woman's voice saying "Convert data partition. Not enough space on partition." Then the phone just boot loops from there.
I can run Heimdall all day, but I can't install any roms. I can't get Odin to work. I guess I need to set a partition, but I'm not sure how to do this or what to set it to.

sd619 said:
So...I formatted the SD card in CWM, but now when I try to install any rom after running Heimdall One-Click, I can't get past the SAMSUNG logo screen. I get the robotic woman's voice saying "Convert data partition. Not enough space on partition." Then the phone just boot loops from there.
I can run Heimdall all day, but I can't install any roms. I can't get Odin to work. I guess I need to set a partition, but I'm not sure how to do this or what to set it to.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
try flashing the heimdall 1 click once.
Then afterward, click the boot loader box and flash again the second time.
Robotic voice is voodoo ext4 file conversion. The heimdall 1 click return to stock has nothing to do with voodoo file conversion.
If you have corrupted partitions, you need a full re-partitions.

Thanks qkster. I tried your suggestions, but I'm still getting the same errors. I suspect I have corrupted partitions (or missing partitions) since I formated SD card in CWM. How would I get full re-partitions?

sd619 said:
Thanks qkster. I tried your suggestions, but I'm still getting the same errors. I suspect I have corrupted partitions (or missing partitions) since I formated SD card in CWM. How would I get full re-partitions?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you flash heimdall 1 click, it will re-partition your system file.
I don't think it does anything to your SDCARD or external microSD card.
Are you able to get it to boot up on ATT stock?
If you flash with heimdall 1 click and bootloader, you should be able to get back to att stock.
when you are able to get into the ROM, you can try going to menu /settings/privacy and reset.
Then you can go into DL mode, flash the kernel, reboot into recovery and perform file system changes.
In the voodoo: convert lagfix to on (for custom rom) off for stock rfs.
the file conversion toggle should be ON.

I realize that Heimdall doesn't do anything to either SD Card. It's actually working great in my opinion. My problem is that my internal SD Card was formatted (stupid move on my part) in CWM and now, it's basically a blank slate. I can run Heimdall and it boot animation starts up, but then it begins to boot loop after the "Rethink Possible" screen in the animation. I can't get into the ROM at all.

sd619 said:
I realize that Heimdall doesn't do anything to either SD Card. It's actually working great in my opinion. My problem is that my internal SD Card was formatted (stupid move on my part) in CWM and now, it's basically a blank slate. I can run Heimdall and it boot animation starts up, but then it begins to boot loop after the "Rethink Possible" screen in the animation. I can't get into the ROM at all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
sd619...Can you tell me step by step what happens when you put it into DL mode and flash the heimdall?
Go through the whole 2 flashes - with the second time with boot loaders checked.
I think that no matter what you did to the internal SD card, once the heimdall runs the second time, with boot loaders, it will re-partition all the dev blocks and place the sbl, sbl2, params, dbfactory, kernel and modem in the appropriate allocations...assuming that the heimdall you have is not corrupted.
It will reset the file system to stock rfs...there shouldn't be any voodoo conversion until you flash the entropy kernel
...we are also talking about uclb3, correct?
if it doesn't work on repeated trial, and you are sure you have a non-corrupt software, it may be hardware.
If you want to try odin - gtg's unbrick - you will need to use a different usb port and re-install drivers or use a different PC

Yes, I'm using UCLB3. Here are my steps:
DL mode
Heimdall Flash
Disconnect USB
DL mode
Heimdall Flash w/ Bootloaders
Reboot
Boot loop during animation

sd619 said:
Yes, I'm using UCLB3. Here are my steps:
DL mode
Heimdall Flash
Disconnect USB
DL mode
Heimdall Flash w/ Bootloaders
Reboot
Boot loop during animation
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you take out the battery and put it back into DL mode and flash the kernel in the next step..what happens?
edit: oh...idk if it makes any difference but could you take out the microSD card if you had 1 in and try it WITHOUT the microSD?

