A guide for kernel devs to recover superbricked Notes....

[vijai2011]

Hi all,
First of all I would like to say that this is purely not my work.All thanks goes to Fi***o(Guess him...).

Ok to the matter.You all know that most of the superbricks are caused because of the wipe done in recovery.It actually causes an I/O error which causes the /data partition in eMMC to get unrepairable.Even Odin,heimdall,shell....Nothin can fix it.And without /data partition your phone cannot boot.Since only the /data partition is damaged,you can use download mode and flash any kernel and even enter recovery sometimes.So explanation part is over.

Now to make our phone to boot up we must find a way to get /data partition working.But how can we?You know,there is a partition called /preload (hidden.img) which is always empty and almost not at all used and its size is 512 MB.So we are actually wasting 512 MB.A kernel only controlls where to mount what partition.So If we could make a kernel which would swap /data and /preload,/data will be mounted at /preload location and it will be fine and working and our phone will be able boot and run normally.

So does it only have advantages?Surely no.It has its own disadvantages too...
1.Your /data partition is shrinked to 512 MB
2.You should only stay on custom roms.You cannot flash a stock rom or anything through odin except kernels....
3.You can flash this kernel only through PC odin which means yellow triangle and increase counter.

But you can use CWM to flash any custom roms because it doesnt check for /preload but stock rom does....

And as I said earlier this is ain't my work but dont feel shy to press that thanks button if you like it....

 

[hkgrob]

I think it is Ficeto (DarkyROM kernel dev) who did this first. I remember someone posting something about this previously, but was probably missed.

EDIT: Worth it for people who don't have the $200 odd dollars in the meantime for a new MOBO

 

[ficeto]

I actually do not recommend any custom ROMs! as they are all deodexed and that means that they store their odex(dex) files in /data/dalvik-cache which further uses more /data space.
What you can flash is: custom factoryfs.img(less apps and added CSC), empty hidden.img, custom zImage(that is made to swap /data and /preload) and boot loaders(boot.bin, Sbl.bin and param.lfs).
Do not flash stock cache.img or data.img!

With taking all that in consideration, my Note is now running LPF with LPY CSC

 

[vijai2011]

I think it is Ficeto (DarkyROM kernel dev) who did this first. I remember someone posting something about this previously, but was probably missed.

EDIT: Worth it for people who don't have the $200 odd dollars in the meantime for a new MOBO

I already gave a vague idea in someother thread.But I'm not use it was my post or not...

 

[MR.change]

Hi all,
First of all I would like to say that this is purely not my work.All thanks goes to Fi***o(Guess him...).

Ok to the matter.You all know that most of the superbricks are caused because of the wipe done in recovery.It actually causes an I/O error which causes the /data partition in eMMC to get unrepairable.Even Odin,heimdall,shell....Nothin can fix it.And without /data partition your phone cannot boot.Since only the /data partition is damaged,you can use download mode and flash any kernel and even enter recovery sometimes.So explanation part is over.

Now to make our phone to boot up we must find a way to get /data partition working.But how can we?You know,there is a partition called /preload (hidden.img) which is always empty and almost not at all used and its size is 512 MB.So we are actually wasting 512 MB.A kernel only controlls where to mount what partition.So If we could make a kernel which would swap /data and /preload,/data will be mounted at /preload location and it will be fine and working and our phone will be able boot and run normally.

So does it only have advantages?Surely no.It has its own disadvantages too...
1.Your /data partition is shrinked to 512 MB
2.You should only stay on custom roms.You cannot flash a stock rom or anything through odin except kernels....
3.You can flash this kernel only through PC odin which means yellow triangle and increase counter.

But you can use CWM to flash any custom roms because it doesnt check for /preload but stock rom does....

And as I said earlier this is ain't my work but dont feel shy to press that thanks button if you like it....

Hmmm I actually had a simillar idea couple of days ago ,but not the preload parttion ,I thought that someone could mount data and system partitions on any other partitions ,like internal sdcard (the user accessable space) and then move the actual user accessable Sdcard to external storage ?

but I don't think it's the kernel alone that can do this ,but rather a modified .pit file (to repartition the sdcard) along with a modified kernel?

just thinking out loud here and could be just mumbling and totally wrong ,but I hope it gives the devs a starting point to help those poor superbricked people.

 

[vijai2011]

Hmmm I actually had a simillar idea couple of days ago ,but not the preload parttion ,I thought that someone could mount data and system partitions on any other partitions ,like internal sdcard (the user accessable space) and then move the actual user accessable Sdcard to external storage ?

but I don't think it's the kernel alone can do this ,but rather a modified .pit file along with a modified kernel?

just thinking out loud here , hope it gives the devs a starting point to help those poor superbricked people.

