[HOWTO] Recover from a HARD BRICK [N900V] [MJE/NC2/NC4]

[mihajlo27]

har brick note 3

So i have been trying to unbrick my phone for 3 days now. with this step i get the unbrick image loaded on sd card and put in my phone but when i go to downloader mode it doe snot look any different and for odin i use odin 3 v3.9 and i use ALL_N900VVRUBMI9_N900VVZWMI9_1671014_REV03_user_low_ship_MULTI_CERT.tar.md5 and am not sure is this correct o rnot. i have also tried to do root de la vega and samsung kies and am desperate. please help.

.
I TAKE NO CREDIT FOR CORE METHOD. I APPLIED IT FOR OUR DEVICE !

To make long story short, I've hard bricked my device while trying to patch/unlock the bootloader after successfully flashing a custom kernel (this tripped knox counter). After reading all guides that addresses the problem for other devices, I'm posting a 100% working solution for the most hated disaster in the Android rooting/flashing world. Moreover, this is very promising info for testing bootloader exploits.


What is Hard Brick?

Hard brick is the state of android device that occurs when your device won’t boot/respond/charge at all. This is mainly caused by flashing corrupted firmware, damaged bootloader, incomplete flashing in Odin/Download mode, or interrupted OTA upgrade. You can't recover from hard brick by traditional methods since your phone is ~dead & you can't enter any Recovery or Download Modes; You'll need to use JTAG (expensive service), USB JIG (cheap, but no gurantee), or this free guide/files to get it repaired.


What do you need?

- Hard Bricked Device: Samsung Galaxy Note 3 (N900V)
- Micro SD Card: 4/8/16/32 GB micro SD card
- Unbrick Image: working dump with the same bootloader/version
- Image Writer: native commands on Linux/MacOSx or Win32 Disk Imager on Windows


How to recover?

1- Download Unbrick Image for your bootloader (MJE, NC2 or NC4) from here
2- If you're using Windows, download Win32 Disk Imager
3- Backup all files in the micro SD card you 'll use
4- Write the Unbrick Image to your micro SD card using Win32 Disk Imager or Linux/MacOSX commands
5- Remove battery, Insert micro SD card & then the battery
6- Hold Power + Home + Volume Down to enter Download Mode by bootloader on SD card
7- Flash Stock firmware via Odin & Enjoy

YOU MAY NEED TO TEST MICRO SD CARDS WITH DIFFERENT TYPES/SIZES & FORMAT AS EXFAT BEFORE WRITING AN UNBRICK IMAGE ACCORDING TO YOUR BOOTLOADER!




For Developer Edition, you need to create your own Unbrick Image since I can't share it for the device-specific bootloader. Just run this Unbrick Image Creator in recovery & it'll create "/sdcard/Unbrick_Files" in your internal SD card.

For more details, read the guides provided bellow in the credits section.


Downloads:

All files you may need are available in this folder.


Credits:

- designgears - for this guide
- Shabbypenguin - for this guide
- theramsey3 - for this guide
- dstruct2k - for this guide
- -Mr. X- - for this guide


Thanks to:

- @soundrizm - for creating the MJE image from his device
- @jrbxx7 - for creating the NC2 image from his device
- @K03WL3R - for creating the NC4 image from his device
...

XDA:DevDB Information
How to recover from a HARD BRICK, Tool/Utility for the Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note 3

Contributors
hsbadr

Version Information
Status: Stable

Created 2014-08-01
Last Updated 2014-08-30

 

[jrbxx7]

Edit. Misread sry

NoTe III'd

 

[thornev]

So i have been trying to unbrick my phone for 3 days now. with this step i get the unbrick image loaded on sd card and put in my phone but when i go to downloader mode it doe snot look any different and for odin i use odin 3 v3.9 and i use ALL_N900VVRUBMI9_N900VVZWMI9_1671014_REV03_user_low_ship_MULTI_CERT.tar.md5 and am not sure is this correct o rnot. i have also tried to do root de la vega and samsung kies and am desperate. please help.

You do not want the MI9 rom. It's way old. What rom did you have before?

 

[radionerd]

So i bricked my dev note 3 last year by doing the nvbackup in terminal mode. After a couple months i decided to try different things to see what happened. Somehow i got the bootloader changed to the retail one. So i know no more dev edition, but do you think i could fix it even if it ended up being a retail version? Last thing i odined on it was a stock rom to see if that would just flash a stock bootloader and rom so i could use it, but that did nothing

Sent From My Galaxy Note 3

keynith
If your DE is still bricked from the toxic nvbackup command, check out my thread. I did the same thing, and found a fix.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2657519

 

[Cobaltikus]

1. Does it matter what name I give the img file?
2. Does it matter where I put the image on the SD card?
3. The unbrick image creator executes dd with bs4096 and count=50000. What is the logic behind these two values? And do they even matter?

