[Q] Root and EFS directories corrupted - Galaxy S III Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hello guys,
I have been flashing roms for a while now. Turns out that 2 months ago i flashed CM11 (nightly version) and everything was going fine until i tried to "network unlock" my s3 (the company code that enables you to use any sim in the world), and the software that i was going to use would only work in 4.0.4! My mistake.... downgraded to a version of 4.0.4, and since then i dont have any signal (circled icon in top bar).
What i did:
- Read a lot of guides here
- Flash a XXMG4 modem which fixed my signal and not my EFS
- Restore my EFS
Where is the problem?
- If i restore my EFS directory with root explorer (copy, paste/replace in root directory), i get signal and i can make calls again, but if i reboot, the efs directory (and other directories in /) are blank.
- I guessed that it was a problem of permissions, so i set the same permissions of the "after-botting-efs-created" directory, and nothing happened, after i reboot, even the efs folder created by the system, gets recreated again.
- Then i thought that there was an issue with something else and i checked the phone with EFS PRO, and when i try to fix nv_data or the EFS, it says that the software fails to mount the efs. So i assume that my issue could be related to some corrupted partition or something.
In the meanwhile i cant upgrade to 4.1 because the efs is corrupted and ill get boot loop once i flash 4.1. Resuming, only 4.0.4 is working right now and the efs gets regenerated.
Any help? Did i miss some guide?

Related

ICS baseband unknown

The Baseband problem started when I flashed ICS euphoria from toxic 9.
I tried stock>cm7 initials>ICS passion> euphoria>slim the same problem IMEI is 004999010640000 or unknown.
The efs folder contains lost + found folder and it cannot be deleted. I also tried EFS pro to restore EFS. But nothing works coz the nv_data.bin is used and generated by some process.
Help !!! I am stuck in froyo (The IMEI NO is correct and the phone works in froyo)
had a similar problem
caldran said:
The Baseband problem started when I flashed ICS euphoria from toxic 9.
I tried stock>cm7 initials>ICS passion> euphoria>slim the same problem IMEI is 004999010640000 or unknown.
The efs folder contains lost + found folder and it cannot be deleted. I also tried EFS pro to restore EFS. But nothing works coz the nv_data.bin is used and generated by some process.
Help !!! I am stuck in froyo (The IMEI NO is correct and the phone works in froyo)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had a similar problem. So here's what worked for me. Used root explorer to overwrite the old efs folder on the current one. Then flashed a known working baseband and eureka!! my phone was up and running.
Hope this helps.
Solved it by deleting all the files in EFS folder and replacing it with back up files.
The phone should be in flight mode. Then restart the phone.
The size of the EFS folder changes from 5 mb in froyo to 11 mb ICS may be thats the problem.

[Q] Backup of EFS Folder - No IMEI/ Baseband

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

[Q] Should I still do an EFS restore with format?

Hi all
I've got CM9.1 on my phone and I've been having the flaky issue of signal loss that a few others are reporting. I've been trying to fix it with GetRIL and swapping modems which havent been successful so far. Anyway this morning I woke up to find that my signal was gone again. Upon rebooting it (normally fixes it), I lost my baseband as it said "Baseband is unknown" in the phone settings.
A bit of googling and the fix was to restore the EFS backup but I kept getting root failure errors (stupid me didnt know there was a setting to enable root access to ADB). Anyway in desperation I just reflashed CM9.1, gapps and my modem to see if that would fix it - and it did!
But now im worried - was it that my EFS was just set to read only or was it corrupt. Do you think I should reformat my EFS partition and restore from backup just in case? Is there any risks / downside to formatting the EFS partition? Plus my backup is from 2011 so its a fair while ago.
Thanks

