PIT file method to revive your phone from a MMC_CAP_ERASE brick

[theunborn]

still stuck...even worse now..

hello,
Im new here

I've been upgrading to ICS from the official update which is N7000DXLP9-----------------------2012 May-----------N7000OLBLP6-----------Indonesia from http://forum.xda-developers.com/show....php?t=1424997

it works great, until I see some red frame around and tried to fix it by going to buildprop and editing the buildtype from dev to user (what I found on the internet), but then I found out that mine is already user so I tried changed it to dev and when I restart, the phone stuck on samsung logo,but I am still able to go to recovery mode,the problem is I cant get odin to flash any rom to my note, it always stuck at factoryfs.img. then I installed abys kernell to wipe my factory reset, cache, dalvik, then I started to flash with odin again, with the patched pit file I got from http://forum.xda-developers.com/show....php?t=1667886, and the official update from http://forum.xda-developers.com/show....php?t=1424997, suddenly it works, and I tried to restore data from CWM ( stupid me)....turns out it got back again on the logo samsung and stuck there and so i tried flashing again and it started to stuck around factoryfs everytime, I tried to use abyss but this time after I wiped everything and used the patched pit file like before, it still stuck, so I found a post from the internet, it was custom ICS, i forgot where i got it but i have the file if you'd like to know, and so i tried, then it leaves me with my counter started to count 1 and still stuck at factoryfs....and I cant even go to recovery mode now, I have tried USB JIG and I succeeded to turn the counter back to zero but still stuck at factoryfs.img and still cant go to recovery mode even through bootloader,..... please help! i love my gnote

 

[hg42]

N7000DXLP9
...suddenly it works, and I tried to restore data from CWM ( stupid me)....stuck

If you installed this unsafe ics rom both times, you have probably bricked your revived gnote again.
So you loose another memory area.

First you should read about the whole emmc brick thing until you understand what it is.
In this case: restore will also wipe first -> brick

Generally don't use stock rom without flashing a safe kernel first!!!

To revive your phone again, first take a ums pit with a number around 3GB. Follow instructions at end of first post.
Install the ics rom along with a good kernel, e.g. a recent franco kernel. Never wipe or cwm restore on top of a stock kernel.
If that works, use "emmc check" app to scan your flash completely. If it stops at some count, you have the brick.

 

[garwynn]

@hg42, forest,

In order to build a custom .PIT for the Epic 4G Touch what would you need?
I'm guessing a current .PIT as well as a dump of each partition, starting position and size.

Reason being the proverbial cat is out of the bag and users are restoring E4GTs using the Note modified .PITs. This takes out half the memory whereas I believe our tests indicated that it can be done by simply avoiding the current /data block on our device - 2GB. And if people are going to use this we might as well do what we can to help at this point. (There are enough people not covered by warranty or free/cheap repair that interest has reached a point of use now.)

I'd appreciate any help you could offer. Thanks in advance.

 

[thasadar]

Hi hg42,

I am using Disk Usage to analyze my storage space.

I can't explore this "system data" , but it looks like it's a cache of sorts ( might be the dalvik cache) but it looked like it didn't clear its self.
I did a wipe ( factory reset ) and reinstalled all using Titanium .Afterwards I checked.
The "system data " is still there but now it grows and shrinks according to the use/caching . That means it also is able to clear its self.

I seriously have no ideea why this happens, but I will keep my eye on it.

PS: as a stable ROM, I found this
I am now preparing myself for the spiritual journey of hopefully not bricking it again. If not broke why fix? But it's the fine tuning that we're all into :silly:

 

[hg42]

In order to build a custom .PIT for the Epic 4G Touch what would you need?
I'm guessing a current .PIT as well as a dump of each partition, starting position and size.

the pit and the output of parted print, then I have to see how different this is.

 

[garwynn]

In order to build a custom .PIT for the Epic 4G Touch what would you need?
I'm guessing a current .PIT as well as a dump of each partition, starting position and size.

the pit and the output of parted print, then I have to see how different this is.

