[Q] Stuck booting, several partition table IO errors

[carnagecjb]

Let me start by saying that I'm fairly certain this isn't due to a bad flash, since I haven't flashed anything or updated anything on my phone for MONTHS. The last flashable zip I've got on my SD card is for NC5D, so I'm 95% positive that is where I stopped...

I had a meeting this morning, and, when it was over, I checked my phone to see if I had any missed texts, emails, etc. When I looked, it was in the process of rebooting. I didn't really think much of it, other than to note it was odd. I let it do its thing, and checked again in a couple minutes. It was still booting. Getting slightly concerned, I placed the phone on my desk and watched it. It seemed to be perpetually stuck booting. (I let it sit for about fifteen minutes, just to see, and it stayed on the boot animation.)
My first attempt was to hold in the power button, and force it to start booting from scratch. This resulted in no change, just hung during boot.
Next, I tried pulling the battery. Upon re-inserting it, and powering on, the phone was, once again, stuck booting.
I booted into recovery (TWRP 2.7.0.1), and thought I would do a wipe to fix it. Since I didn't really have anything I needed to keep, I did a standard wipe (Dalvik, Cache, and Data).
It gave me the following error text:

Updating partition details...
E:error opening '/data/system/procstats'
E:error: I/O error
E:error opening '/data/system/usagestats'
E:error: I/O error
E:error opening '/data/system/ifw'
E:error: I/O error
E:error opening '/data/system/users'
E:error: Not a directory
E:Unable to mount '/usbstorage'
Full SELinux support is present.

Wiping Dalvik Cache Directories...
Cleaned: /data/dalvik-cache...
-- Dalvik Cache Directories Wipe Complete!

Wiping data without wiping /data/media ...
E:Error opening '/data/system/procstats'
Done.
Formatting Cache using make_ext4fs function.
Updating partition details...
E:error opening '/data/system/procstats'
E:error: I/O error
E:error opening '/data/system/usagestats'
E:error: I/O error
E:error opening '/data/system/ifw'
E:error: I/O error
E:error opening '/data/system/users'
E:error: Not a directory
E:Unable to mount '/usbstorage'

Hoping it wasn't totally hosed, I did a reboot.
It played the startup sound (I hadn't noticed this on any of the other boot attempts, but that may have been due to the case being on the phone), and started the boot animation.
I let it sit.
And sit.
And sit.

No change in status ever happened, the phone just kept the boot animation going.

I can successfully get into both download mode and recovery, so I'm thinking I'm not completely screwed, but I have no idea where to proceed next...

Can I just flash my phone through the successive iterations of release, up to current? (If so, would there happen to be a list of stock ROMs somewhere that I can use as a starting point?)

Or are the I/O errors a sign of an absolutely dead phone?

I posted this in the Sprint section, since that's the phone I have, but if I am more likely to get a solution over in the general Note 3 area, I am willing to move / repost...

Thanks for reading, and any suggestions are welcome!

 

[Tha_Dynasty2049]

hey jus a thought can you try 2 flash the twrp recovery or wateva recovery and when it finish pull battery
and then put it back and then boot to recoevery if you can do that you should get a memory card and load it from there?

you shuld be able to flash a rom on top of that and then start over. :fingers-crossed:

 

[carnagecjb]

That reply, while not the exact solution, pointed me in the correct track...
I already had TWRP, and tried re-flashing my current ROM, but had no success there.

I was able, however, to ODIN a newer ROM, and a newer TWRP, and that seems to have fixed it.

Thanks!