[Guide]How to revive your bricked Gnote

[apurvapatel]

Here in India the cost of getting the motherboard replaced at the service center is about $140.
About your question to Forest, no one kernel or ROM is for any given (bricked) phone. I am saying from my experiance. One kernel and ROM would work for me. It might not work for you. And for that matter it might not work for me again either. First time I bricked my phone Abyss kernel 4.2 didnt work for me. I had to use 3.9 (non touch version) The second time around it works flawlessly on the same phone after a second brick. Same with the ROM.
See the features of the ROM, see which interests you, flash and check if it works for you. If it doesnt, try other until you find a suit for your revived brick.
Also, after my second brick, i found that a nandroid restore is the best bet to get your revived SGN into a stock ROM. As Forest has adviced in his post, it is always better to start with a custom ROM and once the phone is working satisfactorily, only then switch to a stock ROM.
Also, as Forest said, read, read,read. Be patient and learn. I went through almost 100+ pages on various forums and threads to get my SGN working again.
Apurva

 

[prabhu1980]

I was wondering if forest could make the 1000th post.
Forest wonderful job .
Hope you have helped in retreiving more than a 100 bricks.
Brilliant !! Happy for you

 

[apurvapatel]

I was wondering if forest could make the 1000th post.
Forest wonderful job .
Hope you have helped in retreiving more than a 100 bricks.
Brilliant !! Happy for you

:good: Forest made the 1000th post!!!! :good:

Ever thankful to Forest and Prabhu. You have helped many people to revive their Note. Thanks to Uggies to start this thread and many many more to contributed in their own ways to help revive my Note.

 

[forest1971]

Thanks for very nice words guys! The guide is indeed a collective efforts and everyone in the thread has helped one another in some ways. I learned a lot too .

cheers,

 

[MohElShafei]

Thank you all for the great support .. Dear apurvapatel, I have a lot of friends in India from my work, I can manage send the phone to anyone of them and fix it there .. thank you for informing me with the cost!.

This thread was really very helpful to me .. thank you forest1971 for the continuous support, you are doing a great effort

Mohamed

 

[ponlayookm]

Works, Finally!!

Dear forest1971,

Thank you for your explanation, now I understand that the phone Motherboard must be replaced in order to work properly again .. what do you think is the price of changing the Motherboard?

Now with the help of hg42, and your topic, I finally managed to get the system works with the following specs:
1. cm-9-20120622-NIGHTLY-n7000.zip ROM .. For anyone you can get it from here.

2. The only Kernel that worked with this ROM was thor-kernel-v0.14-BURN-GNOTE.zip, in addition, I used several kernels but no one works, such as:

• 4pda_kernel.tar - it didn't boot the ROM and stuck at Samsung N7000 Logo.

• speedmod-kernel-n7000-ics-k3-3-Odin.tar - it didn't boot the ROM and stuck at Samsung N7000 Logo.

• cm9_safe_kernel.tar - Works and make the ROM boot, but the Wireless was disabled.. I don't know why.

Question: What is the Kernel and the ROM you recommend? In addition, can I install "Litening ROM Note v2.0" from Odin without problems?

3. I used the Q1_20110914_16GB-patched-ums-bricked+7340032-kB.pit file and it worked well. Now my space is 1.25 GB when I connect my Note to the PC.

I usually was flashing any ROM without reading for all my previous android phones (HTC Desire, Sensation, SGS2, and Ace), but really SAMSUNG was a shock to me doing this bug .. a device 600$ price with this bug ..
SHAM ON YOU SAMSUNG

I'm now able to work with the phone and added 16GB SD Memory to work with it.

Thank you for your continuous support and wish you a wonderful day.

Mohamed

First of all thanks forest1971, hg42 for the methods and dedication to help

I was about to turn my Note to SS Service Center this morning when I saw MohElShafei's post.

I managed to SUPER BRICK my Note TWICE (don't ask me how, simple stupidity and not reading all the stickies) After the first SUPER BRICK, I used forest1971's method to re-partition and it worked fine...then I carelessly WIPE from unsecure kernel FOR THE SECOND TIME, resulted in massive unworkable EMMC areas.

