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Had just flashed the latest CM9 nightly (clean install, fresh wipe) yesterday and everything was running fine.
This morning, woke up, my phone was turned off. When powering it on it hung on the google screen. Fastboot still working, booted into recovery only to find that I would get error messages when trying to load my backs "E:unable to mount /sdcard". Apparently it also couldn't mount /data. So I was unable to flash any images or restore or boot up.
Seeing that fastboot was still working I assume I'm not bricked yet. I tried flashing a new boot and cwm recovery via fastboot - no dice. Same errors.
I don't have a recent backup of anything in sdcard, but at this point I'm willing to sacrifice it.
Found this thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1078213
and I'm trying to follow the steps to flash back to stock GB. using the GRJ22 images
It flashed the boot and recovery without issue but seems to hang while flashing the system.img. I know it's a big file, but it was up to ~2hrs with it still transferring. I pulled the plug on it and tried again, lost patience after an hour.
Now I had the idea of maybe locking and unlocking the boot loader would help things.....not sure why I thought this. Anyway, now it seems to hang on the unlock bootloader screen.
So my question now - am I screwed?
- anything else to try?
- is it really "hanging" or do I need to give it more time?
- have I screwed myself even more by now locking my bootloader and flashing the stock recovery?
Any help would be very much appreciated....
Some new additions and new insights from the reddit android community:
- this probably has nothing to do with CM9. My phone has been wonky for about two weeks - random reboots, sometimes rebooting into recovery. That's why I thought I'd throw on the latest nightly and do a fresh wipe yesterday.
- There's definitely something up with /data. Anytime I tried wiping all/factory reset in cwm recovery I got errors about not being able to mount /data or being able to find files in /data
- basically anything I do involving /data partition causes the phone to lock-up -- flashing the boot.img and recovery img worked, but not system. Also, I think the reason I can't re-unlock the bootloader is because during the unlock process it tries to do a factory reset/data wipe
Basically I think there are two things I need to know if I can do - 1) unlock the bootloader again, via some way that won't try to reset the /data partition and thus won't freeze the phone. 2) try repartitioning /data
I really hope I didn't screw myself by locking the bootloader. I'd actually feel a lot better if it was something in my phone that just failed hardware-wise rather than something I could've fixed if I wasn't too quick to try poorly thought out ideas.....
Any help at all would be appreciated!
Possibly (and likely) a corrupted nand flash. Fairly common problem sadly. I'd say it's a good thing your bootloaders locked, no dramas sending it back to samsung. It might've been possible to reset the partitions and flash fastboot images but i don't think i've seen anyone who has done this to sort any similar problem. Hopefully your phones still under warranty
Well thank God that it turns out that I'm still on warranty.....sending the phone back to Samsung tomorrow.
Like you said, it's actually a good thing the bootloader is now locked and the stock boot img and recovery img are now back on! Hopefully this makes it more likely that they weren't turn away my phone.
I've yet to hear someone not getting work done under warranty because of an unlocked boot loader but it's always good to have it as stock as can be. Hope they don't take too long with your phone.
Harbb said:
I've yet to hear someone not getting work done under warranty because of an unlocked boot loader but it's always good to have it as stock as can be. Hope they don't take too long with your phone.
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I bricked my nexus s 4 days before Christmas last year... and i was using a custom rom obviously with an unlocked bootloader and custom recovery image, and i handed it to vodafone, and guess what? they repaired without asking any questions, and the day before Christmas! sooo happy maybe because i was thirteen then, they didn't suspect a thing
I've looked around quite a bit, but can't find anyone who has had this problem when restoring. I was trying out Paranoid Android 3.10 D2VZW on my Galaxy SIII, and decided to go back to JellyBam 8.2.0 D2VZW. Both are 4.2.2 ROMs. I rebooted into CWM Recovery, wiped data and cache (can't remember if I wiped the Dalvik), and restored my JellyBam backup. The restore went fine, and I rebooted the system from CWM...nothing! Phone is completely black, no boot up at all. I tried the power button, a battery pull, booting into recovery, and booting into download. When I plug my phone into my computer (a Mac with Windows running in Parallels), I get QHSUSB_DLOAD. So far my research tells me this means my phone is hard-bricked. If I plug in without a battery, I get a red LED light that extinguishes after a few minutes. My understanding of hard-bricking is that it's caused by flashing ROMs not intended for my phone (i.e. an international version ROM). Why would my phone hard-brick if the last thing I did is restore a backup from a previously-working ROM built for my phone? I didn't check the md5, but if the md5 failed wouldn't the restore fail too? I literally can't do anything with my phone. No display, no Odin/download, no recovery. The only indications that it isn't completely fried are the red LED and my computer recognizing the QHSUSB_DLOAD and making a notification sound when it's connected or disconnected. I have no problem sending it to be JTAGed if need be, but I'm not 100% that it's hard-bricked. Any suggestions?
