[Q] S2 bricked? so noob :( - Galaxy S II Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hello guys,
I have owned my samsung galaxy s2 for years now without a problem ( never rooted or anything like that)
As you can probably already tell im not very tech savy. Unfortunetly just recently my phone will not turn on, or to be more precise, it gets stuck on the samsung logo whilst trying to boot up, a quick google search has told me my phone is bricked? I Can access download mode and recovery mode by holding different buttons ( again google)
I dont even care about the phone because its so old now, all i care about is the 500 or so photos I have taken since last downloading the photos off the phone.
From what I have read I need to use ODIN3 or some type of software to basically reinstall the phones software and make it work again but there are a million different sites/videos/advice threads out there and im not sure which one to follow.
most of them start by trying to "wipe user data" from recovery mode? does this mean my photos will be lost?
any help (including just pointing me in the right direction) will be greatly appreciated!

Download stock rom for carrier/country from Samfirmware, flash with Odin in download mode following instructions in thread stickied near top of Q&A titled ' Flash Stock firmware...'

MistahBungle said:
Download stock rom for carrier/country from Samfirmware, flash with Odin in download mode following instructions in thread stickied near top of Q&A titled ' Flash Stock firmware...'
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Excellent! thankyou, SO just to clarify one more time, i WONT lose any photos?

Probably not, but, you either want a working phone or you don't. That should be the least of your concerns at the moment.

Related

[Q] Bricked SGS2 GT-i9100M (Bell/Virgin)

Okay, So I am as NOOB as NOOB can be,
I got a used SGS2 (Bell/Virgin), I am on Telus so I figured, how hard can it be to unlock it instead of paying some dude to do it for me? (First mistake, and have been humbled every step of the way since!...)
Anyway I will try to keep this relatively short (it will be difficult)... ...I read a few things online and saw that I needed ODIN and a Rooting software, I originally used SuperOneClick, and to download the right insecure kernel to match my original one etc... ...problem is I obviously didn't read nearly enough when I started because I was almost done and then there was a hiccup when SuperOneClick said that I needed to enable SU in Kies. So I decided to go into Kies to try and do so but the instructions before I started Rooting said to put the phone in USB debugging mode. Apparently Kies doesn't see the phone if it is in that mode. Well by this time I can't get past the logo screen and this is where my downward spiral begins.
I then tried to unroot the phone to go back to stock but didn't really know what I was doing and then I read something about the cache needing to be wiped and then after that I read that maybe my OS was wiped. So at this point I did lots of reading (what I should have done in the first place) and most of anything useful I found was on XDA so that is why I am here. It seemed like yes, in fact my OS was wiped because of one of my not so S-M-R-T actions. So I fumbled through and found the right OS for my S2 and I had ODIN going strong and I had the OS loading, the green bar getting bigger in ODIN and the blue bar working it's way across the screen of my S2...I thought "finally!!, I rock!!"... ...then for some reason everything stopped! I had seen in a post that I had to uninstall Kies before doing anything, which I did...but I didn't see until after the fact that my anti-virus likely interfered (I didn't disable it for the process before I started).
