Hi,
First, I work in a phone repair shop, I'm not trying anything illegal!
I have a Z3x Box at the work, and a S3 i9300 myself.
A friend with another S3 at 600 miles, and has lost his EFS. I already told him to make a backup, but unfortunately he had it on the internal SD. After a bad ROM flash he had to use a PIT file for flashing a stock rom, and that he wiped everything.
His EFS folder was blank, no nv_data or anything.
With the z3x, I tried putting his imei and S/N on my EFS, then doing a backup and sending that copy to him (obviously I restored my phone after that) but it didn't work.
So, I'd like to know if there's any way to repair or regenerate the EFS with a working phone as base, without having to send the phone
dabyd64 said:
Hi,
First, I work in a phone repair shop, I'm not trying anything illegal!
I have a Z3x Box at the work, and a S3 i9300 myself.
A friend with another S3 at 600 miles, and has lost his EFS. I already told him to make a backup, but unfortunately he had it on the internal SD. After a bad ROM flash he had to use a PIT file for flashing a stock rom, and that he wiped everything.
His EFS folder was blank, no nv_data or anything.
With the z3x, I tried putting his imei and S/N on my EFS, then doing a backup and sending that copy to him (obviously I restored my phone after that) but it didn't work.
So, I'd like to know if there's any way to repair or regenerate the EFS with a working phone as base, without having to send the phone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately i think it's not possible, i think z3x must have the phone connected, i needed to repair my efs via z3x and it could be only done via cable, and also, say your friend he is stuck with patched modem / kernel for the rest of his life, or else he will have Emergency cals only and baseband unknown. Must love z3x as much as you must hate it
Related
Dear All,
My Galaxy S3 cannot connect to network after rom update. I have searched a lot but i could not figure out the problem since i have no problem with my imei. I can see correct imei, but no serial number no hardware revision and no signal when sim is inserted. without sim it can detect signals.
To figure out problem i need EFS.tar of some working I9300. If some one can provide me his efs backup in tar, i will be a big help for me.
ha ha ha ha ha! You really think someone is going to give you their efs?!
©®™ slappy
slaphead20 said:
ha ha ha ha ha! You really think someone is going to give you their efs?!
©®™ slappy
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda app-developers app
muhammad.ali123 said:
Dear All,
My Galaxy S3 cannot connect to network after rom update. I have searched a lot but i could not figure out the problem since i have no problem with my imei. I can see correct imei, but no serial number no hardware revision and no signal when sim is inserted. without sim it can detect signals.
To figure out problem i need EFS.tar of some working I9300. If some one can provide me his efs backup in tar, i will be a big help for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry to be the one to tell you this, but without a proper backup, you almost certainly won't be able to recover the efs folder. That's why backing up the efs folder is so critical before you begin any flashing procedure. It contains information unique to your device, without which, you have basically a very expensive media player.
donalgodon said:
Sorry to be the one to tell you this, but without a proper backup, you almost certainly won't be able to recover the efs folder. That's why backing up the efs folder is so critical before you begin any flashing procedure. It contains information unique to your device, without which, you have basically a very expensive media player.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does this means that even if have another efs folder it will be no use to me?
I have my EFS folder intact and it has all files in it. but there is some problem with any file, that does not allow to register to network.
That's quite unfortunate, backing up my EFS folder was the 1st thing I did after getting my phone to avoid this kind of issues (prior rooting, of course).
By the way, was it an official OTA update or was it manually injected?
Any piece of information you can bring about the issue may help people here to figure out a way to help you.
How sure are you it is the EFS that's the problem? If you can see the folder and it has files in it, why are you looking at EFS being the problem? I'd have thought with a corrupted EFS you wouldn't have a file structure to be looking at, but I may be confused as to what an EFS is/does)
Have you tried using CWM to Factory Reset, wipe data and Dalvik and then run your Rom again?
Have you tried downloading and flashing a stock ROM for your phone?
