[Q] Galaxy SII data recovery (dead power chip) - Galaxy S II Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hello guys.. new to the forum (first post) but a fan for awhile.
i have a samsung galaxy s2 with a dead power chip.
Does anyone have a clue or an idea about how to save the data on the internal memory?
i'm up for almost everything..

No chance, other than a company who specialises in recovery of data from dead HDD's; expect this to be very expensive if possible. However...there are some people on here who claim replacing the 'power IC' is possible, but I still haven't seen a single case on here where that's been successful/a motherboard replacement hasn't been required to fix (the normal fix).
Search for similar threads, someone posted here recently somewhere where you could buy the part.
The other issue is, if there's other components dead on the NB, you're going to have to end up replacing it at anyway, so you run the risk of 'double paying' for the fix if replacing this individual component doesn't work (and assuming you can even find a repairer who will attempt this for you).

Related

Bricked two galaxy ace

Its just impossible to brick two phones one after another just by using ODIN and official ROM, I have flashed my Galaxy S and my brothers Galaxy S many many many times without issues. Is it possible that many Galaxy ACE are just broken ?
mine was bricked too.
but i dont think because of hadware defect or anything. its because of me.
from the day i bought it, it was heavily abused by me, flashing almost all day. because i'm also developing kernel, that also means i had to reflash countless of time after recompile.
lastly after almost a year got abused like that it decided to bricked on its own.
point is, bricking because hardware defect is rare. most cause of bricking is us, the user itself, not the phone.
broken ops?
history was that my sisters ACE got bricked by flashing (ODIN), samsung replaced motherboard and then i flashed it second time - all went fine, then my uncle saw my sisters modded rom - he saw performance boost and asked me to make his - so i used same identical files: ops, odin, rom from before ! so i can exclude broken OPS
This cant be lottery, its something BROKEN inside phone...
Raider0001 said:
history was that my sisters ACE got bricked by flashing (ODIN), samsung replaced motherboard and then i flashed it second time - all went fine, then my uncle saw my sisters modded rom - he saw performance boost and asked me to make his - so i used same identical files: ops, odin, rom from before ! so i can exclude broken OPS
This cant be lottery, its something BROKEN inside phone...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ROM's package might be incomplete or broken
Sent from my GT-S5830 using Tapatalk
if something is broken in the fone, he cant even use him fone before flashing.
so u can exclude broken hardware
there could be a system partition that isn't used normally, and after time it gets data retention loss, when flashing it goes bizarre and destroys itself thats my idea i have no other it is a phones fault maybe not broken but really low quality in some cases - ask yourself: why samsung is replacing motherboards ? they have stuff to check any hardware issues and probably they could flash it directly to the memory...
there are many posts around forums that ACE cant connect to PC to show its SD card, from what i saw it have really slow internal memory much slower then my cheap Chinese tablet
Unsolder those (messy) bga memory/flash, jtag (dunno pin connection, under sim card maybe ?).
But faulty hw got you unlucky ones bcause modern electronic mfg employed six sigma with permillion opportunity with defect. Thats warranty usefull for, imho sent back to samsung are wise and economically efficient, than I mention above.

[Q] Exchanging internal SD?

Hi all,
My galaxy S2 recently died due to minor water damage. Now I ordered a S4, but I would like to know whether it's possible to recover photos from the internal SD card. To be clear: the phone doesn't power on anymore at all. My girlfriend also has a Galaxy S2, and I was thinking of exchanging some phone parts to access the broken one's internal memory. Some things I've been thinking of:
1. Switch mainboards. This would only be useful if the internal SD card is not soldered to the mainboard. Could someone tell me whether this is the case?
2. I read on a website the following:
As the chips are directly soldered to the smartphone’s mainboard and can be made to specially interface with the SoC used, but sometimes companies don’t solder user-accessible internal storage to the mainboard, instead putting a micro-SD card in a hidden slot. Examples are phones like Samsung Galaxy S2 and HTC Desire HD.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This implies that I could simply take out this internal SD card and switch it with the other phone. Is anyone familiar with this?
My girlfriends phone has to remain working in the end, mine is broken already and I don't care whether it breaks even more..
Thanks in advance!
Samsungs are soldered, it's an actual chip. And just don't go there. The possibility that you'll completely stuff it up beyond repair is high unless you do this sort of thing for a living (and you'd have to source the chip from a 2nd hand board anyway, might as well do the easy thing & replace the board).
You've got it the wrong way around re: motherboard. This is exactly what service centres replace when n00bs come in & say 'I went to sleep & my phone didn't wake up (I was trying to flash a custom rom to my phone but flashed a rom for the I9000 by mistake).
Either replace the motherboard yourself (source a 2nd hand one from a 'donor' or broken phone online somewhere), or find the board & pay a local mobile repair shop to do it. That's should fix it assuming nothing else is water damaged, which you're only going to know if you either take it to someone who can diagnose, or you swap the motherboard out.
Or you can throw it in the bin.
what happened? were you able to recover the photos and contacts? I have a similar situation, shall I try replacing the motherboard?

