Database Info

[Q] it is possible to...

Sorry, I'm new to this so sorry if this seems dumb.
So i bought the phone from rogers and immediately updated to froyo 2.2 official release by rogers/samsung.
I read about all the hype online about rooting and custom roms so i decided to give it a shot.
I used the superoneclick method to root my phone and it was successful.
I then used "rom manager - clockworkmod" and created a restore file before i did any flashing to my phone.
after creating a backup, i went on and flashed to the cognition 3.04.
Now my question is. Am i ever able to get my phone back to its original rom, kernel, and modem? the reason i want to know is because i might need to get my phone replaced due to some technical issues with the phone.
Also, does the backup of my phone after rooting play a part in any of this? if so, how?
Im sorry if there is already a post like this one. Its just that i couldn't find the answer through all the hundreds of pages of threads and replies, so I thought it would be easier to post a here with my specific question. Thanks.
regards,
danny

dsu said:
Sorry, I'm new to this so sorry if this seems dumb.
So i bought the phone from rogers and immediately updated to froyo 2.2 official release by rogers/samsung.
I read about all the hype online about rooting and custom roms so i decided to give it a shot.
I used the superoneclick method to root my phone and it was successful.
I then used "rom manager - clockworkmod" and created a restore file before i did any flashing to my phone.
after creating a backup, i went on and flashed to the cognition 3.04.
Now my question is. Am i ever able to get my phone back to its original rom, kernel, and modem? the reason i want to know is because i might need to get my phone replaced due to some technical issues with the phone.
Also, does the backup of my phone after rooting play a part in any of this? if so, how?
Im sorry if there is already a post like this one. Its just that i couldn't find the answer through all the hundreds of pages of threads and replies, so I thought it would be easier to post a here with my specific question. Thanks.
regards,
danny
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Follow this link: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=731989
It guides you through the process of going back to a stock ROM. Btw, I've used it and it works.
Good Luck!!

Christo_69 said:
Follow this link: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=731989
It guides you through the process of going back to a stock ROM. Btw, I've used it and it works.
Good Luck!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dont use that link because it is for att firmaware. I havent seen any prepackaged odin one click for rogers.
This is my captivate. There are many like it buy this one is mine.

Christo_69 said:
Follow this link: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=731989
It guides you through the process of going back to a stock ROM. Btw, I've used it and it works.
Good Luck!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for that. Do you think Odin is the only way to do it or do you think i can use clockworkmod

flashman2002 said:
Dont use that link because it is for att firmaware. I havent seen any prepackaged odin one click for rogers.
This is my captivate. There are many like it buy this one is mine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do I not use that link in general, or just not to use the firmware given at the bottom? the steps are correct though, no?
also from my searching.
i can put my phone back to my backup point (just after rooting) through clockworkmod. Woud this change my rom back to stock from? how about kernel and modem and all that? would that all get reversed back to my backup point? meaning it will basically be a stock phone. But I think also read somewhere that my kernel and modem does not get changed back to rogers original one. is there a way to do it?
I then found this link: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=846501
that says i need the original rogers rom for the captivate by the links there no longer work for download. Also on that thread, it was mentioned that the AT&T logo will still come up on startup, which would not be a good idea if i had to send my phone in for warrenty.
I then looked at : http://forum.xda-developers.com/wiki/index.php?title=Samsung_Galaxy_S/SGH-I896
Here it tells me to flash to a i9000 before i reflash to a rogers firmware in order to remove the at&t logo. it also provides me with a link for the " Official Rogers Stock ROM ", but according to somebody on the first link i posted here, it isnt the "official rom"
Any ideas?

This is where I got the stock 2.2 file from http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=905042.
Edit: I have flashed a bunch of times and have never got stuck with the AT&T startup after flashing back to stock with the odin file.

Akalon said:
This is where I got the stock 2.2 file from http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=905042.
Edit: I have flashed a bunch of times and have never got stuck with the AT&T startup after flashing back to stock with the odin file.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks. Do you know if my kernel is going to go back to stock too or is it going to remain the same as the custom rom one?

dsu said:
Thanks. Do you know if my kernel is going to go back to stock too or is it going to remain the same as the custom rom one?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you use the odin file the kernal and modem will revert back to stock.

Akalon said:
If you use the odin file the kernal and modem will revert back to stock.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks. So im assuming now that the only time my kernel and modem wont go back to stock is when i flash with CWM. correct?

