[Q] Galaxy S4 Freeze / Shutdown / Refuse to boot

As the title states, my Verizion SCH-i545 will lockup, shutdown and be unresponsive for long peroids of time ( read 24-96 hrs ) , unable to even take a charge.

What i think happened: I was trying to push boot loader files into my Kindle Fire HD 7" and *whoops* forgot to unplug my phone from the USB cord where it was charging merrily away. Since then I have gotten it to turn on a small handful of times - the most recent was after a 3 day wait for the battery to discharge and then it decided to accept a charge, worked for around 20 hours and then locked up again. Since that point it has been unresponsive.

I'm thinking that these boot loader files may have overwritten primary-boot and possibly secondary-boot sectors and sometimes the secondary-boot backup partition catches, and sometimes it doesn't.

I know what you all are thinking, and the guys I'm deployed with tell me the same thing - send it in as an insurance claim and get a new one. Well screw that, especially if I can get it done myself. I've also read that this is a possible hard-brick ( i don't think so since I can get something from it, sometimes ) and in need of a RIFF box to get this done properly.

At our last port, I was in the XDA-DEV chat room on snoonet and someone mentioned that the aboot.img may be disfigured or completely screwed, but being in port, I was fairly drunk and didn't save the log from that chat like I should have, does this sound right?

Can anyone give me any guidance as to what is going on with my phone and how to fix it? I have a stock Samsung ROM image on the way out here shipped from the states, but that's about a week away, at least. Will this be enough to fix it? Is there anything I can do to get my phone back operational in the mean time?

Thanks in advance.

joshm.1219 said:

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2735172

This is a link to the full wipe and no wipe nc5 tar images. Nc5 is the latest official firmware (4.4.2). These files are to be flashed with Odin. You can try the no wipe first so you don't lose your data but you might need the full wipe which will return you to total factory stock. I don't know how the network speeds are where you're deployed but be warned, these are big files.

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

I appreciate the super quick reply. I know that I'm still running MDK base band but if I can still root the NC5 and reinstall my Hyperdrive, I'll be ecstatic about this. Maybe at our next port I'll be able to download some of these images, but if the image that I have coming from the states will work, then I'll just run with that.

As far as downloading goes, it's a no go out here. Satellite internet that barely allows me to browse XDA, let alone download a GB worth of files.

And as far as wiping? I have no qualms, I've already shed my tears over wiping my phone and somehow my SD card got corrupted and I lost all of my pre-deployment pictures with my family. I've already shed my tears and lost everything that I can lose on that phone. At this point I just want to get it working again. As a sort of GFY to Samsung who told me I needed to send it in to them to have it fixed with authorized samsung equipment and authorized samsung techs.

Anyways, thanks for the quick reply, once I get my image from the states and give that a whirl I'll report back here if it worked. if not, I'm just waiting for our next port to download some of these images and try try again.

Op makes good on promise! Op replies!

My files got here the other day, and I was able to reflash with MJ7 firmware. After that I spent a solid 2 hrs ( had to pay off people to download these files - limited computer time and what not ) downloading Safestrap and Saferoot and then subsequently installing an old copy of Hyperdrive ( RLS 14 ). Could I have just flashed Hyperdrive with Odin and been okay? Or did I have to have a stock firmware to repair the issue? BTW, thats 7MB in 2 hours.

Also, I've been reading up on Hyperdrive RLS 17, and it says that I've got to flash NC5 firmware before I do RLS 17? With Safestrap, would I just flash NC5 into the stock slot, and then HD 17 into a subsequent slot? Or could I do like I did with HD14 and flash right into the stock slot with no apparent issues.

BTW, you being the only respondent to this post, I thank you lots for your help.