ransdell2 said:
I've looked around quite a bit, but can't find anyone who has had this problem when restoring. I was trying out Paranoid Android 3.10 D2VZW on my Galaxy SIII, and decided to go back to JellyBam 8.2.0 D2VZW. Both are 4.2.2 ROMs. I rebooted into CWM Recovery, wiped data and cache (can't remember if I wiped the Dalvik), and restored my JellyBam backup. The restore went fine, and I rebooted the system from CWM...nothing! Phone is completely black, no boot up at all. I tried the power button, a battery pull, booting into recovery, and booting into download. When I plug my phone into my computer (a Mac with Windows running in Parallels), I get QHSUSB_DLOAD. So far my research tells me this means my phone is hard-bricked. If I plug in without a battery, I get a red LED light that extinguishes after a few minutes. My understanding of hard-bricking is that it's caused by flashing ROMs not intended for my phone (i.e. an international version ROM). Why would my phone hard-brick if the last thing I did is restore a backup from a previously-working ROM built for my phone? I didn't check the md5, but if the md5 failed wouldn't the restore fail too? I literally can't do anything with my phone. No display, no Odin/download, no recovery. The only indications that it isn't completely fried are the red LED and my computer recognizing the QHSUSB_DLOAD and making a notification sound when it's connected or disconnected. I have no problem sending it to be JTAGed if need be, but I'm not 100% that it's hard-bricked. Any suggestions?
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It's definitely hard bricked, whatever happened is very strange though, as a nandroid doesn't usually mess up your boot partition.
Flashing a rom not intended for your phone can cause a hard brick, but that's not the only way it can happen. Somewhere in the restore process your boot partition got corrupted. Your base coding somehow is not being recognized, and your computer and phone can't tell what's supposed to run. A jtag is really your only option.
TWRP offers you the option to disable the boot and recovery partition when restoring. After you fix your phone, I'd recommend trying that out so you're absolutely sure your boot partition doesn't get touched. Those really don't need to be restored anyway.
Sorry that happened to you.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2
Bummer. Thanks for the input. I kinda figured that was the case, but was hoping I was missing something. Guess I'm going to have it JTAGed, probably by Mobile Tech Videos. The process looks fairly simple. If the equipment costs were comparable to having someone else do it I might do it myself, but if that were the case everyone else would be doing that too! I'll let you know how it goes.
ransdell2 said:
Bummer. Thanks for the input. I kinda figured that was the case, but was hoping I was missing something. Guess I'm going to have it JTAGed, probably by Mobile Tech Videos. The process looks fairly simple. If the equipment costs were comparable to having someone else do it I might do it myself, but if that were the case everyone else would be doing that too! I'll let you know how it goes.
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I think the price is reasonable if you factor in equipment and labor.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2
BadUsername said:
I think the price is reasonable if you factor in equipment and labor.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2
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Got my phone JTAGed by Patrick Walls (whose service is available on eBay for ~$35), and it works great. Fast service and great communication from Patrick. The phone came back unrooted with a stock 4.1.2 ROM. Of course I immediately re-rooted it and flashed a fresh JellyBAM ROM to it (with a huge feeling of trepidation), and so far everything is working, with the exception of the camera (I get "Can't connect to camera" after taking one picture, and a reboot is the only thing that enables the camera again, for one pictures, then can't connect, reboot, one pic, can't connect, etc.).
Having never hard-bricked before after many, many ROM changes on a Fascinate and about 10 ROM changes on my S3, I'm a little nervous about changing them now. Is my hesitation unfounded providing I don't mess with the bootchain? To root my phone I flashed the VRALEC bootchain, then TWRP, then rooted, then JellyBAM, then the VRBMD3 bootchain, as per this rooting guide:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2046439
Now that I've put my phone back to the Jelly Bean bootchain, I should be free to flash ROMs built for my device without a serious concern about hard-bricking, right?
ransdell2 said:
Got my phone JTAGed by Patrick Walls (whose service is available on eBay for ~$35), and it works great. Fast service and great communication from Patrick. The phone came back unrooted with a stock 4.1.2 ROM. Of course I immediately re-rooted it and flashed a fresh JellyBAM ROM to it (with a huge feeling of trepidation), and so far everything is working, with the exception of the camera (I get "Can't connect to camera" after taking one picture, and a reboot is the only thing that enables the camera again, for one pictures, then can't connect, reboot, one pic, can't connect, etc.).
Having never hard-bricked before after many, many ROM changes on a Fascinate and about 10 ROM changes on my S3, I'm a little nervous about changing them now. Is my hesitation unfounded providing I don't mess with the bootchain? To root my phone I flashed the VRALEC bootchain, then TWRP, then rooted, then JellyBAM, then the VRBMD3 bootchain, as per this rooting guide:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2046439
Now that I've put my phone back to the Jelly Bean bootchain, I should be free to flash ROMs built for my device without a serious concern about hard-bricking, right?
