How to unbrick the soft bricked Captivate

Search This thread

thekurrgan

Senior Member
Feb 25, 2010
97
31
NOTE:
So far this has been the only sure fire method I've found to 100% get around any brick situation regardless of firmware, etc. This only works for the captivate, not any other galaxy s variant.
Situations: phone-!-Computer / no download mode
Black Screen / RST_STATUS 0x0
Procedure:
1. Remove the battery, external SD card and SIM card.
2. Wait 10 seconds.
3. Open odin3
4. Connect usb cable.
5. Hold volume up + volume down + Power.
6. Insert battery.
7. Release POWER BUTTON ONLY.
You should now be in immediate download mode.
Please forgive me if this is duplicate some where, but I tried every procedure I could find on google to no avail, then accidentally found this method just before I was going to box it back up and see if my buddy at AT&T would make me eat it or not.
My situation was: Launched Odin3 to flash H3 firmware, died twice in the middle, and on the third time locked up half ways just at the beginning of factoryfs.rfs -- Then the phone did nothing. Blackscreen is all. Interestingly enough, while in the state if you hold volume up + power, it will give a hw diagnostic screen. Beyond that I could get no where. Just a black screen, no acknowledgement when connected to PC, no charging indicator, nothing.
If this is a dupe Im sorry but this method I could not find and hope to make it readily available to people who may think their phones bricked.

Update 12/22/2010:
How to BRICK the phone / WARNING!!!
If for whatever reason you decide to use Odin to flash a stock GTI9000 ROM and manually add the kernels and modems using a "pure" 2.2.1 sammy rom. BEWARE.
Researching a lot, it seems the consensus is that the sbl in the 2.2.1 versions of the GTI9000 has *hard* download mode crippled.. Meaning if there is a software screw up YOU CANNOT USE A USB JIG OR ANY OTHER METHOD OF GETTING THE PHONE IN DOWNLOAD MODE!!! To fix it you'll need a new one or JTAG to replace the bootloader.
As far as I can tell, beyond getting completely rid of the AT&T logo, there is no need to flash boot/sbl to get the "purity" of the 2.2.1 sammy roms.
Extract all files from the tar EXCEPT boot/sbl and re-tar and flash just those to avoid overwriting the stock captivate boot loader.
Also, it does not appear the boot/sbl from the captivate 2.2 leak suffers this same problem.
For any one iffy on bricking their phones, stay away from roms that remove COMPLETELY the AT&T logo on boot. This generally means the boot loader has been messed with any you may be screwed if you soft brick the phone. Most CWM roms dont overwrite the boot/sbl, but some can and do. Watch yourself.. if it the AT&T logo goes away COMPLETELY, I recommend flashing JF6 with One click while the roms alive using adb reboot download and try another rom.
 
Last edited:

quantizationbit

New member
Sep 20, 2010
4
1
thanks!

worked...took a few tries but some trick with this captivate to get it into download mode.. i was totally bricked too, diag screen with PC/Phone icons and exclamation mark. for me 1.) plug usb, 2.) hold power and vol up/down and connect battery (it fell out) and i was in download mode
 
  • Like
Reactions: eggert1111

fraztto

Senior Member
Feb 2, 2008
80
2
Valencia
I guess a similar procedure was on the odin3 one click thread, but there is something different in your procedure, it's not my case but it would be nice if some people confirms this as this may be useful and if it really works it should be included in odin thread
 

askpcguy

Senior Member
Aug 8, 2010
1,952
189
What worked for me was: Pull the battery, sim and micro sd card. Open odin on the PC. Insert the battery. Hold vol up and down then with the buttons held connect the usb cable. Just remember to plug in the usb cable with the vol up and down held in and odin must be open on the computer.

I also ran into the vol up plus power red text screen. Interesting to note that one of the fields will change depending if the usb cable is connected or not.
 
Last edited:

fergsm

Member
Jan 23, 2010
5
0
Caguas
mine is dead

mi samsung captivate was working great but, suddenly it go black and only the touch bottom have light, when i plug it in the a/c it show is charging. i'm mac user and a read that i ned to use odin3 but it not work on mac. how i can unbrick the phone???

is rooted with one click lag
the dbdata was modif to
thats all

HEEEEELLLLLPPPPPP
 

askpcguy

Senior Member
Aug 8, 2010
1,952
189
Odin will not open on the mac?

Cant you use a virtual machine and use Odin on a Mac that way?

Or else take the odin 3 single click for JF6 and use on a friends Windows Computer.
 

TechNut*

Senior Member
Sep 27, 2010
259
23
Please help - unable to flash back with Odin3

I have pretty much tried it all at this point and am trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong.

I followed the directions just in case get to the big yellow triangle with the droid shoveling and the screen stays at "downloading, do not turn off target..."

