Hi all
Can anyone help me. I'm sending my phone back to Vodafone for repair (dropped it into a sink full of water). When i flashed the stock Vodafone ROM to get it ready, the efs folder became corrupt so now I am showing no baseband or IMEI. I had done a backup using Hellcats companion tool, so no problems there. However, when I try to restore this,although the tool gives a message saying it has been restored successfully & I should reboot, nothing changes. After the restart I still have no IMEI or signal. Anyone got any ideas - I know it's going back for repair anyway, but I'm worried that they might use this as an excuse not to fix the phone?
Hi everyone,
So, I'm way out of my depth here and I've searched high and low for a similar situation to mine to no avail.
I'm fairly sure I have EFS issues. I flashed CM9 onto my S2 and had the RIL issue which caused me to have no reception. After trying about five different modems I gave up and went back to stock.
Unfortunately, I still have network issues. I realised after some mucking around that intermittently I my phone would recognise my baseband and IMEI and then it wouldn't, it would switch on restart. This sent me down the EFS issue, and now I'm freaking out.
I screwed around with my EFS and I don't seem to have done any permanent damage. My phone still recognises my baseband and IMEI, and it can still get a signal. Now I'm getting "Enter Network Lock Control Key" when I boot up though, and can only make emergency calls. The phone came unlocked, it was bought outright, and I have run CF-Root's unlock key finder to no avail.
Any suggestions?
Cheers
BobSwinkle said:
Hi everyone,
So, I'm way out of my depth here and I've searched high and low for a similar situation to mine to no avail.
I'm fairly sure I have EFS issues. I flashed CM9 onto my S2 and had the RIL issue which caused me to have no reception. After trying about five different modems I gave up and went back to stock.
Unfortunately, I still have network issues. I realised after some mucking around that intermittently I my phone would recognise my baseband and IMEI and then it wouldn't, it would switch on restart. This sent me down the EFS issue, and now I'm freaking out.
I screwed around with my EFS and I don't seem to have done any permanent damage. My phone still recognises my baseband and IMEI, and it can still get a signal. Now I'm getting "Enter Network Lock Control Key" when I boot up though, and can only make emergency calls. The phone came unlocked, it was bought outright, and I have run CF-Root's unlock key finder to no avail.
Any suggestions?
Cheers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try these apps.
1. (Try this one first, if it doesn't work, then try the second app).
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.helroz.galaxysunlock&hl=en
2.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.helroz.GSII_Repair&feature=more_from_developer
Good luck
Swyped from my Samsung Galaxy SII
Jokesy said:
Try these apps.
Good luck
Swyped from my Samsung Galaxy SII
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi, thanks for the reply. I've tried both those tools to no avail. The problem has regressed to the original problem now. Do you, or anyone else, know the trick to restoring an EFS folder that isn't hasn't been turned into a tar folder? I backed up before doing any of this, but the backup doesn't seem fully functional when I restore it.
BobSwinkle said:
Hi, thanks for the reply. I've tried both those tools to no avail. The problem has regressed to the original problem now. Do you, or anyone else, know the trick to restoring an EFS folder that isn't hasn't been turned into a tar folder? I backed up before doing any of this, but the backup doesn't seem fully functional when I restore it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry about that:
1. Have you ever flashed Siyah kernel before, when your phone was still working perfectly?
2. This should help you manually repair your efs folder : forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1264021
Ps: if you have flashed Siyah kernel before, it always backup your efs partition in .tar to external SD /EFS_BACKUP, with time stamp on each backup, each time you flash it.
Swyped from my Samsung Galaxy SII
Hi All,
I thought I’d share this as I’ve been pulling my hair out with trying to find answers to this, and sending it to old Sammy was the next option.
After trying everything on every forum, trying the QPST method, trying to use someone else's efs folder (which changed the serial as well) and every other complicated as hell method everyone had suggested, nothing worked expect his which I’ve not found mentioned anywhere as a solution to this (or any other) problem
In the Samsung Kies application under "Tools" there is "Firmware Upgrade and Initialisation,"
With your device unplugged (it will say not available for this model if its plugged in, don't plug it in until it tells you to when in download mode) select this and run the what it tells you to do,
After this is finished you will have a completely fresh install of the latest officially released firmware (for your original build eg. carrier branded) with original serial number and imei number :laugh:
It’s really silly how simple this is yet has not been mentioned or attempted by anyone else, or if it has, not mentioned by anyone else.
I crap you not…
Thanks,
[edit:] just as a note, I got into this problem by not backing up the efs, the world would be a much nicer place if everyone just backed up their efs :laugh:
This has been posted before and does not work in many cases .
Although the method can be useful to restore to original firmware .
jje
Yes, flashing a stock rom will sometimes fix the problem of the efs folder not being mounted or read. It won't fix a corrupt partition or damaged files.
The stock rom you flashed didn't contain any efs data so it isn't any substitute for a backup, you were very lucky it worked.
To my tests this work only when efs is completely empty while upgrade if not it doesn't work
sent from the state where Marijuana is NOT illegal !
