[GUIDE]Unbrick a Hard Bricked SPRINT Galaxy S3 (Without JTAG)

[djinnerman]

I've had my bricked S3 phone for a few months dreading that the JTAG service was my only option. That day I messed up my phone, I went to Sprint and upgraded to a Note II. Now I had this beautiful paperweight S3 in my hands and had no idea what to do with it.

This method worked flawlessly. The youtube video was more informative. I dual boot to linux and the linux approach was a bit more excruciating. So I booted to windows and used that "God of all programs" Win 32 Disk utility to flash the img file. It worked in one shot.

 

[gica69]

Great thread need update on the other s3's

Is there anything on the non CDMA phones like SGH-I747M or is thos exclusively for those type of phones. Thanks in advance

 

[Tromatic]

Is there anything on the non CDMA phones like SGH-I747M or is thos exclusively for those type of phones. Thanks in advance

This particular thread is just for the SPH-L710. Having said that, give it shot! It can't get worse (much), and if you can get it to boot to download mode, you're in!

Disclaimer: I don't have a clue if this will work or not. The de-brick file is probably very device specific, but if you can get it to boot at all.....

 

[Ragnar]

There is no reason why it would not work. You would have obtain the dump for your specific device from a working phone.

Sent from the future via Tapatalk 4

 

[Tromatic]

There is no reason why it would not work. You would have obtain the dump for your specific device from a working phone.

Sent from the future via Tapatalk 4

Is this "hard-brick" the worst you can do to the phone? Other than physical damage, this method of recovery should save you from just about anything, correct?

 

[Ragnar]

Is this "hard-brick" the worst you can do to the phone? Other than physical damage, this method of recovery should save you from just about anything, correct?

This will recover your device should you be not paying attention to what your doing or just are clueless and flash an international rom. There a lot of mis information out there. A hard brick is when your phone does nothing it does not power on, does not vibrate and literally is just as good as a brick. If your device boots, or turns on but freezes at the samsung logo or just turns on to recovery mode these are not bricked. This just means something else may be wrong and you can solve most of these issues quite simply.

Sent from the future via Tapatalk 4

 

[Tromatic]

This will recover your device should you be not paying attention to what your doing or just are clueless and flash an international rom. There a lot of mis information out there. A hard brick is when your phone does nothing it does not power on, does not vibrate and literally is just as good as a brick. If your device boots, or turns on but freezes at the samsung logo or just turns on to recovery mode these are not bricked. This just means something else may be wrong and you can solve most of these issues quite simply.

Sent from the future via Tapatalk 4

Mine was a hard-brick. Perhaps I should have asked "Is this hard-brick I recovered from the worst I can do to the phone?"

 

[styles420]

Mine was a hard-brick. Perhaps I should have asked "Is this hard-brick I recovered from the worst I can do to the phone?"

For this phone, a hard brick is pretty much the worst damage you can do and still recover from without replacing hardware.

But to answer the question you actually asked, the worst you can do to the phone is submit it to the "Will It Blend?" website for testing...

Sent from my SPH-L710 using xda app-developers app

 

[deihak]

Is there an image for GT-i9300? I 'm in the same situation. I wan't to give it a shot.From what I read, it works

 

[CNexus]

Mine was a hard-brick. Perhaps I should have asked "Is this hard-brick I recovered from the worst I can do to the phone?"

On these phones with the newest EMMC's, yes, that's the worst you can do because of all the fail-safe mechanisms that are in place.

On older generation phones, if you hard-bricked, it was truly a brick and it would be time to get used to using your phone as a paperweight.

 

[Tromatic]

On these phones with the newest EMMC's, yes, that's the worst you can do because of all the fail-safe mechanisms that are in place.

On older generation phones, if you hard-bricked, it was truly a brick and it would be time to get used to using your phone as a paperweight.

Thanks!

