Hi everyone.
I have spent last 3 days searching, reading and trying possible solutions.
I lost my imei after 4.3 samsung to 4.12 downgrade. I had EFS backup on galaxy s3 toolkit called .tar.gz and .img.gz formats, i also have efs.zip and efs image backup around 20mb on my external sd card.
due to the problems, i followed advice and used hk-tools app to restore my efs, i chose to format and restore option for a clean restore and as soon as i formatted, phone hung and was unable to boot into rom.
i used odin to flash ram and recovery again, forst stock then others, but cant boot into any rom, as efs doesnot mount.
i can enter recovery and download mode, i have tried using phils recovery's custom restore of efs but it says md5 mismatch, probably as the backup was taken on s3 toolkit and other ways.
I am really stuck, any help will be greatly appreciated. I have genyuinely exhausted the knowledge i could search and try.
thanks.
says md5 mismatch
In settings turn off md5 checking
JJEgan said:
says md5 mismatch
In settings turn off md5 checking
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
many thanks, tried your advice, says no efs partition!
so did not work.
Extract the efs files manually on your PC, copy them to your SD card and then in Philz copy all the files the efs folder. Fix permissions then reboot.
You need to understand what you did to break it before you go any further, general forum, sticky threads, efs 'know this stuff'.
Mod Edit
Please refer to the stickies in General before posting.
Thread closed
malybru
Forum Moderator
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So I was reading about backing up your /efs folder and I was wondering if backing up your device with CWM through recovery, will that also back up /efs folder?
Thanks!
i dont now this but you can just copy the efs folder and paste it at your computer.its so easy
If you want you can download nitrality apply from market, which can automatically do a backup for ya
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App
just copy the files might not be enough, permissions and ownershiop etc is lost. Look in this thread for info how to backup /efs
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1068193
I'm wondering the same thing... Does CWM backup the /efs folder?
No. There are apps that can do same (Hellcat's kTool being one), and some kernels automatically make an EFS backup by default (Siyah for example).
Edit to add - For clarity, CWM will not make a separate backup of the EFS. As it essentially makes an image of the phone, obviously the EFS details will be included (everything is included), but I doubt you can extract the EFS folders/files on their own from a CWM backup. If there is a way, I'd certainly like to know how to do it Would be handy to know, even if I do backup EFS whenever I do a backup as a matter of course.
So as long as I've made backups using CWM and then suddenly my efs folder gets corrupted, a simple CWM restore would repair the efs?
On the other hand... in theory (I would never try this) wouldn't that mean that if I did a CWM restore on a different SII that phone's IMEI would change?
Brgds... /Tubgirl
Hmmmmm....Basically when you restore a CWM backup, you go back to whatever state your phone was in at the time you made the backup.
Now, if you borked your EFS, and if you restored a CWM backup, would this fix this EFS issue. In theory & based on the CWM backup being an 'image', you'd reckon yes it would.
In practice, I'm not about to delete my efs folders & try it out tho
So far as the IMEI is concerned, no, I don't believe it would. Reason I say this is because I know people who have taken a CWM backup of a phone they've had to return for replacement. Got the replacement phone, and restored the CWM backup on the new phone; essentially cloned the old one. And that hasn't messed with the new phone's IMEI.
At the end of the day, people who don't make EFS backups are insane IMHO (you probably guessed that from my sig). Given it takes literally 20 seconds to make an EFS backup with kTool, and another minute to transfer a copy over to a PC, there's no excuse for not making a backup.
Edit to add - Interesting questions/thread BTW I know who could answer these questions definitively for us. Odia. He's the EFS king on here. Can sometimes (often ?) recover IMEI's when there are no EFS folders/files to work with. How ? Who knows. Voodoo maybe ?
Ok, I'm no expert by any means and please correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't a complete efs backup include imei?
