Recover your IMEI without a backup!

zackdjones · Sep 19, 2012

I can't really take credit for this, but I just restored my IMEI without a backup of the efs folder. Keep in mind that I actually deleted my efs folder by accident, so I didn't even have the original efs folder.

The original thread I referenced is here:

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=31771228#post31771228

FYI, this method will restore your phone to stock Gingerbread.

Here is what you do:

1.)

A) Download and unzip the Gingerbread unbrick package here from (http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=27286083#post27286083):

w/ root - http://d-h.st/ewu
w/o root - http://d-h.st/G6g

B)

Download and unzip the efs zip here:

http://xdaforums.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=1152914&d=1340558510

2.) Place phone in download mode.

3.) If needed, install latest Samsung USB drivers by installing Samsung Kies from HERE.

4.) Open the included Odin exe.

5.) If phone is detected, the window under ID:COM will turn yellow.

6.) Click on "PIT" to browse to and select infuse_gb.pit. Make sure that Re-Partition is selected.

7.) Click on "PDA" to browse to and select PDA_UCLB3.tar.md5.

8.) Click on "PHONE" to browse to and select PHONE_UCLB3.tar.md5.

9.) Click on "CSC" to browse to the efs.tar

10.) Click the Phone EFS Clear checkbox

11.) Click on "Start", and allow Odin to flash the phone. Do not unplug or power off the phone until Odin is finished.

12.) When the Odin dialogue reads "PASS!", the phone should reboot into the stock UCLB3 Setup Wizard. For me this step just proceeded to install an update and the reboot the phone.

Once the phone reboots, if your SIM card is installed you should be good to go, otherwise you will get an alert about your SIM card which means you need to power off and pop in the SIM card.

Thanks to the original thread author for this one.

codetvirus · Sep 21, 2012

It works perfect for me even without the .nv_data file. Before this i only get simbols instead the imei number. You save my phone!

amatchlesslyric · Sep 25, 2012

recovered IMEI by just flashing the CM10 base

I dunno if it's just me or what. I lost my IMEI on Slim Bean.. so I had this thought. I hadn't had this issue with the CM10 rom, so I decided to do the standard flashing procedure. Once CM10 was installed my IMEI came back. I had full signal and all is good. I decided to go back to Slim Bean to see if it would fix the IMEI issue. I flashed it just like the OP stated and walah! I had my IMEI back and everything worked without having to go back to GB, ICS and then JB again.

I don't know if this will help anyone, but just wanted to note other people about it. Why did this work for me?

mikied12 · Sep 26, 2012

will this mess up my phone more?

I am running froyo 2.2.1 ,I guess it is stock, as I pick this phone up in pawn shop, and it was already rooted. I was doing the command line argument dd and a bunch of stuff, to get some file to get my unlock code. I didn't get no bak file copy, gave up put my sim card back in and that's when I noticed my imei was gone, then I had go launcher installed, so my screen goes blank I end up having to do the three finger data wipe, then I see I got no wifi either. Then I get this phone, DL some apk files, try to reinstall busy box, no go, teller me it don't think it has su permission after I gave it through that super user program, then it say it cant install into /dev/sh/ what ever, so all I got is a really nice looking video player.

So now that I got all that out of me.

2 questions, will flashing gingerbread overtop of froyo, will not make it worse?
Why do one have to flash in the first place, why can't one just copy over the old-time files, or someone find which file goods the imei number then just to in isinglass a file manager open that file, as it should be just what is caller a flat file, meaning no special formating like a Word file.

Then just save it. I am not an expert at android wse (whatsoever) but I have played with copying over top of files, or deleting the old-time one then replacing it with a new one. Why Doesn't that work, has anyone player around just opening there files to see what they look like and figure out where they stick the imei number?

Seems to me should be an easy manner of doing, but now that I don't have an individual showing I am not even sure which file I should try to type that number in to to see what will happen as I don't want to make this phone completely useless.

Any commentary, ideas, anything?

