(GOOGLE DOCS SPREADSHEET)ATT & Tmo IMEI thread/ Report issues & info here!
- Thread starter androholic
- Start date
Lost IEMI on AT&T Galaxy S3
I did lose my IEMI when I flashed the Kayan ROM.(Not saying there is anything wrong with the ROM..I probably did something stupid) No connectivity at all. Checked my IEMI it was gone. Followed People army guide and had to add the NV file as it was missing. Now I atleast have Edge but no 4g connectivity or 3g. Just wanted to post here as it wont let me post it in the Developer section yet. Thanks People army and everyone else involved in this project.
I did lose my IEMI when I flashed the Kayan ROM.(Not saying there is anything wrong with the ROM..I probably did something stupid) No connectivity at all. Checked my IEMI it was gone. Followed People army guide and had to add the NV file as it was missing. Now I atleast have Edge but no 4g connectivity or 3g. Just wanted to post here as it wont let me post it in the Developer section yet. Thanks People army and everyone else involved in this project.
Has anyone who has restored their IMEI, but are still having connection problems tried doing a full Odin restore to see if that helps?
Did you ever install the AT&T OTA before doing this? i.e. was your radio updated to SV 05?I did lose my IEMI when I flashed the Kayan ROM.(Not saying there is anything wrong with the ROM..I probably did something stupid) No connectivity at all. Checked my IEMI it was gone. Followed People army guide and had to add the NV file as it was missing. Now I atleast have Edge but no 4g connectivity or 3g. Just wanted to post here as it wont let me post it in the Developer section yet. Thanks People army and everyone else involved in this project.
Restored Data With SGS3 QCN Generator and QPST
Hey all, I was trying to post in the dev forums, but I'm relatively new here, so it won't let me post. Anyways, I felt I should post here because, like some people on these forums, I lost my IMEI after flashing and I figure I may as well tell you my experience to help anybody out. I am on a Rogers version of the Galaxy S III (i747M). Like others, when I lost my IMEI, I was stuck on Edge and not getting any 3G signal.
Once I realized, I lost my IMEI I flashed back to Stock using the steps here .
I used the IMEI injection method mentioned here (first post near bottom).
Reading the forums, it mentioned that once your IMEI is injected you should start getting 3G/4G signals again. Unfortunately, this was not the case (I noticed a lot of people were having this problem too). I kept reading and on the the same forum (which instructed how to inject IMEI) there was a way to restore "4G services" (3rd post down).
I thought I may as well try it at this point, since I'm not getting data and I'm pretty desperate to getting this thing going again. I followed the instructions as per the post and after a manual reboot voila! My data connection was restored. I was getting 3G signal again. Now I'm scared to flash another ROM.
NOTE: Here is some information on what I did after I realized I lost my IMEI:
I was originally on a CM9 nightly and I wanted to flash ParanoidAndroid ROM. Once I flashed that it worked fine, however, my email apps were crashing. I read somewhere on the forum that you need to be on CM10 and then you need to dirty flash ParanoidAndroid on top of CM10. I did this and that's when things got wonky. I lost my IMEI and was not getting any 3G data.
Hopefully this helps somebody, anybody! Because it was a pain in the ass getting this to work again! I'm gonna make sure to thank the devs!
Hey all, I was trying to post in the dev forums, but I'm relatively new here, so it won't let me post. Anyways, I felt I should post here because, like some people on these forums, I lost my IMEI after flashing and I figure I may as well tell you my experience to help anybody out. I am on a Rogers version of the Galaxy S III (i747M). Like others, when I lost my IMEI, I was stuck on Edge and not getting any 3G signal.
Once I realized, I lost my IMEI I flashed back to Stock using the steps here .
I used the IMEI injection method mentioned here (first post near bottom).
Reading the forums, it mentioned that once your IMEI is injected you should start getting 3G/4G signals again. Unfortunately, this was not the case (I noticed a lot of people were having this problem too). I kept reading and on the the same forum (which instructed how to inject IMEI) there was a way to restore "4G services" (3rd post down).
I thought I may as well try it at this point, since I'm not getting data and I'm pretty desperate to getting this thing going again. I followed the instructions as per the post and after a manual reboot voila! My data connection was restored. I was getting 3G signal again. Now I'm scared to flash another ROM.