[Q] Samsung S2 GT-i9100G cannot be turned on/dead

Hello every-xdadeveloper-one~ here i would like to ask questions about my S2 GT-i9100g
My phone is dead. No download mode, recovery mode, usb connection, odin recognition, kies detection, charging, turning on, nada. Meaning in whatever it is, it is not responding to anything.
I would like to ask some professional help here in xda; what has happened to my phone? Is it the emmc? power supply failure? or anything related to it? i really need to know any related things that i'll be dealing with before going to the last step, service repair. it is working fine, i have rooted, unrooted, cyanogenmod and stock, cwm and stock, but none of this has given any problems until one day when it is charging, it suddenly turned off forever.
Please tell me any related things of what has happened.
note: i used a few PIT files when flashing before this, and i'm not sure which is which for the mobo. and few months back before the s2 is totally dead, it keeps on turning off by itself even when full battery, but still workable.
Probably the EMMC, but without having the phone in front of us with the tools to diagnose it, nobody here can tell you this for certain. Fix will be motherboard replacement (assuming you intend to keep this phone & not get a new one).
Take it to a Samsung service centre (more expensive option), or source a 2nd hand motherboard online & either swap the boards yourself, or pay a local mobile repair shop to do it (cheaper option).
Well i just bought a phone from amazon and got it monday it had half battery when i got it so i put it on the charger A hour later it was dead so dead that it wont even charge i tryed diffeent plugs different chargers still nothing what could it be ???
^^^
What model; I.E sticker on the phone chassis under the battery, what does it say ?
I guess it is :crying: Heard there is a workaround that maybe the balls beneath the emmc is like problematic? Maybe i need to reheat it a few seconds and cool it instantly to MAYBE get it able to turn back on? Changing a new board is not an option as important work flowcharts are in the internal storage. I guess service repair of the emmc is needed. Hmmm.
Is it possible that wrong PIT files be the culprit that made all this?
You won't be recovering any data regardless of how you proceed.
You can't 'repair' the EMMC, and it's not feasible to just replace the EMMC (and even if it was, your stuff is on there which means you lose it anyway), replacement of the board is how you proceed. Even if it was possible to replace just the EMMC, you'd probably end up paying 3-4 times the cost of having the entire board replaced due to the cost of labour (swapping a board takes 10 minutes).
If a PIT was the problem, the problem would have occurred immediately after the PIT flash I.E you would have flashed the PIT, and the phone wouldn't have booted immediately after. It's a simple case of component failure, which happens with all electronics all the time. I'm always surprised by how people on here seem to find this incredible. Stuff breaks, simple really.
The only possible very rough chance you have of recovering any data is a company who specialises in recovery of data from dead HDD's, they may be able to help, though very unlikely. If they are able to help, expect this to be very expensive. I have not seen a single post from anyone who has contacted one of these companies & been able to recover data from a phone in this state in the over 2 yrs I've been here.
Thank you for the info. Now i guess the only choice to do, is to repair(replace the mobo), or go buy a brand new s2(or higher models). I will check if there is any way to retrieve the data inside, and i dont mind the cost. :good:

[Q] Hard Bricked I9100

Hi Guys,
I have hard bricked my SGS2 I9100 as .pit file flash failed. Now there is no download/recovery/normal boot. It is completely dead, not detected on any PC by USB/Odin. It gets hot and there is slight vibration while charging. There is no response for USB Jig.
Samsung service center told there is motherboard issue and they don't repair it, they straight away replace it for $150 which I am unwilling to spend now.The phone has gone through the hands of many good technicians but all dismissed the chance of repair saying its an major hardware issue and components are out of stock/ unwilling to do it.
A repairman said he tried to JTAG it but from what he says is that eMMc chip didn't respond to Riff Box. I am not sure whether he correctly tried it on a Riff Box or any other box.
My questions are,
Q1) Should I once again try to JTAG it through other source ? Can any one tell me what's difference does it make to either JTAG it on Riff Box/Medusa/Z3X/GPG & Other Boxes ?
Q2) Does replacing the eMMc flash chip & power IC with new one increases the chances to revive the phone ?
Q3) If I were to replace the IC's from where could I buy it in "India" or should I buy it from aliexpress.com ?
Q4) Are the below IC models correct for I9100:
eMMc Flash IC: KMVYL000LM-B503 or KLMCG8GE2A-A001 (I am unable to
find this chip KLMCG8GE2A-A001 to buy if it is for I9100) source: mobiletechvideos.com
Power IC: MAX8997
Q5) Is there any other method apart from replacing IC's/JTAGGING through which I can repair my I9100 ?
Awaiting your responses. :fingers-crossed:
Long story short - replace the motherboard or buy a new phone.You already tried everything.
Only a few people had successfully replaced the eMMC chip.As it's very hard to do.Resoldering these kind of chips is simply impractical.
TheImpossibleEnemy said:
Long story short - replace the motherboard or buy a new phone.You already tried everything.
Only a few people had successfully replaced the eMMC chip.As it's very hard to do.Resoldering these kind of chips is simply impractical.
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Click to collapse
I agree to your point. But still I want to take a chance with the eMMc/Power IC replacement option. At my end I am looking for a proficient technician who can do precision soldering, what I want from this forum is, has IC replacement worked for any one of you guys and if yes can you mention the detailed steps for the same. Because on GSM Hosting forums a lot of guys have replaced the IC's and got their S2 working. But because of technical issue of minimum 10 post for a new thread I cannot ask there. This forum is my only hope to find proper solution to my problem.
You won't see anyone post those steps because I've never seen anyone on here post they've had someone do this repair successfully. I've seen a number of people post here (particularly over the past 6 mths & particularly in some countries) that they've been offered this fix, but not a single one has posted & said they had it done & it was successful.
Why ? Because no tech with any competence would attempt this for a couple of reasons:-
1) It would be a pain in the arse to try. It would be very fiddly/take a long time. Small electronics these days is mostly 'modular' & replacement of tiny parts just doesn't happen anymore; 'boards' are replaced because it's quicker/easier for the tech, and cheaper for the customer. Even if these fixes were possible, you'd pay more than what a motherboard replacement would cost. And even then you're probably relying on someone with questionable technical ability telling you it is possible when people who really know what they're doing & talking about just wouldn't bother.
2) You have no way of knowing yourself whether you're being told the truth about this 'power IC' nonsense actually being the problem. What happens if you try this fix, only to find out the NAND is actually corrupted (which it is 99.999999999999999999999999% of the time; you are not the exception here); this means you pay for the fix which has no chance of working, and then you pay again for a motherboard replacement or new phone.
By all means sit in this thread for months & months with a non-working phone waiting for the information you're after to be posted, but it never will be for the reasons I've mentioned. If it was me, I'd want my phone working ASAP because I need a phone.
MistahBungle said:
You won't see anyone post those steps because I've never seen anyone on here post they've had someone do this repair successfully. I've seen a number of people post here (particularly over the past 6 mths & particularly in some countries) that they've been offered this fix, but not a single one has posted & said they had it done & it was successful.
Why ? Because no tech with any competence would attempt this for a couple of reasons:-
1) It would be a pain in the arse to try. It would be very fiddly/take a long time. Small electronics these days is mostly 'modular' & replacement of tiny parts just doesn't happen anymore; 'boards' are replaced because it's quicker/easier for the tech, and cheaper for the customer. Even if these fixes were possible, you'd pay more than what a motherboard replacement would cost. And even then you're probably relying on someone with questionable technical ability telling you it is possible when people who really know what they're doing & talking about just wouldn't bother.
2) You have no way of knowing yourself whether you're being told the truth about this 'power IC' nonsense actually being the problem. What happens if you try this fix, only to find out the NAND is actually corrupted (which it is 99.999999999999999999999999% of the time; you are not the exception here); this means you pay for the fix which has no chance of working, and then you pay again for a motherboard replacement or new phone.
By all means sit in this thread for months & months with a non-working phone waiting for the information you're after to be posted, but it never will be for the reasons I've mentioned. If it was me, I'd want my phone working ASAP because I need a phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Anyways.. I have given my phone for eMMc replacement let us see what it turns out to be. Thanks for your input Mistah. Will post back once I get my phone.
One more thing MistahBungle, as you have mentioned NAND corruption thats the exact issue I faced in Odin, does it means the flash chip is dying or as I read it its stuffed beyond recovery.. what exactly is NAND corruption and is there any solution for it apart from mobo change ?
Arjune said:
Anyways.. I have given my phone for eMMc replacement let us see what it turns out to be. Thanks for your input Mistah. Will post back once I get my phone.
One more thing MistahBungle, as you have mentioned NAND corruption thats the exact issue I faced in Odin, does it means the flash chip is dying or as I read it its stuffed beyond recovery.. what exactly is NAND corruption and is there any solution for it apart from mobo change ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It means the chip has been 'scrambled' due to a bad flash, which means nothing can be written to or read from the chip anymore, which is why your phone won't boot, the (for the sake of simplicity, the tech version is available with a Google or XDA search) 'pre-boot' stuff/OS/etc lives on it, without that = dead phone.
Only solution is to replace it, and as we've said, replacing just that chip isn't feasible, so the whole board is replaced.