Of course I had Odin3 open already but its not seeing my phone, USB drives are installed am using Odin3 ver. 1.30.

Any help would be appreciated, TIA!
 

askpcguy

Senior Member
Aug 8, 2010
1,952
189
I have pretty much tried it all at this point and am trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong.

I followed the directions just in case get to the big yellow triangle with the droid shoveling and the screen stays at "downloading, do not turn off target..."

Of course I had Odin3 open already but its not seeing my phone, USB drives are installed am using Odin3 ver. 1.30.

Any help would be appreciated, TIA!

Best way to get download mode is use adb and type adb reboot download.

Or follow the volume up/down held with odin open on the computer, then you plug in the usb cable to the computer.
 

mattbeau

Senior Member
Feb 24, 2008
213
17
What worked for me was: Pull the battery, sim and micro sd card. Open odin on the PC. Insert the battery. Hold vol up and down then with the buttons held connect the usb cable. Just remember to plug in the usb cable with the vol up and down held in and odin must be open on the computer.

I also ran into the vol up plus power red text screen. Interesting to note that one of the fields will change depending if the usb cable is connected or not.

Thank you thank you thank you. i had a totally dead no boot or anything and this worked, i was going through the whole returning the phone senerio in my head
 

The Bishop

Senior Member
does not seem to work because as soon as my battery touches the contacts it goes to the diag screen. do I have to release the power button in super human speed times there?

looked at all threads here, looked elsewhere -- there are some that are not fixable. Wanted to add that in case others come here and think that they might be the only ones that can't get it to work.


Ended up sending mine off to Samsung to reset today. :/
 
Last edited:

mrbloog

Senior Member
May 22, 2010
98
15
I love you! I called AT&T to send me documentation to sign and it was going to cost me 125 dollars to get it replaced even with warranty. And you fixed it ! :D
 

storm717

Retired Recognized Developer
Sep 10, 2007
65
104
Austin, TX
i have tried just about every single method detailed in these forums, and nothing works.

Trying what OP suggested just sends me to the battery charging animation screen.

Anybody have any ideas ?
 

jimmyyeung

New member
Oct 3, 2010
2
0
37
Ripon
file analysis

I keep can get to the download screen and I hit start and it does the same thing everytime it just does File analysis i cant figure what i am doing wrong here somebody please help me
 

jimmyyeung

New member
Oct 3, 2010
2
0
37
Ripon
I think the issue was it had something to do with 64 bit windows 7 i just re did the stock rom one click solution and it worked fine
 

CatalystWon

Senior Member
Aug 20, 2010
341
77
Vancouver
NOTE:
5. Hold volume up + volume down + Power.
6. Insert battery.
7. Release POWER BUTTON ONLY.
You should now be in immediate download mode.

Thank you for sharing your experience. :)

I don't have a Captivate yet but am doing research on it and hopeful of getting one. I am confused about one thing.

Every where that I have read about how to enter Recovery mode or Download mode on the Captivate using the 3 button method, it says holding down both Volume UP + Volume Down (plus Power button) will enter Recovery mode. But you say it enters Download mode which is confusing to me. As I recall, to enter Download mode you must press the Vol Down only (plus Power button). Could it be because the phone won't go into Recovery mode, it goes into Download mode instead? Am I missing something?

Thank you! :)
 

askpcguy

Senior Member
Aug 8, 2010
1,952
189
Download mode is for updating the phone's firmware.

Remove battery, plug in the usb cable to the phone, open ODIN on the computer (need usb drivers installed before hand) on the phone hold volume up and down then plug the phone into the computer. Your phone will say DOWNLOADING. This method works even if you run into problems and the phone refuses to boot properly.

Recovery mode is for installing Update.zip. The method is tricky but involves holding volume up/down and power, the phone will show ATT then go black. It will repeat that but after the second time it goes black let go of power.

If that doesnt work, android debug tools ADB reboot recovery will work even better.

Or root the phone and use Clockwork Rom manager to boot into recovery, just press the menu item.
 

CatalystWon

Senior Member
Aug 20, 2010
341
77
Vancouver
Download mode is for updating the phone's firmware.

Remove battery, plug in the usb cable to the phone, open ODIN on the computer (need usb drivers installed before hand) on the phone hold volume up and down then plug the phone into the computer. Your phone will say DOWNLOADING. This method works even if you run into problems and the phone refuses to boot properly.

Recovery mode is for installing Update.zip. The method is tricky but involves holding volume up/down and power, the phone will show ATT then go black. It will repeat that but after the second time it goes black let go of power.

If that doesn't work, android debug tools ADB reboot recovery will work even better.

Or root the phone and use Clockwork Rom manager to boot into recovery, just press the menu item.

Thank you askpcguy! I understand the difference between Download and Recovery modes.