At that point of course I was left with a phone that says "Firmware upgrade encountered an issue. Please select recovery mode in Kies & try again."
So then I was afraid to try anything else because many say to steer clear of Kies and also I had read that I may need a USB jig to be able to get it back into download mode because all I was getting was the "firmware upgrade issue" screen. I did make a USB jig with a resistance of 300K Ohms and I *can* get the phone into download mode. (Though another concern is that when I plug the USB jig in and it brings the phone into download mode, the counter is not reset and I read that that was supposed to be reset by the jig.)
So last night I got brave and decided to try and run ODIN and to have another attempt at installation of OS. Now I can get ODIN to detect the phone, but I put the I9100MUGLD3_I9100MBMCLD3_I9100MXXLD3_HOME.tar.md5 file into the PDA section of ODIN and it starts and gets to the part where it says loading firmware or something and then bootload.bin and it stayed like that for like, an hour and then I gave up, fearing that I am just going to screw it up even more.
So now I decided that I am not even close to knowing what to do next but every time I found anything to move forward it was on this site so I figured I may as well join the site since I have been here so often. Now I am hoping for some kind of miracle...so, in advance, please please please and thank you thank you thank you all for your input. (Sorry for the length of this I just wanted to get all the info I could into this)
Its quite a long story and didnt bother reading it.
If you can still access your phone via odin at downloadmode. Flash a stock firmware for your device and it should fix if it is just a soft brick.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk
UnwiredDroid said:
Its quite a long story and didnt bother reading it.
If you can still access your phone via odin at downloadmode. Flash a stock firmware for your device and it should fix if it is just a soft brick.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry for the length of the story, I thought there may be alot of useful info mixed in with the useless info... ...when you say use stock firmware do you mean the kernel or the actual OS? I tried loading ICS onto it (which I thought was stock but I may be wrong). Is it supposed to be gingerbread or something else? Also where would I find a good file for it.
Thank you again for any input, very much appreciated!
Hey ,
I also have a Virgin Samsung S2 i9100 and the first time I tried rooting it, it got stuck on the screen with the yellow triangle and wouldnt move at all. I believe it was bricked?
anyways, I m not sure I totally understand your situation, but I solved my problem using this thread
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=21493413
look it under the i9100M section. hope this helps
schtiven said:
Hey ,
I also have a Virgin Samsung S2 i9100 and the first time I tried rooting it, it got stuck on the screen with the yellow triangle and wouldnt move at all. I believe it was bricked?
anyways, I m not sure I totally understand your situation, but I solved my problem using this thread
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=21493413
look it under the i9100M section. hope this helps
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you all so much for your help, I could not get it to work after several tries, I even tried three or 4 different USB cables and ports on my PC and still no. I read on another thread that one person tried another PC and it worked so I tried my friend's laptop and it worked!...my SGS2 boots up and all that now! Very very happy thank you all.

