[Guide]How to revive your bricked Gnote

[copperdawgnc]

Because this isn't reviving or fixing the note... It's just a band-aid workaround. There's a good chance that as the device gets used, the damage done to the wear leveler's data structures will cause more weird stuff to happen in the future.

Have I missed something? How do we know for sure we have bad blocks causing the problem vs a soft brick?

 

[bodivas]

The same kernel for Odin-PC (flash in PDA) from this post:
View attachment 4pda_kernel.tar

 

[friedje]

Have I missed something? How do we know for sure we have bad blocks causing the problem vs a soft brick?

Google dev Mr. sumrall made that clear.
However I didn't read that something went wrong in the
wear-leveler data structure. As I understood 32Kb of 'null' gets
written to the /data partition creating bad blocks.

Now maybe Entropy has new, more detailed info on the error ??

For the rest he is right, this is just a workaround, but at least
these ppl can reuse their bricked phones, so I think he is being a bit
hard on his position, but then again that is his right
And as he points out the devs will be more usefull pounding a real
solution instead of a workaround

I am just happy to see some ppl have succeeded after a community effort of several hours/days. That is what we are here for after all

 

[Entropy512]

Just got home and see that some have been successfull, that is great.

Now just one remark. You ommit 3gb of potential memory.
For as far as we can understand from the google android dev, only 32Kb
should be faulty. You might try to reorder and resize your partition layout
using parted and recover some more. Ofcourse this would be trial and error, and
9Gb left over is very usefull.

Wrong. The 32kb bug is completely different.

Google dev Mr. sumrall made that clear.
However I didn't read that something went wrong in the
wear-leveler data structure. As I understood 32Kb of 'null' gets
written to the /data partition nd makes bad blocks.

Now maybe Entropy has new, more detailed info on the error ??

For the rest he is right, this is just a workaround, but at least
these ppl can reuse their bricked phones, so I think he is being a bit
hard on his position, but then again that is his right

I am just happy to see some ppl have succeeded after an community effort of several hours/days. That is what we are here for after all

I don't have new more detailed info - I actually bothered to read what is BOLD RED TEXT in garwynn's quotes of Mr. Sumrall's responses!

The "32kb of null" bug and our brick bug are two COMPLETELY DIFFERENT bugs. "32kb of null" is in our flash chip's firmware (fwrev 0x19) and the GNex's firmware (0x25). The wear leveler's internal data structures getting screwed up (the brick bug) is only in fwrev 0x19.

 

[copperdawgnc]

Google dev Mr. sumrall made that clear.
However I didn't read that something went wrong in the
wear-leveler data structure. As I understood 32Kb of 'null' gets
written to the /data partition creating bad blocks.

Now maybe Entropy has new, more detailed info on the error ??

For the rest he is right, this is just a workaround, but at least
these ppl can reuse their bricked phones, so I think he is being a bit
hard on his position, but then again that is his right

I am just happy to see some ppl have succeeded after a community effort of several hours/days. That is what we are here for after all

Don't misunderstand I am pleased that people have made progress on this issue.

I would personally of waited to see what came from Mr. sumrall as far at the tool to revive the bad partitions. maybe if we get that it can still be used.

My biggest concern is I don't under stand how we know for certain when we have a "super brick" vs a "soft brick". (we know when we have "hard super brick")

I have been stuck at factory_fs but never needed to use parted.

Again just trying to understand.

 

[friedje]

Wrong. The 32kb bug is completely different.


I don't have new more detailed info - I actually bothered to read what is BOLD RED TEXT in garwynn's quotes of Mr. Sumrall's responses!

The "32kb of null" bug and our brick bug are two COMPLETELY DIFFERENT bugs. "32kb of null" is in our flash chip's firmware (fwrev 0x19) and the GNex's firmware (0x25). The wear leveler's internal data structures getting screwed up (the brick bug) is only in fwrev 0x19.

Fair enough, I will reread the article. I must admit that i was doing other stuff at the same time as i was reading it.

 

[matiasg85]

UPDATE: Phone just died again, it was so "freezy" that it was unusable. I just left it at samsung today, will see what comes up of it.

 

[uggies]

UPDATE: Phone just died again, it was so "freezy" that it was unusable. I just left it at samsung today, will see what comes up of it.

Thats probably what i will be having if I do the sd partitioning...