Same problem
hello guys,
Well I'm to tell the story of how my aunt damaged apparently her phone
At first the phone is a samsung galaxy S3 from movistar (locked), and she bought a freaking iphone 5 to give the S3 to his husband and there it starts the problem he's in another company so she goes to a store to unlock the phone, the guys on the store supposedly unlocked the phone. So when she arrives home, she puts the sim into the phone and SORPRISE it says emergency calls only and not registered in network. After a week she calls me and hands me over the phone.
My surprise was when I put it in recovery mode, it says flash count 3, and then i did all these terrible things with thephone.
1) Flash it to a stock movistar rom 4.1.2.
2) Sorprise the IMEI sayd null.
3) Searching in the web, found the ariza patch, and I patched it without saving the efs (big mistake).
4) The phone imei's became 0049.
5) So I flash it back to the rom they put in the store and the imei went back I make sure it was the one on the back of the phone.
6) I still stuck in the emergency call not registered in the network thing.
7) Now I rooted the phone erased the whole content of the efs directory (this time with a back up).
8) Did the tutorial thing with samsung kies and I'm back with the movistar rom with the 0049 IMEI.
I don't what to do at this point besides going to samsung and send it to repair I really hope they can fix it at a low price.
Sorry for my english, I'm trying to improve it.
Best Regards
Andy Serrato... the spaniard
Start by reading the stickied faqs and guides EFS/IMEI sticky for one or just pay for a repair .
Galaxy S3(GT-I9300) having the same problem! HELP HELP HEEEELP PLEASE!!
Very unfortunately. this didn't solve my problem, the phone's Serial number is still that auto generated junk, and the EMEI is 00499901640000 as before. I had 4.1.2 on my S3 and Kies has updated it to 4.3 without resolving the issue!
can anyone give an idea on how to surely resolve this issue please. its about 3 months now ever since my phone got screwed up!
Pay for a repair
Perfect
I cannot believe this worked, but it did.
I messed up somehow by trying to flash the wrong cwm.tar file (for i9305) I needed i9300 of course and odin stopped halfway and got stuck, i then pulled the cable out and everything got very messy,.. i kept getting lots of errors etc. i somehow managed to install an old cm11 rom which worked lovely. BUT I had no baseband, no imei, no network, no number, nothing, #*06# or whatever it is, wouldn't work. nothing.
I then started to figure out how the efs filesystem worked, then foundout kies has an emergency thing where i guess they look into there database what your imei was when the phone was built. this would not work because I was using a custom rom (i think) but then I stumbled upon this post. thank goodness!!!!!
It's just restarted and internet, signal, imei is back, baseband version is back. all in order.
however, i think i was also very lucky, but for those of you who are in the position i was in, but this doesn't work, I do think there are ways to get an old efs going again and modify it to your "should be" imei,
if anyone needs an IMEI, I can give you one from a phone i had stolen in vietnam, (not sure its even legal to give it out but whatever)
thank you
Nev
EFS recovery
DonkeyDuck said:
Hi All,
I thought I’d share this as I’ve been pulling my hair out with trying to find answers to this, and sending it to old Sammy was the next option.
After trying everything on every forum, trying the QPST method, trying to use someone else's efs folder (which changed the serial as well) and every other complicated as hell method everyone had suggested, nothing worked expect his which I’ve not found mentioned anywhere as a solution to this (or any other) problem
In the Samsung Kies application under "Tools" there is "Firmware Upgrade and Initialisation,"
With your device unplugged (it will say not available for this model if its plugged in, don't plug it in until it tells you to when in download mode) select this and run the what it tells you to do,
After this is finished you will have a completely fresh install of the latest officially released firmware (for your original build eg. carrier branded) with original serial number and imei number :laugh:
It’s really silly how simple this is yet has not been mentioned or attempted by anyone else, or if it has, not mentioned by anyone else.
I crap you not…
Thanks,
[edit:] just as a note, I got into this problem by not backing up the efs, the world would be a much nicer place if everyone just backed up their efs :laugh:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
WOW! This worked! I had been struggling for 3 months with my Note 2. Been flashing rom after rom and got stuck in boot cycle. Actually broke down and brought phone to a cell repair shop. She said it just needed a new battery. $50 later got my phone back. She had put stock AT&T rom on it but lo and behold, my sim card didn't work and my IMEI was null. I brought it back and she had it for a week and then said there was a hardware problem AND my USB port wasn't working and it would cost more to fix than it was worth, so she gave it back to me no charge. So I spent next months trying other roms. reading up on EFS folder, even learned some ADB stuff. To no avail. And BTW, my usb port seems to work fine. Finally this afternoon after Turkey Dinner, I stumbled across your forum message. And 15 minutes later I was downloading a repair and the son of a gun fixed everything. I verified it with a Sim card - perfect ! Apparently Samsung has a database of phone serial numbers and what IMEI code goes with them. Fanatastic! Thank you. I will be writing a serious neg review of that cell phone repair place soon.
kangerX said:
To my tests this work only when efs is completely empty while upgrade if not it doesn't work
sent from the state where Marijuana is NOT illegal !
