[Q] Did I brick my phone?

[badger109]

Hey all,

I'm pretty sure that my internal sd card partitions are somehow messed up. My phone randomly shutdown a couple days ago and since then I haven't been able to get a stable flash.
- TWRP and CWM freeze/shut down sometimes when installing zips
- sometimes a flash will take and I actually have a usable phone... for 5 minutes.
- mostly gets to boot animation then bootloops or freezes or shutsoff, sometimes galaxy then shutoff, sometimes recovery
- tried JB/ICS/KK roms; nandroid backups
- I can usually get to recovery but WILDCARD: power button is intermittent

I'm starting to look into what I can do to fix this. TBH I've never needed to use ADB before - I barely know the first thing about it. I've read things about using parted or fastboot...

Anyone kind enough to walk me through fixing my partitions?

 

[badger109]

I put it in download mode and ran the odin/return to stock uckh7. Now i have a phone without CWM/TWRP that gets to the AT&T boot animation and shuts off.

edit: cwm log:

Starting recovery on Sat Jan  1 01:20:25 2000
framebuffer: fd 4 (480 x 800)
CWM-based Recovery v6.0.2.7
recovery filesystem table
=========================
  0 /tmp ramdisk (null) (null) 0
  1 /boot emmc /dev/block/mmcblk0p5 (null) 0
  2 /recovery emmc /dev/block/mmcblk0p6 (null) 0
  3 /efs ext4 /dev/block/mmcblk0p1 (null) 0
  4 /cache ext4 /dev/block/mmcblk0p7 (null) 0
  5 /system ext4 /dev/block/mmcblk0p9 (null) 0
  6 /data ext4 /dev/block/mmcblk0p10 (null) 0
  7 /preload ext4 /dev/block/mmcblk0p12 (null) 0
  8 /emmc vfat /dev/block/mmcblk0p11 (null) 0
  9 /sdcard vfat /dev/block/mmcblk1p1 (null) 0

W:Unable to get recovery.fstab info for /datadata during fstab generation!
W:Unable to get recovery.fstab info for /sd-ext during fstab generation!
I:Completed outputting fstab.
I:Processing arguments.
I:Checking arguments.
I:device_recovery_start()
Command: "recovery"

ro.sec_debug.enable=0
ro.serialno=
ro.bootmode=unknown
ro.baseband=unknown
ro.bootloader=unknown
ro.debug_level=unknown
ro.emmc_checksum=unknown
ril.dualmode.change=unknown
ro.hardware=smdk4210
ro.revision=14
ro.factorytest=0
ro.uart_debug=0
ro.secure=1
ro.allow.mock.location=0
ro.debuggable=1
persist.sys.usb.config=mtp
init.svc.ueventd=running
init.svc.recovery=running
adb.recovery=1
init.svc.adbd=restarting
service.adb.root=1

I:Checking for extendedcommand & OpenRecoveryScript...
I:Skipping execution of extendedcommand, file not found...
I:Skipping execution of OpenRecoveryScript, file not found...
Outputting key codes.
Go back to end debugging.
Key: 158

Edit 2: tired a different stock .tar. I actually got it to boot up... once... for 30 seconds... wtfm8

 

[creepyncrawly]

This issue does not fit the exact symptoms of nand read write corruption, but it could still be the cause. I'm sure there are various ways it can manifest if it is the problem. So, go to this post and follow the instructions exactly. Step 3 you will probably have to enter recovery and perform a wipe data/factory reset. If the first three steps don't do it, then continue on with steps 4 - 6. Worth a try.

 

[badger109]

Thanks, I'll try it after work and report back.

 

[badger109]

Thanks, I'll try it after work and report back.

I tried the steps from that post a couple of times. Once, it got all the way to the login screen then shut down (This is what happened yesterday when I flashed a stock rom with odin.) not ready to give up.

I also tried completely formatting the internal drive via SDFormatter utility (Win7)

Edit:

CWM cannot mount /emmc.

Should I flash with the "re-partition" option? Should I learn ADB and Parted (delete the /emmc, format in CWM)? flash a .pit?

 

[creepyncrawly]

If the procedure for recovering from nand r/w corruption does not recover the phone, I don't have any other suggestions. I just don't have enough experience to diagnose the issue.

First, yes you could try flashing the pit from the download repository. That should be a pit for UCKH7, although I suspect that the pit has not changed with later versions of the os. You might want to do some research on the correct way to flash with pit. I would think you'd be more likely to find that information in the GT-I9100 forum than in this forum. It would certainly be worth a try, anyway.

I could make a guess. There have been a few reported cases of a phone working partially, or in other words not a true brick, which were unrecoverable, and which turned out to be emmc memory damage. The folks at Mobile Tech Videos could either get the phone working for you, or tell you definitively that it is emmc damage. Don't know if you would consider it worth the money, though.

 

[badger109]

creepyncrawly - thanks for trying to help.

The saga continues:
- installed KIES cuz some thread said I need the drivers for Odin; didn't seem to make a difference (I had no odin failures before; could always mount usb storage anyway)
- messed around a lot more to no avail
- hg42's 120824-151927-emmc_find_brick_start.zip scan doesn't find bad blocks on the emmc
- put in spare (fully charged) battery
- wiped everything/flashed stock rom in prep for flashing a pit
- decided try once more
- phone worked
- flashed a kernal with CWM
- flashed an sho2 (gb)
- still working
- flashed SlimBean, works
- still baffled
- I don't dare go back to SlimKat (i9100) with RenderBroken kernel, even though it was rock solid for 2 days. I might try OmniRom i777 for KitKat goodness.
- hoping the issue won't come back

Thanks for the help, even though IDK what fixed it.

Edit: Could this possibly be the battery? If the battery was cutting out, it would certainly explain a lot of random shutdowns. The only problem with this theory is that when phone rebooted after odin flashes, it was usually still plugged in. I guess Illf find out soon enough.