VulguM said:
That's quite unfortunate, backing up my EFS folder was the 1st thing I did after getting my phone to avoid this kind of issues (prior rooting, of course).
By the way, was it an official OTA update or was it manually injected?
Any piece of information you can bring about the issue may help people here to figure out a way to help you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Infact there was an OTA update but it failed to install from stock recovery mode. After reboot there was a message to use kies or contact service.
So i used. But kies showed that it cannot updte this phone ( because CSC was XXX ) so i used firmware inatialization method to download firmware by entering model and serial number in kies.
After update i was stuck in this situation,
Have you flashed a stock Rom with Odin to try and rectify?
Journyman16 said:
How sure are you it is the EFS that's the problem? If you can see the folder and it has files in it, why are you looking at EFS being the problem? I'd have thought with a corrupted EFS you wouldn't have a file structure to be looking at, but I may be confused as to what an EFS is/does)
Have you tried using CWM to Factory Reset, wipe data and Dalvik and then run your Rom again?
Have you tried downloading and flashing a stock ROM for your phone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes i am also confused about this.
Befor touching EFS folder i did factory reset, wiped data, delvik , re installed different official and custom roms. But it did not solve my issue.
I focused my attention to efs because all my symptoms are similar to people who have lost their imei. But my imei is O.K
You have any other suggestions.
slaphead20 said:
Have you flashed a stock Rom with Odin to try and rectify?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I flashed LE8 and LH1 via odin , but it did not help
If your IMEI is intact its not generally an EFS issue.
Asking for someones EFS backup is generally a no no, and it wouldn't work anyway.
My understanding, from reading what Odia posted (who is generally considered the expert on this sort of thing) is that the EFS is in part encrypted with the devices ID, so if you use someone else's EFS on your device, it will fall back to the generic IMEI which would be worse.
Try flashing a full odin firmware and go from there.
veyka said:
If your IMEI is intact its not generally an EFS issue.
Asking for someones EFS backup is generally a no no, and it wouldn't work anyway.
My understanding, from reading what Odia posted (who is generally considered the expert on this sort of thing) is that the EFS is in part encrypted with the devices ID, so if you use someone else's EFS on your device, it will fall back to the generic IMEI which would be worse.
Try flashing a full odin firmware and go from there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have tried using LE8 and LH1 from samfirmware.
Is there any other full odin firmware?
I'm a little confused here. If I am reading this correctly, the phone works OK except it will not connect to a network and so doesn't work as a phone any more. Is that correct?
If so, maybe you're flashing the wrong thing - you might need to flash Modem firmware not ROM. Now I might be even more confused than I think I am, but it seems to me all the Comms stuff will require the modem side of things to be correct. It's possible I think) to have flashed a ROM that could be incompatible or which corrupted your modem side of things.
Keep in mind I am still learning this stuff, but recently I thought I'd get ready to flash a JB ROM by flashing a kernel that was supposed to be for JB - there were others there with a warning NOT to use with JB so I figured I should get one suitable for JB - long story short I had a non-starting phone and had to work from scratch with PC Odin to get everything working again.
So, I am guessing that the ROM you are flashing also needs a kernel and Modem flash. I'm also hoping if I am wrong someone more experienced will tell me why
My guess is also you'd need to flash kernel, then ROM, then Modem, and make sure they are all to whatever version o Android you are wanting to have.
Am I making sense or am I talking through my proverbial?
have you try to use another micro Sim, it can be micro Sim reader o your Sim.
I got my phone repaired from a third party repair centre,
They used SPT box to repair the efs folder. Now i have signals and it can connect normally.
It cost my $60 for repair.
Thanks to every one for helping me out in the repair.
