[Q] Flashing to stock & reset flash counter - Galaxy S III Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hi all,
I'm about to reset my S3 (GT-i9300) back to complete stock, unrooted. I'm currently rooted and running Illusion 2.1 beta (Android 4.2.2 I believe).
I'm looking for someone with a little more knowledge than myself to run over the following steps and let me know if there's something I'm missing, or about to do wrong! Any help/advice/guidance is very much appreciated.
I've tried to do the research myself - I'm simply lacking the confidence to just go ahead with some flaky knowledge.
Download Odin 3.07
Download latest 4.1.2 BTU firmware from sammobile
Flash said firmware using Odin (only use Auto-reboot and reset F-time)
Root the phone (what's best to use for this nowadays??)
Download and run Triangle Away
Flash firmware once more via Odin
Is the above correct? Is there a way to format internal memory to get rid of the nonsense that has built up from custom ROMs/apps/etc.?
Also, I'm slightly unsure about the best tools to use for point 4 at the moment, but I'm sure I'll find them here
Thanks in advance for any help.
Andy

andy9l said:
Hi all,
I'm about to reset my S3 (GT-i9300) back to complete stock, unrooted. I'm currently rooted and running Illusion 2.1 beta (Android 4.2.2 I believe).
I'm looking for someone with a little more knowledge than myself to run over the following steps and let me know if there's something I'm missing, or about to do wrong! Any help/advice/guidance is very much appreciated.
I've tried to do the research myself - I'm simply lacking the confidence to just go ahead with some flaky knowledge.
Download Odin 3.07
Download latest 4.1.2 BTU firmware from sammobile
Flash said firmware using Odin (only use Auto-reboot and reset F-time)
Root the phone (what's best to use for this nowadays??) => cf-autoroot
Download and run Triangle Away
Flash firmware once more via Odin
Is the above correct? Is there a way to format internal memory to get rid of the nonsense that has built up from custom ROMs/apps/etc.?
Also, I'm slightly unsure about the best tools to use for point 4 at the moment, but I'm sure I'll find them here
Thanks in advance for any help.
Andy
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
see my comments above. In addition here is a guide.
Furthermore make sure you have stock recovery & kernel, as otherwise it will maybe increase the counter (both should come with stock firmware though).

Related

[Q] Checking my Understanding Before Making a Move

Hi everyone,
I stumbled upon this forum when searching for a solution for a problem a few weeks ago. I have watched the noob video and believe I have made a proper effort in order to fix my problem myself without bothering anyone. I’d really appreciate if anyone could just make sure I understand things properly.
I, being completely naïve, followed some guide on YouTube on how to root my phone. On the video the yellow triangle that showed up seemed to be an indication that the root was successful.
Upon doing some reading on here I realized I had tripped the flash counter and what that means. Upon realizing this I began to read and try to figure out how to reset the flash counter.
Turns out I am on Android Build 2.3.6 (UCKK6) which to my understanding does not work with a jig. It seems to me that I can flash a 2.3.4 (UCKH7) and THEN I will be able to use a jig to reset my flash counter. I believe I need to use the second link in this post: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=18859438&postcount=199
Just for reference would I need to flash a stock UCKK6 in order to fully restore my warranty? My phone originally came with 2.3.6.
After resetting the counter I intend to use method 2C in this thread in order to re-root my phone.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1311081
Am I correct in saying that in order to flash a custom ROM I need to use method 3A in the previous link in order to flash without tripping the counter / using ROM Manager? I plan on trying out CM7 first.
My Kernel Version is 2.6.35.7. I backed up my apps through Titanium since I really wrap my head around getting CWM working properly : (
Please let me know if I didn’t provide enough information or detail and I will do my best to get you whatever you may need. I’m very new to smartphones in general so please forgive me if I lack some understanding.
Thanks you for your time, it is greatly appreciated.
Just fyi, if you flash an ics rom you can reset the flash counter with an app.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=22462960
Flash stock UCLE5 ICS rom with Odin. Root them. After you can reset flash counter with TreangleAway.
You should be able to use the jig to reset the flash counter on UCKK6. The code that governs the flash counter is contained in the secondary bootloader. A few of the 2.3.6 leaks had a crippled secondary bootloader, but the OTA update from 2.3.4 did not touch the bootloader, and phones that shipped with UCKK6 had the original secondary bootloader.
If you for some reason have a phone with a crippled bootloader, confirmed by not being able to reset the flash counter with a jig, then you would need to flash the original secondary bootloader using Odin. There is an Odin flashable tar in the Download Repository.
The advice about flashing ICS and then using Triangle Away is also good.
If you want to stay on Gingerbread, then follow the guide. 2C and 3A are probably the easiest.
If you want ICS, go to this thread instead.