 

[donc113]

1. Does it matter what name I give the img file?
2. Does it matter where I put the image on the SD card?
3. The unbrick image creator executes dd with bs4096 and count=50000. What is the logic behind these two values? And do they even matter?

Yes they matter. dd is a disk dump program. It reads the image a block at a time and for a certain number of blocks. The input and output sizes must be the same (bs) and the number of blocks read or written must be the same (count).

Since you're using the program to create an image....you want the parameters to match how you write the image back if ever needed.

Sent from my Note 3 via Tapatalk

 

[Cobaltikus]

Yes they matter. dd is a disk dump program. It reads the image a block at a time and for a certain number of blocks. The input and output sizes must be the same (bs) and the number of blocks read or written must be the same (count).

Since you're using the program to create an image....you want the parameters to match how you write the image back if ever needed.

Sent from my Note 3 via Tapatalk

Thank you for the response. However I still have the same questions. By "values" I meant the 4096 and the 50000. Why 4096? How do we know to specify a block size of 4096? What if specified a block size of 2048? Would that have the same result as long as I specified a count of 100000? Does the resulting image need to be exactly 200 MB?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using XDA Free mobile app

 

[donc113]

Thank you for the response. However I still have the same questions. By "values" I meant the 4096 and the 50000. Why 4096? How do we know to specify a block size of 4096? What if specified a block size of 2048? Would that have the same result as long as I specified a count of 100000? Does the resulting image need to be exactly 200 MB?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using XDA Free mobile app

Because that's the block size of the device....how much the hardware reads at one time (or writes) no matter what. It is the number of bytes....in this case 4096 or 4KBytes.

As an example....lets just take a text file that simply has the single word "Sunshine" in it. Adding a Line Feed to end the file makes it 9 Bytes long. But when you go to save (or read) that file the hardware will read 4096 Bytes (or write that much) because that makes the firmware for that device much easier to write and relates only to how the hardware (not software) reads and writes most efficiently.

The hardware block size does not have to match the filesystem blocksize....because filesystem blocks deal with how the software (not hardware) reads and writes most efficiently.

In a modern Operating System, hardware and software are totally independent of each other and a hardware access layer (part of the kernel) does all the translations. To use new hardware, you only need to change the kernel...not thre whole OS.

In Linux (or UNIX) devices (which Android is based on) you have "device" access by either a character oriented device file or block oriented device file. Those device files are in /dev and below and are not real files but merely pointers into the kernel.



Sent from my Note 3 via Tapatalk

 

[legion423]

Will this work with HTC one M7 . Thanks

 

[brex91]

any chance this would work with a galaxy tab pro 10.1? I somehow bricked mine several months ago(first time ever, since my Fascinate)

It doesn't boot into odin or show any signs of booting.

Could I somehow use that unbrick creator?

 

[Sterben Pistole]

Will this work with HTC one M7 . Thanks

HTC Devices do not work with Odin. Odin is a program for Samsung devices. I think HTC users need to use HBOOT and have the .zip in the extSD. Wait, just go to the HTC One M7 forum to ask this question.

Sent from my SGH-I337 using XDA Free mobile app

 

[shawnjag]

NK1 Unbrick Image

I have a Note 3 that bricked during an OTA update to NK1. It's definitely a hard brick because it's detected as QHSUSB_BULK in Windows. Would anyone be able to use the Unbrick Creator script provided by the OP to create an Unbrick image for NK1 users?

I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks.

 

[brex91]

Hey, I know this isnt quite the same, but I managed to find a dump image online for my model tablet (tab pro 10.1)

It came in a .7z that extracted to a boot.img and system.7z, is there a way to make a unbrick image out of these?

The diskimager proram won't use a folder or 7z archive for me.

 

[zimmar]

Create Image for other Samsung Phones

Hi hsbadr

I need to create a custom image for another model of phone: Samsung Galaxy Note 4 (N910GDTU1BOD3).

It is totally unresponsive and definitely HARD bricked.

Not sure if I need it, but I downloaded the full firmware from sammobile.

Can you please help explain how to create the image to unbrick it? I've downloaded all the files you posted previously and have also downloaded ODIN 3.10.

Really appreciated.

Zimmar

 

[Nrk411]

hard brick on verizon note 3?

Hi there, my first post. Thank you for all of the great resources and contributions on here. I really appreciate all of this info and enjoy learning more about Android.

I had my 1.5 year old Verizon Note 3 (SM-N900V) that was acting weird so I warrantied and got a new one 2 months ago. It has been working great ever since. I have not rooted the phone or anything, running all stock software, Android 5.1.1. Last Tuesday I pulled my phone out of my pocket after lunchtime (had just spoken to my wife, sent a couple texts, you know the normal stuff maybe 30 minutes before) and it was dead.... I thought it was weird, thought maybe it just turned off o something, battery was about half full the last time I saw it. But nothing, nada, no response from leaving plugged in for a couple hours to charge. No vibrate on power+vol down+home button, not so response no vibrate from power button alone.