Hey guys,
i had some heavy problems with my IMEI. I flashed my GT-I9300 with some custom roms, at the beginning no problem, but later my IMEI wasn´t shown anymore and i couldn´t connect to my providing network. A custom rom corrupted my efs folder and overwrited some files. I tried to restore a cwm backup i did before flashing a custom rom, flashed some stock roms and at last i tried emergency restore of stock firmware via Kies. nothing helped. so i resetted the counter via triangle away and made my s3 ready for sending to repair. At least i took out my sim. After i started it again for using wlan and whats app, my IMEI suddenly was back!!! So i took my sim into my device and tested it, now works fine like on it´s first day of usage. So could someone explain me what is happened? I called one hour before with my provider, could he have anything to do with? i proved my efs folder after every restore of an update, the corrupted files were still corrupt but now i wont change anything on my folder to prove if the files were new written or restored back? it is possible that my efs folder was written new from anywhere or what happened?
hello i have an issue with my IMEI on the samsung galaxy s3 i9300, i restored a rom from another phone with TWRP recovery and the EFS was ticked. and that's when the problem started and after that i flashed 4.3 rom on it but nothing happed, I also tried installing different modems, go back to stock firmware, but when i tried to use QPST or NV reader/writer i was not able to connect the phone in serial mode, only modem would show up. also if i try to put *#7284# i do not get the qualcomm USB settings so i tried doing it with the quickshortcut but when ever i click on the RMNET+ DM + MODEM it automatically goes on MTP. I went trhough older threads. they did not work at all :crying::crying:
Restoring an efs from another phone is illegal as you are attempting to alter the imei, Samsung have obviously prevented this.
If you have the phone's original efs backup, from before you restored the twrp backup, then I'd suggest you use it.
This thread will probably be locked by a moderator.
boomboomer said:
Restoring an efs from another phone is illegal as you are attempting to alter the imei, Samsung have obviously prevented this.
If you have the phone's original efs backup, from before you restored the twrp backup, then I'd suggest you use it.
This thread will probably be locked by a moderator.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
is there anyway to fix it? i restored it by accident, i backed up the phone with kies, would that help ? i only wanted to restore the data
Pretty sure kies won't backup the efs, but worth a try -there is no other way to fix efs than a service centre.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk
Hey, messed up my phone and could really use some help:
I own a Galaxy Note (GT-N7000). Suddenly the IMEI went null/null and baseband unknown. Tried many things to recover from this but nothing seemed to work. I left the phone with the latest stock rom (Jellybean 4.1.2)
I then installed EFS Professional (rooting the phone first and installing BusyBox) and could connect to the phone with EFS Pro. I tried doing baseband and IEMI repair, and though the log showed it had successfully restores from .bak files in /efs partition, IMEI and baseband were still null.
So then I totally screwed it, hitting the "format EFS partition" by mistake (it was 3am by then) and didn't make a backup first. The phone wouldn't boot, so I flashed the latest stock rom again and now it continually loops when showing the Samsung logo when I turn it on. I can turn it on in download mode and recovery mode. When on recovery mode, it says /efs partition not found so I guess that makes sense.
The question here would be: is there any way I can fix it without sending it to service? Some options that sound possible:
- Flash the phone with some other custom ROM that would repartition the whole phone, thus creating an /efs partition again
- Use some nice software to recover the /efs partition
I'm sure that if a service can fix it, there should be a way I could do it as well.
I know my IMEI number (it's in the sticker on the back of the phone) so there should be a way to restore it into de efs partition, right?
Thank you all and forgive me if I've made some noob comment on this post...just doing my best
javigoile said:
Hey, messed up my phone and could really use some help:
I own a Galaxy Note (GT-N7000). Suddenly the IMEI went null/null and baseband unknown. Tried many things to recover from this but nothing seemed to work. I left the phone with the latest stock rom (Jellybean 4.1.2)
I then installed EFS Professional (rooting the phone first and installing BusyBox) and could connect to the phone with EFS Pro. I tried doing baseband and IEMI repair, and though the log showed it had successfully restores from .bak files in /efs partition, IMEI and baseband were still null.