[Q] Sgs2 best way to upgrade to ics from gingerbread 2.3.3

Hi all I've been on this for a while, since the weekend looked at a serious amount of posts and guides on rooting and unrooting but I'm no further forward.
The problem I have is I wanted to upgrade from gingerbread to ics so I could eventually put the latest cyanogen mod on my phone. I rooted the phone no problem there flashed an insecure kernel with odin 1.85 as per the instructions from one of the guides got the CWM and superuser apps then flashed the original back, got rid of the yellow triangle every thing good so far. I did this coz I expected I had to, to put cyanogenmod on my phone.
Samsung kies says there is a update to ICS but every time I try to update it fails. Try using Odin with a stock mod and it fails. I rang Samsung and they say my build number is the up to date version. One of my colleagues has an older sgs2 and he managed to update his no problem with kies. I'm wondering if there is a problem with my phone preventing it from being updated? Also every time a look at a post or a guide it seems like that post is specific to a particular android version and I can't find one that is specific to mine such as carrier Orange, gingerbread2.3.3 as I think it's too old. PDA I9100BVKH2.
Now I'm thinking I might just try unrooting it and take it to orange and get them to update it but uprooting it to stock seems to be a pain, I need to get rid of that doing flash counter.
Do I need to go to orange or is this easy to update and I'm just missing something. Before I get flamed I did search not just here but all over the Internet to find a reason why I couldn't update but didn't get a definitive answer.
Dodgeyhodgeyuk said:
Hi all I've been on this for a while, since the weekend looked at a serious amount of posts and guides on rooting and unrooting but I'm no further forward.
The problem I have is I wanted to upgrade from gingerbread to ics so I could eventually put the latest cyanogen mod on my phone. I rooted the phone no problem there flashed an insecure kernel with odin 1.85 as per the instructions from one of the guides got the CWM and superuser apps then flashed the original back, got rid of the yellow triangle every thing good so far. I did this coz I expected I had to, to put cyanogenmod on my phone.
Samsung kies says there is a update to ICS but every time I try to update it fails. Try using Odin with a stock mod and it fails. I rang Samsung and they say my build number is the up to date version. One of my colleagues has an older sgs2 and he managed to update his no problem with kies. I'm wondering if there is a problem with my phone preventing it from being updated? Also every time a look at a post or a guide it seems like that post is specific to a particular android version and I can't find one that is specific to mine such as carrier Orange, gingerbread2.3.3 as I think it's too old. PDA I9100BVKH2.
Now I'm thinking I might just try unrooting it and take it to orange and get them to update it but uprooting it to stock seems to be a pain, I need to get rid of that doing flash counter.
Do I need to go to orange or is this easy to update and I'm just missing something. Before I get flamed I did search not just here but all over the Internet to find a reason why I couldn't update but didn't get a definitive answer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are two ways to do this:
1. Update the phone to ICS on your own.
- Visit Sammobile
- Download the firmware for your country/carrier
- Extract the zip file.
- Flash the firmware via odin
- Boot to recovery and perform a factory reset.
done.
2. Reset your binary counter and take it to Orange!
- you can use USB jig to reset your counter.
or
- Flash a Samsung based custom rom via CWM recovery,
- Download Triangle away app by Chainfire
- Use Triangle away app, to reset your binary counter
- flash back your Stock ROM (you can also get it from Sammobile if you dont have a copy)
- take your phone to Orange.
done.
cheers
OK thanks for your help. will give it a go.
You dont need kies or orange-this is why your getting confused.You could go to sammobile and get an unbranded ics for your region/model,and to be "safe",go for 4.0.3.
Then you can flash like siyah kernel,make a nand backup,and efs backup then install whatever rom you want.
theunderling said:
You dont need kies or orange-this is why your getting confused.You could go to sammobile and get an unbranded ics for your region/model,and to be "safe",go for 4.0.3.
Then you can flash like siyah kernel,make a nand backup,and efs backup then install whatever rom you want.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
would like to try that but now odin failed after i flashed a stock rom and now i'm stuck on the samsung galaxy logo with no recovery mode. I can get into download mode though but thats it.
Odin wont flash anything exept kernels.
Seriously thinking about throwing it in the bin. Now i spend days trying to get the phone usable again. why the hell cant i flash roms WTF!
Thanks for your replies.
There's a wealth of knowledge on this forum but i cant seem to find a solution on here to get my phone back.
Ive got my phone back. used upstairs pc and flashed original insecure kernel and recovery came up. ive now done a factory reset. back to square one but at least phone is back on. guess it was the laptop i was using. What is that all about?
Looking at all the how to's on upgrading to ICS i thought if i stuck to the steps it would just work but it didn't
Thanks for every ones input.
Chris.

