[RECOVER FROM HARD BRICK] Galaxy S2 i777 Unbrick Image

[meantomatoes]

I think the phone won't boot of the SD if the emmc is corrupt, it will only boot off ad by default if emmc is blank. You need to somehow prompt it to boot from SD. I think on the s3 i747 you short some pin near CPU to ground, but idk for the s2 i777.

Can't seem to find anything on this. Either search results for the procedure listed previously or a lock screen pin come up. Was this on xda?

 

[ethanchow]

Can't seem to find anything on this. Either search results for the procedure listed previously or a lock screen pin come up. Was this on xda?

I didn't read too much in depth because I wasn't bricked at the time.
Here is the thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2549068
I think I must have remembered wrong, it was the lg g3 where you could get Quallcomm DL mode by shorting out test points. What shows up on the phone with and without sd? Nothing? Black screen(backlight on) or something else?

 

[meantomatoes]

I didn't read too much in depth because I wasn't bricked at the time.
Here is the thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2549068
I think I must have remembered wrong, it was the lg g3 where you could get Quallcomm DL mode by shorting out test points. What shows up on the phone with and without sd? Nothing? Black screen(backlight on) or something else?

Plain dead, nothing. Had an S3 the other night like that and it was bricked but I didn't flash the wrong .pit, just a Verizon bootloader acting up. The SD card procedure worked fine but that's only because the emmc was functional. Pretty sure even the core bootloader is inaccessible. Saw that thread but obvi didn't see anything about the bypass. Just searched for LG G3 and saw a Reddit tutorial for a DYI JTAG without a $100 JTAG unit. This might be useful. Here it is.

 

[ethanchow]

Plain dead, nothing. Had an S3 the other night like that and it was bricked but I didn't flash the wrong .pit, just a Verizon bootloader acting up. The SD card procedure worked fine but that's only because the emmc was functional. Pretty sure even the core bootloader is inaccessible. Saw that thread but obvi didn't see anything about the bypass. Just searched for LG G3 and saw a Reddit tutorial for a DYI JTAG without a $100 JTAG unit. This might be useful. Here it is.

Reddit is blocked at school I'll take a look in a few hours when I get home, is it similar to this? http://forum.xda-developers.com/sprint-lg-g3/general/guide-fix-hard-brick-recovery-guide-t3132359
They also blocked imgur for being "porn" but my friend says he can get on pornhub no problem. Not gonna check, I'm too innocent
EDIT- I had to use reddit anyways and got tor running, yea it is the same method. Short that pin to ground and then it is in QCom DL mode

 

[meantomatoes]

Reddit is blocked at school I'll take a look in a few hours when I get home, is it similar to this? http://forum.xda-developers.com/sprint-lg-g3/general/guide-fix-hard-brick-recovery-guide-t3132359
They also blocked imgur for being "porn" but my friend says he can get on pornhub no problem. Not gonna check, I'm too innocent
EDIT- I had to use reddit anyways and got tor running, yea it is the same method. Short that pin to ground and then it is in QCom DL mode

Cloud VPN works every time for me at school. I'll look into this JTAG method for the S2, but I'm pretty sure the S2 is harder to do.

 

[ethanchow]

Cloud VPN works every time for me at school. I'll look into this JTAG method for the S2, but I'm pretty sure the S2 is harder to do.

The s2 is exynos which means there is no QCOM DL mode. Sorry, but that method will not work for i777

 

[meantomatoes]

The s2 is exynos which means there is no QCOM DL mode. Sorry, but that method will not work for i777

No way to force trigger booting from SD you're saying? without a $150-200 riff box?

 

[ethanchow]

No way to force trigger booting from SD you're saying? without a $150-200 riff box?

Nope, that was me getting stuff all mixed up. Can you try the DL mode jig with the sdcard? Also, if you have a multimeter can you see how many amps is it drawing from the charger and how many volts on battery terminals when plugged in?

 

[meantomatoes]

Nope, that was me getting stuff all mixed up. Can you try the DL mode jig with the sdcard? Also, if you have a multimeter can you see how many amps is it drawing from the charger and how many volts on battery terminals when plugged in?

