[Q] CWM crashes when trying to format /data

Hi,

this is my first post and I'm very sorry if it's a repeat, but I've searched all over and cannot seem to find anyone with my issue (which I find very hard to believe).

I'm trying to install a custom recovery (which I've done successfully before) using Odin. trying to use Philz Touch, cause it looks awesome, but now, I'm just trying to get anything to work.

The issue is I CANNOT format my /data partition. every time I try, it crashes. I have NO idea why. it can format anything else, I can mount/unmount /data, I just can't format it. cwm freezes and quickly crashes.

The particularly annoying thing is that this happened the last time I installed CWM too, but updating to the most recent version solved that. This time, I'm trying for the most recent version right away and nothing's happening. ALSO, today, I installed PhilzTouch and it WORKED!! so I installed my custom rom (Carbon) and went to reboot. This got stuck at the boot screen, and never loaded, so I booted back into recovery and whadayaknow, I can no longer format /data.......... I have no idea what is going on. I've followed all the instructions to the letter.

I'm on d2spr (sprint galaxy s3), trying to install cwm 6.0.4.5 (or philz 6.15.4) so that I can install CarbonROM v1.8 (which I also cannot get to work. I've happily been on SlimBEAN and then SlimKat for a while and wanted to try Carbon for the extra features).

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated. (also, I can't restore a backup because that includes writing to /data, which I can't do. I can get halfway through the backup so that I end up with a clean slimKat (which I don't really want, cause I have a lot of data), but that's it. CWM reboots the second it tries to write /data.



EDIT: This issue happens when I try to flash CarbonRom, but goes away if I flash something like CM or SlimBean. Once one of those roms is installed AND BOOTED, I can touch /data again, but once I try to get CarbonRom running, I can't. So it seems it's an issue with CarbonROM specifically. Any advice?

Update: It's only Carbon Rom

Hey, so apparently, I can flash literally every other ROM I've tried (cyanogen, slimbean, slimkat, beanstalk) and they all work fine, but when I flash Carbon (the release version, v1.8), I get to the "Samsung Galaxy S3" screen with the "C" logo and it hangs indefinitely. When I give up and pull the battery, the /data partition is untouchable like before, but that now seems like a symptom, not the problem, because it only happens with Carbon and it's fixed by flashing another rom and letting it boot. And yes, I've given it quite a long time to boot, but it never even gets to a legitimate boot screen (with some sort of moving animation). It just freezes and and never unfreezes.

Anyone, any help would be really appreciated. It's VERY frustrating....

Mr. Struck said:

Just FYI, that version of Carbon is really old, you will probably want something more current like their KitKat builds or at least the 4.3.1 builds from November. Sounds like you are probably flashing 4.4 GApps, which would be a mismatch for the version of the ROM you are flashing, which is why things are hanging for you. Also, if you are using Philz Touch (highly recommended!), then the only wipe you need is "Clean to Install New ROM" and nothing more.

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

Thanks for the reply!

Actually, I want flashing any gapps at all specifically so that it didn't conflict. Should have mentioned that.

Also, I was under the impression that 1.8 was a 4,3 build, but if that's not true, I'd certainly want a later build. However, I'm looking for a stable room with lots of features, so I was only looking at release builds.... And 1.8 is the only release build for d2spr. Any suggestions on which later build is the most complete/stable?

And yes, I'm using philz touch. Latest version.