I tried that as well. I went back to DL mode and flashed the Entropy DD Kernel. This allows me to get into CWM. If I don't boot into CWM, the Samsung logo appears and the voodoo voice tells me there's not enough room in the partition. Then the phone boot loops from there until I pull the battery or boot into CWM.

sd619 said:
I tried that as well. I went back to DL mode and flashed the Entropy DD Kernel. This allows me to get into CWM. If I don't boot into CWM, the Samsung logo appears and the voodoo voice tells me there's not enough room in the partition. Then the phone boot loops from there until I pull the battery or boot into CWM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ok..if you get into CWM, click on the voodoo menu.
What does it say?

didn't think to do that...here's the info that pops up:
Voodoo lagfix is actually: enabled
next boot: enabled
Options:
/system lagfix conversion: yes
debug mode: no

sd619 said:
didn't think to do that...here's the info that pops up:
Voodoo lagfix is actually: enabled
next boot: enabled
Options:
/system lagfix conversion: yes
debug mode: no
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
try disable lagfix...next boot should say :disabled
change system lagfix conversion to : NO
then reboot
if that works, when you boot into rom: reset
get back into DL mode and reflash the heimdalls again fully

I was hopeful, but that did not work. I'm still boot looping during the Samsung logo. I also tried to turn on debug mode in the voodoo menu, but it didn't seem to change anything either.

Alright.
Last attempt:
go to Mount and Storage:
Format boot. Format system. Format data. Format Cache. Format SDcard.
/system: should read: unmount
/data: should read: mount
/cache: should read: unmount
/sdcard: should read: unmount
/sd-ext: should read: mount
go back: reboot recovery.
go back to DL and reflash.
I don't know why your partitions will not erase as it should.
I have not seen this before.
If this doesn't work, you may need to try Odin on a different pc.
If you need to warranty the phone, change the settings or flash it in a way that it will only have samsung boot loop and no recovery. It would not be wise to have a red recovery and try to warranty it...needs to be on stock blue recovery.
good luck...
let us know if you ever get it sort out.
thanks for the mental exercise.
edit: there was 1 time I got hung up in the cwm and boot loop switching between stock and custom kernel...it was being more difficult than usual but mine sorted out after I did some toggles of voodoo menu and reboot recovery and was able to fix it flashing the heimdall packages...
It may not hurt to try Adam's original UCKJ4 packages also...idk

That last ditch effort didn't work. I can get to blue recovery from Adam's original UCKJ4 right? I've used that Heimdall package before. I don't even know if I can still warranty this phone. Does it have a 1 year warranty?
I'm going to try to Odin on a different PC when I get home. It's frustrating because it's NOT bricked. I hope to have some better luck with Odin tonight.

sd619 said:
That last ditch effort didn't work. I can get to blue recovery from Adam's original UCKJ4 right? I've used that Heimdall package before. I don't even know if I can still warranty this phone. Does it have a 1 year warranty?
I'm going to try to Odin on a different PC when I get home. It's frustrating because it's NOT bricked. I hope to have some better luck with Odin tonight.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
good luck.
Blue recovery when you flash only the ROM portion. Red recovery and voodoo when you flash the kernel over the ROM.
Warranty should still work.
Scenario: I had no idea what happened! I plugged in the kies-mini and it kept doing this...

Qkster....I tip my hat to you...
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using Tapatalk 2 Beta-5

Unable To Mount SD Card via TWRP

I have had my Nexus S 4g rooted for sometime and have flashed many roms, so I'm not a complete nooby... but for some reason I'm stumped right now.
I woke up this morning to my phone in the TWRP recovery thing and I just tried to restart my phone but it wouldn't boot up so I figured I would just restore to a previous ROM and all of my backups were just gone. This is the error I have: error opening /sdcard/TWRP/BACKUPS/randomcharacters
But that was way at the bottom, above it I see all these notifications saying that nothing is mounting... so I go and wipe all my stuff to try to re-install the ROM I already had because it had been working very nice and it was just gone. Couldn't find it at all so I figure ok... let's just mount it and put the ROM on my phone... but when I try that my computer tells me that I need to insert a disk into the removable disc.
So right now I really have no clue what to do and I can't use the one click stock since I can't get to my phone to turn on USB debugging.
Any help?
Sorry if this has been answered elsewhere but I was unable to find anything similar.

And I have tried unrooting using this site:
nexusshacks. com/nexus-s-4g-hacks/how-to-unroot-nexus-s-4g/
However, it doesn't work after "fastboot flash system system.img"

And when I go look at the log thing in TWRP I get this:
*Verifying filesystems...
*Verifying partition sizes...
E: Unable to mount /system
(x20 with different things!)
E:failed to mount /sdcard (No such file or directory)
Gah! Have no idea how this happened!!

getliketie said:
And when I go look at the log thing in TWRP I get this:
*Verifying filesystems...
*Verifying partition sizes...
E: Unable to mount /system
(x20 with different things!)
E:failed to mount /sdcard (No such file or directory)
Gah! Have no idea how this happened!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you go into fastboot? I would try to fastboot flash recovery, flash CWM and start from there. If it still wouldn't work i would presume that either your NAND went bad or that somehow the partitions got screwed... I do remember something similar happening to me on my wife's SGS and the solution was a Odin flash of a stock ROM to restore the partitions.

