Hello everybody 
Due to some demand and request, I've decided to adapt my guide to the I9100G. It deserves some love too!
This is a guide dedicated to noobs, so if you're not one, I would advise to stop reading now! (altough feedback would be great!)
Yes, there have been quite a few threads about fixing a soft brick. But what I'm writting now is another solution to a different kind of problem : unflashable GSII (which also works with a soft brick of course), which is a soft brick and a corrupted NAND rw (read/write) function.
Just in case you don't know, a soft brick occurs when you flash a ROM or Kernel, and it doesn't go your way, thus bricking the "soft part", aka Software, of your phone. Therefore, it is easy to recover from. Now, regarding NAND rw (NAND's read and write function being the corruption) it means that it is an issue deeper than a soft brick.
It is obvious when you can flash a kernel, but you can't flash a ROM, because it can't properly read the NAND, but can flash a kernel. But you ask, why the kernel? Because flashing a kernel is a bit deeper than flashing a ROM. When you flash a kernel, you're changing/putting new instructions to the hardware, and when flashing a ROM, the instructions that are drewn are different and more "simple", so when flashing, ODIN will say "FAIL" instead of "PASS", or suddenly stopping the flash out of nowhere.
BUT UNFORTUNATELY, this guide will not be able to fix a NAND r/w corruption, due to tyhe fact that I do not have either the .PIT, the bootloader or the kernel, I only have a stock ROM, which will only fix a soft brick.
As soon as I get my laptop back from RMA (this Pentium Dual core I'm using right now isn't trustworthy), I'll extract the zImage and sbl.bin from each ROM, zip it, upload it, and add the rest of the guide.
________________________________________________
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT #2
Please welcome neerajganga, your new thread maintainer (along with me)! He has been of great help, so I think he deserves this kind of announcement!________________________________________________
Wipe data/factory reset and wipe cache. IF THAT DOESN'T WORK, MOVE ON WITH THE GUIDE
__________________________________________________
1) You have to know the basics of ODIN and flashing (duh)
2) Just to be safe, please uninstall Samsung KIES. It usually interferes when flashing with ODIN. You must have the USB drivers from your phone, so don't uninstall them. Only uninstall the program KIES.
Just in case you don't have them, here are the Samsung USB drivers
3) Download ODIN, the tool that we'll use to flash all the things into our beloved Galaxy S II
4) Download the necessary ROM (they are Gingerbread 2.3.6) : Africa (Iraq), Asia (Malaysia), Europe (Open Austria), Middle East (Saudi Arabia). (password is samfirmware.com)
5) You must have WinRAR to unRAR the Recovery Package and to unzip ODIN.
You can also use 7zip, as sugested by jermitano
And that is it! Let's get down to business
__________________________________________________
If your GSII has the folowing symptoms :
It means that you are soft bricked and is easy to solve.
But if your symptoms are the mentioned above, PLUS the symptoms below
Then it means that you have a bigger issue, such as the aforementioned NAND rw corruption.
It's time to open up ODIN and start reviving your phone!
__________________________________________________
First of all, let's just have a quick glance of how ODIN looks like, and where we should put the files :
As the picture clearly shows, the green rectangle is where you can tick. Those 2 which are ticked must remain that way. And the red one is well... Where you SHOULDN'T touch
But where are the files going, you say?
.tar -> PDA
__________________________________________________
1) Grab the Recovery Package, and put the file in its place.
2) Turn off your phone. Enter Download mode by presing Vol. Up + Home + Power button.
3) Plug in your phone. It will show you, in a yellow box in ODIN, ID:COMx (x being the number displayed, sometimes displays 7, sometimes displays 9, or other numbers)
4) Once ready and done all your prayers, press Start. Wait patiently. It usually takes 5 minutes to flash.
Have you done everything correctly until now? Then...
You deserve some cake afterwards, and some rest
I hope that this guide was helpful, and if it was, hit the thanks button!
Credits mainly go to Intratech and Sammobile, for his amazing gallery of ROMS and files
_______________________
Disclaimer
This is to be used as educational information. I am not liable of any damage that may occur to your phone.
Due to some demand and request, I've decided to adapt my guide to the I9100G. It deserves some love too!
This is a guide dedicated to noobs, so if you're not one, I would advise to stop reading now! (altough feedback would be great!
)Yes, there have been quite a few threads about fixing a soft brick. But what I'm writting now is another solution to a different kind of problem : unflashable GSII (which also works with a soft brick of course
), which is a soft brick and a corrupted NAND rw (read/write) function.Just in case you don't know, a soft brick occurs when you flash a ROM or Kernel, and it doesn't go your way, thus bricking the "soft part", aka Software, of your phone. Therefore, it is easy to recover from. Now, regarding NAND rw (NAND's read and write function being the corruption) it means that it is an issue deeper than a soft brick.
It is obvious when you can flash a kernel, but you can't flash a ROM, because it can't properly read the NAND, but can flash a kernel. But you ask, why the kernel? Because flashing a kernel is a bit deeper than flashing a ROM. When you flash a kernel, you're changing/putting new instructions to the hardware, and when flashing a ROM, the instructions that are drewn are different and more "simple", so when flashing, ODIN will say "FAIL" instead of "PASS", or suddenly stopping the flash out of nowhere.