The reason I'm asking is because suddenly my phone can't make/receive phone calls with my current carrier (other carriers still work). I restored a previously made CWM backup but it didn't help. Today I read about efs and what it contains so I started to wonder if maybe that's where the problem lie. I've only made CWM and Titanium backups so far because I had no knowledge about efs.
Brgds... /Tubgirl
Easiest way to tell if it's an IMEI issue is to check the IMEI. If you have your actual IMEI in settings/about phone, that obviously isn't the problem (whatever you do, don't post your IMEI on XDA. Ever), if you have the generic IMEI 004999010640000, then you've got a problem.
If you do have the generic IMEI, then we can look at options to possibly rectify it (sometimes possible, sometimes not).
If your IMEI is fine, the problem lies elsewhere & you're worrying about nothing There are a million things that could cause the problem you described.
However, no excuse for not making an EFS backup nowish if your IMEI is OK & keeping one copy on your external SD card & another copy on your PC (and even another copy on a external drive if you're really paranoid).
I just used the IMEI example to question whether efs is included in CWM backups or not. My IMEI is just fine but since I'm so reluctant to send my phone in for repair I'm just grasping for straws here Thought maybe my problem was related to efs since I suspect it's not included in CWM backups. Anyway... since I never made a "real" efs backup my question is pure academic. I'm afraid my phone needs to be sent to a service center. System restore didn't resolve my problems either but I'm pretty sure that wouldn't resolve efs problems either.
Brgds... Tubgirl
Did a bit of digging & found this. It would appear EFS is not backed up in a Nandroid backup after all despite it being somewhat of an 'image'. So I guess that answers both our question.
No, system restore more than likely won't solve EFS issues. Normally the only way to fix it short of having Samsung do it is Odia/whatever method he uses (which he won't divulge; and fair enough. I'm sure it's highly technical).
If you need to send your phone in for warranty service, do a format cache, data, system, & sd card in CWM. Then flash a stock rom in Odin, then use a jig to reset the flash counter.
Obviously once you root a phone and/or run non-stock firmware on it you void your warranty and should have no expectation of warranty service, but many people have been able to get same by doing the above. But in saying that, there have been people on here who have followed these steps & been 'found out' in any event.
Unless it's a case of actual damage to the phone caused by use or whatever, if it's a hardware fault, you might be able to get away with it.
WHich method do you use to backup your efs?
I use Siyah kernel which automatically makes an EFS backup & dumps it in the /data/.Siyah folder. There are also apps which enable you to make a backup, I've used kTool in the past & there are others (names of which escape me; search on here/Google Play).
I'd recommend kTool (search for it on here/Google Play) as it isn't kernel or rom dependent, it backs up EFS to /sdcard/efs.img & also allows you to verify the backup. You can then transfer a copy onto PC, external drive or whatever in case the worst ever happens. Quick, easy & no fuss.
Thanks a bunch... I'll search for it.
No probs
Tubgirl said:
Thanks a bunch... I'll search for it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I saw this thread was about CMWbackups, and have a quetion about it. decided it's better to ash here than start a whole new thread
The CMW backups; does it backup EVERYTING?
So if i forexample have some movies on my external SD card, and then takes an CMW backup..... Next i delete everyting on this SDcard, and then flash the CMW image,,,,, will my movies then be back at my SD card? Will they be back at any other place at the phone? or will they be totally gone?
Nikolaiim said:
I saw this thread was about CMWbackups, and have a quetion about it. decided it's better to ash here than start a whole new thread
The CMW backups; does it backup EVERYTING?
No as said it does not back up EFS .
It takes an image of the firmware OS and applications on the internal sd card .
So if i forexample have some movies on my external SD card, and then takes an CMW backup..... Next i delete everyting on this SDcard, and then flash the CMW image,,,,, will my movies then be back at my SD card? Will they be back at any other place at the phone? or will they be totally gone
Gone Gone Gone .
jje
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If i have a siyah backup of my esf (a tar.gz and a img.gz) what do i have to do to restore my esf folder?