 

[IDontKnowMang]

Tried this on cygwin and the steps were pretty much the same. With the sd removed, start the cygwin terminal as the administrator by right clicking on it and hitting "run as administrator".
Once it starts type "cd /". Then type "cat proc/partitions" and you'll get a response similar to this
________________________________________
major minor #blocks name

8 0 156290904 sda
8 1 29295616 sda1
8 2 102400 sda2
8 3 122007552 sda3
8 4 4881408 sda4
8 16 0 sdb
______________________________

Then plug in you sd to your pc and run "cat proc/partitions" again. This time you'll see additional partitions(your SD) pop up. So it'll look something like this
______________________________

major minor #blocks name

8 0 156290904 sda
8 1 29295616 sda1
8 2 102400 sda2
8 3 122007552 sda3
8 4 4881408 sda4
8 16 0 sdb
8 32 1959936 sdc
8 33 1959936 sdc1
_________________________

sdc is the sdcard. so to dump this image type the following

"dd if=(as soon as you type = stop and drag the file into the window) of=/dev/sdc"
example: "dd if=/cygdrive/c/Users/User/Downloads/debrick_sph_l710.img.xz of=/dev/sdc"

this will take a few minutes. When you recieve a response like this:
"41222+1 records in
41222+1 records out
21106140 bytes (21 MB) copied, 193.389 s, 109 kB/s"

you can remove the sd. That should be it.

i dont wanna sound like a noob but i dont wanna **** up. whats different between md4 and md5. do they mix? is anything gonna happen if they swap. all my odin files thus far were md5 but idfk what any of my specs were before hardbrick is there a way to tell by the board?

---------- Post added at 07:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:50 PM ----------

scratch that its sph-l710 for sure i didnt know that was carrier specifics ima try this before i go pay out the wazoo for a jtag service
i mean what could it hurt right

---------- Post added at 07:26 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:02 PM ----------

im not sure if anyone knows, but from download mode do i just need to flash stock jellybean or do i need to odin in the stock kernel too. shouldnt the stock rom include it?

 

[Ragnar]

Flash the complete stock tar via odin. I think they are in the OP as well

Sent from the future via Tapatalk 4

 

[IDontKnowMang]

Flash the complete stock tar via odin. I think they are in the OP as well

Sent from the future via Tapatalk 4

do i need a bootloader and pit file and all that? or just the tar file

---------- Post added at 09:34 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:26 PM ----------

i just saw that odin makes a one click recovery in the op as well

---------- Post added at 10:22 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:34 PM ----------

i got my sd made ill post my results as soon as i get it in my phone

 

[IDontKnowMang]

so got a red charge led when i plug it in WITHOUT the battery first other than that still nothing maybe it does need a jtag

 

[Azeedc]

so got a red charge led when i plug it in WITHOUT the battery first other than that still nothing maybe it does need a jtag

Maybe, but the good news is the phone is not totally dead.
Red light without the battery is normal. If you leave the battery in, does the red light stays on or not ??
Did you prepare the SD card and followed the instructions by deBricker on first page ??

 

[Tromatic]

i dont wanna sound like a noob but i dont wanna **** up. whats different between md4 and md5. do they mix? is anything gonna happen if they swap. all my odin files thus far were md5 but idfk what any of my specs were before hardbrick is there a way to tell by the board?

---------- Post added at 07:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:50 PM ----------

scratch that its sph-l710 for sure i didnt know that was carrier specifics ima try this before i go pay out the wazoo for a jtag service
i mean what could it hurt right

---------- Post added at 07:26 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:02 PM ----------

im not sure if anyone knows, but from download mode do i just need to flash stock jellybean or do i need to odin in the stock kernel too. shouldnt the stock rom include it?

This is why the Android ecosystem(?) sucks. There is absolutely no way a noob can make sense of the files and extensions, and it's sometwhat difficult to figure out on your own.

You need to follow the instructions EXACTLY. Assuming you can "swap" something is a bad idea.