DeuXGod said:
Can you go into fastboot? I would try to fastboot flash recovery, flash CWM and start from there. If it still wouldn't work i would presume that either your NAND went bad or that somehow the partitions got screwed... I do remember something similar happening to me on my wife's SGS and the solution was a Odin flash of a stock ROM to restore the partitions.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can go into fastboot! That is the mode I'm in.
I am currently trying to unroot my device using the unroot guide from nexusshacks. com but I get a forever hang time when it is writing my system.
So I just flashed CWM but I am no sure what to do from here! I tried mounting sd card and usb but neither worked. However, I did see an option to format my sd card. Should I do that directly from CWM? And in the advanced menu I see an option to partition my sd card.
At this point I just want to have my phone back in working condition.

You can try to format the SD card, but i think it won't work... If it doesn't work try to search for Odin and the files to restore to stock ROM, maybe it can fix the partitions... The SD card partition option in CWM i never used, so i'm not sure what it does in this case.

So I tried the Odin and I'm still stuck in the writing system stage... I have no idea what to do at this point.

getliketie said:
So I tried the Odin and I'm still stuck in the writing system stage... I have no idea what to do at this point.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Seems your NAND reach its end. There's allot of topics regarding that problem with the Nexus S and every single one of them ended up with the OP sending the phone to Samsung or getting a new phone...

Looking for input

Ok just noticed this can't tell if it's an m preview 2 problem or just my device. When I go into stock recovery and hit apply update from sd card I get
Supported API: 3
E: unknown volume for path [/sdcard]
-- Couldn't mount /sdcard.
Installation aborted.
it fails to mount /sdcard(check picture). Tried with TWRP and have full access to /sdcard. Tried reflashing this stock one keeps happening. Phone still works perfect tried fixing permissions any ideas?

Did you ever find a solution to this?
I got my Nexus 5X stuck in a boot loop when I try troubleshooting it, I get the same error you got (also using TWRP).
Reflashing with the stock ROM didn't help either.

Try flashing userdata.img from the stock image. Right after flashing the img file, use the buttons to boot into stock recovery, and perform a factory wipe.

audit13 said:
Try flashing userdata.img from the stock image. Right after flashing the img file, use the buttons to boot into stock recovery, and perform a factory wipe.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the reply. I gave it another shot and I found that the basic procedure of flash the proper files was enough. What was missing was the vendor.img, which most of the guides forget to mention or associate with Nexus 9, for example.

Glad you got it sorted out:good:

E:Failed to mount EFS ( Invalid Argument)

Hello friends, when I flash Combination file, or stock file , my phone boots and hang at start up logo, while I restart to recovery I see this error (E:Failed to mount efs, Invalid Argument)?
Can anyone help?

What have you done ? Trying to root and lost your IMEI ?
If so, then go to recovery and do all of the wipes and format Data. Once done, then just flash the exact same ROM as the one which is already installed on your phone.

TheRealKeyserSoze said:
What have you done ? Trying to root and lost your IMEI ?
If so, then go to recovery and do all of the wipes and format Data. Once done, then just flash the exact same ROM as the one which is already installed on your phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This steps does not work, I need EFS for A8 2018.

I'm having the same problem, I've tried everything. z3x, Odin , won't even let me flash from sd card. Won't load into Oreo just keeps rebooting. I can get into recovery but does nothing as well as boot loader. I did have a utility im pretty sure was made by FACTORY BINARY that was it's own little OS with a bunch of little tools. I have a sm-a530w flashed with boot loader 4 ugggg. If anyone can help find that utility that will wipe the whole thing and let me flash from scratch that would be awesome. I've tryed miracle, Uni-Android, samsung tools 29.5 and flashing with odin. Lets me flash factory FIRMWARE but still error's out on the "Failed to mount EFS" HELPPLEASE

A quick suggestion you probably tried, but i've had failure at boot in the past after returning to stock via odin if i used home_csc. So, if you haven't already tried, use just csc. No home. On home it does system.img until the end, no user_data . Not sure at all what the deal is but it's all i can suggest. Get 'er goin'!

:Failed to mount EFS
Yes I think I tried that, but at this point, I try again. Any more suggestions would be greatly appreciated. An A8 in mint shape just hurts LOL.