I haven't tried using the CWM file in that link so I'm not sure if it contains the kernel and modem. As far as custom roms go most if not all come packaged with the kernel and modem of choice.

So.. When I do a "master clear" from http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=731989...
Would everything be wiped? I read somewhere that when you do a "wipe" from your settings it only clears user settings or something. What would a "wipe"
from the recovery menu do?
I flashed to a different rom today thinking it will help my battery issue. When i am flashing from one rom to the next, i do a restore back to my backup before i flash to a new rom. Is this the correct method? or am i supposed to wipe beforehand? The reason i ask is because this is my 2nd rom and my battery issue still seems to be there. I tried other methods of fixing hte battery but nothign seems to work. When i looked into root explorer, i see that there are a lot more files now everywhere, than when i first started. would some of them be from my previous rom? if so how do i remove them?

[Q] I896 and CM7 reverting

I would like to install CM7 from http://forum.cyanogenmod.com/topic/...f0000dangerous-test-releasecolor/#entry148754
But to restore back to Froyo, it says to use ODIN to do a restore with the re-partition option. I thought I read that the re-part option would brick a SGH-I896.
Is this correct? or am I just imagining it.
In other words, does the repartition option work properly on Rogers SGH-I896?
Thanks for any answers you guys give.

You want to run an experimental beta ROM for an i897 phone on your i896? Trying to find the fastest way to brick your phone?

Miami_Son said:
You want to run an experimental beta ROM for an i897 phone on your i896? Trying to find the fastest way to brick your phone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do not believe it will brick the phone. The board is an I897 with slight revisions. I was just wondering about the method used to go back to froyo. I am not a complete noob and am not worried about bricking to install the rom. Just going back.
But I do appreciate your input.

DO NOT USE PIT / RE- PARTITION ( the p in PIT is for partition )
i did that and on reboot had an error
E: cant mount dev/dbdata...
was STUCK. only option was to do ONE CLICK ODIN, even after flashing EVERY AVAILABLE rogers stock image, on the net and my own, I CANNOT GET RID OF ATT bootscreen without the cheap hack of replaceing the ATT image with the origninal (still named ATT boot).
the CM7 is still not ready, you will just be going back to what you have now,
WAIT for it to be ready.

Everything I've read on CM7 up to this point is that it is not yet ready for use other than for developers trying to fix its remaining bugs. A number of threads opened up on it over the past week have been almost immediately closed because of the potential to mislead people to try it and end up with bricked phones.

I flashed there and back with no problem. I did not use the re-partition option to install.

Well answered
Trusselo said:
DO NOT USE PIT / RE- PARTITION ( the p in PIT is for partition )
i did that and on reboot had an error
E: cant mount dev/dbdata...
was STUCK. only option was to do ONE CLICK ODIN, even after flashing EVERY AVAILABLE rogers stock image, on the net and my own, I CANNOT GET RID OF ATT bootscreen without the cheap hack of replaceing the ATT image with the origninal (still named ATT boot).
the CM7 is still not ready, you will just be going back to what you have now,
WAIT for it to be ready.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thats what I was afraid of, I didn't want to be stuck with att junk on the phone.
Guess i'll wait a little more, sad to say I can only play with gingerbready on by HTC Dream . for now anyways.
Thanks for the answer

Cm7 is largely stable with some bugs. If you do not read the known issues some funky stuff will happen. Speaking from experience ; ) it is everything the hype says it is. Running since the morning. My one concern is battery but I need to let it cycle a couple of times.
Sent from my Captivate using XDA Premium App

Been running CM7 since late January, and did some of the early dev work on porting it to the Captivate. I have an i896. Trust me, it won't brick it.
To op, there will never be a non-one click revert. CM7 changes the setup of the mtd blocks (basically the nand where the rom is installed), meaning you MUST repartition to go back to a Samsung rom. However, none of the Rogers images contain all of the rom, meaning if you repartition, you will be missing parts of the rom, and will just bootloop/be stuck in recovery.
Tl;dr: If you flash it, and want to revert, you must use one-click, and that won't change, even when it's at "stable".

TheEscapist said:
Been running CM7 since late January, and did some of the early dev work on porting it to the Captivate. I have an i896. Trust me, it won't brick it.
To op, there will never be a non-one click revert. CM7 changes the setup of the mtd blocks (basically the nand where the rom is installed), meaning you MUST repartition to go back to a Samsung rom. However, none of the Rogers images contain all of the rom, meaning if you repartition, you will be missing parts of the rom, and will just bootloop/be stuck in recovery.
Tl;dr: If you flash it, and want to revert, you must use one-click, and that won't change, even when it's at "stable".
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Best advice, straight from the source. And OP, as was said before, make sure you know what the known issues are. The CM7 thread has a lot of complaints about issues that were already noted and known. If you can live with those, jump in!