[Q] unrooted Galaxy S2 bricked after official update and showing ODIN?!

Hi everyone,
I am a noob but I have scoured the earth and not been able to find any answer to this or any case of this occurring... yet. However the incidence may increase over the next few days as Vietnamese users update.
I have an unrooted S2 GT-i9100G (the ones released for Asian markets).
I bought it new out of an unopened box from a major retailer and have never installed any CFW.
I was running ICS without a hitch until yesterday (and had previously successfully updated from Gingerbread), when an official update announcement arrived (I'm assuming Jellybean... finally).
Phone ran update then rebooted and bricked, and now gets stuck on the splash screen (Black screen with "Samsung Galaxy S2 GT-I9100G in the middle).
If I enter recovery mode (down, home, power) then it shows me a screen with ODIN mode!
I don't get it. I thought ODIN was not included in stock phones? I'm also assuming this is why the stock FW update bricked the phone.
What steps should I take now? Since it appears ODIN may exist on the phone in some capacity should I hook it up to the PC and try to root the phone?
So far all I have done is cleared the phone memory using the standard recovery mode, and left ODIN mode running whilst unconnected to PC to see what happened (which was nothing). For some reason the phone drains completely in ODIN mode even when connected to a charger.
Thanks for your input on this one.
EDIT: Also please don't tell me to take it back to the retailer. The phone is out of warranty now and Vietnamese retailers don't take any responsibility for their products after sale, so I need to sort this out by myself. Thanks
Down/home/power is download mode, not recovery mode. Recovery mode is vol up/home/power.
You need to find an I9100G stock rom for your carrier/country from somewhere (maybe Samfirmware ?), get into download mode & flash it with Odin (how to do this has been covered thousands of times here; search). If Odin won't work or the phone/PC won't recognise each other, search for threads re: this issue. There's a set of 10-12 troubleshooting steps you need to try in that instance.
MistahBungle said:
Down/home/power is download mode, not recovery mode. Recovery mode is vol up/home/power.
You need to find an I9100G stock rom for your carrier/country from somewhere (maybe Samfirmware ?), get into download mode & flash it with Odin (how to do this has been covered thousands of times here; search). If Odin won't work or the phone/PC won't recognise each other, search for threads re: this issue. There's a set of 10-12 troubleshooting steps you need to try in that instance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Roger that. I'm sure I can figure out how to do all these things quite easily. But how about the fact that Odin is present on the phone? I was under the impression that Odin is an extra application that you install to root your phone and install CFW. My phone is unrooted and stock out of a sealed box, so should I expect to have Odin on it? I don't want to have CFW on my phone and I'm concerned that even after I fix this issue and unbrick the phone, I will have difficulty installing the latest Jellybean XXV region OFW through automatic update.
It also seems strange and contrary to me that I should have to even use unofficial methods in order to fix an official update that was delivered automatically.
Odin is not present on the phone. Download mode is also referred to as 'Odin mode' because you use Odin to flash whatever (normally stock roms) in this mode. Odin is a piece of Samsung software initially used by techs @ service centres but now widely used by people who visit XDA/similar places to flash stuff to their phones.
Edit - You can think it's 'strange or contrary' that you need to do X or Y to fix your phone. That's fine (Personally, I'm not really interested). That's how you can fix your phone. Sorry if I sound standoffish or whatever, it isn't personal at all, but you're just another person with a (slightly, at this point) busted phone who visits here. I've told you how to fix it, so you can either do that or not.
And there it is. Thanks for your guidance
MistahBungle said:
Odin is not present on the phone. Download mode is also referred to as 'Odin mode' because you use Odin to flash whatever (normally stock roms) in this mode. Odin is a piece of Samsung software initially used by techs @ service centres but now widely used by people who visit XDA/similar places to flash stuff to their phones.
Edit - You can think it's 'strange or contrary' that you need to do X or Y to fix your phone. That's fine (Personally, I'm not really interested). That's how you can fix your phone. Sorry if I sound standoffish or whatever, it isn't personal at all, but you're just another person with a (slightly, at this point) busted phone who visits here. I've told you how to fix it, so you can either do that or not.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well until your final post I wasn't aware that download mode was also called Odin mode and that is perfectly normal for a stock phone to say this. I think it's perfectly reasonable for someone who has done a fair bit of research into fixing a stock phone to hear about Odin only in the context of rooting and CFW (pages which I avoid because I'm not interested in CFW), and thus to be surprised when they see Odin mentioned on their stock phone. Now that you've made me aware that this is normal, I'm perfectly capable of finding the info required to fix the phone.
I appreciate your help. I just wanted to mention this as it seems you feel I have asked this question unnecessarily. I hope this points out that if one follows this particular train of thought of fixing a stock phone then its very possible and not unreasonable to arrive at this conclusion.

[Q] How to unbrick a phone if odin doesn't detect it? (!!SOLVED!!)