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have tried the method posted in the thread ..... but EFS didn't recovered ........ so i decided to follow your procedure
like making empty EFS folder.... so how can i do that ...and if so will it work .....as someone here mentioned that Download firmware package doesn't contains any EFS contains .... help me out :good:
DonkeyDuck said:
Hi All,
I thought I’d share this as I’ve been pulling my hair out with trying to find answers to this, and sending it to old Sammy was the next option.
After trying everything on every forum, trying the QPST method, trying to use someone else's efs folder (which changed the serial as well) and every other complicated as hell method everyone had suggested, nothing worked expect his which I’ve not found mentioned anywhere as a solution to this (or any other) problem
In the Samsung Kies application under "Tools" there is "Firmware Upgrade and Initialisation,"
With your device unplugged (it will say not available for this model if its plugged in, don't plug it in until it tells you to when in download mode) select this and run the what it tells you to do,
After this is finished you will have a completely fresh install of the latest officially released firmware (for your original build eg. carrier branded) with original serial number and imei number :laugh:
It’s really silly how simple this is yet has not been mentioned or attempted by anyone else, or if it has, not mentioned by anyone else.
I crap you not…
Thanks,
[edit:] just as a note, I got into this problem by not backing up the efs, the world would be a much nicer place if everyone just backed up their efs :laugh:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i love u so much right now,.. worked like a charm,.. and after thjat i was able to unlock my phone,... thanks so much i would love to give u 10000 thanks
I cant get past entering my model number,, I read it right from under the battery and it still keeps telling me to enter the model number. G550T1 doesnt change from G550T1 no matter how many times you type it... I give up.. If I could just get a twrp backup for mine I may be able to fix it. It's metropcs! flashing to the T-Mobile twrp backup by mistake thinking it was the metropcs one is what got me in this situation... Should have paid better attention...
UPDATE: It took my numbers and I'm trying it now, wish me luck
Well I got it to take my model number and did the whole software thing. Everything is all back to stock but it didnt fix the problem.. Still no net work and says theres no sim card.
Which shop samsung
Which shop samsung or repair shop bro.
Please tell.?????? me I am facing too problem.
stwischu said:
WOW! This worked! I had been struggling for 3 months with my Note 2. Been flashing rom after rom and got stuck in boot cycle. Actually broke down and brought phone to a cell repair shop. She said it just needed a new battery. $50 later got my phone back. She had put stock AT&T rom on it but lo and behold, my sim card didn't work and my IMEI was null. I brought it back and she had it for a week and then said there was a hardware problem AND my USB port wasn't working and it would cost more to fix than it was worth, so she gave it back to me no charge. So I spent next months trying other roms. reading up on EFS folder, even learned some ADB stuff. To no avail. And BTW, my usb port seems to work fine. Finally this afternoon after Turkey Dinner, I stumbled across your forum message. And 15 minutes later I was downloading a repair and the son of a gun fixed everything. I verified it with a Sim card - perfect ! Apparently Samsung has a database of phone serial numbers and what IMEI code goes with them. Fanatastic! Thank you. I will be writing a serious neg review of that cell phone repair place soon.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have a Samsung Galaxy S3 bought in Europe. Today I installed the Paranoid Rom. Unfortunately when going back to stock later today I lost my network and IMEI. I can't believe this happend after al the roms I installed so far.
I read to several tutorials on how to fix this but I am running into several problems before I get started.
When playing with my phone I accidentally made an EFS back up about a year ago, not knowing what is was.Too bad my external HD crashed a while back and lost that so I don't have it anymore.
I read that you can get your IMEI back with sgs3.nv.gen.zip but I can't download sgs3.nv.gen.zip from anywhere because Microsoft Security Essentials keeps saying it's a virus, even after turning it off with msconfig.
When running that NV reader/writer and typing in the number, I only get UART MODEM or PDA and USB MODEM or PDA and no other options.
I really hope someone can help me with this... Thanks so much
Did you actually read general > sticky roll-up thread > IMEI \ EFS - Know this stuff?
If not, do.
SOLVED
I did actually and i understand it. i was lucky enough that i had made some backups so when I used Ktool to make a backup it was just a matter of copy/paste the old files. And it seems to work for now. It also seemed to work with Cyanogenmod but now i am back on stock.
I have lost my IMEI after flashing a ROM. I did make a backup of my efs folder, but unsure how to use it to get back my IMEI. I could really use help with this, if someone could PM me and maybe help through skype that would be great.
I have tried every method I could find on XDA without luck. Sadly the replacement phone is an ME7. I have until this afternoon to try anymore possible fixes. My IMEI show's up now in the about phone, but I still have no 3g/4g or service for making phone calls. On top of that the phone likes to think it is in Airplane mode at all times and is basically impossible to turn off. Again I do have a copy of the original efs folder, but I fear that may do me no good. If anyone else has ideas that may help me solve this matter that would be great. I am willing to talk via thread, PM, or skype. The phone is currently unrooted and returned to stock to be sent in for warranty.
Thanks,
Muraki