Thanks
MikieD

zackdjones · Sep 26, 2012

mikied12 said:
I am running froyo 2.2.1 ,I guess it is stock, as I pick this phone up in pawn shop, and it was already rooted. I was doing the command line argument dd and a bunch of stuff, to get some file to get my unlock code. I didn't get no bak file copy, gave up put my sim card back in and that's when I noticed my imei was gone, then I had go launcher installed, so my screen goes blank I end up having to do the three finger data wipe, then I see I got no wifi either. Then I get this phone, DL some apk files, try to reinstall busy box, no go, teller me it don't think it has su permission after I gave it through that super user program, then it say it cant install into /dev/sh/ what ever, so all I got is a really nice looking video player.

So now that I got all that out of me.

2 questions, will flashing gingerbread overtop of froyo, will not make it worse?
Why do one have to flash in the first place, why can't one just copy over the old-time files, or someone find which file goods the imei number then just to in isinglass a file manager open that file, as it should be just what is caller a flat file, meaning no special formating like a Word file.

Then just save it. I am not an expert at android wse (whatsoever) but I have played with copying over top of files, or deleting the old-time one then replacing it with a new one. Why Doesn't that work, has anyone player around just opening there files to see what they look like and figure out where they stick the imei number?

Seems to me should be an easy manner of doing, but now that I don't have an individual showing I am not even sure which file I should try to type that number in to to see what will happen as I don't want to make this phone completely useless.

Any commentary, ideas, anything?

Thanks
MikieD

This is either a joke or a joke.

A J Kidd · Oct 21, 2012

Many Thanks

zackdjones said:
I can't really take credit for this, but I just restored my IMEI without a backup of the efs folder. Keep in mind that I actually deleted my efs folder by accident, so I didn't even have the original efs folder.

The original thread I referenced is here:

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=31771228#post31771228

FYI, this method will restore your phone to stock Gingerbread.

Here is what you do:

1.)

A) Download and unzip the Gingerbread unbrick package here from (http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=27286083#post27286083):

w/ root - http://d-h.st/ewu
w/o root - http://d-h.st/G6g

B)

Download and unzip the efs zip here:

http://xdaforums.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=1152914&d=1340558510

2.) Place phone in download mode.

3.) If needed, install latest Samsung USB drivers by installing Samsung Kies from HERE.

4.) Open the included Odin exe.

5.) If phone is detected, the window under ID:COM will turn yellow.

6.) Click on "PIT" to browse to and select infuse_gb.pit. Make sure that Re-Partition is selected.

7.) Click on "PDA" to browse to and select PDA_UCLB3.tar.md5.

8.) Click on "PHONE" to browse to and select PHONE_UCLB3.tar.md5.

9.) Click on "CSC" to browse to the efs.tar

10.) Click the Phone EFS Clear checkbox

11.) Click on "Start", and allow Odin to flash the phone. Do not unplug or power off the phone until Odin is finished.

12.) When the Odin dialogue reads "PASS!", the phone should reboot into the stock UCLB3 Setup Wizard. For me this step just proceeded to install an update and the reboot the phone.

Once the phone reboots, if your SIM card is installed you should be good to go, otherwise you will get an alert about your SIM card which means you need to power off and pop in the SIM card.

Thanks to the original thread author for this one.

I just wanted to thank all of you who have contributed your brain power to the xda forums. This advise worked great and after a lot of self doubt I now consider myself a semi-noob. Thanks again.

A J

pickupman66 · Oct 30, 2012

Thanks on this. I had a backup of my EFS folder, but the tool I used to create it made a .img file and once I got it into JB, the tool didnt work. UGH.

g_schrage52 · Oct 31, 2012

Just want to say thank you for posting this. I have a friend who had her Infuse stop getting calls, texts, etc. Turns out her IMEI was all question marks and other invalid characters. ATT wouldn't help her at all and either did a full reset.

Rockman EXE · Dec 28, 2012

thank you, this method really works!! finally my imei is back...no more symbols, now is time for a efs back up

sholsten · Dec 31, 2012

Since when do phones lose their imei's? That's a new one on me.

zackdjones · Jan 7, 2013

sholsten said:
Since when do phones lose their imei's? That's a new one on me.