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Glad you got it working.
There's always a risk of something going wrong and a hard brick reoccurring, you just had bad luck. I don't think your brick had anything to do with your bootchain.
I think what probably happened was when you made a nandroid in cwm, the boot partition somehow got corrupted. CWM by default restores your boot, recovery, data, system, and cache partitions. In the advanced restore section, you can restore one at a time but you have no way of simply disabling a particular partition from being restored. I think since the boot partition was messed up, it erased your good data and hard-bricked your phone.
TWRP by default only backs up your data, cache, and system partitions and leaves your boot and recovery partitions alone. If you restore that backup, then there's pretty much no way a hard brick can happen. I can't think of any reason why you really need to backup your recovery or boot partition.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2
BadUsername said:
Glad you got it working.
There's always a risk of something going wrong and a hard brick reoccurring, you just had bad luck. I don't think your brick had anything to do with your bootchain.
I think what probably happened was when you made a nandroid in cwm, the boot partition somehow got corrupted. CWM by default restores your boot, recovery, data, system, and cache partitions. In the advanced restore section, you can restore one at a time but you have no way of simply disabling a particular partition from being restored. I think since the boot partition was messed up, it erased your good data and hard-bricked your phone.
TWRP by default only backs up your data, cache, and system partitions and leaves your boot and recovery partitions alone. If you restore that backup, then there's pretty much no way a hard brick can happen. I can't think of any reason why you really need to backup your recovery or boot partition.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2
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Great, thanks for the info! I'll make sure that the boot and recovery partitions aren't touched in the future. I've primarily used CWM, but am probably just going to stick with TWRP.
So day before yesterday my dads phone asus zenfone 2 (Z00AD) went into bootloop. it kept booting repeatedly never making it to the home screen. anyway, he took it to asus repair and we got the phone back today. its back to normal but all data is lost. (We had not backed up anything) I downloaded a few android data recovery softwares like mobikin and dr fone but they require the android to be rooted to scan for lost data.
Now my question is, do you think its possible to recover data once the phone has been flashed? I am apprehensive to do the rooting and will only go ahead with it if there is a real chance some lost data may be recovered through such android data recovery softwares.
Please advise. Should I go ahead and root and give it a try?
thank you so much in advance.
You should have backed up before taking it the center(you could have flashed a custom recovery and enable mtp mode and backed up to pc).after a stock ROM is flashed chances of recovery is almost nill.
Just one question, why did you take it down to the shop? It is easy as hell to fix a bricked device. I remember taking down my device to the shop twice and got a new one twice but I managed now to fix it. You will most likely have gotten a replacement for your device. Also, if there is root availible for your device, there are stock rom images to flash via fastboot.
OK, my S6 (verizon) locked up today and immediately went into bootloop. I've tried wiping cache, i've tried wiping system/data, i've tried factory reset. It'll either lock up doing that, or it will complete and then go right back into the boot loop.
I tried using ODIN to flash the stock rom but i get the error: SW REV CHECK FAIL Device: 4 Binary:1
If I boot into recovery, it always starts at "Installing system update" (this was before I tried to update the stock rom or anything) and sometimes it will lock up doing that, sometimes i'll get into recovery, but as I've said so far nothing has gotten my phone into a useable state.
I tried KIES 3, but it just complains that my device is not supported.
Any suggestions will be hugely appreciated, this phone is only a year old and I really can't afford to replace it out of pocket.
Thanks!!
mattbooty said:
OK, my S6 (verizon) locked up today and immediately went into bootloop. I've tried wiping cache, i've tried wiping system/data, i've tried factory reset. It'll either lock up doing that, or it will complete and then go right back into the boot loop.
I tried using ODIN to flash the stock rom but i get the error: SW REV CHECK FAIL Device: 4 Binary:1
If I boot into recovery, it always starts at "Installing system update" (this was before I tried to update the stock rom or anything) and sometimes it will lock up doing that, sometimes i'll get into recovery, but as I've said so far nothing has gotten my phone into a useable state.
I tried KIES 3, but it just complains that my device is not supported.
Any suggestions will be hugely appreciated, this phone is only a year old and I really can't afford to replace it out of pocket.
Thanks!!
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Kies3 doesn't supports S6 I guess. Use smart switch.