BUT UNFORTUNATELY, this guide will not be able to fix a NAND r/w corruption, due to tyhe fact that I do not have either the .PIT, the bootloader or the kernel, I only have a stock ROM, which will only fix a soft brick.
As soon as I get my laptop back from RMA (this Pentium Dual core I'm using right now isn't trustworthy), I'll extract the zImage and sbl.bin from each ROM, zip it, upload it, and add the rest of the guide.
UPDATE 02/05/2012
GOOD NEWS EVERYONE!Thanks to maui75, I have the .PIT and the gingerbread bootloader! When my laptop arrives from RMA, I'll download and unzip all the packages in this thread, add the .PIT, zip, upload again, and add the rest of the guide!
__________________________________________________GOOD NEWS EVERYONE!Thanks to maui75, I have the .PIT and the gingerbread bootloader! When my laptop arrives from RMA, I'll download and unzip all the packages in this thread, add the .PIT, zip, upload again, and add the rest of the guide!
VERY IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT
I would like to first apologize for my absence. My past months have been super busy, and they don't seem to be ending anytime soon. And "anytime soon" meaning in a couple of years. And I'm actually glad that this is happening, since I've been working pretty hard to achieve the state I'm in.
This thread has evolved into something I've never imagined. Only because of YOU guys, we managed to turn a normal thread into a pretty popular and well used Guide, and it made me so happy and joyous of being apart of the XDA community. I feel proud in being a XDA nut. This whole success is just because of YOU guys.
As painful as it is to say this... I believe that I will be dropping support on this thread after the New Year, because a) I lost my Galaxy S2 in Paris in a taxi with no hope of getting it back when I went there 3 weeks ago and b) I'm probably getting a Galaxy Note 2 in the New Year, so this thread will be most likely ported and maintained over at the Note 2 forums.
I'm extremely sorry it has come this way, and I hope you guys will understand. In the following days I'll be updating the files to their latest versions, and will try to find new bootloaders and kernels, but without sources, I'm unable to do so. I'll update whatever I'll be able to
Regards and thanks to all of you that have supported me,
Rafael K.
________________________________________________
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT #2
Please welcome neerajganga, your new thread maintainer (along with me)! He has been of great help, so I think he deserves this kind of announcement!
IF YOU ONLY HAVE A BOOTLOOP
Wipe data/factory reset and wipe cache. IF THAT DOESN'T WORK, MOVE ON WITH THE GUIDE
__________________________________________________
Let's start with the basic files, downloads and requirements
1) You have to know the basics of ODIN and flashing (duh
) 2) Just to be safe, please uninstall Samsung KIES. It usually interferes when flashing with ODIN. You must have the USB drivers from your phone, so don't uninstall them. Only uninstall the program KIES.
Just in case you don't have them, here are the Samsung USB drivers
3) Download ODIN, the tool that we'll use to flash all the things into our beloved Galaxy S II
4) Download the necessary ROM (they are Gingerbread 2.3.6) : Africa (Iraq), Asia (Malaysia), Europe (Open Austria), Middle East (Saudi Arabia). (password is samfirmware.com)
5) You must have WinRAR to unRAR the Recovery Package and to unzip ODIN.
You can also use 7zip, as sugested by jermitano
And that is it! Let's get down to business
__________________________________________________
If your GSII has the folowing symptoms :
- Bootloop
- Stuck on GSII logo, but already removed the battery to try to fix it
- Enters Download mode and Recovery mode
It means that you are soft bricked and is easy to solve.
But if your symptoms are the mentioned above, PLUS the symptoms below
- Enters Download mode but does NOT enter recovery mode (usually means a NAND rw corruption)
- Doesn't flash
- Bad flash in odin (FAIL after flashing, or the flashing suddenly stops)
Then it means that you have a bigger issue, such as the aforementioned NAND rw corruption.
It's time to open up ODIN and start reviving your phone!
__________________________________________________
First of all, let's just have a quick glance of how ODIN looks like, and where we should put the files :
As the picture clearly shows, the green rectangle is where you can tick. Those 2 which are ticked must remain that way. And the red one is well... Where you SHOULDN'T touch
But where are the files going, you say?
.tar -> PDA
__________________________________________________
Recovering a soft bricked phone
1) Grab the Recovery Package, and put the file in its place.
2) Turn off your phone. Enter Download mode by presing Vol. Up + Home + Power button.
3) Plug in your phone. It will show you, in a yellow box in ODIN, ID:COMx (x being the number displayed, sometimes displays 7, sometimes displays 9, or other numbers)
4) Once ready and done all your prayers, press Start. Wait patiently. It usually takes 5 minutes to flash.
Have you done everything correctly until now? Then...
Congratulations on recovering your phone!
You deserve some cake afterwards, and some rest
I hope that this guide was helpful, and if it was, hit the thanks button!
Credits mainly go to Intratech and Sammobile, for his amazing gallery of ROMS and files
_______________________
Disclaimer
This is to be used as educational information. I am not liable of any damage that may occur to your phone.
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