NOTE: Here is some information on what I did after I realized I lost my IMEI:
I was originally on a CM9 nightly and I wanted to flash ParanoidAndroid ROM. Once I flashed that it worked fine, however, my email apps were crashing. I read somewhere on the forum that you need to be on CM10 and then you need to dirty flash ParanoidAndroid on top of CM10. I did this and that's when things got wonky. I lost my IMEI and was not getting any 3G data.
Hopefully this helps somebody, anybody! Because it was a pain in the ass getting this to work again! I'm gonna make sure to thank the devs!
I wonder if anyone on T-Mobile has lost their IMEI since flashing after the recent stock update to T999UVALH2
I just decided to root my phone and mess around after receiving the update as it removed universal search. Since it had several nice (albeit minor) improvements, I Odin'd back to a rooted stock "pre-update" version, used OTA root keeper, allowed the OTA update again, restored root and then restored universal search.
Flashed CWM recovery after all was said and done, but CWM recovery won't stick now as the new update overwrites recovery if it finds anything other than stock recovery. So now if I want to use CWM recovery I have to flash it everytime through ROM Manager and then use ROM Manager to boot into recovery. Once I reboot after that, it again rewrites stock recovery.
No loss of IMEI though (yet)
I wonder if Sammy addressed it in the update.. but I could just be lucky so far
I just decided to root my phone and mess around after receiving the update as it removed universal search. Since it had several nice (albeit minor) improvements, I Odin'd back to a rooted stock "pre-update" version, used OTA root keeper, allowed the OTA update again, restored root and then restored universal search.
Flashed CWM recovery after all was said and done, but CWM recovery won't stick now as the new update overwrites recovery if it finds anything other than stock recovery. So now if I want to use CWM recovery I have to flash it everytime through ROM Manager and then use ROM Manager to boot into recovery. Once I reboot after that, it again rewrites stock recovery.
No loss of IMEI though (yet)
I wonder if Sammy addressed it in the update.. but I could just be lucky so far
Hello all, just a few questions. I've read about 20 pages as I cannot get through 85! LOL. I'm a bit confused. This is my first non Tmo Android phone and non HTC phone so sort of double new experiences for me.
Trying to sort out these few things from reading this thread.
1) The counter thing, you lose warranty if you just root? Or if you flash? As I would like to root but I'm liking the stock rom a lot so don't plan on flashing anything, I just want root in order to use some root apps I am used to and such. So what makes the counter move to lose warranty? Rooting, or flashing.
2) Is there a method to unroot without AT&T knowing you rooted in case I need a warranty exchange.
3) The big topic in here, the IMEI, does this get messed up just rooting, or if you flash another rom?
4) You can root but not need to flash another rom correct? You can just root and leave it as is?
Thanks! I'll try and read more in here but just way too many pages to get through.
Trying to sort out these few things from reading this thread.
1) The counter thing, you lose warranty if you just root? Or if you flash? As I would like to root but I'm liking the stock rom a lot so don't plan on flashing anything, I just want root in order to use some root apps I am used to and such. So what makes the counter move to lose warranty? Rooting, or flashing.
2) Is there a method to unroot without AT&T knowing you rooted in case I need a warranty exchange.
3) The big topic in here, the IMEI, does this get messed up just rooting, or if you flash another rom?
4) You can root but not need to flash another rom correct? You can just root and leave it as is?
Thanks! I'll try and read more in here but just way too many pages to get through.
Answers in-line below...
To answer your question in the shortest way possible: flashing.
Here's some further explanation, however, if you're interested :
Rooting your phone voids your warranty. There are many schools of thought on this, and most people agree that manufacturers should allow the OWNER of the device to decide what to do with it. Unfortunately, the manufacturers don't agree with the people . Samsung has implemented a flash counter that increments if you flash a NON-STOCK ROM using the Odin tool. (However, if you flash a non-stock ROM using CWM, then apparently it doesn't increment.) The process of rooting doesn't increment the counter, however, but it DOES change the 'System Status' of the phone to 'Custom' or 'Unofficial'. So if you took your phone in for warranty repair, they would know you messed with it and would probably deny you warranty coverage. The incremented counter also disqualifies you for warranty coverage.