Cannot upgrade to ics official

I have searched and searched and cannot find a solution. Here is my problem. I bought a note 2 weeks ago. I updated to ICS through kies. At the very end of the update my pc had a blue screen of death and reset on me. The update seemed to take though as I was on ICS when I checked my android version. So I proceeded to install cmw and root my phone. I had been noticing some issues regarding uninstalling downloaded apps. I decided to connect to kies again and lo and behold I received a message saying that the update had not completed and I needed to do an emergency firmware recovery. Well, since my phone was rooted kies wouldnt do it. So, instead I decided to try to install official ICS (I717UCLF6_I717ATTLF6_I717UCLF6_HOME.tar.md5) through odin. It fails every time. It goes all the way to the end and fails on (write).
I decided to take my note back to stock GB and see if that may help. I got it back to stock using this method http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1506330 and on download mode it showed custom binary: yes and current binary:custom also the flash counter read 4. I am however back to GB. I tried kies and it still says that my phone cant be upgraded through kies. This is what it says under current firmware version: PDA:LA1 / PHONE:LF6 / CFC:LF6 (ATT).
Next I tried installing cmw on the stock build and resetting the flash counter in hopes that kies would then be able to upgrade. Since doing that download mode now shows custom binary: no current binary: official samsung and no flash counter. However, I am still unable to upgrade through kies (still says my device cannot be upgraded through kies) or the flashable odin tar (I717UCLF6_I717ATTLF6_I717UCLF6_HOME.tar.md5) still fails at the end when it has to write.
I just want official ics on my phone. I really hope someone can help me. I am very sorry if this has been answered, I hope you can see that I have done some searching and exhausted any options that I have found. Thank you in advance.
About 10 threads down...
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1889275
Ignore.. Not sure that helps in your situation...
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using xda premium
Thx for your response. I did see that thread and gave the kies suggestion a go earlier, however kies kept crashing.
At this point i may just flash a custom rom. Any suggestions? Looking for something ics with touchwiz.
Just wanted to provide a little more info. I am at&t. Also, in the thread i refernced with the stock gb tar there is also a few other files underneath. Stock kernel only odin tars, one of which is for at&t. I did not install that. Also, cwm is still installed on the phone. Can that be whats causing kies to reject the device?
Looks like you have the GB rom and ICS radio and that's why Keis is not recognizing your rom. Flash the stock GB radio from the dev section and Keis should update. If not, you should be able to perform emergency firmware restore through Keis. There is a thread in the general section that details how to enter your serial number, etc.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1731654
This procedure should put you on the latest firmware regardless of root or what you currently have installed.
You could flash one of the debloated official ICS ROMs.
I'm not sure but I think Bigfau has the complete official posted. Flappjaxxx has a nice one also
Sent from my SGH-I717 using xda app-developers app
I went with bigfau. I installed the better stock ics rom. Works like a charm. Thank you to those that replied.