Furthermore, I can just get it replaced by Samsung since I have bought this phone recently. I dont want to use a phone that has broken parts on emmc for more than a year.

Thank you all so much for your help, but I think I am done here sorry

EDIT: Nevertheless, I will try and format /emmc and do the repartitioning one more time once I get home. Stay tuned. If this does not work, I will send it off to SSC

 

[prabhu1980]

All the best uggies
Please remember that the effort taken by you will be remembered for a long time.

Forest1971

Can you search linux threads for alt solution.

Sent from my GT-N7000 using XDA Premium HD app

 

[terius]

how do i get the CWM in my note?, i can use only ODIN, txs

---------- Post added at 11:35 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:29 PM ----------

how do i get the CWM in my note?, i can use only ODIN, txs

never mind find it in post 322

---------- Post added at 11:53 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:35 PM ----------

ok i´m on the CMD how do i find the adb folder?
¨4. Then run cmd and cd to the adb folder of your computer ¨

 

[prabhu1980]

Forest 1971

Atlast I have got some tools for you to repair / check bad sectors.
Please rewrite the script for our Galaxy Note.

Forest1971.

this problem has occured to many earlier and they have solved it.
Please dont give up !!
Atleast write to us.....

Bad sectors growing is an indication of corrupt MBR (GPT)
It can be corrected. It has been corrected earlier and I donot read any reasons why that cannot be done now.

If somebody has already tried correcting their filesystems they didnt do what we are planning to do....

Success will not knock the door, we have to reach it ...
Support please ....
anyhow taking to ssc is 200$.

Huge economic loss according to me.
Big punishment for innovators.

 

[uggies]

Good news. I have re-partitioned the UMS part and everything is back in working!

Currently working on CM9, WIFI is working, brower is working just fine !

But one thing is, that the phone signal does not work. I think it is because of the /efs part... Any heads up?

Other than this, everything is just fine

 

[prabhu1980]

Wow u keep on rocking man !!
Forest1971 Where r u ??
We need u ....
Any other devs , comments please.
Yes I saw Entropy512 comments.
Right ! Understood ! Its a workaround ....
But my only issue is people had corrupt partition and badblocks earlier too.
We just have to find our way out
A good format tool is required for checking badblocks.
Unfortunately I understood that the -c option leads to freeze ; but manual says -cc as non-destructive option. Indeed I have posted some scripts from HTC forum.
If the Google Engineer says there is a tool for wipe ; it is with us too (Search ur toolbox; busybox)
Forest has to review the script and release a fs repair tool for us.

I am also pulling a dev from HTC forum (Droidzone) to help us move forward.
He hasnt replied to my email (doesnt accept PM)

---------- Post added at 06:35 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:33 AM ----------

Uggies; Have you saved the efs earlier it will help u

 

[uggies]

Wow u keep on rocking man !!

Uggies; Have you saved the efs earlier it will help u

Nope ... still stuck at recovering /efs. Cannot even mount the /efs on recovery. Nevertheless, its for sure that my phone is working perfectly.

Also tried flashing stock GB ROM via Odin, but still stuck at the factoryfs.

Flashing Rocket ROM via CWM now, i will see if it restores my /efs part.

Update: Flashing Rocket ROM was successful, but it wouldnt boot up just like last time. Decided to install Xtralite Rom and it was successful. Signal was working on first boot , but there was whole lots of force closes, so I had to reboot into recovery and flashed the ROM again. But the signal was gone ... I do not know what happend lol

 

[friedje]

Hello Uggies, Since your amount of space is smaller, you need lite roms to fit.
Stock roms containing a lot of bloat probably don't fit.

If your radio isn't working try to flash another modem.

If flashing your efs fails try to extract it from a rom and then push it to your phone
with adb. try first under recovery and/or adb to mount it successfully.

See this thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1264021
For restoring your IMEI

cheers.

 

[prabhu1980]

Uggies : Please dont try this I am just asking devs if someone else has done this

why dont we use dd command in adb shell to push the factoryfs.img into the required partition ??

Forest1971 : we need ur reply on this

the command will look like

dd if=/sdcard/factoryFS.img of=/dev/block/mmcblk0pxx bs=4096 conv=noerror

Forest : Where r u ??
I am trying to bring a new tool compiled for ARM arch for finding bad blocks.