Sent from my SM-G925F
you can do emergency initialization with smart switch, instructions below:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s6/help/how-to-smart-switch-emergency-t3383448
Thank you for replies. Smart switch is telling me my SN is invalid, it is the IMEI number from the phone, and I've confirmed there were no typoes. I did finally get ODIN to work with a newer firmware, but after updating the phone just returns to a bootloop. I'm thinking its a hardware issue at this point.
mattbooty said:
Thank you for replies. Smart switch is telling me my SN is invalid, it is the IMEI number from the phone, and I've confirmed there were no typoes. I did finally get ODIN to work with a newer firmware, but after updating the phone just returns to a bootloop. I'm thinking its a hardware issue at this point.
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Did you enter the model number correctly i.e. SM-G920V or so?. Not really familiar with smart switch. Used once without issue.
Sent from my SM-G925F
Rosli59564 said:
Did you enter the model number correctly i.e. SM-G920V or so?. Not really familiar with smart switch. Used once without issue.
Sent from my SM-G925F
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Yes, it accepted the model number and yes it was correct.
hi, did you try downloading the official 6.0.1 firmware the n flash it using odin. try flashing BL and AP, the bootloop cause might be because of your bootloader, imho
I had already tried flashing AP. After reading your suggestions i tried flashing BL as well. Now it gets to the red Verizon screen (which is new, it was bootlooping before it got there) but it just hangs there now. The "pluse" in the Verizon V logo keeps going, so its not completely locked up, but it never actually boots.
At this point I think i need to just replace it but I'll still accept any suggestions on things to try if anyone has any thoughts!
I appreciate all the help already provided.
im sorry to hear that mattbooty, lets not loose hope, how about downloading an old 5.1.1 bootloader and 5.1.1 official firmware for your phone variant. make sure that the bootloader goes to BL and the firmware goes to AP. , btw BL and AP should be both checked in odin before starting to flash the phone. Im sure this has something to do with bootloader img
OK, so after the last post, i did another factory reset from within the recovery options (this is after odin flashing BL and AP) and this time it got past the Verizon screen and to the new android setup screen!
I'm working on setting it up now and fingers crossed it doesn't lock up and go back into boot loop. I will update.
nice to know that my post was helpful mattbooty, btw did you downgrade to 5.1.1 just like what i've told you?
morloonie said:
nice to know that my post was helpful mattbooty, btw did you downgrade to 5.1.1 just like what i've told you?
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I didn't, that was using the 6.0.1 firmware. I had tried that firmware originally but was given an error "SW REV CHECK FAIL".
Prior to the phone bootlooping originally I had noticed it started locking up every now and then. Since getting it working again (for an hour or so) it has already locked up once, but it did boot right back up this time. Fingers crossed that doesn't mean its going to start bootlooping again soon.
thanks again for all the assistance.
So I know there's not much support for this device anymore but I'm stuck in the water with my Galaxy S6 wondering if anybody can help here's my situation:
I have a SM-G920V on firmware OE2 as of yesterday. I have been rooted running the revolution 1.0 ROM for about year now with no problems. Yesterday I was doing some things in titanium backup and I tried to move a system app over to a user app. Well things got hairy and it ended up soft bricking my phone. I was stuck in a boot loop at the main splash screen with no way around it. I tried everything at that point that I know of. I put it into recovery mode, tried to boot in safe mode, wiped cache via recovery, did a factory reset via recovery . Still just a boot loop.
So then I came across the Stock Odin thread and I have tried OE2 f and then OC3 with the same outcome on both for . The FW flashes but when I boot up the phone and start the setup wizard I get stuck at the first step of it trying to activate the phone/ phone number . The System even becomes a bit glitchy and starts not responding at this point and will reboot randomly . This happens on both firmwares that I tried from that thread ....I can't get it past the activation. I did try a factory reset on OE2 after I Odin the tar to see if that helped but still got stuck at activation
I actually took the phone in to Verizon last night and it's sad because the customer service rep only tried about 5% of the things(5 min) that I tried before saying that the phone was "toast". All he did was go to recovery mode and tried to factory data reset ,which I had told him I tried many times and did not work. Fortunately or unfortunately enough my work replaced the phone with a brand new Galaxy S7 which I am using now. I still have the S6 though and I'm just determined not to give up yet because I don't think this phone is "toast" . If anyone can shed some light or has had the same problem and knows a fix I would love to know. I would absolutely love to be able to get this thing fixed and be able to give it to my daughter for Christmas.
Thanks in advanced!
Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk
Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk
It maybe worth noting that while I'm in download mode or Odin mode on the phone it does say the reactivation lock is on. I know I've read this is cause some problems for people later on in the process so I thought I would mention it
Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk
Bump. Anyone have any suggestions or input?
Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk
Problem resolved thread can be closed. I flashed FM PI2 and it seemed to fix my issues. Something with root and the bootloader were conflicting.
Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk
Hello,
what is FM PI2? thanks.
Dayd said:
Hello,
what is FM PI2? thanks.
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The latest firmware release from Samsung. Can be found HERE
Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk