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[Completed] CSC file, repartitioning, PiT file, non-wipe flashing and relations between these

I have ideas about what PIT files do. They provide data for appropriate phone storage partitioning.
I know repartitioning (an ability in ODIN and z3x) wipes data
I also know the differences between CSC and HOME_CSC is that the first one wipes data and second doesn't.
Now I have some questions:
Is repartitioning different from using a PIT file?
If yes, will I face problems checking repartition checkbox without using a PIT file?
I inspected CSC and found a .pit file inside it. Is that pit file responsible for wiping data (repartition thing)?
How to realize if a 1-file ROM (PDA only) is non-wipe or not?

Well ,
Infact 1 rom tar will not wipe data's , it's only install as updated for ur current firmware but if u had / faced random reboot then for sure u need full wipes ,
Yes once u install rom with pit its will erase everything on ur phone & its will solve too many problems if ur firmware having it .
Good luck ,
Thank you for Using XDA Assist ,,

Odin and pit file

I am not too clear about the usage of pit file in odin. I am reading that the tar file usually contains a csc portion which already embeds the pit file. However, i am also reading that you can explicitly specify the pit file and check repartitioning to start a clean slate. My question is that if csc already contains the pit why the need to specify it explicitly?
I think in my case i may have to clean the structure much more thoroughly since i have trouble doing a data partition wipe in recovery mode. It is not doing a data wipe at all.

Odin Error (Can't open the specified file) line 1892 - FIXED (for me)

Hope this might help someone here.
I rooted my s8+ and basically got stuck with a soft-bricked phone, telling me I could only use official firmware etc etc. I was able to get the phone into download mode (eventually) but I wasn't able to flash anything including the stock Pie rom. I spent all night trying to find a solution to no avail and then found this, which I've edited a bit. And it worked. I've now got my s8+ back with Android 9 on it without any bloatware and it's actually better than ever. Thanks to Krolik301 for your help. I'm just hoping this may help someone.
1. Download the stock ROM and extract it.
2. Make a copy of the CSC file and rename one from the file type .md5 to .rar
3. Extract the PIT file from the CSC .rar file.
4. In Odin v3.13, make sure you add all four files from the extracted ROM (BL, AP, CP and CSC).
5. Click the PIT tab and add the PIT file that you just extracted from the CSC.rar file.
6. I the Options tab of Odin, make sure that Re-Partition, Auto Reboot and F.Reset Time are all ticked.
7. Click Start and hopefully you'll be back to your stock ROM
And please don't hold me responsible for any loss of data or a phone that still won't boot.
Hope this helps someone. Happy Easter

Muddyfunk said:
Hope this might help someone here.
I rooted my s8+ and basically got stuck with a soft-bricked phone, telling me I could only use official firmware etc etc. I was able to get the phone into download mode (eventually) but I wasn't able to flash anything including the stock Pie rom. I spent all night trying to find a solution to no avail and then found this, which I've edited a bit. And it worked. I've now got my s8+ back with Android 9 on it without any bloatware and it's actually better than ever. Thanks to Krolik301 for your help. I'm just hoping this may help someone.
1. Download the stock ROM and extract it.
2. Make a copy of the CSC file and rename one from the file type .md5 to .rar
3. Extract the PIT file from the CSC .rar file.
4. In Odin v3.13, make sure you add all four files from the extracted ROM (BL, AP, CP and CSC).
5. Click the PIT tab and add the PIT file that you just extracted from the CSC.rar file.
6. I the Options tab of Odin, make sure that Re-Partition, Auto Reboot and F.Reset Time are all ticked.
7. Click Start and hopefully you'll be back to your stock ROM
And please don't hold me responsible for any loss of data or a phone that still won't boot.
Hope this helps someone. Happy Easter
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello. I'm helping someone on discord with this exact issue (the error code is "can't open the specified file (line 665)". I extracted the PIT file from CSC and placed it into the PIT file. I also put all of the firmware files in their proper place (except for HOME_CSC, as he wants to keep his files). Do I absolutely have to put the CSC file in place of the HOME_CSC file?

Flashing stock rom for Samsung devices with Heimdall

Hello y'all.
I got this SM-A530F/DS, a galaxy A8 (2018), from a relative that got a problem. I am not sure about specifics, but it was never tampered with or rooted, I believe that things start to go bad after an unsuccesful OTA update. The phone does not boot, it just stays on samsung logo screen indefinetly, I can put the phone on download mode though so I think this is fixable by flashing the stock rom anew.
Now I got the stock firmware from sammobile and it seems good, but it is on a format for Odin, unfortunately I dont have access to a Windows computer, just Linux. So I got heimdall and read through whatever info I could find and I think I grok the fundamentals.
TLDR:
I have the following questions about the process:
1) Inside the stock files there is a .pit file that I assume is tailored to the stock ROM being distributed, should I use this .pit or should I use the one that I can extract from the phone with Heimdall?
2) The .img files seem to be lz4 compressed so should I first decompress those, or can I pass the compressed file to heimdall?
3) Inside the tar file for Odin {AP, BL, CP, CSC} there are a meta-data folder with a fota.zip file, does this file in any way influence heimdall flashing process?
p.s. I not sure if this should be moved to the device subforum as the questions mainly deal with the Samsung devices and heimdall in general and I could not find a Samsung sub forum to post this to

So I got the situation sorted.
1) The .pit file in the stock rom was the same as the phones, so I didnt have to do anything about that
2) The .img, .bin files must be decompressed first, not a great deal just had to 'lz4 -d' those
3) Those fota.zip didnt matter for heimdall, I just followed the phones .pit file to match partition names to partitions file and did a single 'heimdall flash' command

Rooting Samsung J4 Core - only official binaries allowed

Hello, apologies if this isn't the right place to post this question but I'm at a complete lost and I'm desperately trying to fix the device. My goal was to simply root the device.
I tried following this guide but by the end of my first run of the guide I had errors with the contacts and phone android apps. But the device still wasn't root. I attempted it again only to break the device completely. I wasn't even able to open Android Recovery and only flashing the bootloader only did I manage to to back to the recovery screen. However, from here, I am unable to flash the firmware any further. I only get a message now notifying me: "only official released binaries are allowed to be flashed".
What I'm hoping to achieve with this question is to get some direct guidance on how to resolve my current error. I've followed a few guides and thread a few threads but nothing seems 100% applicable to my issue or the device.
Using Odin3_v3.13.1 and what I think is the stock firmware for J4 (following the download links on the guides) I do the following:
Unzip the binaries with 7zip ZS to uncompressed the various files, specifically the AP, BL, CP, CSC and HOME MD5 files.
I further unzip the AP file and drag the boot.img.lz4 into lz4.exe to just give me the img file.
I run that through Magisk Manager to create a patch file (on another phone) and reupload back to the pc.
I then take the patched file and drag it into lz4.exe to just give me the img.lz4 file
I then delete the original boot.img file and select all of the files and compress into a tar archive.
OR, even without doing any of that and just straight selecting the AP file without doing the patching, I either get a straight up FAIL! (Auth) from Odin and if that doesn't happen, I get the error on the phone itself saying that "only official released binaries are allowed to be flashed".
And that's where I'm just stuck. I know there are many guides, and I tried making sure I have the best one and knowing what to do, but I think I messed something up along the lines. Any assistance would really be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.