Not exactly 'bricked', but my phone does not appear to be usable

All,
Noob here as far as Android goes. I picked up a Galaxy S Captivate a few months ago from AT&T and I got a notification saying Froyo was available. Of course, Samsung made it near impossible to do, so I figured "I'm a computer programmer, I can do these kinds of things".
Using Odin, I put on a version of Froyo. It was... not a good ROM by far (I didn't know all the great ones were here) and after the 4th or 5th random crash, I decided to try something different. However, at one point the phone bricked. I was finally able to get Odin to push back 2.1 Eclair (the stock AT&T version), but since then, I get a "SIM Network Unlock Pin" prompt. I followed the instructions to grab the unlock code from the bml3.back file, but it doesn't work. I've tried upgrading to various Froyo's, but they don't work either. AT&T tried a new SIM card, but that didn't work.
At this point, my Android abilities are done. I have no idea how to fix my phone. AT&T can't help and of course, Samsung will charge me for a repair (I have no idea how much that is).
Can anyone think of a way to get rid of the SIM Network Unlock PIN thing? This is a legitimate phone on a legit plan. The Continuum 3.5 Froyo runs great, it just can't see my SIM Network card and a phone without that is...well, bunk
Thanks for the help, I wish I could retrace all my steps but I was an idiot and didnt write it all down.
R

I have never heard of anyone overcoming a lost PIN issue without completely reformatting the phone and reinstalling a ROM.

Try flashing a new 2.2 rom and using the froyo unlock method in the dev section (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=831569).
Since you mentioned you're a programmer, I'm going to assume you're comfortable with adb. Make sure you back up /efs/ to your sd card, then again to your computer before you try it as rom flashes will typically not overwrite this partition. I suspect your nv_data.bin or some other part of your /efs partition is messed up, which is why flashing most roms won't fix it. I'm not sure if the one click stock odin will do anything, but it's also worth a shot if you haven't tried it yet.
There's also a backup of nv_data.bin in /efs, you can try copying that over your existing nv_data.bin and rebooting to see if it helps.

modest_mandroid said:
Try flashing a new 2.2 rom and using the froyo unlock method in the dev section (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=831569).
Since you mentioned you're a programmer, I'm going to assume you're comfortable with adb. Make sure you back up /efs/ to your sd card, then again to your computer before you try it as rom flashes will typically not overwrite this partition. I suspect your nv_data.bin or some other part of your /efs partition is messed up, which is why flashing most roms won't fix it. I'm not sure if the one click stock odin will do anything, but it's also worth a shot if you haven't tried it yet.
There's also a backup of nv_data.bin in /efs, you can try copying that over your existing nv_data.bin and rebooting to see if it helps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you thank you thank you thank you. That was exactly it. I now have a phone again!
This place is great, but it's a bit overwhelming when you first join. Couldn't find that article on my own, but it was there!

Cool, glad to hear you got it running again.

[Q] ERI Restore?

A while back, I lost my IMEI flashing CM10. I restored that back, and got my phone working again, but every time I leave the local area code, my phone says that I am roaming. Being that I recently moved out of state, this means that my phone now says that I am roaming all the time. While this doesn't greatly affect anything, I would like to fix it. The problem seems to stem from my ERI (ERI version: none). Is there any way to repair this?

I too have this problem now. I recently flashed a few cm10 nightlys one after another using the built in updater and I lost my imei. After using the nv-item_reader_writer program and the nv generator I was able to restore my imei but am still without an erI

This is what I did to get my eri back after losing my imei and restoring it. There may be some steps you don't need to do but it worked for me.
1) I flashed a stock rooted TW rom.
2) Next I flashed the VRLF2 modem found here (Click spoiler to see them) : http://rootzwiki.com/topic/34053-firmware-vrbmf1-modemrpmtzsbl-verizon-sgs3-sch-i535/
3) Next, I got my eri back using the forbidden software in this thread(You're going to have to search the thread some but you're on the right page): http://rootzwiki.com/topic/32397-tu...ants/page__pid__1218913__st__220#entry1218913
4) Follow directions in OP of same thread.
5) Once you have you ERI back to 5 and your phone shows verizon network I highly recommend going to Synergy rom thread and looking for the HW keys back up zip. It can be found if you look through the attachments in that thread. Make a flashable copy of your keys with that zip and place on your sd card and in multiple other places for safe keeping.
:victory::victory::victory::victory:

djwalter said:
This is what I did to get my eri back after losing my imei and restoring it. There may be some steps you don't need to do but it worked for me.
1) I flashed a stock rooted TW rom.
2) Next I flashed the VRLF2 modem found here (Click spoiler to see them) : http://rootzwiki.com/topic/34053-firmware-vrbmf1-modemrpmtzsbl-verizon-sgs3-sch-i535/
3) Next, I got my eri back using the forbidden software in this thread(You're going to have to search the thread some but you're on the right page): http://rootzwiki.com/topic/32397-tu...ants/page__pid__1218913__st__220#entry1218913
4) Follow directions in OP of same thread.
5) Once you have you ERI back to 5 and your phone shows verizon network I highly recommend going to Synergy rom thread and looking for the HW keys back up zip. It can be found if you look through the attachments in that thread. Make a flashable copy of your keys with that zip and place on your sd card and in multiple other places for safe keeping.
:victory::victory::victory::victory:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for this. I do not need iut currently and I do have a proper NVBackup but you never know . I have it on my Box account just in case and besides I could always help someone that didnt do a proper NVbackup. Quick question. What happens if you flash a 16 GB PIT on a 32 GB Model? Would it brick you or just give you a 16 GB S3? I have a 16 GB model but just curious. I need to read up on this stuff.

Sandman-007 said:
Thank you for this. I do not need iut currently and I do have a proper NVBackup but you never know . I have it on my Box account just in case and besides I could always help someone that didnt do a proper NVbackup. Quick question. What happens if you flash a 16 GB PIT on a 32 GB Model? Would it brick you or just give you a 16 GB S3? I have a 16 GB model but just curious. I need to read up on this stuff.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Since I had restored my imei with qpst all I did was use the tool to restore my eri. From what I've read it won't work unless you downgrade your modem. I didn't have to mess with the PIT files listed. I don't think it would be good to mess with those without talking to someone who knows more than I do. JMO, I don't think it would end well mixing those up. I also forgot a step, once you're back up with your eri you can upgrade your modem back to whatever is best for you. A lessoned learned the hard way for me. I haven't had to worry about losing stuff like this since the original EVO 4G.

[Q] Any tips for me prior to running casual?

Hi all, I'm newly registered here, however, I have been coming here to XDA for over two years now as unregistered to browse and become more knowledgeable regarding rooting, unlocking and ROMing my phones. I would like to use the Casual Root/Unlock/Recovery AIO Toolkit and finally have more freedom over my locked down Verizon Galaxy S3. I am currently running MF1 and I'm completely 100 percent stock. I've downloaded Casual, have all the Samsung drivers installed and am anxious to pull the trigger. I just want to confirm I'm on the right page and do diligence first. After I run Casual and Root, unlock the bootloader and install TWRP, would it be wise to immediately boot into recovery and then backup the rooted MF1 firmware and then back up my imei by copying the efs folder to the SD card and my PC? Is this method correct for backing up the imei or is there a specific program for it? I have searched through many custom ROM's and I am planning on flashing Beanstown106's Jelly 'Beans' Build 19 ROM, as I love the fact it's AOSP themed but has a lot of features from Touchwiz. Does this ROM happen to back up the imei automatically by chance? I've already backed up my contacts and important information, so are there many things I'm missing or am I on the right track? Before flashing Jelly 'Beans', would I need to wipe the cache / davlik at all? Or is that only when coming from a different ROM? Any help wouwould be greatly appreciated and many thanks in advance for your time!

