[Fascinate General] DaleV:
HOW TO UN-BRICK YOUR FASCINATE NOW THAT YOU HAVE BRICKED IT

SINCE IT HAS COME TO MY ATTENTION SOME POEPLE ARE CONFUSED ABOUT WHAT PHONE THIS IS FOR, I WILL MAKE IT AS CLEAR AS POSSIBLE

THIS IS FOR THE VERIZON FASCINATE

So you think you bricked your phone? The first thing you need to do is CALM DOWN, NO NEED TO PANIC , the odds are great that following this guide will fix your mistakes and recover your phone.

Sorry Fascinate owners, but I can no longer support this thread. As state below I test everything I post to make sure it works as advertised. I no longer have a fascinate so i can not test anything new. Sorry but the links to some of the files are gone I don't have them anymore so I suggest you look through the comments someone will have someplace to get what you need. Your recovery methods may have changed but this can still be used to recover your device. If you are looking for anything new look at nitsuj17's roll up post here, he maintains it very well so you should be able to find whatever else you need there.

I HAVE PURPOSELY BRICKED MY PHONE BY DOING THE THINGS YOU ARE TOLD NOT TO JUST TO TEST THE CAPABILITIES OF THESE RECOVERY PROGRAMS. UNLESS YOU CAN AFFORD TO HAVE YOUR PHONE REPLACED BY INSURANCE, TRUST THAT I KNOW WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT.

SECTION 1: ODIN

SECTION 2: HEIMDALL

SECTION 3: ROOTING METHODS

Since there seems to be an abundance of posts in the Q&A and General Forums asking for help fixing, unbricking, their Fascinates, I decided to try to make a one stop walk through for odin and heimdall with links. Most of us "flash addicts", Developers, and testers have found the Samsung Galaxy Phones are nearly impossible to truly brick without causing physical damage to your phone, in almost all cases it is possible to get it working again.This is nothing more than how to get back a working STOCK phone, nothing custom here that's in the Development section. The first section will cover odin, the second heimdall, the third recovery and rooting.

USUAL WARNING: Everything here is done at your own risk. None of us on the XDA Developers site are responsible in any way, after all we didn't brick it you did. Doing any of this is your decision, I am just providing a collection of information. All credit for everything here belongs to others, who worked hard to give you a way to fix your mistakes, and it usually is the owner of the device trying something without learning how first, or not following directions that got you here in the first place.

My Phone wont boot at all, is stuck at logo, or I cant do anything with it is it a paperweight?

Most likely, no, so lets get to fixing it. All download links necessary for each process will be posted in this walk through and have been tested to make sure they work.

SECTION 1: ODIN

Everything except for the pit file in odin MUST be done in the PDA slot, if not it will not work requiring you to odin again, or possibly have to use heimdall (covered later in this thread) to fix that. After you download odin, I use v1.83 but I will provide all versions I have.

First you need to decide if you want to go all the way back to DI01 (Android 2.1 "Eclair") or EB01, EC01, or a little more involved process for ED01, or ED03 (android 2.2 "Froyo") it makes all the difference with the files you need. The pit file is not necessary for most recoveries, but I have included due to a few issues that will require you to completely wipe everything but your SD card and start over. All of this is possible thanks to our talented developers. After you have odin and all the files you need on your Windows Vista or Win 7 PC, This DOES NOT work on XP, I have had a lot of responses to support this, so lets go with it won't work use Vista or Win 7. To load any file you click that button and use the windows explorer pop up to find your file select it and click open at the bottom of the window.

Start by powering off phone, the pull out battery.

Open odin and load your file in PDA and ONLY THE PDA (downloads) section, If you knew enough about this program to use the other areas you would not need this walk through, soPDA and ONLY THE PDA (downloads) section, for an, all in 1 Recovery. If you are doing a non packaged update I suggest installing the rom one first, modems and recoveries are a lot faster install.