So the procedural difference here is having the battery in + Power button, versus battery not in (use USB cable instead) and no Power button. Can the phone get power from the PC via the USB cable? This seems to differ from what the original poster said about download mode. Perhaps OP could edit his original post for clarification? Or am I still missing something? Thanks to all :)
 

askpcguy

Senior Member
Aug 8, 2010
1,952
189
The phone does get power from the USB cable.

The difference is one procedure uses the USB cable (download mode) and the other does not (Recovery mode).

The volume up+down method does not use the power button, the phone is powered on into download mode once you plug in the USB cable.

We say pull the battery to get the phone powered off. If a firmware flash stalled or doesn't complete, pull the battery and try again!
 

Top Liked Posts

  • There are no posts matching your filters.
  • 20
    NOTE:
    So far this has been the only sure fire method I've found to 100% get around any brick situation regardless of firmware, etc. This only works for the captivate, not any other galaxy s variant.
    Situations: phone-!-Computer / no download mode
    Black Screen / RST_STATUS 0x0
    Procedure:
    1. Remove the battery, external SD card and SIM card.
    2. Wait 10 seconds.
    3. Open odin3
    4. Connect usb cable.
    5. Hold volume up + volume down + Power.
    6. Insert battery.
    7. Release POWER BUTTON ONLY.
    You should now be in immediate download mode.
    Please forgive me if this is duplicate some where, but I tried every procedure I could find on google to no avail, then accidentally found this method just before I was going to box it back up and see if my buddy at AT&T would make me eat it or not.
    My situation was: Launched Odin3 to flash H3 firmware, died twice in the middle, and on the third time locked up half ways just at the beginning of factoryfs.rfs -- Then the phone did nothing. Blackscreen is all. Interestingly enough, while in the state if you hold volume up + power, it will give a hw diagnostic screen. Beyond that I could get no where. Just a black screen, no acknowledgement when connected to PC, no charging indicator, nothing.
    If this is a dupe Im sorry but this method I could not find and hope to make it readily available to people who may think their phones bricked.

    Update 12/22/2010:
    How to BRICK the phone / WARNING!!!
    If for whatever reason you decide to use Odin to flash a stock GTI9000 ROM and manually add the kernels and modems using a "pure" 2.2.1 sammy rom. BEWARE.
    Researching a lot, it seems the consensus is that the sbl in the 2.2.1 versions of the GTI9000 has *hard* download mode crippled.. Meaning if there is a software screw up YOU CANNOT USE A USB JIG OR ANY OTHER METHOD OF GETTING THE PHONE IN DOWNLOAD MODE!!! To fix it you'll need a new one or JTAG to replace the bootloader.
    As far as I can tell, beyond getting completely rid of the AT&T logo, there is no need to flash boot/sbl to get the "purity" of the 2.2.1 sammy roms.
    Extract all files from the tar EXCEPT boot/sbl and re-tar and flash just those to avoid overwriting the stock captivate boot loader.
    Also, it does not appear the boot/sbl from the captivate 2.2 leak suffers this same problem.
    For any one iffy on bricking their phones, stay away from roms that remove COMPLETELY the AT&T logo on boot. This generally means the boot loader has been messed with any you may be screwed if you soft brick the phone. Most CWM roms dont overwrite the boot/sbl, but some can and do. Watch yourself.. if it the AT&T logo goes away COMPLETELY, I recommend flashing JF6 with One click while the roms alive using adb reboot download and try another rom.
    3
    What worked for me was: Pull the battery, sim and micro sd card. Open odin on the PC. Insert the battery. Hold vol up and down then with the buttons held connect the usb cable. Just remember to plug in the usb cable with the vol up and down held in and odin must be open on the computer.

    I also ran into the vol up plus power red text screen. Interesting to note that one of the fields will change depending if the usb cable is connected or not.
    2
    I would like to point out that you can still continue to flash if phone ! computer sign is on. Just make sure odin recognizes your phone "COMM5". I was currently on GB bootloaders and stock UCKK4, hit start and it worked. I was flashing a new kernel.

    That will only work on i897 GB bootloaders. As for commx, the number can be any number, it's just what the computer assigns it.
    1
    thanks!

    worked...took a few tries but some trick with this captivate to get it into download mode.. i was totally bricked too, diag screen with PC/Phone icons and exclamation mark. for me 1.) plug usb, 2.) hold power and vol up/down and connect battery (it fell out) and i was in download mode
    1
    Plz help me My phone was on download mode then I opened odin after some time odin said completed and my mobile download was stucked in de middle then I took off the batary..plz help me to get it back working..plzzzzzzzzzzzzz..

    Where you flashing Odin KK4 with bootloaders? If so, by stopping it, you might've hard-bricked your phone. If you weren't flashing the bootloaders version, it's easily recoverable.

    Do you get any response from your phone? Lights, vibration, getting it in download mode?