[Q] Bricked but is it hard or soft bricked?

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asodiu

Member
May 5, 2014
7
0
I turned on my rooted Virgin Mobile Galaxy S 3 when it got stuck on the Samsung logo. The logo is animated but the phone will not progress past it. The phone is unable to boot into recovery or download mode; when I try to do so, the phone behaves as if I tried to simply turn it on normally. Samsung Kies is unable to connect to my phone but it does notice when I connect the phone to my computer. Odin also knows when the phone is connected. This occurred after using Odin for something I downloaded from http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1739426.
 
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Larry2999

Senior Member
Feb 7, 2014
363
78
Atlanta, GA
I was messing around with my rooted Virgin Mobile Galaxy S 3 when it got stuck on the Samsung logo. The logo is animated but the phone will not progress past it. The phone is unable to boot into recovery or download mode; when I try to do so, the phone behaves as if I tried to simply turn it on normally. Samsung Kies is unable to connect to my phone but it does notice when I connect the phone to my computer. Odin also knows when the phone is connected.

You are actually at the forum for the i747M/U variants of the SG3. To see if we can help you, however, you would need to provide more info ... You said you were doing stuff with your phone? Were you trying to flash a firmware or something? If so, what were you flashing and at what stage did your phone get stuck in the bootloop?

It's not a hard brick if your phone still makes some attempt at starting.
 

asodiu

Member
May 5, 2014
7
0
You are actually at the forum for the i747M/U variants of the SG3. To see if we can help you, however, you would need to provide more info ... You said you were doing stuff with your phone? Were you trying to flash a firmware or something? If so, what were you flashing and at what stage did your phone get stuck in the bootloop?

It's not a hard brick if your phone still makes some attempt at starting.
I was flashing a download found in the link I have given (the newest Bell one). My phone had progressed past the first sign of the Samsung logo, past the screen saying "Samsung GALAXY S III" and past the animation with the sound before getting stuck on the next Samsung logo.
 

asodiu

Member
May 5, 2014
7
0
Actually, after removing my battery for approximately forty minutes, I was able to boot into download mode. When I attempted to boot into recovery mode after turning on the phone normally (which resulted in the phone being unable to progress past the Samsung logo), I was once again only able to turn on the phone normally and get stuck on the logo.
 

thenexusgeneration

Senior Member
Jan 26, 2013
56
21
Spokane
Actually, after removing my battery for approximately forty minutes, I was able to boot into download mode. When I attempted to boot into recovery mode after turning on the phone normally (which resulted in the phone being unable to progress past the Samsung logo), I was once again only able to turn on the phone normally and get stuck on the logo.

I recommend getting your hands on the Android SDK and using adb to boot into download and recovery modes. I got a water damaged d2att from friend a few months ago and the old volume down key doesn't work and using the command prompt and adb, you can get it to boot to whichever mode you want.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk
 

Larry2999

Senior Member
Feb 7, 2014
363
78
Atlanta, GA
I was flashing a download found in the link I have given (the newest Bell one). My phone had progressed past the first sign of the Samsung logo, past the screen saying "Samsung GALAXY S III" and past the animation with the sound before getting stuck on the next Samsung logo.

Virgin Mobile is a 'virtual' mobile network operator but ports mainly on the Sprint CDMA network. Unless your phone specifically had Bell firmware or was porting on Bell, flashing the Bell version would be wrong and could, nay would, cause a brick. Thankfully, though it appears to be only a soft brick and may be recoverable by re-flashing compatible firmware. Unlike Sprint and Virgin which are CDMA networks, Bell is GSM so I'd very much doubt that the firmware you were trying to flash was compatible with your phone. The fact that your phone is still trying to boot suggests that the bootloader is still intact but the system itself has been compromised. Can you remember what Android version your phone was on the last time it functioned normally? If so, I would suggest you visit Sammobile.com or androidfilehost.com and find the same version (or higher) for your phone and then flash to return to stock or near stock. You can always re-root afterwards or flash a custom ROM when your phone is back to working normally.

Since you can get into download mode, you can flash custom recovery in case the stock file you find is a zip file to be flashed via recovery. You should be able to get into recovery mode if you try the button combo again after you have flashed custom recovery via Odin. Otherwise, if it's a *.tar file, just flash directly with Odin.
 
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asodiu

Member
May 5, 2014
7
0
Virgin Mobile is a 'virtual' mobile network operator but ports mainly on the Sprint CDMA network. Unless your phone specifically had Bell firmware or was porting on Bell, flashing the Bell version would be wrong and could, nay would, cause a brick. Thankfully, though it appears to be only a soft brick and may be recoverable by re-flashing compatible firmware. Unlike Sprint and Virgin which are CDMA networks, Bell is GSM so I'd very much doubt that the firmware you were trying to flash was compatible with your phone. The fact that your phone is still trying to boot suggests that the bootloader is still intact but the system itself has been compromised. Can you remember what Android version your phone was on the last time it functioned normally? If so, I would suggest you visit Sammobile.com or androidfilehost.com and find the same version (or higher) for your phone and then flash to return to stock or near stock. You can always re-root afterwards or flash a custom ROM when your phone is back to working normally.

Since you can get into download mode, you can flash custom recovery in case the stock file you find is a zip file to be flashed via recovery. You should be able to get into recovery mode if you try the button combo again after you have flashed custom recovery via Odin. Otherwise, if it's a *.tar file, just flash directly with Odin.

I have successfully managed to flash stock filmware on my phone and now it is working fine. The post which I got the file that I attempted to flash stated that the Bell version would work with the Virgin Mobile phones. My Galaxy S 3 was running Android 4.3.
 

Larry2999

Senior Member
Feb 7, 2014
363
78
Atlanta, GA
I have successfully managed to flash stock filmware on my phone and now it is working fine. The post which I got the file that I attempted to flash stated that the Bell version would work with the Virgin Mobile phones. My Galaxy S 3 was running Android 4.3.

Glad to know it's working fine now. Unless the firmware for the 2 phone models have identical build numbers, I'd be surprised the post suggested that cross-flashing may be OK.
 

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    I was flashing a download found in the link I have given (the newest Bell one). My phone had progressed past the first sign of the Samsung logo, past the screen saying "Samsung GALAXY S III" and past the animation with the sound before getting stuck on the next Samsung logo.

    Virgin Mobile is a 'virtual' mobile network operator but ports mainly on the Sprint CDMA network. Unless your phone specifically had Bell firmware or was porting on Bell, flashing the Bell version would be wrong and could, nay would, cause a brick. Thankfully, though it appears to be only a soft brick and may be recoverable by re-flashing compatible firmware. Unlike Sprint and Virgin which are CDMA networks, Bell is GSM so I'd very much doubt that the firmware you were trying to flash was compatible with your phone. The fact that your phone is still trying to boot suggests that the bootloader is still intact but the system itself has been compromised. Can you remember what Android version your phone was on the last time it functioned normally? If so, I would suggest you visit Sammobile.com or androidfilehost.com and find the same version (or higher) for your phone and then flash to return to stock or near stock. You can always re-root afterwards or flash a custom ROM when your phone is back to working normally.

    Since you can get into download mode, you can flash custom recovery in case the stock file you find is a zip file to be flashed via recovery. You should be able to get into recovery mode if you try the button combo again after you have flashed custom recovery via Odin. Otherwise, if it's a *.tar file, just flash directly with Odin.