The "MD4" file is the ROM/recovery you need to flash. It's the latest version of what's on the stock phone. "MD5" is the filename extension a type of file used by Odin. The two are totally different things, all designed to confuse people, as far as I can tell.

To make it simple, use this, the .exe file: http://rwilco12.com/downloads.php?dir=Files/Devices/Samsung%20Galaxy%20S3%20%28SPH-L710%29/Stock%20ROMs/JB/MD4/Full%20Restore/Rooted. Download it, double-click and extract it. Boot phone to download mode, and start the the extracted exe file. Forget about PIT files and the rest of that crap. It's a stand-alone recovery, no Odin needed. If you can boot your phone to download mode, you should be good. Let it sit, it takes a while.

Again, getting your phone to boot at all is the most important part of this whole exercise. After that, it's mostly easy. I was told in another thread that a "hard-brick" of this phone is recoverable due to the hardware safeguards. Unless it's damaged in some way, this SHOULD work for you just like it has for others.

 

[styles420]

This is why the Android ecosystem(?) sucks. There is absolutely no way a noob can make sense of the files and extensions, and it's sometwhat difficult to figure out on your own.

You need to follow the instructions EXACTLY. Assuming you can "swap" something is a bad idea.

The "MD4" file is the ROM/recovery you need to flash. It's the latest version of what's on the stock phone. "MD5" is the filename extension a type of file used by Odin. The two are totally different things, all designed to confuse people, as far as I can tell.

To make it simple, use this, the .exe file: http://rwilco12.com/downloads.php?d...H-L710)/Stock ROMs/JB/MD4/Full Restore/Rooted. Download it, double-click and extract it. Boot phone to download mode, and start the the extracted exe file. Forget about PIT files and the rest of that crap. It's a stand-alone recovery, no Odin needed. If you can boot your phone to download mode, you should be good. Let it sit, it takes a while.

Again, getting your phone to boot at all is the most important part of this whole exercise. After that, it's mostly easy. I was told in another thread that a "hard-brick" of this phone is recoverable due to the hardware safeguards. Unless it's damaged in some way, this SHOULD work for you just like it has for others.

One correction - MD5 refers to MD5sum, which is a value used to verify the integrity of a file. It was not designed to confuse people (not everything that happens is by design). The MD4 label on the rom is an unfortunate coincidence - it is an encoded date stamp, using a standard that has been in use for a few years. They didn't intentionally create a release-ready build on a specific day just so they could give it a label that would be confusing - if they had, then they would have waited one more day and labeled their build MD5

My understanding is that the Odin file uses the md5 extension because it consists of the tar archive AND the md5sum of the tar, allowing Odin an opportunity to verify the integrity of the tar before flashing it to your phone.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using xda app-developers app

 

[hexanite]

Thanks for this thread, but I'm still having some issues. I did everything as shown, booted up, got to download, used odin (there was a link to a .exe earlier in this thread with a stock rom), used that, everything booted up, but my SD partition is messed up. It shows it as ~60MB. Any suggestions? Thanks

 

[styles420]

Thanks for this thread, but I'm still having some issues. I did everything as shown, booted up, got to download, used odin (there was a link to a .exe earlier in this thread with a stock rom), used that, everything booted up, but my SD partition is messed up. It shows it as ~60MB. Any suggestions? Thanks

You need to reformat the card to restore the partition table to its original form - unlike an unaltered sd card, the recovery image (and the phone's internal memory) have more than one partition. From your description, it sound like the phone can only see one of them, which is 60 mb in size.

If you're familiar with Linux, I recommend gparted to revert the sd card to a single 16 gb partition... If you use Windows, you'll have to ask the Windows users what is best (I think I've seen mention of problems with the built in formatting tool being unable to alter the partition table, preventing it from correcting the 60 mb size)

An easier way to restore the partition table (and the original contents of the sd card from before you flash the recovery image) would be to create an image of the sd card before flashing the recovery image - when you're done with the recovery, just flash the backup image the same way you flashed the recovery image

Sent from my SPH-L710 using xda app-developers app