[Q] Soft bricked after 4.4 OTA update Please help

It's been 3 days since I had my phone soft bricked. Here's what happened. I had rooted 4.1.2 and my sister accepted OTA when 4.3 (MJ9) came out so I lost my root access. Everything was working fine and I wasn't doing much on my phone so I didn't bother to root it back. 4.3 (VRUAND3) OTA failed on my phone when it came out and I didn't care about it because it was still on 4.3. When 4.4 came out, I decided to do OTA update and everything went fine except when it rebooted. It will pass the samsung logo but when it got to Verizon logo, it was just stuck there. So I searched this forum and tried everything that I found about unbricking the soft bricked phone. All stock roms will fail at sboot.bin except for root66_VZW_stock_system.tar (I did try with and without .pit and I only checked autoreboot F. Reset time) but when I do that then I will get the system software not authorized by Verizon Wireless has been found error (with yellow triangle). Here's the list of stock roms I tried and odin versions.
ROM: root66_VZW_stock_system.tar, I605VZWEMJ9, I605VRALJB, I605VZWAND3 (all with and without .pit)
Odin: 1.85, 3.07, 3.09
The only good thing is that I still have my odin mode and the number of binary didn't change. And I didn't get the knox.....
I really need you guys' expertise... any suggestion will help at this moment... Sorry for the lengthy post I really tried to be specific on what I tried so far.... I'm currently downloading VRAND7 (4.4) and I'm out of the option after I try this one with odin.... Thank you.
gomtingeee said:
It's been 3 days since I had my phone soft bricked. Here's what happened. I had rooted 4.1.2 and my sister accepted OTA when 4.3 (MJ9) came out so I lost my root access. Everything was working fine and I wasn't doing much on my phone so I didn't bother to root it back. 4.3 (VRUAND3) OTA failed on my phone when it came out and I didn't care about it because it was still on 4.3. When 4.4 came out, I decided to do OTA update and everything went fine except when it rebooted. It will pass the samsung logo but when it got to Verizon logo, it was just stuck there. So I searched this forum and tried everything that I found about unbricking the soft bricked phone. All stock roms will fail at sboot.bin except for root66_VZW_stock_system.tar (I did try with and without .pit and I only checked autoreboot F. Reset time) but when I do that then I will get the system software not authorized by Verizon Wireless has been found error (with yellow triangle). Here's the list of stock roms I tried and odin versions.
ROM: root66_VZW_stock_system.tar, I605VZWEMJ9, I605VRALJB, I605VZWAND3 (all with and without .pit)
Odin: 1.85, 3.07, 3.09
The only good thing is that I still have my odin mode and the number of binary didn't change. And I didn't get the knox.....
I really need you guys' expertise... any suggestion will help at this moment... Sorry for the lengthy post I really tried to be specific on what I tried so far.... I'm currently downloading VRAMC3 (4.4) and I'm out of the option after I try this one with odin.... Thank you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The reason they all fail at sboot is bc you are attempting to downgrade to fix it..that's not possible.. so here is what you need to do.
Go to Sammobile.com
Go to Firmwares (top of page)
Scroll down to Search
Type "SCH-I605"
Select & download ND7 4.4.2
Flash via Odin w/ pit
It should pass and you will be good to go
Sent from my SCH-I605 using XDA Free mobile app
lacoursiere18 said:
The reason they all fail at sboot is bc you are attempting to downgrade to fix it..that's not possible.. so here is what you need to do.
Go to Sammobile.com
Go to Firmwares (top of page)
Scroll down to Search
Type "SCH-I605"
Select & download ND7 4.4.2
Flash via Odin w/ pit
It should pass and you will be good to go
Sent from my SCH-I605 using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I saw this post on the development forum [ROM][I605VRUFND7][4.4.2]OFFICIAL STOCK ROOTED ODEX/DEODEX[6/19/2014]
so that rom won't work on mine? just asking out of a curiosity...
gomtingeee said:
I saw this post on the development forum [ROM][I605VRUFND7][4.4.2]OFFICIAL STOCK ROOTED ODEX/DEODEX[6/19/2014]
so that rom won't work on mine? just asking out of a curiosity...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope. You taking the 4.3 and 4.4.2 OTA locked your bootloader.. so therfore no flashing custom roms like that one and I don't believe there is even a root method yet..
Oh okay thank you for your info. I flashed it to 4.4 and it`s working. I`ll wait for the developer`s to come up with the rooting method for 4.4 thank you guys for everything
Sent from my SCH-I605 using XDA Free mobile app

Flashed stock Lollipop 5.1.1 ROM using ODIN, Device binary & status are CUSTOM? Help!

Flashed stock Lollipop 5.1.1 ROM using ODIN, Device binary & status are CUSTOM? Help!
Hey guys! First time poster!
A few months back, I tried using CF-Auto root in order to gain root access on my phone, but I flashed something incorrectly and I was never able to get root working correctly. I know because of this, I tripped KNOX, and whenever I rebooted, there was a "Set Warranty Bit: Kernel" at the top of the device.
Due to the recent Marshmallow 6.0.1 upgrade, I want to unroot and get stock firmware, so I decided to do some research and go ahead and try to flash the stock G900T 5.1.1 FOJ4 firmware (tar.md5 file), so I can get my ability to update my phone via OTA updates. I looked up my matching firmware (FOJ4) through Android File Host and then unzipped it to my desktop.
I followed a guide and used ODIN 3.10.7 to flash the stock firmware file onto my phone. I also wiped cache/ factory reset before and after flashing the stock image.
Everything went well and I no longer see the "Set Warranty Bit: Kernel" when I boot. The problem I have is that when I go into download mode, the CURRENT BINARY and SYSTEM STATUS are both CUSTOM.
I was under the impression as long as you flash a stock firmware to your device, you will unroot and your device will be official, and then you'll be able to do OTA updates. Maybe its because I have KNOX tripped? Maybe can someone clarify that for me?
My main questions/concerns are:
1.) Is there anyway to make my device status/binary as OFFICIAL, in order to regain OTA updates?
2.) If I want to download the 6.0.1 Marshmallow update, should I just try through KIES or downloading the tar.md5 file to flashing via ODIN like I did with stock?
3.) Will there be any risk of bricking since my device is still "custom", if I go the above route?
4.) As a last ditch effort, should I just try downloading a different stock Lollipop firmware, and try flashing with ODIN again?
5.) What does this sub think of Marshmallow 6.0.1 update? Is it worth it?
Thank you guys in advance! Hope you have an awesome day!
@Root_S5_Please
#2 with Odin will work and is the correct way to go, #3 will not happen as long as you use Odin, you can't untrip Knox but that's OK since it doesn't have any effect on functionality. #4 is unnecessary and won't do anything to help. Someone else will have to answer #5, I Odined the update and immediately went back to CM13

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