[Q] Bricked my phone!

Ok, so I have done something incredibly stupid. I had been using Paranoid Android on my Galaxy S2 with no issues, then we got new phones in work so I moved to a company phone, Galaxy S4 and ported over my old number. I also used the external SD card I had bought for the S2 with the S4 (not planning to use the S2 again). When I was tidying up the SD card I noticed the zip files for paranoid android so deleted it without thinking.
Now, however, I want to give the old phone to my sister, but it wont turn on at all. I know the battery is fully charged, I have tried holding down vol+power+home etc. and nothing. Have I completely bricked it? Is there anything I can do?
I should add that I can access another unrooted Galaxy S2, is that any use? Could I flash a recovery to the external SD on that and then swap the card to the bricked phone?
So no download mode.Did you tried vol up+ho
me+power to access the recovery?
Your options are:-
1) A jig.
2) Possible JTAG; this is the cheapest/most stress-free option after #1 (which will cost a few bucks on little e big B), but....Don't get your hopes up it will work, many phones in this situation are not JTAG'able. If you can find someone who will attempt a JTAG for you & you only pay if it's successful, knock yourself out. I wouldn't be paying on the basis of it costing me money upfront whether it works or not though given the next (and overwhelmingly most likely option).
3) Motherboard replacement - irrespective of warranty status, a Samsung service centre should replace the board for you with a new one. This will be somewhat expensive. How expensive will normally be dependent on what phone techs charge for labour in your country.
You also have the option of sourcing a 2nd hand board (cheaper) online; I believe KeithRoss39's 'Replace USB board thread' in General has a list of online S2 parts suppliers to get you started, a Google search will yield others, and then taking the phone & board you've sourced to a local mobile repair shop (non-Samsung service centre) & paying them to swap the boards for you (assuming you don't have the necessary skills to do this yourself). This will be significantly cheaper than the new board option in most cases.
So, in summary, the enormously more likely fix (that will actually work) is #3, with #'s1 & #2 a lot less likely to succeed, though definitely still try #1 unless you're not fussed about spending the money to do #3 right away, and possibly try #2 with the caveat I mentioned.
Edit - Also/before you ask 'what happened/why did it crap itself', nobody here can give you any indication of that. There's obviously something major hardware-wise going on, and without the phone open in front of us, it's impossible to give you a meaningful answer to that question. And though it's a natural question to ask in this circumstance, it's kinda irrelevant - the phone has a hardware fault of some kind, it needs to be diagnosed by someone qualified & fixed. That's the best we can give you.
Extra edit - Actually, as well as trying to get into both 'modes' over and over and over as TheImpossibleEnemy excellently suggested, find Hopper8's 'Odin troubleshooting' thread stickied in General, and try the 'jump start' method where you try to boot the phone with just the charger/minus the battery detailed in his thread. Like #1 & #2, very unlikely to work, but given the alternative/money involved with that, you absolutely try it.
Thanks guys. Yes I ried vol up+home+power to access the recovery, no luck, no response from the phone. I won't be able to get resistors till after the weekend but I'll make a jig then and try that. As regards Options 2&3, the phone is very old now and I have a brand new one so I'm not willing to pay anything significant to get it sorted. I'm only bothered because a) my sisters phone broke so I was going to give her this for the time being and b) I'm worried I might have old photos on the phone I didn't backup