Regardless, if you need a warranty repair and you've rooted your phone, you could always just re-flash, using Odin, an official Samsung ROM, which is freely available to download, and it would return the 'Status' to 'Official', and Samsung wouldn't know any better, and you would have lost your root, since it restores your phone to it's original state (of course you would also wipe Dalvik cache, reset settings, wipe the phone, etc).
Now the flash counter itself... if you flash a non-stock ROM using Odin, it would increment the counter. Even if you flashed back to a stock ROM, that counter would stay incremented. To fix that, another XDA member by the name of ChainFire wrote an app called TriangleAway, that resets the flash counter to 0. You can buy the app from the Play store for a small price to support the author, or download it for free from this link (generously provided by the app author as well):
http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1494114
Confused yet?
Yes, as I explained above, you would just wipe Dalvik cache, reset settings, wipe the phone, and then re-flash a stock ROM using Odin, and you would lose root, and AT&T would be none the wiser. Since you're not planning on flashing any custom ROM's, you won't have to worry about the flash counter being incremented. You can check the status of the flash counter by going into 'Download' mode, and it's shown there.
What causes the loss of IMEI is still an unknown. There are some theories pointing at there being a problem during flashing of custom ROM's that corrupt the IMEI, but nothing conclusive. Some of the latest OTA updates to the phone's modem and OS may have corrected the original reasons for the problem occurring, but Samsung isn't telling us that so we really don't know if it's fixed in newer releases of the phone software. Whatever the deal is, the best and safest bet is to make sure your IMEI information is backed up and kept safe.
Yes. If you flash a stock ROM that has root injected, then you're technically flashing a custom ROM, but since it's the stock ROM, you don't have to worry.
Hope that answers your questions! Remember, reading is a good thing!
PS: To anyone else reading this post, if I got anything wrong, please correct me!
To answer your question in the shortest way possible: flashing.
Here's some further explanation, however, if you're interested
:Rooting your phone voids your warranty. There are many schools of thought on this, and most people agree that manufacturers should allow the OWNER of the device to decide what to do with it. Unfortunately, the manufacturers don't agree with the people
. Samsung has implemented a flash counter that increments if you flash a NON-STOCK ROM using the Odin tool. (However, if you flash a non-stock ROM using CWM, then apparently it doesn't increment.) The process of rooting doesn't increment the counter, however, but it DOES change the 'System Status' of the phone to 'Custom' or 'Unofficial'. So if you took your phone in for warranty repair, they would know you messed with it and would probably deny you warranty coverage. The incremented counter also disqualifies you for warranty coverage.Regardless, if you need a warranty repair and you've rooted your phone, you could always just re-flash, using Odin, an official Samsung ROM, which is freely available to download, and it would return the 'Status' to 'Official', and Samsung wouldn't know any better, and you would have lost your root, since it restores your phone to it's original state (of course you would also wipe Dalvik cache, reset settings, wipe the phone, etc).
Now the flash counter itself... if you flash a non-stock ROM using Odin, it would increment the counter. Even if you flashed back to a stock ROM, that counter would stay incremented. To fix that, another XDA member by the name of ChainFire wrote an app called TriangleAway, that resets the flash counter to 0. You can buy the app from the Play store for a small price to support the author, or download it for free from this link (generously provided by the app author as well):
http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1494114
Confused yet?
Yes, as I explained above, you would just wipe Dalvik cache, reset settings, wipe the phone, and then re-flash a stock ROM using Odin, and you would lose root, and AT&T would be none the wiser. Since you're not planning on flashing any custom ROM's, you won't have to worry about the flash counter being incremented. You can check the status of the flash counter by going into 'Download' mode, and it's shown there.
What causes the loss of IMEI is still an unknown. There are some theories pointing at there being a problem during flashing of custom ROM's that corrupt the IMEI, but nothing conclusive. Some of the latest OTA updates to the phone's modem and OS may have corrected the original reasons for the problem occurring, but Samsung isn't telling us that
so we really don't know if it's fixed in newer releases of the phone software. Whatever the deal is, the best and safest bet is to make sure your IMEI information is backed up and kept safe.Yes. If you flash a stock ROM that has root injected, then you're technically flashing a custom ROM, but since it's the stock ROM, you don't have to worry.
Hope that answers your questions!
Remember, reading is a good thing!PS: To anyone else reading this post, if I got anything wrong, please correct me!
Last edited:
I had this problem but peoplearmy's system fixed me right up!
used Geek's method to backup NV tho just in case...i have backups everywhere now!
used Geek's method to backup NV tho just in case...i have backups everywhere now!
I have lost my IMEI on v05. I was able to reinject it, but can only connect to Edge (2G). Peoplearmy's tool does not succeed in generating a QCN - possibly due to being v05 vs v02?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app
Is anyone else still having issues with lost IMEIs or not being able to get 3G/4G? or is this an official fix?
Also, just to add:
I had basically this exact thing happen to me. I flashed the root 66 stock Tar using ODIN. then i Tried to perform the OTA update and keep root. didn't work. So then I just used ODIN to flash the newer root 66 (which was basically the OTA with root). after that I decided to install Rom Manager and flash CWM and that went just fine. I did a Nandroid backup of my current ROM, cleared everyting, then flashed CM10 (CM-10-20120901-nightly-d2tmo). That was working fine, and overnight my phone batter died (I believe that it should have had enough battery to make it through the night). After charging my phone up a bit and turning it back on, I noticed I wasn't getting a signal. I check my phone info and my IMEI was definately gone (or changed, I can't remember 100%. I freaked out). I had already used the NV backup tool and tried to get into the qualcomm setting to restore my IMEI, however I coudn't access this on CM10. So I flashed back my original ROM, and BOOM!!! my IMEI was there... WTF?. I haven't tried anything since, but find this to be odd considering everything I read in this thread (yes, I read all 80 pages).
I have a SGH-T999 FYI
Also, just to add:
This happened to me last night and I don't think it has anything to do with the actual process of flashing the ROM. I had rooted and flashed recovery using the "dd" method and then flashed CM10 and CM9. Last night my battery died and after it was at 100% i turned it back on the BAM! no IMEI. So mine became corrupted out of no where. Not during rooting, not during flashing. I really hope we can sort this out because I want to be able to flash things on this without having to worry about this. Luckily it was pretty easy to go into a Bell store and get a new on
I had basically this exact thing happen to me. I flashed the root 66 stock Tar using ODIN. then i Tried to perform the OTA update and keep root. didn't work. So then I just used ODIN to flash the newer root 66 (which was basically the OTA with root). after that I decided to install Rom Manager and flash CWM and that went just fine. I did a Nandroid backup of my current ROM, cleared everyting, then flashed CM10 (CM-10-20120901-nightly-d2tmo). That was working fine, and overnight my phone batter died (I believe that it should have had enough battery to make it through the night). After charging my phone up a bit and turning it back on, I noticed I wasn't getting a signal. I check my phone info and my IMEI was definately gone (or changed, I can't remember 100%. I freaked out). I had already used the NV backup tool and tried to get into the qualcomm setting to restore my IMEI, however I coudn't access this on CM10. So I flashed back my original ROM, and BOOM!!! my IMEI was there... WTF?. I haven't tried anything since, but find this to be odd considering everything I read in this thread (yes, I read all 80 pages).
I have a SGH-T999 FYI
Last edited:
Wow, so this thread has been quiet for 3 weeks. Does mean that PeoplesArmy has saved everyoneslife?
Or that the issue is stabilized???? I couldn't imagine a Sammy so sensitive to a flash job. And I would expect alot more instances still occurring.
Is it safe to go back in the water?
Thanks
Edit- I do see PeoplesArmy thread has been visited as recently as the 30th. But still........
Sent from my SGH-I777 using xda app-developers app
Or that the issue is stabilized???? I couldn't imagine a Sammy so sensitive to a flash job. And I would expect alot more instances still occurring.
Is it safe to go back in the water?
Thanks
Edit- I do see PeoplesArmy thread has been visited as recently as the 30th. But still........
Sent from my SGH-I777 using xda app-developers app
Last edited:
nope.....the guy whom mentioned the QCN issue.....hit the nail on the head i think. I re-injected my IMEI BUT i still am just stuck on EDGE...everything i have done has been completed successfully.....
my issue happened due to a ODEXing failure on FrostyJB rom....so now with IMEI injected....i need the next step....i been wondering if i copied another Tmobile Galaxy S2 or 3 EFS or IMEI folder then RE-Injected my backup IMEI over that?
OR like someone said would just ODIN fix everything? I have a good backup so i suppose im going to give it shot.....
my issue happened due to a ODEXing failure on FrostyJB rom....so now with IMEI injected....i need the next step....i been wondering if i copied another Tmobile Galaxy S2 or 3 EFS or IMEI folder then RE-Injected my backup IMEI over that?
OR like someone said would just ODIN fix everything? I have a good backup so i suppose im going to give it shot.....
hey folks just posting because I successfully injected my girlfriend's IMEI without a backup and got 4g back as if nothing was the matter. AT&T SGS3 here.
The whole process took me about four hours of trial and error, but it all worked out in the end, and peoplearmy's method works fine if you take each step carefully.
Here's what happened to me with her phone:
Flashed insecure boot for root, CWM, and busybox (all-in-one) by SGS3 Toolkit, did a nandroid.
Flashed MIUI, didn't like it.
Flashed AOKP jellybean.
Lost her IMEI during one of those steps. I realized after installing AOKP that she wasn't getting data, or at least it appeared to be stuck on "E" 95% of the time. Whenever she would reboot her phone, she would get 4g for a couple minutes before it would vanish. Her IMEI in About Phone > Status read as "0" at this time. ..restoring it to the first nandroid didn't restore her IMEI.
I tried unsuccessfully for awhile trying to get her phone into DIAG mode or whatever with the AOKP rom, but I couldn't get the scripts to execute properly in terminal emulator or perhaps I was doing it entirely wrong. Whatever the case, I restored the phone back to my first nandroid of the stock-rooted rom so I could use the stock dialer. Seemed like dialing *#7284# in the stock dialer was much easier, LOL.
Anyway, I put the phone into RMNET + DM + MODEM mode just fine. I made a backup of my QCN with QPSD and then opened the RF_NV_Manager. I searched for item number 550, but the key did NOT exist on her phone. Following instructions, I added the item. The nine boxes had no values.
Okay, so the thread peoplearmy started has "The IMEI is also listed in a special order so you must follow this guide to ensure your IMEI is correct." but there IS NO GUIDE or LINK as of yesterday other than the quoted text so this is the part that took me FOREVER to figure out. Lol. I tried writing random numbers and ****, and they would get her 4g LTE access for about 15 minutes before it would stop working again... eventually I figured out you need to reverse the numbers every two digits starting from the end, and add "a" to the last one.
not sure if posting her IMEI is a good idea so I'll do an example (your IMEI number is written underneath your battery). It's easier to do bottom to top in my opinion.
657091051094276
which is easier read as
6 57 09 10 51 09 42 76
should be input into the nine boxes as:
(first box is always 8)
8
6a
75
90
1 (the 01 will make the zero vanish so don't worry. this threw me off at first.)
15
90
24
67
I don't have any clue as to what the original post or guide said about putting your numbers in properly, but this worked for me. It wrote successfully with RF_NV_Manager to her phone and I rebooted it. AND 4G WORKED!!! And her IMEI number in Settings > About phone > Status matched exactly to what was written under the battery!!
And uh, I didn't use the SGS3 Data Restorer App at all. I don't really understand what its purpose is, but perhaps others have used it to great success.
The whole process took me about four hours of trial and error, but it all worked out in the end, and peoplearmy's method works fine if you take each step carefully.
Here's what happened to me with her phone:
Flashed insecure boot for root, CWM, and busybox (all-in-one) by SGS3 Toolkit, did a nandroid.
Flashed MIUI, didn't like it.
Flashed AOKP jellybean.
Lost her IMEI during one of those steps. I realized after installing AOKP that she wasn't getting data, or at least it appeared to be stuck on "E" 95% of the time. Whenever she would reboot her phone, she would get 4g for a couple minutes before it would vanish. Her IMEI in About Phone > Status read as "0" at this time. ..restoring it to the first nandroid didn't restore her IMEI.
I tried unsuccessfully for awhile trying to get her phone into DIAG mode or whatever with the AOKP rom, but I couldn't get the scripts to execute properly in terminal emulator or perhaps I was doing it entirely wrong. Whatever the case, I restored the phone back to my first nandroid of the stock-rooted rom so I could use the stock dialer. Seemed like dialing *#7284# in the stock dialer was much easier, LOL.