It happened for me twice on two separate phones when using MIUI. Basically the ROM managed to corrupt the system partition, specifically the efs folder.

I don't know the specifics of why, but it happens to a lot of people. That's why I always now make sure I have a backup of the efs just in case.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using xda premium

lemonz23 · Apr 21, 2013

zackdjones said:
It happened for me twice on two separate phones when using MIUI. Basically the ROM managed to corrupt the system partition, specifically the efs folder.

I don't know the specifics of why, but it happens to a lot of people. That's why I always now make sure I have a backup of the efs just in case.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using xda premium

This method didn't work for me :\ Any other ways to solve this issue?

ikunalgautam · Apr 30, 2013

can i use this Efs on galaxy R to repair unknown baseband & Blank imei????

Hien.gfan · Apr 30, 2013

Thank you very much. This is what I need

wbbjason · Jul 1, 2013

worked great. thank you.

Punnyabrata · Sep 21, 2013

zackdjones said:
I can't really take credit for this, but I just restored my IMEI without a backup of the efs folder. Keep in mind that I actually deleted my efs folder by accident, so I didn't even have the original efs folder.

The original thread I referenced is here:

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=31771228#post31771228

FYI, this method will restore your phone to stock Gingerbread.

Here is what you do:

1.)

A) Download and unzip the Gingerbread unbrick package here from (http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=27286083#post27286083):

w/ root - http://d-h.st/ewu
w/o root - http://d-h.st/G6g

B)

Download and unzip the efs zip here:

http://xdaforums.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=1152914&d=1340558510

2.) Place phone in download mode.

3.) If needed, install latest Samsung USB drivers by installing Samsung Kies from HERE.

4.) Open the included Odin exe.

5.) If phone is detected, the window under ID:COM will turn yellow.

6.) Click on "PIT" to browse to and select infuse_gb.pit. Make sure that Re-Partition is selected.

7.) Click on "PDA" to browse to and select PDA_UCLB3.tar.md5.

8.) Click on "PHONE" to browse to and select PHONE_UCLB3.tar.md5.

9.) Click on "CSC" to browse to the efs.tar

10.) Click the Phone EFS Clear checkbox

11.) Click on "Start", and allow Odin to flash the phone. Do not unplug or power off the phone until Odin is finished.

12.) When the Odin dialogue reads "PASS!", the phone should reboot into the stock UCLB3 Setup Wizard. For me this step just proceeded to install an update and the reboot the phone.

Once the phone reboots, if your SIM card is installed you should be good to go, otherwise you will get an alert about your SIM card which means you need to power off and pop in the SIM card.

Thanks to the original thread author for this one.

1stly thanks a lot for this thread. Really millions of thanks.

Now one silly question:- I unzipped the efs file attached and it says "efs.rfs" but your instructions above says "efs.tar" needs to be selected under CSC option. Am I missing something?

Punnyabrata · Sep 22, 2013

Punnyabrata said:
1stly thanks a lot for this thread. Really millions of thanks.

Now one silly question:- I unzipped the efs file attached and it says "efs.rfs" but your instructions above says "efs.tar" needs to be selected under CSC option. Am I missing something?

Strange things are happening to me.

About 2 weeks back this problem started and today when I reconnected the SIM and restarted the phone everything was back to normal. Phone is picking up signal/3G etc.

Surprised is the word. Leads me to believe some app must be responsible for all of this.

Thanks,
PC

sachinppatel16 · Nov 29, 2013

It is showing invalid mds sum...what I do?

sachinppatel16 · Nov 29, 2013

At the end of the task odin shows blue screen and show fail.
Now my phone doesnt get start..what I do?

Brawooo · Dec 10, 2013

sachinppatel16 said:
At the end of the task odin shows blue screen and show fail.
Now my phone doesnt get start..what I do?

Have you tried Odin as administrator ? that's might be the problem

Recover your IMEI without a backup!

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