Search for/read the kTool thread on here.
I have GS3 i9300 International version.
My EFS partition has been corrupted.
I already have the backup available i took with EFS backup pro but when i now connect through it it doesn't pick it up even though i have put it in the same directory.
I also tried to backup the existing EFS folder (Which doesn't have anything in it) using Root Explorer in Phone but got an error 'Can't locate Mount Point!"
How can i restore my EFS folder again? Any suggestion will be helpful as i have been trying to read all what is available at XDA.
There is no IMEI and baseband available. I had the stocked firmware when this happened with CF root and Siyak Kernel.
I have checked in CWM Recovery mode.
All partitions are mounted except EFS and i am not able to mount it even in recovery.
So after like 24 hrs, i am finally able to restore everything back to normal .
Since the efs partition was not mounting, i used the following commands to do so manually in terminal
Code:
mke2fs /dev/block/mmcblk0p3
mount -w -t ext4 /dev/block/mmcblk0p3 /efs
The link that helped me realize this was
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1857811
After running this command i had signals and Wifi begins working but IMEI was turned to generic.
Then i turned to EFS bakup pro and this time successfully restored my efs folder and getting my origional IMEI back.
So all this taught me that flashing and tinkering with your android phone carries a huge risk and we should all be prepared to face such issues if decided to do so.
But really, what's the fun if we don't .
Following are some issues that i faced during this whole process which i am sharing if anybody else gets in the same situations
- The first thing i did was to flash the stock firmware but this lead to an unrooted phone again
- I used CF root to gain root privileges again but supersu was asking for binary updates before giving root permission to other programs.
- So i downloaded SAMSUNG GALAXY S3 TOOLKIT which is an excellent resource for everything related to rooting, flashing and backing up GS3.
- I rooted with busybox so that EFS backup pro can be used.
- Since my GS3 was not having mobile or wifi signal, this toolkit helped a great deal.
- One small thing that i missed was place my EFS back in a folder named "EFSProBackup" which is to be placed in the same directory as the executable of EFS Pro so that it can recognize it in restoration tab.
I hope this will be helpful if anyone gets stuck in this issue.
Oh glad you resolved it
This shows how important an efs backup is
《spilled from dragon jellybean rom》
Thanks for dropping by bg
I had ruined my i9000 same way and used it for a year with generic imei. I had to copy paste the efs folder everytime i rebooted the phone. Now i am on i9100 but i havent yet backed up my efs, can you guide me how to do it?
Download EFS Pro from here EFS Pro.
Connect your phone with pc via USB and make sure you are not using USB Mass Storage mode.
Start EFS Pro. Obviously, you need to be rooted and have busybox installed for this application to run.
Your phone information will be displayed once it's connected.
Create a backup of your EFS Folder either with a .img or .tar extension.
And keep flashing hassle free .
TSKXDA said:
Download EFS Pro from here EFS Pro.
Connect your phone with pc via USB and make sure you are not using USB Mass Storage mode.
Start EFS Pro. Obviously, you need to be rooted and have busybox installed for this application to run.
Your phone information will be displayed once it's connected.
Create a backup of your EFS Folder either with a .img or .tar extension.
And keep flashing hassle free .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks alot man. I'll do this asap.
TSKXDA said:
So after like 24 hrs, i am finally able to restore everything back to normal .
Since the efs partition was not mounting, i used the following commands to do so manually in terminal
Code:
mke2fs /dev/block/mmcblk0p3
mount -w -t ext4 /dev/block/mmcblk0p3 /efs
The link that helped me realize this was
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1857811
After running this command i had signals and Wifi begins working but IMEI was turned to generic.
Then i turned to EFS bakup pro and this time successfully restored my efs folder and getting my origional IMEI back.
So all this taught me that flashing and tinkering with your android phone carries a huge risk and we should all be prepared to face such issues if decided to do so.