Anyway, I put the phone into RMNET + DM + MODEM mode just fine. I made a backup of my QCN with QPSD and then opened the RF_NV_Manager. I searched for item number 550, but the key did NOT exist on her phone. Following instructions, I added the item. The nine boxes had no values.
Okay, so the thread peoplearmy started has "The IMEI is also listed in a special order so you must follow this guide to ensure your IMEI is correct." but there IS NO GUIDE or LINK as of yesterday other than the quoted text so this is the part that took me FOREVER to figure out. Lol. I tried writing random numbers and ****, and they would get her 4g LTE access for about 15 minutes before it would stop working again... eventually I figured out you need to reverse the numbers every two digits starting from the end, and add "a" to the last one.
not sure if posting her IMEI is a good idea so I'll do an example (your IMEI number is written underneath your battery). It's easier to do bottom to top in my opinion.
657091051094276
which is easier read as
6 57 09 10 51 09 42 76
should be input into the nine boxes as:
(first box is always 8)
8
6a
75
90
1 (the 01 will make the zero vanish so don't worry. this threw me off at first.)
15
90
24
67
I don't have any clue as to what the original post or guide said about putting your numbers in properly, but this worked for me. It wrote successfully with RF_NV_Manager to her phone and I rebooted it. AND 4G WORKED!!! And her IMEI number in Settings > About phone > Status matched exactly to what was written under the battery!!
And uh, I didn't use the SGS3 Data Restorer App at all. I don't really understand what its purpose is, but perhaps others have used it to great success.
I have a tool I made that lets you write IMEI direct to the device, converts it to hex and allows to write it to a qcn file.
It also backs up and restores the full range of NV items in CDMA Workshop format.
As for fixing data issues, I believe this is due to missing EVDO data and/or missing PRL.
I am currently working on this also.
Sent from my GT-I9305 using Tapatalk 2
It also backs up and restores the full range of NV items in CDMA Workshop format.
As for fixing data issues, I believe this is due to missing EVDO data and/or missing PRL.
I am currently working on this also.
Sent from my GT-I9305 using Tapatalk 2
Last edited:
Re: (GOOGLE DOCS SPREADSHEET)ATT & Tmo IMEI thread/ Report issues & info here!
Have the same issue going on. What do I need to do for a warranty exchange? Got it over the phone from att about 4 months ago. Its rooted obviously with cm.10.1 ROM. I don't have any backups saved or anything from when it wasn't rooted. Can I just unroot and then do a factory restore? I am hoping not to have to hook it up to a computer (no access to one at the moment).
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 2
Have the same issue going on. What do I need to do for a warranty exchange? Got it over the phone from att about 4 months ago. Its rooted obviously with cm.10.1 ROM. I don't have any backups saved or anything from when it wasn't rooted. Can I just unroot and then do a factory restore? I am hoping not to have to hook it up to a computer (no access to one at the moment).
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 2
Similar threads
Top Liked Posts
-
There are no posts matching your filters.
-
14UPDATE 7/29/2012 : PEOPLEARMY HAS FOUND A WAY TO BACK UP, RESTORE, OR INJECT YOUR IMEI! BELOW I WILL PASTE A LINK. THE PROBLEM APPEARS TO NOW HAVE A SOLUTION! PLEASE BE SURE TO THANK PEOPLEARMY, AND MOST OF ALL, IF AT ALL POSSIBLE I ENCOURAGE YOU TO DONATE TO HIM, AS HE HAS SAVED MANT PEOPLE FROM WARRANTY EXCHANGES, BRICKED DEVICES, AND MILD HEART ATTACKS!
