G960F/DS not booting system nor recovery

[Jogius]

I recently got a used Samsung Galaxy S9 (G960F/DS) with a broken screen (shattered glass and a black spot on the LCD). I was preparing to replace its screen, however, I'm currently not getting the device to boot.

When connected to power, the phone turns on automatically and ends up stuck on the "Samsung Galaxy S9 Secured by Knox Powered by android" screen. When disconnecting power, it turns off after 1-2 seconds.

By pressing power + bixby + volume down, the device enters download mode. When trying to flash stock firmware (BL + AP + CP + CSC) downloaded through Frija (SM-G960F_2_20211021052205_oql3mv17br_fac) the process fails and the phone shows "An error has occured while updating the device software. Use the Emergency recovery function in the Smart Switch PC software". However, I was able to flash the four parts separately by rebooting in between.

This doesn't change anything about the booting problem though. Holding power + bixby + volume up doesn't boot recovery either.

I'd be happy to hear any suggestions. If any more information is required, I'm happy to send you everything I know.

 

[SubwayChamp]

I recently got a used Samsung Galaxy S9 (G960F/DS) with a broken screen (shattered glass and a black spot on the LCD). I was preparing to replace its screen, however, I'm currently not getting the device to boot.

When connected to power, the phone turns on automatically and ends up stuck on the "Samsung Galaxy S9 Secured by Knox Powered by android" screen. When disconnecting power, it turns off after 1-2 seconds.

By pressing power + bixby + volume down, the device enters download mode. When trying to flash stock firmware (BL + AP + CP + CSC) downloaded through Frija (SM-G960F_2_20211021052205_oql3mv17br_fac) the process fails and the phone shows "An error has occured while updating the device software. Use the Emergency recovery function in the Smart Switch PC software". However, I was able to flash the four parts separately by rebooting in between.

This doesn't change anything about the booting problem though. Holding power + bixby + volume up doesn't boot recovery either.

I'd be happy to hear any suggestions. If any more information is required, I'm happy to send you everything I know.

May I'm wrong, but the first impression seems that not only the screen is defective, keep in mind that a device with that broken screen had to receive a severe shock (or various of them), to this can happen, in the incident -of course- other hardware could be damaged.

But taking apart the hardware thing, did you try to format data through stock recovery? Or could you see in the recovery screen (if something is visible) the current build number, so you can flash the right firmware instead of a lower version or the first you found out there?

 

[Jogius]

May I'm wrong, but the first impression seems that not only the screen is defective, keep in mind that a device with that broken screen had to receive a severe shock (or various of them), to this can happen, in the incident -of course- other hardware could be damaged.

But taking apart the hardware thing, did you try to format data through stock recovery? Or could you see in the recovery screen (if something is visible) the current build number, so you can flash the right firmware instead of a lower version or the first you found out there?

I feel like the phone might have another hardware defect, but I'd still like to try my best to fix it.

Unfortunately, the previous owner already tinkered with the device aswell, when I received it, it was not booting stock recovery. However, I only tried flashing the newest update of the firmware - was that the wrong approach? How (and where) can I find a lower version without knowing the exact version details?

Thank you for the input!

 

[SubwayChamp]

I feel like the phone might have another hardware defect, but I'd still like to try my best to fix it.

Unfortunately, the previous owner already tinkered with the device aswell, when I received it, it was not booting stock recovery. However, I only tried flashing the newest update of the firmware - was that the wrong approach? How (and where) can I find a lower version without knowing the exact version details?

Thank you for the input!

Not sure if as the screen is broken you can see something through it, in the recovery screen you'll find the build number version for your device.

Flashing the latest update is always the best bet to not fail. Flashing lower version is not a good idea. You also have to check what is the input in the download screen, if something like KG prenormal warning is there, then you can't flash something in this state.

Also, as the previous owner seems to be not so careful with this device, it is probable that the latest Google account is still there that will trigger the FRP protection.

 

[Jogius]

Not sure if as the screen is broken you can see something through it, in the recovery screen you'll find the build number version for your device.

Flashing the latest update is always the best bet to not fail. Flashing lower version is not a good idea. You also have to check what is the input in the download screen, if something like KG prenormal warning is there, then you can't flash something in this state.

Also, as the previous owner seems to be not so careful with this device, it is probable that the latest Google account is still there that will trigger the FRP protection.

I attached an image of what information download mode has. The second image shows what happens when I try to boot recovery (or anything except download mode for that matter).

You are right that the FRP ist still turned on. Does that mean there is no way to go around this?

 

[SubwayChamp]

I attached an image of what information download mode has. The second image shows what happens when I try to boot recovery (or anything except download mode for that matter).

You are right that the FRP ist still turned on. Does that mean there is no way to go around this?
View attachment 5478243View attachment 5478245

Yes, I suspected that, FRP is active, try to find the guy that sold to you this device, and ask him to log out from his Google account. Also the FRP trigger can be a false positive in the instance that you can enable OEM unlock toggle (what it is not actually enabled), and if Odin allow you to flash something on it and from there you could set it up your device normally.

 

[Jogius]

Yes, I suspected that, FRP is active, try to find the guy that sold to you this device, and ask him to log out from his Google account. Also the FRP trigger can be a false positive in the instance that you can enable OEM unlock toggle (what it is not actually enabled), and if Odin allow you to flash something on it and from there you could set it up your device normally.

I'll try to get in touch with the seller, thank you! However, does FRP change anything about the device not being able to boot at all? Do you have any tips for me how to troubleshoot the fact that not even recovery mode is working?

 

[hxudsh]

I'll try to get in touch with the seller, thank you! However, does FRP change anything about the device not being able to boot at all? Do you have any tips for me how to troubleshoot the fact that not even recovery mode is working?

frp still allows you to boot, it just will ask for your google account when setting the phone up

 

[SubwayChamp]

I'll try to get in touch with the seller, thank you! However, does FRP change anything about the device not being able to boot at all? Do you have any tips for me how to troubleshoot the fact that not even recovery mode is working?

FRP works mainly in two ways, when you didn't enable OEM unlock and of course USB debugging then FRP detects an unofficial attempt to inject some custom binary rejecting to boot to system, (What would be the purpose of FRP if you could flash a custom binary, rooting it and then pulling all the data you want?) sometimes this is bypassed by formatting data either booting to recovery (that you say you can't do at this time) or flashing the CSC different from the CSC_HOME, this will wipe/format all your data. And the second instance where FRP can be trigger is when the device was black listed (plus the Samsung account if the last owner didn't log out). The first thing you have to do when buying a Samsung device is logging into the two accounts, then formatting data, and from there you can do what you want.