 

[uggies]

Hello Uggies, Since your amount of space is smaller, you need lite roms to fit.
Stock roms containing a lot of bloat probably don't fit.

If your radio isn't working try to flash another modem.

If flashing your efs fails try to extract it from a rom and then push it to your phone
with adb. try first under recovery and/or adb to mount it successfully.

See this thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1264021
For restoring your IMEI

cheers.

Thanks you.

Could you please specify the directory where to push the modem to?

In my opinion, through 'parted' command, I can just remove and rewrite the efs part. If the idea look about right, could you please write the commands please?

Cheers mate

Update: I dont know how, but everything just came back, signal, IMME, and everything.. WOW Life is good again

 

[forest1971]

Thanks you.

Could you please specify the directory where to push the modem to?

In my opinion, through 'parted' command, I can just remove and rewrite the efs part. If the idea look about right, could you please write the commands please?

Cheers mate

Update: I dont know how, but everything just came back, signal, IMME, and everything.. WOW Life is good again

Hi Uggies:

I am very happy for you . Hope that the phone will be in a stable condition.

These kind of events make the forum exciting and that is good for health! We all share happy moment and feel happier when sharing!

Please remember to back up your emei. There is an excellent an free tool from Google Play call Ktool. It is very handy to backup emei and install kernel. I love this tool. It can also help remove the triangle although it does not reset the counter.

https://play.google.com/store/search?q=ktool&c=apps

cheers,

---------- Post added at 05:32 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:13 PM ----------

Wow u keep on rocking man !!
Forest1971 Where r u ??
We need u ....
Any other devs , comments please.
Yes I saw Entropy512 comments.
Right ! Understood ! Its a workaround ....
But my only issue is people had corrupt partition and badblocks earlier too.
We just have to find our way out
A good format tool is required for checking badblocks.
Unfortunately I understood that the -c option leads to freeze ; but manual says -cc as non-destructive option. Indeed I have posted some scripts from HTC forum.
If the Google Engineer says there is a tool for wipe ; it is with us too (Search ur toolbox; busybox)
Forest has to review the script and release a fs repair tool for us.

I am also pulling a dev from HTC forum (Droidzone) to help us move forward.
He hasnt replied to my email (doesnt accept PM)

---------- Post added at 06:35 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:33 AM ----------

Uggies; Have you saved the efs earlier it will help u

Hi mate:
Too busy at work today. Thanks....so much for your kindness and passion for the forum.

About fixing faulty area: I believe in technician's advice that even when the faulty area is fixed with some tool if often become vulnerable, weak spot. That is not a good idea for a phone. So right now I would stick with the walk-around way, trying to avoid those faulty areas. As for the total solution that is surely beyond me so I guess will wait for new developments.

I do have some ideas to improve the guidelines on partitioning though:

1. Have found a shorter way to create ext4 partition so need only one command.
2. I would suggest anyone who want to try this method also remove-and recreate Cache partition as well.
The system will touch all 4 partitions: factoryfs, datafs, cache, and internal sdcard (UMS) at some point when running. So if there is any faulty areas in one of these partitions, then when the system try to access it (read or write) it will fail and often become freeze.
That is why I would recommend remove and re-create all these 4 partitions to make sure they are free of faulty areas.
Will try to improve the guide when I can.

cheers.

 

[copperdawgnc]

Uggies : Please dont try this I am just asking devs if someone else has done this

why dont we use dd command in adb shell to push the factoryfs.img into the required partition ??

Forest1971 : we need ur reply on this

the command will look like

dd if=/sdcard/factoryFS.img of=/dev/block/mmcblk0pxx bs=4096 conv=noerror

Forest : Where r u ??
I am trying to bring a new tool compiled for ARM arch for finding bad blocks.

can we use fsck to check for bad blocks? I am researching using dd to copy/backup system partitions to PC I believe it will fail on bad blocks. Have not used unix commands for decades

 

[prabhu1980]

Someone use e2fsck -c option and got freezed. This is why forest1971 has given a workaround.

In case you want to try i leave it to you.

You can also use mke2fs command.

I would suggest you to look similar threads where people have failed using fsck commands. I have a feeling that odin would have also issued dd commands for the
READ MAN PAGE BEFORE YOU TRY ANYTHING.




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