Everyone has to understand when using ODIN 99% OF THE TIME YOUR DATA GETS WIPED! Not your external data, the internal.
1) This is because you are basically installing a brand new OS, especially in this case, with bootloaders and a kernel, even if it did not wipe your data most likely it would bootloop or not even boot at all.
2) For those that care about root, I highly recommend not flashing this till a method is figured out.
2a) With root on 4.3 we have safestrap. I have broke down a couple partitions and there are more complex "selinux" integration with backup scrips and new implementation in the init.d scripts. What does this mean? Well,
@Hashcode would have to pretty much have to reconfigure "Safestrap" to work. There is always a chance that it won't be possible to get it to work again also.
3) As Android progresses, we are seeing a trend with security. There is already commits to the main AOSP branch that shows these changes. IMO, it's only a matter of time before rooting is phased out on many of the OEM'S. Now, their is always going to be new exploits and different ways.
I'm not trying to be a "Debbie Downer", I am just trying to display my concern with carriers/manufacturers. As Android becomes more popular it's used corporately and by government agencies. So these carriers are picking up multi million dollar contracts by ensuring mobile security, in return asking manufacturers to make there products more secure. In conclusion, always wait till Dev's successfully root new firmwares before you blindly start flashing things. Also when choosing a new phone in the future do your homework on the security of the phone.
Let's hope we can work together to figure out a solution to regaining root on the newest build. We should start a development thread to start working on it together.
DirtyDroidX
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A