http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1801997
UPDATE 7/30/2012: IT APPEARS THAT USER "GEEK", WHO PLAYED A LARGE ROLE IN PEOPLEARMYS IMEI SOLUTION, HAS NOW WRAPPED UP THE BACK UP PROCESS INTO A VERY SIMPLE AND EASY TO USE TOOL THAT ONLY REQUIRES FREEWARE! BELOW YOU WILL FIND A LINK TO GEEKS TOOL & EASY TO FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS ACCOMPANIED BY A VIDEO DEMONSTRATION! PEOPLEARMY HAS SUGGESTED THAT HE BELIEVES IT WOULD BE BEST IF YOU WERE TO CREATE THE BACK UP USING BOTH METHODS. PLEASE BE SURE TO THANK GEEK WHEN YOU VISIT HIS "IMEI TOOL THREAD", AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, IF YOU ARE IN A POSITION TO DONATE THEN PLEASE DO. WITHOUT THE HARD WORK OF BOTH OF THESE USERS, MANY PEOPLE WOULD HAVE LOST THEIR VERY EXPENSIVE GS3'S!
http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=180412311Hi,
Just wanted to fill you guys in on what I'm working on.
So far I have built a custom rom that enables Diagnostic serial port on T-mobile SGS3
I have Extracted the 16 digit password from the modem
I have Connected to Qualcomm Service tools such as CDMA workshop and QPST/QXDM
I have READ the IMEI with these tools.
I have achieved a full NV dump of the phone.
The only thing left is to achieve WRITE of IMEI and your problems will be solved.
I do not have the issue on my device but decided to put some time into this to see if I could get it done. I am still working on it now.
Is there an official bounty for this solution or no?9I'll concur, that command looks ok to me.. Don't really need to cd /sdcard though but it won't hurt anything.
zonly, good luck, and as usual, this is at your own risk but you already have a brick right
Assuming you can get back to a shell afterwards, you can (theoretically) re-dd the original img back to restore the original state.
Okay boys, I'm goin' in. Will report back.6
I believe this is the most important question that can be asked but it seems to have been looked over.
I know I've seen people say that the EFS Backup "App" doesn't work, but I'm not terribly surprised by this. Backups don't get much more rock-solid than a 'dd' backup.
(don't remember which thread this was from but it was posted by id_twin)
Backup by typing this in the terminal:
Code:dd if=/dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/efs of=/external_sd/efs_backup.img
Restore by typing this in the terminal:
Code:dd if=/external_sd/efs_backup.img of=/dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/efs_sdcc.1/by-name/efs
For those who are not familliar, this basically backs up a partition by reading directly from the storage device and outputting the byte-for-byte into a file that can be copied off for safe keeping when done. The restore process does the opposite, but writes byte-for-byte the entire partition block back to the partition area exactly the way it originally was pulled.
The important thing to know here is that most backup/restore apps will copy "files" out of a partition and into a different storage format than the partition such as tar or zip. To restore from one of these kinds backup apps, you would have to have an existing properly-formatted partition ready and mounted to extract the files to BUT when you're done extracting, the end-result is that you would have a different partition with the same files but with slight differences, such as the fact that the re-extracted files would likely be written to different areas of the partition than the original partition you extracted from, therefore your restore would NOT give you the EXACT same partition that you started with, just one that appears the same when mounted.
THIS kind of backup (dd backup) is a bit more awesome in that it will perform a partition-level backup which is the raw filesystem and all, it basically reads the 1's and 0's from a particular sector of your storage that includes the filesystem headers and filesystem structure and all in the backup. This means a couple of things. DD doesn't care (or know) what the underlying file-system is, in fact, there doesn't even need to be a filesystem present, it's just bytes in a block on a drive. This means that restoring THIS kind of backup will restore the base-level filesystem in-tact byte-for-byte. It's an exact mirror of your partition. These backups are so solid that these kinds of backups can actually be mounted as if they were a drive-partition on their own because technically, they ARE exactly a partition.
That being said, I really would be shocked if someone couldn't restore their EFS partition this way. I have backed mine up with this method but have not had any IMEI issues as of yet. If someone would be willing to share their DD backup with someone who has lost their IMEI as a proof-of-concept just to let the rest of the group know if this backup/restore method is effective that would be awesome. I have to admit I'm not terribly fond of handing out my IMEI to anyone, but it would be a great test for someone who has TWO GS3's handy (one with a bad IMEI and one good).
Hope this post helpful more than it is boring. I hope this gets figured out soon. I'm still a bit scared to flash another rom for now.6
New posts
-
-
Question Possible to remove apps from stock fastboot image, flash & relock bootloader- Latest: Wayne Nathaniel