Unfortunately I don't have a multimeter or a jig. I tried getting into download mode by putting in the SD, battery, and I held the volume buttons and plugged in a USB, which is apparently what you're supposed to do normally.

 

[ethanchow]

Unfortunately I don't have a multimeter or a jig. I tried getting into download mode by putting in the SD, battery, and I held the volume buttons and plugged in a USB, which is apparently what you're supposed to do normally.

OK, what does the computer see? IDK if there is a low level access for exynos processors like QSUSB

 

[meantomatoes]

OK, what does the computer see? IDK if there is a low level access for exynos processors like QSUSB

Nothing, the phone is off and it's bricked anyway. It didn't get into download mode is what I was saying.

 

[ethanchow]

Nothing, the phone is off and it's bricked anyway. It didn't get into download mode is what I was saying.

OK. Not even a device connect sound? Then you may be screwed, apparently the jtag pins are really small and hard to get to on this device.

 

[meantomatoes]

OK. Not even a device connect sound? Then you may be screwed, apparently the jtag pins are really small and hard to get to on this device.

Yeah, you need an adapter that attaches to a connector that 90% of S2 PCBs don't have, meaning you'll have to microsolder. No thanks. And even with the adapter, it connects to a JTAG box, which I don't have. Unless the S2 has a trigger like the LG.

 

[ethanchow]

Yeah, you need an adapter that attaches to a connector that 90% of S2 PCBs don't have, meaning you'll have to microsolder. No thanks. And even with the adapter, it connects to a JTAG box, which I don't have. Unless the S2 has a trigger like the LG.

I would just say screw it, but burn the sd card once more but with a linux box (vm will do) and dd just to make sure.

 

[meantomatoes]

I would just say screw it, but burn the sd card once more but with a linux box (vm will do) and dd just to make sure.

How might I do that?

 

[ethanchow]

How might I do that?

dd bs=4M if=/path/to/UnbrickFile.img of=/dev/sdx status=progress

MAKE SURE that sdx is your sdcard. You may destroy your os if you select wrong disk.

 

[factoreal]

No success in reviving my hard-bricked i777

Phone was hard-bricked after Samsung boot logo freezes for over 2 minutes, which prompted me to reboot, but phone only:
- warms up,
- unable to enter recovery/download mode,
- shows a dead black screen,
- and not detectable by PC when connected via USB.

Followed the instructions to burn the image on a 32GB SD card but have no success. even after few repetitions. Eventually sent the phone for a motherboard replacement.

Here is some info about the phone before hard-bricked, which may offer some insights into why the phone was hard bricked and/or why the recovery method didn't work:
- ROM: C-ROM Android 4.4.4
- Kernel: Shift kernel (For i9100 AOSP Kit Kat compatibility on i777)
- Internal data storage was partitioned to 4GB.
- Observation 1: Phone couldn't sleep and keep getting high clock frequency. Significant heat was generated while in use.
- Observation 2: Ringtones and notification sounds kept disappearing after every few days and I have to reassign manually.

I'm trying to see if I can recover from a hard brick after flashing a corrupt .pit file. However, I can only find unbrick images for the other s2 model. May someone please create an image from their i777 using the script I attached to this post? I haven't tested the script so I'm not sure it'll work. This will copy almost everything on your device I believe.

EDIT: Unfortunately, it seems I was dumb enough to super hard brick my S2 by flashing a corrupt .pit file. So don't do that. However, if you don't have a super hard bricked i777 but just hard bricked, you can use this image and use Win32DiskImager to "burn" the image onto an SD card that must be at least 16 GB in size. Then, take the battery out of your device, stick the SD card in, stick the battery on, and power up. You might need to burn the image a couple times. This will allow your hard bricked device to boot to the OS if not just download mode. If this doesn't work, a JTAG might work though it's unlikely, or you need the EMMC chip to be totally replaced. Good luck. Googling "hard brick SD card" might warrant better instructions than these. The file attached is an .sh script to create an unbrick image for any device in case you need it.