I have tried the mje and nc2 unbrick image with Win32Disk imager and am still getting zero response from the phone.

I'm def. a newb in terms of my android rooting and flashing ROM's experience, I have only experimented with 2 different phones.

I have a feeling the phone is toast but I'm so confused by how it died... Wondering if maybe they sent me a refurb device when I warrantied it and it was just volatile? I'm also temped to order a new motherboard for it off of ebay but again I don't know enough to determine if it would work or it this is just a crapshoot. I am due for an upgrade but was hoping that I wouldn't have to upgrade for a few more months until the Note 5 drops in price a little, I was even going to just get the Note 4 because it has a microSD slot but it's the same price as the Note 5! I am using my old school Galaxy Nexus for the time being and it's killing me, the thing is a dinosaur!

Any help is appreciated.

 

[Odin2015]

Can someone do this dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0 of=/sdcard/Unbrick_Files/200MB.img bs=4096 count=50000; for gt-i8190 and send me the file please?

 

[asadnow2k]

any solution for N915g note edge? if yes let me know guys i have one unit on qusb 9008 mode it seems hard bricked. dont wanna jtag with wires. if any sd card method available please link me to that..

 

[manowar24]

I have got a problem with my LG G3 Cat.6 F460k, no download mode, no recovery, no power on, no fastboot , only qualcomm hs-usb qdloader 9008 in windows device manager, the g3 f460 uses the APQ8084 chipset for the 805 snapdragon processor, this method will work??

 

[donc113]

I have got a problem with my LG G3 Cat.6 F460k, no download mode, no recovery, no power on, no fastboot , only qualcomm hs-usb qdloader 9008 in windows device manager, the g3 f460 uses the APQ8084 chipset for the 805 snapdragon processor, this method will work??

Why not ask in the LG forum?

Sent from my Note 3 via Tapatalk

 

[G_Satterlund]

I TAKE NO CREDIT FOR CORE METHOD. I APPLIED IT FOR OUR DEVICE !

To make long story short, I've hard bricked my device while trying to patch/unlock the bootloader after successfully flashing a custom kernel (this tripped knox counter). After reading all guides that addresses the problem for other devices, I'm posting a 100% working solution for the most hated disaster in the Android rooting/flashing world. Moreover, this is very promising info for testing bootloader exploits.


What is Hard Brick?

Hard brick is the state of android device that occurs when your device won’t boot/respond/charge at all. This is mainly caused by flashing corrupted firmware, damaged bootloader, incomplete flashing in Odin/Download mode, or interrupted OTA upgrade. You can't recover from hard brick by traditional methods since your phone is ~dead & you can't enter any Recovery or Download Modes; You'll need to use JTAG (expensive service), USB JIG (cheap, but no gurantee), or this free guide/files to get it repaired.


What do you need?

- Hard Bricked Device: Samsung Galaxy Note 3 (N900V)
- Micro SD Card: 4/8/16/32 GB micro SD card
- Unbrick Image: working dump with the same bootloader/version
- Image Writer: native commands on Linux/MacOSx or Win32 Disk Imager on Windows


How to recover?

1- Download Unbrick Image for your bootloader (MJE, NC2 or NC4) from here
2- If you're using Windows, download Win32 Disk Imager
3- Backup all files in the micro SD card you 'll use
4- Write the Unbrick Image to your micro SD card using Win32 Disk Imager or Linux/MacOSX commands
5- Remove battery, Insert micro SD card & then the battery
6- Hold Power + Home + Volume Down to enter Download Mode by bootloader on SD card
7- Flash Stock firmware via Odin & Enjoy

YOU MAY NEED TO TEST MICRO SD CARDS WITH DIFFERENT TYPES/SIZES & FORMAT AS EXFAT BEFORE WRITING AN UNBRICK IMAGE ACCORDING TO YOUR BOOTLOADER!




For Developer Edition, you need to create your own Unbrick Image since I can't share it for the device-specific bootloader. Just run this Unbrick Image Creator in recovery & it'll create "/sdcard/Unbrick_Files" in your internal SD card.

For more details, read the guides provided bellow in the credits section.


Downloads:

All files you may need are available in this folder.


Credits:

- designgears - for this guide
- Shabbypenguin - for this guide
- theramsey3 - for this guide
- dstruct2k - for this guide
- -Mr. X- - for this guide


Thanks to:

- @soundrizm - for creating the MJE image from his device
- @jrbxx7 - for creating the NC2 image from his device
- @K03WL3R - for creating the NC4 image from his device

XDA:DevDB Information
How to recover from a HARD BRICK, Tool/Utility for the Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note 3

Contributors
hsbadr

Version Information
Status: Stable

Created 2014-08-01
Last Updated 2015-02-15

What image should I use if I don't have any idea which bootloader I have? I do have everything backed up with flashfire. Can find out my bootloader by looking in the bootloader backup made by flashfire? I can only get the unauthorized software warning screen or download mode. I got it now.