[Q]IMEI bug(?) Can't flash anything without losing it / can't restore

I've flashed roms and mods on my Sgs2 since I bought it 2 years ago. I've bricked it a few times and I always managed to fix it by myself, I only asked for help when my WiFi stopped working and I couldn't get signal at all only emergency calls (Never found fix for WiFi).
Anyway, I'm facing a similar problem now with my IMEI, I had this problem before and I learned how to fix it but now nothing works.
I've used EFS Pro, Restored a nandroid, flashed a stock samsung JB ROM (even though I don't think ROMs do anything to efs) I used kTool from Hellcat and the only way to make it work is doing my nandroid restore (CM9.. old nandroid backup) and copy pasting my efs folder I have backed up, however, If I copy paste the folder using another ROM (thats how I always fixed my corrupted imei) it doesn't work anymore, It only works once after restoring nandroid CM9, If i flash CM9 Odin it doesn't work, any ROM I install gives me corrupted imei. this problem started happening since I flashed stock JB ROM, I NEVER could use stock JB ROM without losing my IMEI, and I wasn't able to put it back by copy pasting efs folder (always used to work when i had this problem) another thing ~ I used NukeWipe Script ~ before moving to Android 4.2.2 now I only can use my phone with CM9 from my nandroid and fixing the imei there by copy pasting my backed up EFS. If I flash anything else my IMEI gets corrupted and I can't fix it with anything! hoping for some help, I would like to know how much will it cost me to fix this, take in mind that I'm from Mexico and USD is pretty expensive here
PS: I also tried the tutorial of Recover IMEI in 9 steps and it didn't work.
When I restore my nandroid I have a corrupted imei and no signal, my nandroid doesn't have a file explorer so I download one from market.. how do I download one from market if i have no signal at all and corrupted imei? I don't know ... I don't even have the 3G icon or any signal and it says no service but internet works fine.
PunkOz said:
I've flashed roms and mods on my Sgs2 since I bought it 2 years ago. I've bricked it a few times and I always managed to fix it by myself, I only asked for help when my WiFi stopped working and I couldn't get signal at all only emergency calls (Never found fix for WiFi).
Anyway, I'm facing a similar problem now with my IMEI, I had this problem before and I learned how to fix it but now nothing works.
I've used EFS Pro, Restored a nandroid, flashed a stock samsung JB ROM (even though I don't think ROMs do anything to efs) I used kTool from Hellcat and the only way to make it work is doing my nandroid restore (CM9.. old nandroid backup) and copy pasting my efs folder I have backed up, however, If I copy paste the folder using another ROM (thats how I always fixed my corrupted imei) it doesn't work anymore, It only works once after restoring nandroid CM9, If i flash CM9 Odin it doesn't work, any ROM I install gives me corrupted imei. this problem started happening since I flashed stock JB ROM, I NEVER could use stock JB ROM without losing my IMEI, and I wasn't able to put it back by copy pasting efs folder (always used to work when i had this problem) another thing ~ I used NukeWipe Script ~ before moving to Android 4.2.2 now I only can use my phone with CM9 from my nandroid and fixing the imei there by copy pasting my backed up EFS. If I flash anything else my IMEI gets corrupted and I can't fix it with anything! hoping for some help, I would like to know how much will it cost me to fix this, take in mind that I'm from Mexico and USD is pretty expensive here
PS: I also tried the tutorial of Recover IMEI in 9 steps and it didn't work.
When I restore my nandroid I have a corrupted imei and no signal, my nandroid doesn't have a file explorer so I download one from market.. how do I download one from market if i have no signal at all and corrupted imei? I don't know ... I don't even have the 3G icon or any signal and it says no service but internet works fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Back up your efs folder with another app like galaxy s unlock or something (some apps make a copy of the EFS folder while other apps make an image of it), copy them to your PC then flash stock with mobile odin and see what happens.
gastonw said:
Back up your efs folder with another app like galaxy s unlock or something (some apps make a copy of the EFS folder while other apps make an image of it), copy them to your PC then flash stock with mobile odin and see what happens.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I managed to get my imei back, codeworkx helped me, all i had to do was restore efs and then flash stock GB check if i still have my imei then flash ics then check if i had my imei then flash the old rom i had (mcm 4.2.1) and i had my imei but ... i tried to update to 4.2.2 nightly and my imei got corrupted, can't restore it while using 4.2.2, I couldn't use stock JB because of this, im guessing this is happening in 4.2.2 because they're using new stuff from stock JB.
Any ideas?
Could be, tattoo EFS on your arm just in case.
Sent from the little guy

Lost IMEI, have backup but does not restore IMEI!! HELP!!!

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!

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