Again,I tried re-partition in many ways but phone will always stuck at boot logos or freezes alot once booted. I simply gave up.

This morning I tried flashing the Q1_20110914_16GB-patched-ums-bricked+7864320-kB.pit *The ONLY pit that works so far*

My phone finally boots into CM9 and working thus far, will report how it goes.

 

[serpent2005]

I removed the kernel partition (rm 5) and need to recreate it. mkpartfs primary ext2 37.7 46.1 creates it as EXT2, but the file system was blank before. How do I create a partition with a blank file system?

 

[forest1971]

I removed the kernel partition (rm 5) and need to recreate it. mkpartfs primary ext2 37.7 46.1 creates it as EXT2, but the file system was blank before. How do I create a partition with a blank file system?

Try this :

(parted) mkpart primary 37.7 46.1
(parted name 5 KERNEL

remove it first and recreate using above. see how it goes.

cheers,

---------- Post added at 12:09 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:03 PM ----------

First of all thanks forest1971, hg42 for the methods and dedication to help

I was about to turn my Note to SS Service Center this morning when I saw MohElShafei's post.

I managed to SUPER BRICK my Note TWICE (don't ask me how, simple stupidity and not reading all the stickies) After the first SUPER BRICK, I used forest1971's method to re-partition and it worked fine...then I carelessly WIPE from unsecure kernel FOR THE SECOND TIME, resulted in massive unworkable EMMC areas.

Again,I tried re-partition in many ways but phone will always stuck at boot logos or freezes alot once booted. I simply gave up.

This morning I tried flashing the Q1_20110914_16GB-patched-ums-bricked+7864320-kB.pit *The ONLY pit that works so far*

My phone finally boots into CM9 and working thus far, will report how it goes.

Wow, your phone also lost so much memory, very similar to MohElShafei's. I still wonder what do you think is the reason? did you wipe internal sdcard using buggy kernel as well? in majority of cases only system or data partition were affected.

Hope things work out well. I guess you can buy a large external sdcard, then you do not really need the internal sdcard space.
cheers,

 

[MohElShafei]

Dear ponlayookm, happy to hear that it worked with you.. mine is working smooth but really unstable.. for example, if I installed a big program (5MB and above) the phone just hangs .. meaning that the memory is still defective .. So the phone works fine with the minimum number of applications installed .. also, I managed to move all the installed application from the internal memory to the SD Card. I advice you to do that .. but unfortunately not all apps can be moved to the SD Card . I hope if there is a way to move all apps to the SD Card.

Now my phone is on for a day with no hangs .. but only when I not install any apps from the Market ..

Congratulations, and glad to hear that I helped

Sincerely,
Mohamed

 

[forest1971]

The phone use cache partition to store application from google play before install. So the symptom may suggest there is faulty block in cache partition. It should be scanned if you have not done so.

In another look, it seems there could be faulty blocks in the data partition as well. Will require scanning to verify the issues. e2fsck can help repair some kind of faulty blocks as well.

Cheers.

 

[ponlayookm]

Try this :

(parted) mkpart primary 37.7 46.1
(parted name 5 KERNEL

remove it first and recreate using above. see how it goes.

cheers,

---------- Post added at 12:09 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:03 PM ----------



Wow, your phone also lost so much memory, very similar to MohElShafei's. I still wonder what do you think is the reason? did you wipe internal sdcard using buggy kernel as well? in majority of cases only system or data partition were affected.

Hope things work out well. I guess you can buy a large external sdcard, then you do not really need the internal sdcard space.
cheers,

1. The first time that I SUPER BRICK was when I performed CWM wipe while using Kingdroid 2.1 (ICS)
2. Then I partition using your guide with exact partitions. Installed CM9 worked fine. Then went to Kingdroid again, and accidentally wipe under that unsafe ICS AGAIN (no one else to blame here)
3. This time the most of the EMMC are affected, I have to move FACTORYFS, DATAFS,UMS to start from 10000 MB++

Most of the roms will not install, and if they did they will get boot-loop or crash.
Until I found MohElShafei's guide...

But another update, it seems CM9 also crash after using it for a day after installing many apps.