K20Z1 said:
Hi all, I'm newly registered here, however, I have been coming here to XDA for over two years now as unregistered to browse and become more knowledgeable regarding rooting, unlocking and ROMing my phones. I would like to use the Casual Root/Unlock/Recovery AIO Toolkit and finally have more freedom over my locked down Verizon Galaxy S3. I am currently running MF1 and I'm completely 100 percent stock. I've downloaded Casual, have all the Samsung drivers installed and am anxious to pull the trigger. I just want to confirm I'm on the right page and do diligence first. After I run Casual and Root, unlock the bootloader and install TWRP, would it be wise to immediately boot into recovery and then backup the rooted MF1 firmware and then back up my imei by copying the efs folder to the SD card and my PC? Is this method correct for backing up the imei or is there a specific program for it? I have searched through many custom ROM's and I am planning on flashing Beanstown106's Jelly 'Beans' Build 19 ROM, as I love the fact it's AOSP themed but has a lot of features from Touchwiz. Does this ROM happen to back up the imei automatically by chance? I've already backed up my contacts and important information, so are there many things I'm missing or am I on the right track? Before flashing Jelly 'Beans', would I need to wipe the cache / davlik at all? Or is that only when coming from a different ROM? Any help wouwould be greatly appreciated and many thanks in advance for your time!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To backup your imei/eri check the synergy rom thread. They have a zip to back them up. It's in the attachments. It only takes a few seconds but will save you a world of headache. If you want my opinion that's the first thing you should do once you root, unlock and have your custom recovery. Store that zip on your SD card, PC and cloud(Dropbox, Copy, Box, Mediafire, etc).
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 4

TheAfroSamurai said:
To backup your imei/eri check the synergy rom thread. They have a zip to back them up. It's in the attachments. It only takes a few seconds but will save you a world of headache. If you want my opinion that's the first thing you should do once you root, unlock and have your custom recovery. Store that zip on your SD card, PC and cloud(Dropbox, Copy, Box, Mediafire, etc).
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 4
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I greatly appreciate your insight and input TheAfroSamurai. I will check that thread out and get that zip to backup the imei / eri.

K20Z1 said:
I greatly appreciate your insight and input TheAfroSamurai. I will check that thread out and get that zip to backup the imei / eri.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here you go : http://forum.xda-developers.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=1281376&d=1345868740

Once you get root and unlock the bootloader, backing up your EMEI is recommended (I did not until I flashed my first ROM). There is a great
thread that the previous poster may have pointed you too (if so, sorry for the repost): http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1852255
Previously you were pointed to the Synergy method (B). But A is very easy too, requiring you to have a terminal emulation app on your phone (I have Rom Toolbox Pro, which has a terminal emulator). Type in the two commands as instructed and it reboots. I then did B and hopefully I am doubly covered.
After that, flash your preferred ROM (lots of really good ones, I use BoneStock 3.4) and you are ready to go.

TheAfroSamurai said:
Here you go : http://forum.xda-developers.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=1281376&d=1345868740
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ahh, thanks very much for the link, even easier to find.

Nomad1600 said:
Once you get root and unlock the bootloader, backing up your EMEI is recommended (I did not until I flashed my first ROM). There is a great
thread that the previous poster may have pointed you too (if so, sorry for the repost): http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1852255
Previously you were pointed to the Synergy method (B). But A is very easy too, requiring you to have a terminal emulation app on your phone (I have Rom Toolbox Pro, which has a terminal emulator). Type in the two commands as instructed and it reboots. I then did B and hopefully I am doubly covered.
After that, flash your preferred ROM (lots of really good ones, I use BoneStock 3.4) and you are ready to go.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I greatly appreciate your help and advice as well, it's nice to know of other possible options backing up the imei. Something else I just thought of, once I root, unlock and get recovery using Casual, should I expect to see a message from Verizon stating that the software running is not official and to visit one of their stores? I have seen others mentioning this, but I'm not sure if and why that pops up. If it does, does it continue to pop up or stay on the screen at all? Or is it something that you can dismiss and you don't see it again?

Do you guys know if terminal emulator comes already installed on the Jelly beans rom by chance? Because that seems the easiest way to do it just by typing in those two commands. However, I would still download that .zip tool from Synergy as backup. Or would that not be needed at all if I was to use terminal emulator?

TheAfroSamurai said:
To backup your imei/eri check the synergy rom thread. They have a zip to back them up. It's in the attachments. It only takes a few seconds but will save you a world of headache. If you want my opinion that's the first thing you should do once you root, unlock and have your custom recovery. Store that zip on your SD card, PC and cloud(Dropbox, Copy, Box, Mediafire, etc).
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 4
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
After using casual, do I just place that zip on my sdcard pc and cloud and then run it if and only when the imei is lost? Or run it prior to placing it on the SD card and such? Sorry for all the newb questions.