Phone specs first
Samsung Galaxy S2 GT-i9100
Rooted
CWM
Hardcore speedmod
android 4.1.2 jb
PC is windows 8
I remember i had turned the usb debugging on in dev options
so last night i tried to install cyanogenmod on my device with the cyanogenmod installer for PC and Android.
I was having a bit of usb problems with noticing that my pc did detect the phone, but i couldn't see the phone in
"my computer" file. I thought it would soon fix by itself(i dont know why) and also noticing that detecting device in cm installer
took a lot of time. So when it finally detected the phone it started installing the CM. Although after coming to the
"installing operating system" point, it stopped and said "we couldn't talk to your phone" and having this blue CM guy standing in the screen
of my phone. I tried again several times with rebooting my pc and phone. To the phone appeared again this blue cm figure just standing there.
When i would go and try again on pc it said the "we couldn't talk to your phone" text again. So i gave up with the installer and thought that would be better to flash that CM with Odin. At this point i couldn't access my phone(except for download mode and recovery) of course because it had screwed up the system. I tried to search internet for some usb problem fixes and there were some solutions on changing something in your
device settings and dev options, i cant go there, so for now thats not an option. I started following a tutorial in youtube on how to install cm with odin and root your device. My first question here is that should i install everything and start from scratch (Gapps,CM and kernel) or just the CM ROM? And the problem here is that when i started following the tutorial and came up to the part of having to move the Rom,kernel and gapps to the phone's sd card, i realised that wouldn't work because i cant see the phone on my pc, for now that's the problem number 1. My pc says "unknown device" ( i think thats what it means, see im translating) when i try to plug my phone in. Got any solution for this so we could move on to step 2?
And btw this is in a bit of a hurry, as i really have to get this phone working today.I need it! :crying:
And yeah i did read the other threads about PC not recognizing the phone but those solutions there require the phone to be turned on and changing something there. So basically my phone is bricked and cant connect to pc with usb, i have tried another pc too with 2 usb cables but the phone wont show up under "my computer"
Get stock firmware from Samfirmware, try & flash with Odin. Problems with flash ? Find Hopper8's 'Odin troubleshooting' thread stickied in General; try as much of the stuff in that thread as you need to in order to get a successful flash of stock firmware & a clean slate (I.E a working phone, getting the phone back to this state should be your only thought at this point), then you can try reflashing a custom rom/whatever from there if you want to.
If you do have problems with the stock flash, make sure you actually do everything in the thread, or your phone will stay busted. These things are fixed with perseverance & doing everything possible, there is no easy fix.
Also, please don't post about the same issue twice, there was no need for you to make this thread & post to the other thread as well.
MistahBungle said:
Get stock firmware from Samfirmware, try & flash with Odin. Problems with flash ? Find Hopper8's 'Odin troubleshooting' thread stickied in General; try as much of the stuff in that thread as you need to in order to get a successful flash of stock firmware & a clean slate (I.E a working phone, getting the phone back to this state should be your only thought at this point), then you can try reflashing a custom rom/whatever from there if you want to.
If you do have problems with the stock flash, make sure you actually do everything in the thread, or your phone will stay busted. These things are fixed with perseverance & doing everything possible, there is no easy fix.
Also, please don't post about the same issue twice, there was no need for you to make this thread & post to the other thread as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So just flashing the stock rom? Does the firmware need to be specifically from that region you live in?
Got the Odin detecting my phone now so that's one step further. Huge thanks for helping me!
itsFreezy said:
So just flashing the stock rom? Does the firmware need to be specifically from that region you live in?
Got the Odin detecting my phone now so that's one step further. Huge thanks for helping me!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, for me. I never tried to flash stock rom using other country. So, I don't know what will happen if I do so. Maybe you will get some problems with calls, messages, etc..?
So now i have tried to flash 3 different ROM's and everytime i get stuck for a while in the SetupConnection step and after about 2 minutes it just says all threads completed succeed 0/1 failed and cant open the serial (COM) port. I am on download mode on the phone.
Then you need to go back to Hopper's thread and try everything suggested in the thread, including multiple PC's if necessary.
I did say your phone will stay busted in my PP if you didn't do everything in that thread as many times as you need to (looks like the prophecy is being fulfilled). There is nothing else that isn't in that thread that can be suggested in these situations, that thread is the Bible.
Only you can fix your phone in this situation, we can't do it for you. I've given you the tools to get it done, it's up to you whether you do & how long your phone stays in its current state.
Huuuge thanks to you !
MistahBungle said:
Then you need to go back to Hopper's thread and try everything suggested in the thread, including multiple PC's if necessary.
I did say your phone will stay busted in my PP if you didn't do everything in that thread as many times as you need to (looks like the prophecy is being fulfilled). There is nothing else that isn't in that thread that can be suggested in these situations, that thread is the Bible.
Only you can fix your phone in this situation, we can't do it for you. I've given you the tools to get it done, it's up to you whether you do & how long your phone stays in its current state.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I already said this, but thank you for helping, i got it working! I flashed in a cwm kernel and stock rom.You really dont know how
grateful i am! It was kinda stupid to go and try install cyanogenmod without backing up, but that's not going to happen in the future.
Also i think i needed this to happen, i mean it still was a very good lesson to understand the basics of odin flashing and kernels,roms and rooting.
I really thought for a while that i had lost my phone. Hopper8's thread really helped!
Good man. And yes, you're right, having this sort of thing happen early on can be a really good learning experience & give you the knowledge/confidence to recover from just about anything (had a not dissimilar experience to yourself about a week after I got my S2 2+ yrs ago, I learned a helluva a lot in the two days my phone was borked) that happens in future.
Don't forget to thank Hopper's OP in his thread if you haven't already.