If you are repartitioning put the pit file in the (Pit) section,verify repartition is checked.

Plug your phone into a USB slot, then hold the volume down hard key on the side of the phone. You should see a yellow triangle with a construction droid on your phones screen, and a box on the left right above options (ID:COM) is now yellow.

Now you are in download mode, verify check box next to PDA is checked and the block has the file location in it. Make sure Repartition (unless you are repartitioning and have the pit file in place), Dump, Phone EFS clear, and Bootloader, Phone Bootloader Update, and Flash Lock are NOT CHECKED in the Options section. Auto Reboot and F. Reset Time can be checked or not it doesn't really matter with the battery out. These are the default settings in the options section but double check it anyway.

You are ready to go, click start, and let odin run, it can take anywhere from just a minute to around a half hour. If anything happens like your computer shuts off, you accidentally unplug your phone from your PC, or download failed. Don't freak, just do it again from step one, sometimes it takes multiple attempts to get it. I think at six failed attempts in a row it may be time to look into heimdall, the walk through for that is below this one.

Once odin finishes and does its test you will get a green box lit up that says Pass in it just above where you saw the yellow box showing you were connected. Congratulations on a successful recovery. reinstall your battery and the back cover, reboot your phone and wait for it to boot up. The boot process can take several minutes so be patient. If the boot was successful you should be looking at a stock bloated Verizon Fascinate, that is asking you to back up your system and log into Gmail.

Fascinate USB driver from Samsung, just in case you need it.

Sch-i500 USB driver

odin v1.3

odin v1.7

odin v1.83

Atlas v2.2 Pit file

DI01All in 1

EB01All in 1

ODIN CWM ED01 Stock ROM/Kernel/Recovery Courtesy of Imnuts

ODIN ED03 ROM/Kernel/Recovery Courtesy of Imnuts

MODEM ODIN CWM DL09, EA28, ED01, ED03 modems without ridiculous 100MB OTAs Courtesy of Comradesven (I can now say this works and is easy to do just folloy the instrictions on thread.) Decided to try out this method after bricking my phone again, EASY AND FAST, love it.

EC09 Gingerbread Leak CAUTION:It has not happened to me yet even after several times of flashing something custom and using this to odin back to stock with, but there are many reports of this corrupting users SD cards. This is a leak and as always USE THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK!!

Here are the ONLY TWO, as far as we know guaranteed to get you fixed up, odin files, for anyone coming from CM7 or MUI MTD for the Fascinate.

YOU MUST USE THE ATLAS V2.2 PIT FILE, ONE OF THESE FILES, AND REPARTITION. IF YOU DON'T ODIN WILL FAIL TO COMPLETE THE RECOVERY.

CI500_VZW_DL09_ECLAIR

CI500_VZW_EB01_FROYO

SECTION 2: HEIMDALL

Now for the heimdall walk through, so follow along. I don't think it is possible to completely brick this phone short of actually smashing it, why take unnecessary chances.

First go to the link for heimdall. Download, unzip this and open the folder. In this folder you will find another folder labeled Drivers, open it and you will see a program called zadig.

Now put your Phone into download mode, that is remove the back cover, take out the battery and plug it into your PC with the OEM cable (the one that came with the phone when you got it), then press and hold the down volume button till a yellow triangle and construction droid , now you are in download mode.

Double click zadig and when it opens, click on options and click list all devices. Now drop the usb drop down box and you will find an option for SAMSUNG android composite ADB device, or Samsung composite usb driver, select it then click install drivers. the usual install stuff from windows about do you want to install this, yes you do. Now If the warning about publisher could not be verified, whatever, install it anyway, no it's not a virus. Your phone MUST be in download mode or zadig will not have the USB you need as an available option.

Now you need the files for this program to install and recover your phone. I was motivated to set up a zip file for download with files ready due to confusion on how to accomplish this step, you will find links below.