Unfortunately, unless you are able to get the phone to boot, you won't be recovering anything from it. Motherboard replacement means you get a new EMMC, and the only (very) remote possibility of extracting data from that without having the phone work somewhat normally, is a data recovery company which specialises in pulling data from dead HDD's. Fairly unlikely this is possible though (I've never seen anyone post they've been able to get this done in the 2.5 yrs I've been here), and if it is possible, expect it to be very expensive relative to the other fixes.
Crap, that's what I assumed. Thanks anyway. I'll try the jig after the weekend and post back here.
There's a thread in General which has people offering to share their jigs, take a look - there might be someone near you with one, which will might save you at least a couple days/a week/whatever waiting for a little e big B delivery.
Good luck.
Nobody near me unfortunately, but thanks. I wonder how difficult it would be to construct a working S2 from the two I have, one being bricked, and the other working but with a cracked screen. Might be an idea
switch the screens and that's it!:good:
The only problem with that one is it's most likely something on the MB has crapped itself; given the size of the components concerned, no tech worth their salt would attempt a fiddly replacement of individual components on the board given most electronics is 'modular' (everything is made up of 'boards') these days, and it takes no time/no stress for someone who knows what they're doing to simply swap a board.
Having said that, over the last 6-12 mths, we've seen threads/posts by people claiming they've been offered a fix where just the 'power IC' is replaced on the board. I've not seen a single person post & say they've had that repair done successfully in that time though, and you can easily end up with the situation where it's something else on the board that's buggered/as well, so you end up needing the board replaced anyway, or someone attempting the repair stuffs the board up because their soldering skills aren't up to scratch.
If the easy stuff you can try yourself doesn't work & you definitely want to keep the phone, replacing the board in the first instance is the (almost; assuming nothing else is wrong) guaranteed fix.
Edit - But yeah, you can definitely have a stab at trying the good screen on the dead phone on the good phone with the dead screen as per TheImpossibleEnemy's great suggestion. Doesn't get you your data, but it might just get you a working phone for pretty much nothing. Search for the service manuals on here (they've been posted from time to time here) or Google; these have full parts lists & diagrams/pics with run-throughs of the most common repairs (replacing screen is one of those from memory).
Great, thanks guys. I'm an electronic engineer so I'd be pretty handy at this stuff. Just wondering what the easier swap would be, moving mb from one phone to another, or screen from one to another.
Replacing the screen would be easier.
Really? I had a look over a guide for replacing the screen, and one for replacing motherboard. The motherboard replacement actually looked easier to me. Have you experience with doing this yourself?
Never had to
Just my opinion,because to access the mobo one would have to remove the screen first.
The choice is yours of course,as you are some kind of engineer,it should be easy for you to do it in both ways.
I'll take it apart later and see what looks easiest. Will update here
I have some experience with taking the S2 apart.
The way to take apart the phone is to take the back off of it......
This will reveal the circuitry on top of the screen and the circuitry fitted to the rear housing. You will be able to access the motherboard before you access the screen. Adding the *good* motherboard to the *good* screen will be the easiest option for you......
See my guide here....
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2335961
You'll find a link to a video that shows a step by step procedure for stripping an S2. You'll also find links for part suppliers......
Sent via my Markox/Gustavo_s powered KitKatted S2

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