[Q] Soft bricked

I apologize up front if this is has been previously asked. I found lots of helpful info on here searching through old threads but being a bit of a luddite I was a bit confused exactly which situation applied to me. I live in China and recently bought a s3 I9300I and attempted to root it using the chainfire method from the video on this site. Odin declared success but when the phone rebooted it just went back to download mode with a message at top saying, "Could not do normal boot, ODIN MODE." Turning it off and on, removing battery and retrying Odin flash produce no results. The most important thing of course is just to get the phone back to functioning but I'd also like it rooted if at all possible. I read that using Odin to install a custom kernel would root it and I would not be at all opposed to a good custom kernel. I read something about a binary counter that may need to be reset but that seemed to require doing something with the actual phone functions which don't seem to work. Odin still recognizes it when I plug it in and attempts to let me redo the rooting but it just shows a progress bar then reboots right back into download mode. Sorry if this is basic stuff but I'm kind of terrified of bricking this thing and am just not sure what the best course of action is here. Thanks for any help you can offer.
Chinese stock firmware is different to the international, there is a special thread in general forum on rooting etc.
Do you have a link to that thread? I have looked and cannot find anything that seems specific to this problem.
Please. Searching for "China" or "Chinese" gets me absolutely no relevant results. If this has already been covered can someone please direct me to the thread. I really need to get this phone working and am at a loss. Thanks.

[Q] EXTREME Galaxy S3 i535 Brick?!?

I was recently attempting to root my father's new Verizon Samsung Galaxy S3, when I encountered an extremely heart-dropping fail...
I have ran into an issue of being unable to enter ANY OS or ROM on the phone. I had a stock Android 4.4.4 ROM on the phone, which I rooted with no problem. I then attempted to install TWRP (I used TWRP Manager (Root)) in order to install SlimKat. However, at this point I encountered an error. I attempted to reboot the phone into recovery mode using the app, and encountered a screen saying "System software not authorized by Verizon Wireless has been found on your phone. Please turn off your phone and go to the nearest Verison Wireless store for help.". I get the same screen when trying to boot the phone without pressing any extra buttons. I also notice red words in the top-left corner of the screen saying "SECURE FAIL: KERNEL". The only other screen I can get to is the Odin Download Menu.
However, when I try to use Odin, I cannot get anything to flash to the phone except the PINs for the phone (it is an i535 Verison Galaxy S3). Anything else gives me an error, as shown in this image: www(dot)dropbox(dot)com/s/mc6srpy5vhpb9of/nand%20fail.bmp?dl=0
Basically, I am asking if anyone knows of a way to try to restore even just the stock ROM to the phone. As of right now, it is in an unusable condition and I would much prefer if I could fix my father's phone. I will try to give any new info as requested and I am willing to try almost anything to fix it.
P.S. I apologize for the URL issue :/ . I cannot post links yet xD
Wrong forum, read the sticky on American models.
boomboomer said:
Wrong forum, read the sticky on American models.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My apologies. I did not notice a secondary thread for my model, due the time at which I was posting. Is there a way to move this thread to the correct place or delete it from this forum? Also, is this the correct forum for me to be posting in: forum.xda-developers. com/galaxy-s3-verizon/help
Again, sorry about the URL inconvenience.

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