[Q] Phone stuck in boot loop (non-rooted)

Hi,

My friend has a UK S3 on the 3 network.
The other day when turning it on it it just gets as far as the first screen with the white text "Samsung galaxy S3 GTi9300". It gets no further and remains on that screen until the battery is pulled. If the power button is held it simply powers off and then immediately back on again.

Whilst she has dropped the phone in the past it has only suffered cosmetic damage and the occasional non requested power off and on(yeah the drops may have damaged something internally). However, no further falls/water damage etc was experienced by the phone when the problem above occurred.
I should also stress that the phone was not rooted and she thinks was on 4.3.

In an attempt to fix it (i have a rooted s3 so know a bit about the phone) i was able to get the phone into recovery mode. The below picture is what was displayed and did not look good.




We tried wiping the cache and when that was unsuccessful at completing, tried a factory reset. This was also unsuccessful, citing issues mounting E:

I was next thinking of trying to reinstall the firmware via Odin. However i would be unsure of exactly which version to use, given her uncertainty of if the phone is indeed network branded and on version 4.3 of android. Is there any way i can check this with the phone in its current state?

Does anyone have any ideas what to try next or what the issue may be? Thanks

boomboomer said:

Follow the guide in general forum to flash the latest stock firmware for your country, doesn't matter if generic or branded.

If that fails then try the rescue firmware (search in general forum) which includes a pit file so be very careful.

The emmc chip is either corrupt or damaged, the first is recoverable the second is terminal.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

Hi thanks for your help.

I have used Odin to flash 4.3 three network firmware (I9300XXUGND3_I9300H3GGND1_H3G). Whilst odin successfully pushed the file to the phone and it installed fine, the phone only boots so far as the samsung logo with the blue circle around it (progress at least).
I then went to recovery and wiped to factory to see if this would help. Unfortunately it made no difference.

I am therefore about to try your second suggestion and have found the following thread:
I9300XXUGND3_I9300H3GGND1_H3G

I have downloaded the 4.3 zip from that site and proceeded to load the 4 elements in Odin. However i could not find the pit file in the zip. Is this something i have to find separately? If so could you help me locate it? i tried a quick search but don't want to get the wrong one.

thanks

shivadow said:

Only mess with pit files as a last resort as there is a very high chance of borking the phone permanently.

Remove the sim card and the microsd, factory reset from recovery, use odin. Factory reset again then odin again. I had to flash twice to get my phone to reset.

Ask if the phone was ever unlocked, bought from carphone warehouse or bought from asda. If so the chances are its a btu and unlocked. Try to find out if it was ever ota updated (end of 2013 for btu, later for operator).

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Click to collapse

Hi thanks for the advice. I will try flashing one more time before the other more drastic method then. Just in case.

Unfortunately the owner is not very good with tech and so can't answer most of those questions that you've listed as i asked her them initially.
She believes she bought from a 3 shop, it has not been unlocked, thinks it had 3 software on it, believe's she got an update about a month ago. seems to point to 3 firmware to me and version 4.3.

Just an update for those that are interested.

Tried flashing the latest 4.3 three network firmware again. Whilst odin said it was successful, it still wouldn't boot past the samsung logo screen (even wiped to factory from recovery).

I then tried the rescue firmware that boomboomer kindly linked to. I used the pit file from the 4.1.2 download, otherwise the remainder of the files from the 4.3 version. Again odin successfully pushed the files to the phone and it seemed to accept it ok. However it made no difference and the phone still gets to the same point.

Recovery mode looks no different to that shown in the picture previously (not sure if it displays) with the same errors of
E: failed to mount /efs (Stale NFS file handle)
E: failed to mount /system (invalid argument)
The android has fallen over with a red triangle too.

Think i'll have to give up on any further fix therefore and tell her it can't be saved. She is looking for a new hone soon so isn't too much of a loss.
Thanks everyone for your help, really appreciate it.