[Q] Can't format Internal Storage, flash or Odin ROM - any ideas?

---

Anyone know how to resolve this issue whereby I'm unable to do anything with the internal storage? As best I can tell, I just can't write to it anymore (some kind of corruption). Every time I turn the device on, it reverts back to the state it was in a few days ago when this started. Everything starts to FC because it can't write to the internal storage. I tried Odin to stock, it completes to success (green and everything), but when it restarts it's as if nothing happened. Same story with a CWM flash. Wipe/Factory Reset says success, but it's clear it isn't doing anything as it flies through it too quickly. Nandroid restore no good. Odin one-click no good. Format of system data or cache completes, but again clearly not doing anything as it happens too fast. ADB Shell coupled with e2fsck gives me an error about the superblock, and checking the CWM recovery log, I see something about wipe_block_device: Discard failed.

Any suggestions on what else I could try?

That sounds worse than a brick

Originally Posted by jeff210

That sounds worse than a brick

Indeed, the damned device is mocking me. "Haha! I'm ALIVE, but I'm USELESS!"

Just a stupid question but did you happen to install any antivirus/firewall program on your phone?
Also are there any device administrator on your phone other than your own? ie. Device admin from exchange server etc. Sometime those can lock-down your phone preventing any kind of data wipe.

Originally Posted by icce007

Just a stupid question but did you happen to install any antivirus/firewall program on your phone?
Also are there any device administrator on your phone other than your own? ie. Device admin from exchange server etc. Sometime those can lock-down your phone preventing any kind of data wipe.

Thanks for the suggestion, but no - no firewall/antivirus, and no device administrators that are active. Good question, though. Besides, I don't think any of those would be able to prevent an Odin, would they?

Well, I tried everything and it just won't take. Looks like it's back to the Nexus for me I'll keep it around in case an eventual fix is identified.

EDIT: This output doesn't look right. Any thoughts on how I can clear this table up?

fdisk -l /dev/block/mmcblk0

Disk /dev/block/mmcblk0: 15.7 GB, 15756951552 bytes
1 heads, 16 sectors/track, 1923456 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16 * 512 = 8192 bytes

              Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks  Id System
/dev/block/mmcblk0p1               1       12801      102400  92 Unknown
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary
/dev/block/mmcblk0p2   *       12801       12863         500  4d Unknown
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary
/dev/block/mmcblk0p3           12863       13051        1500  51 Unknown
Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary
/dev/block/mmcblk0p4           13051     1923584    15284271+  5 Extended
Partition 4 does not end on cylinder boundary
/dev/block/mmcblk0p5           13313       13375         500  47 Unknown
/dev/block/mmcblk0p6           13825       14080        2048  45 Unknown
/dev/block/mmcblk0p7           14337       14649        2500  4c Unknown
/dev/block/mmcblk0p8           14849       16128       10240  48 Unknown
/dev/block/mmcblk0p9           16385       16447         500  46 Unknown
/dev/block/mmcblk0p10          16897       16959         500  5d Unknown
/dev/block/mmcblk0p11          17409       17471         500  91 Unknown
/dev/block/mmcblk0p12          17921       19200       10240  93 Unknown
/dev/block/mmcblk0p13          19457       32000      100352   c Win95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/block/mmcblk0p14          32257       32640        3072  4a Unknown
/dev/block/mmcblk0p15          32769       33152        3072  4b Unknown
/dev/block/mmcblk0p16          33281       33664        3072  58 Unknown
/dev/block/mmcblk0p17          33793       46336      100352  8f Unknown
/dev/block/mmcblk0p18          46593       46976        3072  59 Unknown
/dev/block/mmcblk0p19          47105       47488        3072  5a Unknown
/dev/block/mmcblk0p20          47617       48000        3072  5b Unknown
/dev/block/mmcblk0p21          48129       49408       10240  ab Darwin boot
/dev/block/mmcblk0p22          49665       50944       10240  60 Unknown
/dev/block/mmcblk0p23          51201       52480       10240  94 Unknown
/dev/block/mmcblk0p24          52737      183808     1048576  a5 FreeBSD
/dev/block/mmcblk0p25         183809      446208     2099200  a6 OpenBSD
/dev/block/mmcblk0p26         446465      485120      309248  a8 Darwin UFS
/dev/block/mmcblk0p27         485377      501888      132096  a9 NetBSD
/dev/block/mmcblk0p28         502273     1923584    11370496  90 Unknown

Also, I tried playing around with parted to see if I can repartition the device, but it keeps complaining about "Can't have a partition outside the disk!"

I saw someone else have a similar problem with a different Samsung phone and they were able to get things working again by using Odin and the repartition option with a PIT file. I tried searching for the PIT file that goes with the i717 and I'm not getting any useful hits. Anyone know if such a beast exists?