A warning for all rooters

danakers · Feb 21, 2013

At the risk of showcasing myself as a total moron, I thought I'd share with you my experience of sheer, unadulterated stupidity before anyone else makes the same mistake.

I've been rooting my Android devices for a long, long time without any problem, until now.

I installed a ROM that didn't agree with my N7100 and needed to get my phone back into a working state. Having only Macs at work meant I had to use Heimdall rather than the Windows-friendly Odin. Heimdall isn't quite as easy to get to grips with and couldn't handle the factory images I was throwing at it, so in a desperate attempt to fix this, I inadvertently deleted all of my EFS data...

...and I hadn't taken a backup.

A local 'backstreet' phone shop couldn't fix it, and Vodafone charged me £100 (as I'd invalided the warranty) to replace the motherboard.

So it's not only a silly mistake to make, it's an expensive one, as this 'experienced' rooter discovered

Whatever you do, never, ever delete, re-partition or reformat the EFS partition on your Galaxy Note II!

You have been warned!

Bl!GhT · Feb 21, 2013

danakers said:
At the risk of showcasing myself as a total moron, I thought I'd share with you my experience of sheer, unadulterated stupidity before anyone else makes the same mistake.

I've been rooting my Android devices for a long, long time without any problem, until now.

I installed a ROM that didn't agree with my N7100 and needed to get my phone back into a working state. Having only Macs at work meant I had to use Heimdall rather than the Windows-friendly Odin. Heimdall isn't quite as easy to get to grips with and couldn't handle the factory images I was throwing at it, so in a desperate attempt to fix this, I inadvertently deleted all of my EFS data...

...and I hadn't taken a backup.

A local 'backstreet' phone shop couldn't fix it, and Vodafone charged me £100 (as I'd invalided the warranty) to replace the motherboard.

So it's not only a silly mistake to make, it's an expensive one, as this 'experienced' rooter discovered

Whatever you do, never, ever delete, re-partition or reformat the EFS partition on your Galaxy Note II!

You have been warned!

Even though i wouldn't do this, i am sure that if NASA was able to send monkeys into space there ought to a couple left here who would do this

But Thank You.

DaBountyHunter · Feb 21, 2013

Bl!GhT said:
Even though i wouldn't do this, i am sure that if NASA was able to send monkeys into space there ought to a couple left here who would do this

But Thank You.

If you had insurance you could have claimed on that instead?

danakers · Feb 21, 2013

DaBountyHunter said:
If you had insurance you could have claimed on that instead?

Mmm, not having insurance makes me even dumber!

rashid.fairus · Feb 21, 2013

you should understand the word "use at your own risk", "always made a backup", "this is for advanced-user", and many things before doing something, just a warning wont help I think..

danakers · Feb 21, 2013

rashid.fairus said:
you should understand the word "use at your own risk", "always made a backup", "this is for advanced-user", and many things before doing something, just a warning wont help I think..

Yes, I'm just trying to be helpful by posting this.

I consider myself an advanced user, but even advanced users can make mistakes.

jutley · Feb 21, 2013

you could have fixed it with this software http://www.softworld.com/windows/communications/telephony/unlock-samsung-home/

dr.ketan · Feb 21, 2013

jutley said:
you could have fixed it with this software http://www.softworld.com/windows/communications/telephony/unlock-samsung-home/

I have tested this sw after reading this from your other post
though i have no IMEI issue but tried unlock screen as it is free feature, but it didn't work for me.
apart from this it has caused issue on my device and pc, my play store was unable to download any application untill i factory reset device.
on PC side even after uninstall sw it was giving me some dll error. and had to reset my PC too.

adytum · Feb 21, 2013

I've seen a lot of efs repair apps, and I don't really see how any of them can possibly work at all. If the efs is deleted, you can't magically return it. That would be the same as having an app recalling a forgotten password without having anything to do with it beforehand.

Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk 2

danakers · Feb 21, 2013

adytum said:
I've seen a lot of efs repair apps, and I don't really see how any of them can possibly work at all. If the efs is deleted, you can't magically return it. That would be the same as having an app recalling a forgotten password without having anything to do with it beforehand.

Yes, it does seem as though screwing up your EFS is a bigger deal than I thought, on account of the fact that the only way they could repair my handset was by replacing the mobo. I tried so many supposed 'fixes' before dropping my handset into the Vodafone store and sadly none of them worked. On the plus side, even though I 'fessed up, the helpful people at Vodafone logged my fault as "device will not reboot" in the hope they didn't spot it was an invalidated warranty job... but they still found out

Anyway, hands up... I'm an idiot!

zekurosu · Feb 22, 2013

always backup your EFS folder into external SD card just to be on the safe side

Linux7 · Feb 22, 2013

thanks for the advice :good:

koalauk · Feb 22, 2013

Paranoids Glore my efs on my raid server in the cloud on my remote mail server zipped and stored on a flash disk and on my laptop. Uou never know

Sent from my GT-N7100 using xda app-developers app

mazdamiata210 · Feb 22, 2013

Step 1. Buy a PC.
Step 2. Enjoy.

ciscosec · Feb 22, 2013

Ok...thank you for sharing the experience...**** happens even to the brilliandest of minds!... I have a crusial question though... I come from the htc side which I now hate for their crappy support and aftersales policy... I had an evo 3d which after a year of pretty much flawless operation started to have serious issues with the display. I had the warranty running, so htc service repaired it for free, changing the mobo! GOD! What happened next?? I couldnt unlock the bootloader (even with their official way) and root my phone! Such a huge dissapointment! SO, my question to you all guys is, if for some reason I got changed my note2 mobo, will I be able to root it again? Thank you all in advance.

Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk 2

zekurosu · Feb 22, 2013

ciscosec said:
Ok...thank you for sharing the experience...**** happens even to the brilliandest of minds!... I have a crusial question though... I come from the htc side which I now hate for their crappy support and aftersales policy... I had an evo 3d which after a year of pretty much flawless operation started to have serious issues with the display. I had the warranty running, so htc service repaired it for free, changing the mobo! GOD! What happened next?? I couldnt unlock the bootloader (even with their official way) and root my phone! Such a huge dissapointment! SO, my question to you all guys is, if for some reason I got changed my note2 mobo, will I be able to root it again? Thank you all in advance.

Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk 2

yepp .. no problem

Zanr Zij · Feb 22, 2013

That is a sign of SDS. You know what you do, there is no problem at all

Sent from my GT-N7100

ciscosec · Feb 22, 2013

Sds? What does this mean?

Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk 2

adytum · Feb 22, 2013

Zanr Zij said:
That is a sign of SDS. You know what you do, there is no problem at all

Sent from my GT-N7100

What are you on about? None of this has anything to do with Sds.

Nowadays people get a cold and blame it on Sds.

Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk 2

dk206 · Feb 22, 2013

danakers said:
At the risk of showcasing myself as a total moron, I thought I'd share with you my experience of sheer, unadulterated stupidity before anyone else makes the same mistake.

I've been rooting my Android devices for a long, long time without any problem, until now.

I installed a ROM that didn't agree with my N7100 and needed to get my phone back into a working state. Having only Macs at work meant I had to use Heimdall rather than the Windows-friendly Odin. Heimdall isn't quite as easy to get to grips with and couldn't handle the factory images I was throwing at it, so in a desperate attempt to fix this, I inadvertently deleted all of my EFS data...

...and I hadn't taken a backup.

A local 'backstreet' phone shop couldn't fix it, and Vodafone charged me £100 (as I'd invalided the warranty) to replace the motherboard.

So it's not only a silly mistake to make, it's an expensive one, as this 'experienced' rooter discovered

Whatever you do, never, ever delete, re-partition or reformat the EFS partition on your Galaxy Note II!

You have been warned!

Why didnt u go to the samsung repair centre???? Are u in the UK? ?

Handwritten from my Galaxy Note II

A warning for all rooters

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