I have a question. If it is CACHE / KERNEL / MODEM partition are corrupted. Can I move them all into the UMS areas too?

Does the CACHE partition has to be in the 54.5MB 264MB area, or can I move it to 10000MB++ area?

 

[forest1971]

1. The first time that I SUPER BRICK was when I performed CWM wipe while using Kingdroid 2.1 (ICS)
2. Then I partition using your guide with exact partitions. Installed CM9 worked fine. Then went to Kingdroid again, and accidentally wipe under that unsafe ICS AGAIN (no one else to blame here)
3. This time the most of the EMMC are affected, I have to move FACTORYFS, DATAFS,UMS to start from 10000 MB++

Most of the roms will not install, and if they did they will get boot-loop or crash.
Until I found MohElShafei's guide...

But another update, it seems CM9 also crash after using it for a day after installing many apps.

I have a question. If it is CACHE / KERNEL / MODEM partition are corrupted. Can I move them all into the UMS areas too?

Does the CACHE partition has to be in the 54.5MB 264MB area, or can I move it to 10000MB++ area?

The answer is yes. You can move them to the new location.

You can manually remove and recreate partition from 5 to 11 (just leave 1-4 untouched) but remember to flash their contents back (kernel and modem) using odin. You can also remove partition 12 (hidden) for good, to save about 500MB more. That partition is not needed for installing rom and normal use at all. Keep the name and order of partition from 1 to 11 the same as the original.

Hope you can figure it out. cheer.

 

[nileshkucha]

help

forest i am so thankful to you dude..
i managed to unbrick my phone with your guide and your forum :good::good::good::good::good:
only problem now i m facing is it freezes and restarts so much it dsnt work smooth ..if u have any solution..plz tell us..

thanx a lot dude for helping us :good::good::good::good::good::good:

 

[forest1971]

Thanks for kind words mate. This problem seems to happen to some people after unbrick using repartition. The only solution is to try to scan the partition again, including partition 7,9,10,11 using dd command or other commands provided in my guide to make sure that they are free of faults. If they are good, then it is probably the problem with roms. Need to change roms to see if the promlem is solved. Try those and see how things go. Cheers.

 

[nileshkucha]

Thanks for kind words mate. This problem seems to happen to some people after unbrick using repartition. The only solution is to try to scan the partition again, including partition 7,9,10,11 using dd command or other commands provided in my guide to make sure that they are free of faults. If they are good, then it is probably the problem with roms. Need to change roms to see if the promlem is solved. Try those and see how things go. Cheers.

sir cache 7 was something like 1800/54302 blocks and 0.0% non-contagious so what does it mean ?

 

[forest1971]

sir cache 7 was something like 1800/54302 blocks and 0.0% non-contagious so what does it mean ?

It should say no bad block if there are no. In this case there seem to be. Try to remove and recreate p7 as in the guide. Should check 9 and 10 as well. E2fsck should be run after umount as in the guide. Cheers.
Edit: Create cache partition with the same same size first. if parted say error then it confirm bad block. If so, create a smaller cache.

 

[nobby]

forest
read through most of the thread and hope i'm not repeating someone else - you spend lots of time helping people like me and i don't want to waste yours...

i have several issues - which order to tackle them??

1 - had 2 fixes on first print command
2 - 11 is not formatted to fat 32 - when i tried mkfs it said i would destroy data. is this wise?

please see screen dump:


(parted) print
print
print
Error: The backup GPT table is not at the end of the d
This might mean that another operating system believes
Fix, by moving the backup to the end (and removing the
Fix/Ignore/Cancel? f
f
f
Warning: Not all of the space available to /dev/block/
used, you can fix the GPT to use all of the space (an
continue with the current setting?
Fix/Ignore? f
f
f
Model: MMC VYL00M (sd/mmc)
Disk /dev/block/mmcblk0: 15.8GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt

Number Start End Size File system Name
1 4194kB 25.2MB 21.0MB ext4 EFS
2 25.2MB 26.5MB 1311kB SBL1
3 27.3MB 28.6MB 1311kB SBL2
4 29.4MB 37.7MB 8389kB PARAM
5 37.7MB 46.1MB 8389kB KERNEL
6 46.1MB 54.5MB 8389kB RECOVERY
7 54.5MB 264MB 210MB ext4 CACHE
8 264MB 281MB 16.8MB MODEM
9 3322MB 4215MB 893MB ext4 FACTORYFS
10 4215MB 6363MB 2147MB ext4 DATAFS
11 6363MB 15.2GB 8854MB UMS
12 15.2GB 15.8GB 537MB ext4 HIDDEN

 

[forest1971]

You can do mkfs fat32 again for part 11 to format it and answer yes to the querry. Otherway is to format it using cwm. Cheers.