So then I totally screwed it, hitting the "format EFS partition" by mistake (it was 3am by then) and didn't make a backup first. The phone wouldn't boot, so I flashed the latest stock rom again and now it continually loops when showing the Samsung logo when I turn it on. I can turn it on in download mode and recovery mode. When on recovery mode, it says /efs partition not found so I guess that makes sense.
The question here would be: is there any way I can fix it without sending it to service? Some options that sound possible:
- Flash the phone with some other custom ROM that would repartition the whole phone, thus creating an /efs partition again
- Use some nice software to recover the /efs partition
I'm sure that if a service can fix it, there should be a way I could do it as well.
I know my IMEI number (it's in the sticker on the back of the phone) so there should be a way to restore it into de efs partition, right?
Thank you all and forgive me if I've made some noob comment on this post...just doing my best
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
something like a stock odin flash would fix it: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2261598 as long as it flashes a pit file
then once that works, see if efs pro will let you manually set the imei.
if not, then make sure you are stock, and make sure you use triangle away or something and then send it in.
Lgrootnoob said:
something like a stock odin flash would fix it: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2261598 as long as it flashes a pit file
then once that works, see if efs pro will let you manually set the imei.
if not, then make sure you are stock, and make sure you use triangle away or something and then send it in.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the help! I'm downloading the AT&T stock rom from the thread you provided and will let you know how it works after flashing it
javigoile said:
Thanks for the help! I'm downloading the AT&T stock rom from the thread you provided and will let you know how it works after flashing it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Whoaaaa You should STOP ASAP! You can't flash the AT&T firmware via Odin since you have the international version.
es0tericcha0s said:
Whoaaaa You should STOP ASAP! You can't flash the AT&T firmware via Odin since you have the international version.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm from Argentina, this phone is from Movistar carrier. Right now I have the latest stock rom from Movistar flashed, but the rom available does not have any PIT file, so I can't get my efs partition restored and the phone does not boot in normal mode (only download and recovery mode).
As far as I can remember, any phone that works with AT&T in the US works just fine in Argentina with Movistar. I've brought some iPhones from AT&T (not unlocked) and they worked without a problem.
I believe that I have the international version, but what could happen if I flashed the AT&T stock rom?
Thanks!
javigoile said:
I'm from Argentina, this phone is from Movistar carrier. Right now I have the latest stock rom from Movistar flashed, but the rom available does not have any PIT file, so I can't get my efs partition restored and the phone does not boot in normal mode (only download and recovery mode).
As far as I can remember, any phone that works with AT&T in the US works just fine in Argentina with Movistar. I've brought some iPhones from AT&T (not unlocked) and they worked without a problem.
I believe that I have the international version, but what could happen if I flashed the AT&T stock rom?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's either going to fail at trying to install the modem and do nothing, or it'll make it worse. In no way is it going to help anything.
You should be able to find your firmware here:
http://www.sammobile.com/firmwares/
Thanks. I had already downloaded the Movistar stock rom from Sammobile and this time I tried flashing it (using Odin) together with the PIT file and though it said something in the result log about using pit file for mapping, result was the same...still stuck with a bad efs partition that makes the booting loop again and again...
Any thoughts? How can I fix my efs partition? Any help is much appreciated.
Not sure there would be much more to do on your own without the official backup without special tools like SPT, Octopus Box, SRS, etc, but those cost more than the phone, so would have to find a shop that has the equipment and is also competent at using them. Many of the major software tools have repos with files like you need and the correct way to load them. I'd love to have one for my shop, but requests to fix stuff like this don't come often enough to justify the expense when there are more pressing matters...
On another forum they were saying that you can use the efs backup from another clean phone because it does not actually contain the IMEI, so if you could find one of those... I tried to download a couple for you yesterday to test but they either failed to open correctly or didn't pass the md5 validity check in Odin, which is why I didn't repost.