K20Z1 said:
After using casual, do I just place that zip on my sdcard pc and cloud and then run it if and only when the imei is lost? Or run it prior to placing it on the SD card and such? Sorry for all the newb questions.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
After you finish casual place the zip on your external sd card. If you haven't flashed a custom rom with boot to recovery menu you'll have to get to your recovery the hard way. Power down phone, hold vol up and home button at the same time you press power. Keep holding home and vol up key and let power button go. Phone should boot to your custom recovery, either CWM or TRWP depending on what you choose to use. Next go to install and navigate to the Synergy zip and choose install just like flashing a rom, kernel,etc. It will place a Synergy folder on your external sd. That folder will contain the backup zip you'll need in case you lose your IMEI/ERI. Make at least a couple backups of that.

Awesome! I really appreciate the help and quick responses. So once I've done that, if my imei should become lost, I would open that synergy folder and use the backup to restore the imei?

K20Z1 said:
Awesome! I really appreciate the help and quick responses. So once I've done that, if my imei should become lost, I would open that synergy folder and use the backup to restore the imei?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you should ever need to just flash the zip in the Synergy folder, hopefully you won't ever need to. Once I got mine restored I haven't had to yet...fingers crossed.

Ok, perfect. That really sums it all up for me. Yea, hopefully you won't ever need it.

K20Z1 said:
Hi all, I'm newly registered here, however, I have been coming here to XDA for over two years now as unregistered to browse and become more knowledgeable regarding rooting, unlocking and ROMing my phones. I would like to use the Casual Root/Unlock/Recovery AIO Toolkit and finally have more freedom over my locked down Verizon Galaxy S3. I am currently running MF1 and I'm completely 100 percent stock. I've downloaded Casual, have all the Samsung drivers installed and am anxious to pull the trigger. I just want to confirm I'm on the right page and do diligence first. After I run Casual and Root, unlock the bootloader and install TWRP, would it be wise to immediately boot into recovery and then backup the rooted MF1 firmware and then back up my imei by copying the efs folder to the SD card and my PC? Is this method correct for backing up the imei or is there a specific program for it? I have searched through many custom ROM's and I am planning on flashing Beanstown106's Jelly 'Beans' Build 19 ROM, as I love the fact it's AOSP themed but has a lot of features from Touchwiz. Does this ROM happen to back up the imei automatically by chance? I've already backed up my contacts and important information, so are there many things I'm missing or am I on the right track? Before flashing Jelly 'Beans', would I need to wipe the cache / davlik at all? Or is that only when coming from a different ROM? Any help wouwould be greatly appreciated and many thanks in advance for your time!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Man i was right there with you. Not quite two years, but maybe two months of reading, researching, watching vids, etc. I downloaded the casual too because i am not great with adb commands, etc. I will tell you from personal experience exactly what my opinion is of what you should do. Someone else more experience may have a better way but now that i have become a serial flashaholic hindsight is always 20/20.
1. Find the stock firmware for the Verizon Samsung Galaxy S3 any version whether is be VRBMF1 or older and download Odin. That way if anything happens short of a hard brick you can ALWAYS Odin back to stock if you are completely out of options.
2. Run CASUAL to (a) Root (b) Unlock the Bootloader and (c) download TWRP ; I have used Clockword Mod and TWRP and I personally found TWRP much easier to use
3. First thing I would do is download the Synergy HWkeys backup zip and flash it while you are still stock rooted to backup the imei. Thank God i haven't lost the imei before i backed mine up but that way you have plan b and plan c, etc.
4. Make a TWRP Nandroid backup of your stock rom that way you can always restore back up stock.
After you do that you are good to flash away my brotha. And a note too, remember that for most roms you need to flash gapps separately. I freaked my first flash and thought i broke my phone because i had no google apps but that was noob stuff on my end.
I hope this helps but all these roms and everything are really cool. the reason i came to android in the first place. and i dont donate as much as i should but you gotta give it up to these developers. anyways. later man
happy flashing

Synergy backup works. I recently lost mine and had to restore it. It was super easy to do, but I wasn't sure at first if it was going to work. Couldn't tell you what caused it because I am super careful to download all the correct files to flash Roms. Also all AOSP Roms require you to download the GAPPS for whatever version of android it is running. All TW based Roms already have the GAPPS included in the ROM zip file. Just be careful when switching back and forth between AOSP and TW Roms. A good practice is to wipe everything 3 times to make sure you got everything. Sometimes also there are residual files and/or folders left over from AOSP Roms when switching back to TW so I have a practice of wiping internal storage before I switch back to TW. Just move whatever files you want to save to your external SD card. I switch Roms often so I usually don't have to move very much. I also don't restore apps or data from titanium backup. This most likely can cause problems if you're restoring data from a different ROM.
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