While I'm asking for someone to dump the .pit via Heimdall I can include the parted output from our ICS builds (courtesy of drnull's tests):

Model: MMC MAG4FA (sd/mmc)
Disk /dev/block/mmcblk0: 15.8GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt

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  369MB   315MB   ext4         CACHE
 8      369MB   386MB   16.8MB               MODEM
 9      386MB   923MB   537MB                FACTORYFS
10      923MB   3070MB  2147MB  ext4         DATAFS
11      3070MB  15.4GB  12.4GB  fat32        UMS
12      15.4GB  15.8GB  327MB   ext4         HIDDEN

He was originally able to restore functionality by discarding the memory assigned to DATAFS and pull it from partition 11 in this post.

mkpartfs DATAFS ext2 3070MB 5217MB
mkpartfs UMS fat32 5218MB 12.4GB

I can give an older .PIT file from GB if that would work.
I'll include that here for now: View attachment E4GT_092011_PIT.zip

On a side note,

It looks like the lockup was occurring in the same memory location on the Note - but it has not been proven yet if this is just coincidence or not. In either case it might be worth trying excluding this range only and see if it can recover more for the Note as well.

Thanks again for your help!

 

[hg42]

Interesting...

Most notes are bricked in the factoryfs and the datafs.
Looking for a reason I noticed, that our factoryfs start in a range where you have datafs. My brick starts in the range 950MB-1GB.

So there is a chance, the brick is always at certain addresses.

But not all have the same ranges. For the note, there seem to be bricks in the ums, too. I guess a brick address could be calculated from an access address by some kind of alignment operation?

Anyway, your pit is very similar to ours, so it should be easy to generate a patched one. I just have to think about how to generalize this. I think there will be more requests like this.

 

[tabsterleir]

Should've pressed the "Thanks" button a while a go. While I've been lucky enough to be unaffected by the eMMC fault, its the ingenuity of people like OP that will keep me buying Android devices for years to come. Kudos!

 

[Morality]

Dear hg42 (youre Damn dear to me for All youve done for everyone suffering from this issue )

I sincerely apologize for being a bit passive on this issue, but I really have a-LOT going on in my life now, but I'm still very motivated on solving the freeze-issue before submitting my note to warranty repair.

I saw someone asking about freeze issue in this thread as well, and his description of the issue seemed identical to mine, with the random permanent boot animations etc..

But I ran into something very interesting on the issue: When using paranoid android, the freezing issue does not occur until I restore or install something from Gplay. Not even realizing it, after another battle with the Bug, I ended up with nothing and reinstalled PA v03, and restored all my Apps with titanium BackUp and apks on my sdcard. For 2-3 days, my phone was without System freezes. Then, I tried installing a word Puzzle Game "Sanajahti" from play store, and my phone froze mid Download. After a few forced reboots i ended up with "Invalid package file". -error, and The return of the freezebug.

I tried recreating the situation, and it seemed to be true, after trying to install something from Gplay, the Bug showed itself. Now, im Running on a system Where all Apps are restored via titanium BackUp (Made an update.zip of TB), and im going 35h without a freeze Bug.

Is there anything you can make of this?

Sent from my GT-N7000 using XDA

 

[hg42]

private message of general interest:

my note is superbricked. no dwnloadmode no charging.. doing nothing. so only way to change mainboard or is there another way like use some working part of emmc memory?

the emmc brick normally doesn't prevent download mode, so this might be another problem.

If you cannot get into download mode by the three finger salute, you will probably need an USB JIG (2-7 EUR, or create one yourself, please google how to use it).

Sometimes you get in download mode, but the screen remains black.
Start Odin and see if you can get the yellow communication field while pressing the three buttons 20 sec + Vol-Up afterwards. Perhaps try it several times.

If you can flash a ROM after that, you have good chances not having an emmc brick.
You should then use "emmc check" app from play store to verify if you have it.
If the app doesn't complete then write down the number where it's hanging.
This is your first damaged block.
If it runs through, you haven't got an emmc brick, congratulations.

 

[hg42]

Now, im Running on a system Where all Apps are restored via titanium BackUp (Made an update.zip of TB), and im going 35h without a freeze Bug.

please use "emmc check" app from play store to check where your brick starts.
It might be in the cache partition, which is used rarely.
However, I know, that play store uses it when installing, so this looks like a good guess.

 

[garwynn]

Interesting...

Most notes are bricked in the factoryfs and the datafs.
Looking for a reason I noticed, that our factoryfs start in a range where you have datafs. My brick starts in the range 950MB-1GB.

So there is a chance, the brick is always at certain addresses.

But not all have the same ranges. For the note, there seem to be bricks in the ums, too. I guess a brick address could be calculated from an access address by some kind of alignment operation?