Do you ever use a pit file in flashing custom roms through CWM or when flashing kernel through PC odin???As I said earlier you cannot flash any rom through odin except a kernel I guess.I'm not a superbrick owner.
But yeah what you said should also work but its very time consuming and confusing.

 

[ficeto]

Hmmm I actually had a simillar idea couple of days ago ,but not the preload parttion ,I thought that someone could mount data and system partitions on any other partitions ,like internal sdcard (the user accessable space) and then move the actual user accessable Sdcard to external storage ?

but I don't think it's the kernel alone can do this ,but rather a modified .pit file along with a modified kernel?

just thinking out loud here , hope it gives the devs a starting point to help those poor superbricked people.

much simpler to just use /preload most is still as it should be and only 3 lines need changing in a stock kernel(initramfs) for it to work. cwm requires another line changed and that is it.
I can provide a working GGB and LPF kernels (no cwm in LPF)

 

[musashiro]

its one of my ideas.. relocating the partition to be used...

 

[MR.change]

Do you ever use a pit file in flashing custom roms through CWM or when flashing kernel through PC odin???As I said earlier you cannot flash any rom through odin except a kernel I guess.I'm not a superbrick owner.
But yeah what you said should also work but its very time consuming and confusing.

No not through CWM but PC ODIN ,and yes many superbricked people could flash .pit file successfully from pc odin.

much simpler to just use /preload most is still as it should be and only 3 lines need changing in a stock kernel(initramfs) for it to work. cwm requires another line changed and that is it.
I can provide a working GGB and LPF kernels (no cwm in LPF)

yes I understand that my method is much harder ,but like I said I'm no dev and this just an idea that I had couple of days ago.

but there is some methodology to my madness:
the preload partition is only 512 mb ,thus very small for some ROMs .
my method (if doable at all) should give users much larger ROM space ,as they can use the SDcard which is 12 GBs of space.

 

[hkgrob]

much simpler to just use /preload most is still as it should be and only 3 lines need changing in a stock kernel(initramfs) for it to work. cwm requires another line changed and that is it.
I can provide a working GGB and LPF kernels (no cwm in LPF)

I don't have a bricked note, but that's worth a thanks for sure. If you could share, I am sure a bunch of people will be doing random cartwheels.

Then again, someone will probably asked if they can flash it here, or there, or everywhere!

 

[vijai2011]

I don't have a bricked note, but that's worth a thanks for sure. If you could share, I am sure a bunch of people will be doing random cartwheels.

Then again, someone will probably asked if they can flash it here, or there, or everywhere!

the problem is that that kernel should be used correctly.Its not like cf-root,abyss kernel.If you flash on a note in good condition,you might have some problems...

 

[anilisanil]

I thought /data has user data and ROM is flashed onto a different partition, no?

 

[vijai2011]

I thought /data has user data and ROM is flashed onto a different partition, no?

Yeah partially right.A rom requires both /system and /data.

 

[friedje]

Good work.
Once the bricked note is up nd running, and rooted, ain't it possible to write some lowlevel partition and format utility to repair the original /data portion of EMMC ?

 

[vijai2011]

Good work.
Once the bricked note is up nd running, and rooted, ain't it possible to write some lowlevel partition and format utility to repair the original /data portion of EMMC ?

Nope.Not at all possible.The partition becomes completely inaccessable.

 

[prabhu1980]

Yes there are low level programs like parted - to repartition.
e2fsck to scan for bad sectors -like scandisk in windows.
format - should be possible -- I have to get help of forest1971 for this.

 

[SpyderTracks]

Yes there are low level programs like parted - to repartition.
e2fsck to scan for bad sectors -like scandisk in windows.
format - should be possible -- I have to get help of forest1971 for this.

Is this correct? I was under the impression that the emmc error was due to incorrect voltages being passed and therefor physically frying the chips, hence the only fix is to replace the chips/mobo?

Sent from my GT-N7000 using xda premium

 

[friedje]

Ofcourse there are no weird voltages applied. It's still the same chip being programmed by the same program delivering the same voltages.....
Actually the program doesn't set any voltages, it just tells the chipset to put the memory into the 'writing mode'

The most likely problem is that a wrong entry point is being written into the filesystem for the data partition.

 

[ficeto]

I was not able to format it in any way and trust me I tried everything ....

 

[friedje]

Just found this on the net.

http://mobiletechvideos.mybigcommerce.com/samsung-galaxy-note-jtag-brick-repair/

expensive but less then 200 for a new mobo. maybe somebody wants to try.