[Q] Going back to stock (Different question)

[lilhugo]

Hello,
I currently do not own a SGS4g, but I know a friend who does.
My friend previously had an iPhone and liked it. Now he wants to explore the customization of Android (due to me flashing so many different ROMs in front of him). He is currently too scared to root and custom rom his phone in case he bricks it.

I know there is the One-Click unbrick, but I was curious if it would work on the SGS4g. According to this it said it works on all Odin3(?) Samsungs and only on "softbricks".
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1153310

So I guess my questions are:
How can I tell if the phone is "hardbricked" and "softbricked?"
Once you flash a custom rom + kernel will you be able to go back to stock i.e. stock radio/kernel/bootloader?

I also found this:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1117554&highlight=bible
It provided awesome information but I couldn't find out if there was a stock radio and others backed up online.

I know that these types of questions are asked a lot on these forums. So please bear with me.
Again, I am not familiar with this phone so stuff about Odin and Heimdall are flying over my head. I flashed my custom ROMs on my Motorola Milestone and we didn't have Odin and Heimdall.

Please help, I'm doing this to make a fellow Android User love his phone just a little bit more.

Thank you,
lilhugo

 

[jager555]

There are odin files that will return you to stock within 10 min, so don't worry about that. Soft bricks are when you don't mount the system properly (among other things) or don't follow the dev's instructions and your rom doesn't load. You will basically stuck at the galaxy s startup screen and can't get past it. This usually happens to everyone at least once and not really considered a big deal. To fix, you need to use odin to flash a rom with the computer. A hard brick usually happens when people mess up with flashing roms that change the boot loaders. There can be other causes but this is the most common reason. You can tell it is hard bricked if the phone wont even power on. This is much more serious than a soft brick. Soft bricks are always recoverable. Hard bricks are not always recoverable, but still possible.

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