Anyway, your pit is very similar to ours, so it should be easy to generate a patched one. I just have to think about how to generalize this. I think there will be more requests like this.

When I looked at that before I think we had it somewhere down to a range of 930-1200... but at least in the case of drnull's tests he was able to rule out up to 1066. Not sure how that plays into the Note partitions though.

Also unknown is where the lower end lockup is occurring because it affects the boot process. Might get a better clue into it if Entropy and Adam are successful in getting a true fix to this problem.

Thanks again for your help. Didn't want to go down this road initially but as people are determined to flash something to restore functionality it might as well be a proper one for the Epic 4G Touch if possible.

 

[hg42]

When I looked at that before I think we had it somewhere down to a range of 930-1200... but at least in the case of drnull's tests he was able to rule out up to 1066. Not sure how that plays into the Note partitions though.

I ran "emmc check" again:
my first bricked address seems to change!
I think lowest was 986.6MB today, but I definitely saw something above 1000 before (1010 or 1100MB).

This area is the system partition on the note, that is why everyone here gets a hanging Odin at factoryfs. As I see from your table, it is datafs for Epic 4G Touch. So you get a hanging Odin at datafs instead.

 

[hg42]

Also unknown is where the lower end lockup is occurring because it affects the boot process. Might get a better clue into it if Entropy and Adam are successful in getting a true fix to this problem.

I think the boot process is affected because of the data partition, I think especially dalvik cache. People that don't wipe in certain cases get similar boot problems.

 

[Morality]

please use "emmc check" app from play store to check where your brick starts.
It might be in the cache partition, which is used rarely.
However, I know, that play store uses it when installing, so this looks like a good guess.

Wow they fixed the App

It froze Around 968MB.

Sent from my GT-N7000 using XDA

 

[[email protected]$3K#@R]

Thanks a lot
I got my note back with 8gb and then got a motherboard replacement under warrenty
I cleared my flash counter by flashing a custom ics rom based on GB and then installed "triangle away" which cleared flash counter and yellow triangle
Then got back to GB using mobile odin which doesn't increase flash counter

 

[MohElShafei]

Hi hg42,

I hope you are doing perfect and everything is OK. I managed to recreate the partitions as follows:

I installed CM9 and thor-kernel-v0.14-GNOTE.zip.. Now everything works fine but I'm facing a big problem .. the phone simply don't see any Mobile Network .. I replaced the SIM with different ones .. but with no luck .. flashed different kernels but the network is still disabled !!!
I'm afraid that I did something to the SIM location in the phone during my trials to change the ROM (it took me 9 hours) pulling out battery .. replacing SD Card .. etc. Is the Mobile Network depends on the MODEM or the KERNEL image? .. because I believe maybe the error in the MODEM image .. what do you think???

Thanks.
Mohamed

 

[hg42]

It froze Around 968MB.

Your first bad block is in the system partition, so it's not the cache (what I guessed).

Your case is very difficult.
From current facts I can only guess the freezes may be unrelated to the brick.

There are other issues leading to freezes, e.g. restoring via Titanium Backup not always working well depending on how it's configured.

So at best I would make a clean start with pure cm9 rc1 and install only the minimum set of apps (try to use only cm9 internals and gapps if possible) and without any app data restored.
Try that several days. Then install some other apps known to work well (e.g. I would not install games).

 

[hg42]

I installed CM9 and thor-kernel-v0.14-GNOTE.zip.. Now everything works fine but I'm facing a big problem .. the phone simply don't see any Mobile Network .. I replaced the SIM with different ones .. but with no luck .. flashed different kernels but the network is still disabled !!!
I'm afraid that I did something to the SIM location in the phone during my trials to change the ROM (it took me 9 hours) pulling out battery .. replacing SD Card .. etc. Is the Mobile Network depends on the MODEM or the KERNEL image? .. because I believe maybe the error in the MODEM image .. what do you think???

can you read your IMEI in Settings / About phone / Status?

I would first try pure cm9 (no additional kernel) and flash a good MODEM (I use XXLB2) but this may be dependent on where you live. I think there are threads on xda discussing that. You can also reinstall your standard modem first (the one which came with your phone, or the proven one before you got the brick).

 

[MohElShafei]

There is no IMEI !!!!!!! .. I think I formatted the efs partition in one of my tries to get the phone back ..
What can I do now??

I checked the efs folder form root explorer and it was empty .. dialed *#06# and that shows nothing .. please help me .. I feel that I'm extremely stupid