But really, what's the fun if we don't .
Following are some issues that i faced during this whole process which i am sharing if anybody else gets in the same situations
- The first thing i did was to flash the stock firmware but this lead to an unrooted phone again
- I used CF root to gain root privileges again but supersu was asking for binary updates before giving root permission to other programs.
- So i downloaded SAMSUNG GALAXY S3 TOOLKIT which is an excellent resource for everything related to rooting, flashing and backing up GS3.
- I rooted with busybox so that EFS backup pro can be used.
- Since my GS3 was not having mobile or wifi signal, this toolkit helped a great deal.
- One small thing that i missed was place my EFS back in a folder named "EFSProBackup" which is to be placed in the same directory as the executable of EFS Pro so that it can recognize it in restoration tab.
I hope this will be helpful if anyone gets stuck in this issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks TSKXDA !
With this i able to mount /efs and sucessfull recover my EMEI !
Thanks again !
Hi there.
I'm with the exact same problem and I can't solve it cause shell says "Permission Denied".
Anything I can do?
RE
Press
su
before entering the commands
Unable to mount efs (same problem) but..
my phone just keep boot looping i tried to flash to stock and every time i wipe and clear cache i says unable to mount efs please help thanks
jhemartija said:
my phone just keep boot looping i tried to flash to stock and every time i wipe and clear cache i says unable to mount efs please help thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As per identical posts .
Restore your backed up EFS folder ..
If you failed to backup your EFS folder then its a paid for service centre repair .
jje
JJEgan said:
As per identical posts .
Restore your backed up EFS folder ..
If you failed to backup your EFS folder then its a paid for service centre repair .
jje
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i failed to back up, is there any other way? thanks by the way..
jhemartija said:
i failed to back up, is there any other way? thanks by the way..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As per ten thousand plus identical posts no .
jje
Any way if converting a .win backup of my EFS to .img? That's how my EFS got backed up. Also what's this I hear of a generic imei?
Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Premium HD app
Just read what the generic imei means. 0049
baseband unknown and imei null
JJEgan said:
As per ten thousand plus identical posts no .
jje[/QUOTE
Dear JJEgan,
i had done a back up of efs via EFS PRO and restored it via EFS PRO and restore was successful but the baseband is still unknown and imei still null.plz help this time i had read everything and done as per instructions and i have a backed up efs in my phone and pc as well
thanks in advance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
bala_gamer said:
Oh glad you resolved it
This shows how important an efs backup is
《spilled from dragon jellybean rom》
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dear bala_gamer,
my name is gaurav.i've a gti9300 and l was on stock 4.1.2,i flashed resurrection remix rom and now i've following issues:-
1) BASEBAND VESRION-UNKNOWN
2)IMEI-UNKNOWN
3)MOBILE NETWORK-UNKNOWN
4)NO CALLS,no network although wifi is running smoothly and rest all is fine with the phone.i flashed back stock 4.1.2 and restored EFS via EFS PRO(which i had earlier taken backup on my pc) but the problem still remains although EFS PRO restore was successful
Further info:-
1)i can locate an EFS folder in the normal file manager which is empty
2)in the root explorer i can see an EFS folder with 18 files in it.
plz help thanks in advance,waiting for a quick response from your side
file manager shows empty because it is not operating with permissions to see it. This is not relevant.
use root explorer only
Just flash MG5 stock ROM from India. If it is still broken, send it for repair. Simple as that
TSKXDA said:
Download EFS Pro from here EFS Pro.
Connect your phone with pc via USB and make sure you are not using USB Mass Storage mode.
Start EFS Pro. Obviously, you need to be rooted and have busybox installed for this application to run.
Your phone information will be displayed once it's connected.
Create a backup of your EFS Folder either with a .img or .tar extension.