 

[nobby]

Warning: Partition 7 is 210MB, but the file system is 105MB

You can do mkfs fat32 again for part 11 to format it and answer yes to the querry. Otherway is to format it using cwm. Cheers.

forest

many thanks - i did this via adb as i couldn't find the partition via cwm.

now for my next issue

when i tried to check partition 11 as per your guide i received this message about partition 7. any ideas?

Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 4194kB 25.2MB 21.0MB ext4 EFS
2 25.2MB 26.5MB 1311kB SBL1
3 27.3MB 28.6MB 1311kB SBL2
4 29.4MB 37.7MB 8389kB PARAM
5 37.7MB 46.1MB 8389kB KERNEL
6 46.1MB 54.5MB 8389kB RECOVERY
7 54.5MB 264MB 210MB ext4 CACHE
8 264MB 281MB 16.8MB MODEM
9 3322MB 4215MB 893MB ext4 FACTORYFS
10 4215MB 6363MB 2147MB ext4 DATAFS
11 6363MB 15.2GB 8854MB fat32 UMS msftres
12 15.2GB 15.8GB 537MB ext4 HIDDEN

(parted) check 11
check 11
check 11
Warning: Partition 7 is 210MB, but the file system is 105MB.
Ignore/Cancel? i
i
i
(parted)

i'm stumped. can you help?

many thanks
nobby

---------- Post added at 07:15 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:09 PM ----------

forest

i might have an answer to the /cache partition 7 question:

~ # e2fsck -f -c -y /dev/block/mmcblk0p7
e2fsck -f -c -y /dev/block/mmcblk0p7
e2fsck 1.41.6 (30-May-2009)
ext2fs_check_if_mount: Can't check if filesystem is mounted due to missing mtab
file while determining whether /dev/block/mmcblk0p7 is mounted.
/dev/block/mmcblk0p7: Updating bad block inode.
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
Pass 2: Checking directory structure
Pass 3: Checking directory connectivity
Pass 4: Checking reference counts
Pass 5: Checking group summary information

/dev/block/mmcblk0p7: ***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****
/dev/block/mmcblk0p7: 16/6400 files (6.3% non-contiguous), 4090/25600 blocks
~ #

ok - here's what i think, correct me as necessary...

4090 of the 25600 blocks are banjaxxed. so when i remove, create and rename a new partition 7 i should start the new partition at 96mb (54.5 + 40.9) but still finish it at 264mb otherwise it will 'overlap' the next partition. this will make the partition smaller but that doesn't matter.

this, of course, assumes that the bad blocks are the first 4090 blocks of the partition. is it not possible that the blocks are in the middle of the partition, or at the end, or, for that matter, spread across the partition here, there and everywhere.

i'm still a bit confused and your valuable help is appreciated.

cheers
nobby

 

[forest1971]

The first issue with (parted) check 11: it is strange how it refer to part 7, not sure why yet. it is good to just ignore it.

Second issue: if there is no bad block e2fsck should report: bad block not found.

In this case there seems to be some problem. Still e2fsck passed successfully (not freeze) then it could mean that the error is mild and it could fix it. Another case is: it found bad block and could not fix but it will mark those and tell kernel not to use those bad block anymore which is also good. And you could go on with install rom if other partitions are ok. But the better solution is to create new part 7 within the range from 54.5mb to 264mb. We cannot tell where the bad block is yet, so just need to try to create new part 7 in different area within that range. If parted is happy with certain range then it is good. cache only need to have about 54mb to serve the installations of apps from google play. There is no application .apk from google play that is bigger than 50mb so far, so that number is enough. Hope it helps. cheers.