I didnt mean flash the rom I linked. That was an example. sorry guys.
Lgrootnoob said:
I didnt mean flash the rom I linked. That was an example. sorry guys.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Desperate times call for desperate measures
I'm still working on restoring the /efs partition, even with a null IMEI, at least to be able to use the phone with wi-fi for other purposes (if I can't find someone to flash a good efs.img and restore the IMEI completely).
Right now it's still a brick. Will post update soon.
Thank you all!
javigoile said:
Desperate times call for desperate measures
I'm still working on restoring the /efs partition, even with a null IMEI, at least to be able to use the phone with wi-fi for other purposes (if I can't find someone to flash a good efs.img and restore the IMEI completely).
Right now it's still a brick. Will post update soon.
Thank you all!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I found some links.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1724415
http://www.sammobile.com/forum/showthread.php?t=13564
http://imadn2008.blogspot.com/2013/01/fix-boot-loop-for-samsung-galaxy-note.html
Please, I need help, my motherboard burned and bought a new one with no IMEI, after the technician installed the motherboard, it got generic IMEI "0049 ..." Before the burn motherboard, I had made a backup of the ROM "4.0.4" using CWM, and made a copy of the folder EFS "efs.img/efs.tar.gz" using KTOOL, not sure about KTOOL because was this in 2012^^, but I've tried everything I know, I have tried to restore using the KTOOL, already restored the backup using CWM, already flash ROM "4.1.2/4.3" via ODIN, I have done several reported here in some posts related about IMEI but it still fails, hope some enlightened can help me :/ sorry for my bad english
Model: GT-I9300
Actual ROM: 4.0.4
isisnx said:
Please, I need help, my motherboard burned and bought a new one with no IMEI, after the technician installed the motherboard, it got generic IMEI "0049 ..." Before the burn motherboard, I had made a backup of the ROM "4.0.4" using CWM, and made a copy of the folder EFS "efs.img/efs.tar.gz" using KTOOL, not sure about KTOOL because was this in 2012^^, but I've tried everything I know, I have tried to restore using the KTOOL, already restored the backup using CWM, already flash ROM "4.1.2/4.3" via ODIN, I have done several reported here in some posts related about IMEI but it still fails, hope some enlightened can help me :/ sorry for my bad english
Model: GT-I9300
Actual ROM: 4.0.4
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
error of the technician, the imei is stored in the nand chip(comes with the mobo)and he should had flashed correctly it for you
now since you made a ktool backup(dont know what it is, but looks like a imei backup) and if this ktool is designed for the s3(so it backups all efs partitions, if i remember there are 3, can be wrong tho) you*should* could restore.
but there is a problem,if ktool is correct but its from 2012 that means it did a backup of the old style efs partiton (efsv1) witch dosent work anymore since Samsung upgraded it to efsv2 and downgrading will not help
what you should do is get a s3 with 4.1.2 or earlier and restore your efs to that, upgrade it to 4.3, and get a new efs backup
i could be wrong tho
Edit: i remember a thread about a guy fixing the imei issue without a backup, and i remember Reading a part where he formats the efs partition, so that should help, see if you can find it(i can´t look now). it was in the s3 forums
You cannot restore an efs backup to another handset or motherboard, it's also illegal to change the imei and discussion of this is banned on xda.
Your new motherboard is faulty, return it to the technician.
boomboomer said:
You cannot restore an efs backup to another handset or motherboard, it's also illegal to change the imei and discussion of this is banned on xda.
Your new motherboard is faulty, return it to the technician.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
really? excuse me is that I see many people talking about it here and have never seen any warning from the moderators, I thought it was legal because everyone says that the IMEI does not change, even changing the motherboard. And I have the invoice from the phone, just did not want to take the support of samsung because they charge too much.
Backing up and restoring efs to same motherboard/handset is legal, trying to move the imei from your old motherboard to new is illegal for you to do.