And keep flashing hassle free .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dear TSKXDA,
I did exactly the same way and took a back up then flashed a custom rom and lost baseband version and imei, i then flashed back to stock rom restored EFS via EFS pro but the issue still remains.You can see my numerous posts in this forum,plz help me out thanks in advance
Hey Guys
My i9300 was running stock rom and i decided to flash the illusion rom. but i downloaded and flashed the wrong file. so now my imei number is lost and i get no signal.
I have backup of IMEI from the software EFS pro but it does not restore. the software shows all ok but the IMEI on phone is still unknown.
Also there is a file on my sd card with the backup of efs. maybe a rom previously flashed may have taken the backup. I can try and restore that.
Please help me how to do so. its a tar.gz file
Please help me restore my IMEI number. i have no phone signal and dont want to go to service center because my phone is rooted and its voided warranty.
also i had a nandroid backup i restored it and all my data has been restored but not the IMEI
thanks in advance.
Can't help you to get your IMEI back, but to use https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.chainfire.triangleaway , use Odin (or mobileOdin) or unroot it you don't need a IMEI.
Tar files are flashed via Odin .
jje
Actually this may be simpler than expected.
tar.gz can be flashed from odin since now it has an /efs field. That alone may be enough. But please do another backup before trying anything. Really, just copying all the files over to somewhere safe is enough.
But Tar.gz is a compressed file (like zip). Have you tried to check what's inside that tar.gz? I'd decompress it to somewhere and compare it to what's inside your /efs partition on your phone. If it seems the same, i'd do a new /efs backup and try replacing the contents of the /efs with the uncompressed backup.
You may need to do this through adb on recovery mode - once, brain went full retard and wiped my /efs partition by not thinking about what i was doing, phone instantly rebooted on the spot to never normally boot again until fixed (had an awesome weekend trying to figure how to fix it , posted somewhere around here how i did it). Doing it from recovery is just to avoid that. Also, all this is assuming some file on your /efs is just corrupted and your backup is in good shape.
If you're still feeling unsure you can (and should) search for related stuff around here in xda. There is PLENTY of info about lost/corrupted /efs around, happens quite often.
Hey guys,
Thank you very much for your replies
It's quite shocking but an official firmware flash via odin solved the problem.
I guess my imei was just corrupted.
Thanks
Hey guys, I had the same problem, but now I know what went wrong, thanks!
hi guys.
this is my first post. first off thanks to all of you out there who have helped me root 3 different devices and install custom roms on 2 of them.
my third device is my gti9300 phone.
i have rooted and installed twrp but before i install a custom rom i made a back up of my efs files using ktool. after backing up the files i ran the check.
under sdcard/efs.img found section everything checks out 100%
under sdcard/efs.tar.gz found i get the message /!\nv_data.bin NOT FOUND in back up!!!
in my files/device storage the files have been created
could any tell me if the back up i have created will work. dont want to flash a rom until i am sure
the phone works fine and the emei number appears as it should in the phones status menu
hope someone can help
thanks
If in doubt then make other backups, philz recovery custom backup, copy and paste efs contents etc.
You can't have too many backups of your efs, store them on your pc and cloud storage.
IMEI
More than one backup of EFS is best .Save one on your PC .
thanks for the advice guys.
Hello guys. I have a question, I tried a lot of different methods to backup the efs folder: used kTool tryed Philz recovery and many more. But I'm not sure if they really made a working backup.
First the ktool when I pressed backup and it finished it sad it was successful but when it ask to check if it's ok at the and it sad that "nv_data.bin NOT FOUND in backup !!!"
Second Philz recovery sad the same successful backup but when I tried to check the files on my pc the .img is a broken file, can't open it withe winrar.
The same is happening with every backuper. When I try to opened them they are all broken.
So my question is that should thees be broken or what ?
Network IMEI EFS
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2393289
Files should not b e broken.
Mod Edit
As has been suggested ,Please refer to ,and post in the stickies in the General section.
Thread closed
malybru
Forum Moderator