S3 GT-I9308 rom/root inquisitions - Galaxy S III Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

sup everybody I just got my first ever droid today and much to my delight its the international version of the Samsung Galaxy SIII.
now heres the issue. its the GT-9308 version...so my question is :
if I root my phone is there anyway to change the rom[??] from this chinese mobile one [supposedly unlocked] that is lacking google play and is still partially in mandarin [which ya boy can't even slightly comprehend] to the GT-i9300 one?
the attachment is a screenshot of the about device section.
I know this is probably impossible but if it is possible I'm not screwed and there is still hope lol. a preemptive thanks to anyone who can shed some light

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The China Mobile version ???
One user posted .
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1722273
A Chinese forum may be of help but it looks like I9300 = no .
jje

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JJEgan said:
The China Mobile version ???
One user posted .
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1722273
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Click to collapse
ahhh thank you i searched for a similar thread but i guess it didnt show up cuz it says asian in the title instead of china

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not trying to bump that other thread but the only thing that really tells me is that I'm probably SOL.
so my NEW question is. any possible way I could go about implementing the modem driver from the GT-i9308 into the GT-i9300 rom so I get the google play and full english capabilities without the bloatware in addition to the phone still working?

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I'll take that as a no then?

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Hollow704 said:
sup everybody I just got my first ever droid today and much to my delight its the international version of the Samsung Galaxy SIII.
now heres the issue. its the GT-9308 version...so my question is :
if I root my phone is there anyway to change the rom[??] from this chinese mobile one [supposedly unlocked] that is lacking google play and is still partially in mandarin [which ya boy can't even slightly comprehend] to the GT-i9300 one?
the attachment is a screenshot of the about device section.
I know this is probably impossible but if it is possible I'm not screwed and there is still hope lol. a preemptive thanks to anyone who can shed some light
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can root your phone just do not change the modem otherwise your phone will not work. There are several chinese forums (use chrome to translate) that have very easy instructions for rooting which will allow google play to be installed.

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Same boat
I am in China and found myself in the same boat..... i hosed my system after mucking about with it ... first android phone ... i am presently putting together all the links and things i did to get mine de china mobilized and google working .. rooted and a custom ROM or two that work... i have a newer hardware version then most people ... most have hardware version 5.0 ... i have 6.0 .... first attempt at rooting was fine... after that i added a rom... backed up and used the same modem firmware .... phone would not get past the start up screen... but thank god i could still put into recovery mode and get back to the firmware screen.. so i knew it could be saved... so i went through the Chinese forums ... no one had the latest hardware version ... but a release of the "official samsung rom" was the reason my phone was the way it was .... so i found another "Official" rom .... as it turned out it put my phone back into a working order ... the other thing is i am using OSX .... i had to muck about with different version of various pieces of software to get it all done... like i said i am throwing together all the links and everything i did to get mine going ... many of these links will require some authentication to Chinese sites .. weibo qq etc ...
I will try to re share the software i have downloaded ..but i am not maintaining them so not sure how good an idea this is...but the links will help the other "whites" as the chinese describe us foreigners in their forums "so easy a white can do it" after translation....
I just wanted to thank those on XDA with their posts ..... they did help, with information that got me going in the right direction.... this is my first Android since a Telus Fascinate .. which i gave to one of my programers/friends on my architecture team to root... other then that a iphone user ... hard to really brick one of these phones if you do the common sense back ups and such...
Once again thank you... i will have a full break down of my adventure in a day or two.... back to my work.
Cheers

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some instructions feel free to contact me i will try and help
I have a i9308 and any of the newer release of the "official firmware' messed up my start up and made it loop...
I installed this using Heimdall skipped the bootloader as it seems to fail in both odin and Heimdall on hardware build 6.00
I found the newest official rom bbs dot anzhi dot com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=6344702 ... sorry not enough posts to send out side links ... i under stand.
everything else worked fine.... after this and i was able to back and do the usual install of CWM ..... which failed using Heimdall ... again on the bootloader .... so using Odin it worked ... i used virtual box and Windows 7 ... with the latest Samsung drivers ....i had to create a specific interface for the Samsung in virtual box so the i9308 would mount with out conflict in windows .... i was then able to install CF-Root-SGS3-v6.4 ...
Once rooted i started looking for a way to install google play and all the google services.
i installed this ROM anzhi_karben_samsung_i9308_V1.0 which had the google drivers i needed and was not full of to much other crap and worked well in english ... i found this here bbs dot anzhi dot com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=6198323 i used my Wiebo account to do this and was then able to download.
I got the google pack ..... well one that worked and after i checked everything did not have any malicious scripts that i could find ... bbs dot anzhi dot com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=5401203 ... the zip file was gapps-ics-20120429-signed-4.0.4
i hope this helps some people Heimdall took a little after i figured out how to do this.... it was easy ... i have wiped it out a few times i nthe last week and tried different ROMs from the various Chinese boards ...some made very odd requests for SU access here and there ...i generally removed them after trying to find the offending script .... as i said so far the ones i am using have been pretty safe with little to no issues. I did go in and remove a lot of the preloaded China Mobile wares ...so far the phone is great ... i do fid the wifi signal sucks....
My first android i rooted myself ...see what happens after a drunk night in a taxi in Beijing and you lose your iPhone.... having fun.

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S2 GT-I9308 Unlock
Hello
Someone gave me an I9308
I'm trying to use it with my French Sim Card. So i need to be able to unlock it.
I've been able to root and install custom firmware as described above.
I've tried to use GalaxySim Unlock application, but it says "Device not recognized"
I've tried to use the "trick" to unlock, but , the current firmware official version on the I9308 is 4.0.4, and with this version, "Network Unlock" is not working.
In order to try the trich with proper version :
I've tried to install 4.1.1 version for I9300, but it fails with modem
I've tried to install 4.1.1 version with modem.img from 4.0.4, it works but the phone is no more booting, it locks at "samsung" logo and vibrate one time pause one seconds, vibrates three times pause one seconds and again.
So two questions :
How to install a newer versions of android when no offcial version have yet been released ?
How to unlock the I9308 with 4.0.4 in it ?
Thanks.

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It is the modem drivers that are the problem. China Mobile has not released a official upgrade yet. But I left instructions for rooting in my previous post.
Sent from my iOCEAN X7 using Tapatalk

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old post late reply, i know but nvm that, anyway if anyone is still interested in this, here i have the right solution. recently i have been collecting some old Samsung phones, i managed to get hold of a Chinese 9308, as u know, all i9300 roms/twrp work on 9308, but can't detect SIM card/mobile network, however i found one version of the MIUI6 roms, so far so good, everything appear to work perfectly, has all languages, Google play services & framework most importantly, 3G works fine too. i will shortly provide links to the downloads.

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Would you like please send the link for this MIUI ?

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hi 161ed1
161ed1 said:
Would you like please send the link for this MIUI ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the problem is, i still have to upload them somewhere 1st, as one of the original links is no longer working and although the other one still is (there were two of them), but it was on baidu cloud, both, u need a baidu account to be able to dl stuff, i clearly remember i couldnt download them myself, and i wasnt able to create a baidu account either, but luckily i found someone who could & did download them for me and sent those files to me afterwards, so now we have to work out a way 4 me 2 send those files from my PC to other users out there.