Now back into the heimdall file you opened earlier you will need to double click the heimdall.exe file, and click run on the windows pop up, it will show a cmd prompt type screen then disappear shortly after, it's supposed to do that.

Again in the click the application called heimdall-frontend. here is where you can go wrong so I will do this side by side with heimdall names and DI01/EB01 file names. I don't believe there are currently any other full recoveries.

To eliminate confusion on where to put your files follow the guige below.

Heimdall on this side of =Recovery file names on this side.

In Repartition:

PIT = atlas_v2.2.pit see below.

In PDA/Code:

FactoryFS=factoryfs.frs

Kernel(zImage)=zImage

Param.lfs=param.lfs

Primary Bootloader=boot.bin

Secondary Bootloader=slb.bin

In CSC:

Cache=cache.rfs

Database Data=dbdata.rfs

In Other:

Modem=modem.bin

Recovery=recovery.bin

Now that all the are files loaded into the correct spots, the necessary drivers installed, and phone in download mode, the start button will be able to be clicked, not shaded outlines like before, did you even notice that? If you followed everything in this tutorial step by step, click the START button and let heimdall run. After it finishes reboot your Verizon stock, Bing bloated, WORKING Fascinate. After this is completed successfully you will be able to use odin again if you need or want to.

Heimdall

DI01 heimdall package

EB01 heimdall package

Why did this happen?

Why was this necessary, as far as I can find out, through research, I wont even try to figure out how many times I had to odin ,and the eight, yes that's right I said 8, times I have HAD to use heimdall, because my phone would not recover through odin. Usually because like me you flashed a rom on for a different phone or, it seems to be, dbdata or another partition can not mount. This has happened to me because I didn't remove voodoo, or flashed a pre edify rom after accidently putting cwr3, which is for edify, on a non edify rom. So moral of the story is twofold, yes it is very likely it can be fixed, and remove voodoo before going to nonvoodoo, and make sure you have a version of cwr that supports both ammend and edify script if you are not sure. Don't flash a rom for a different phone on your Verizon Fascinate or you most likely WILL need heimdall.

NEVER USE A FILE, ROM, KERNEL, ANYTHING, THAT IS NOT CLEARLY FOR THE VERIZON FASCINATE.

Remember, thank the developers by clicking the thanks button on threads you find helpful, they did the work. All I did was take some time and put together all the links and processes I have read and had to learn. Some of the walk through threads are well written by the Dev's and some were hard for me to follow. Sometime I wonder if our Dev's forget that us mere mortals have no idea what they are talking about, and I pride myself on being much better than average with computers and software. That said if you have trouble working e mail and office, I think it's fair to say you would be lost. I hope this is easy to follow and always successful for you. Better yet I hope you never need this.

READ:If heimdall, or odin fail, but you can still get into download mode, do it again, and keep trying while you look for further assistance on this site. If you can't get into download mode with your phone plugged into your PC, unplug usb from PC and plug it into the wall outlet, and try to put it into download mode there. When It goes into download mode, unplug usb from adapter, plug it into PC and put it into download mode, This does work.

If this has Helped you not have a $600 dollar paperweight, consider donating to some of our Dev's working so hard to not only give you better than what big red and sammy gave you, but also a way to fix your mistakes without the need for an insurance claim. Isn't it worth a few bucks to support the developers who save you from the insurance deductable? Think about that before you complain about the devs.

SECTION 3: ROOTING METHODS

Here are two easy ways to accomplish rooting your phone.

ROOTING YOUR PHONE VOIDS YOUR WARRANTY. I NOR ANYONE ELSE WILL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR ANYTHING YOU CHOOSE TO DO. NO ONE HERE IS MAKING YOU DO ANYTHING, JUST PROVIDING INFORMATION ON WAYS TO ACCOMPLISH WHAT YOU WANT TO DO.

Super One Click method: unzip file, open file, double click ADB, it will show a quick cmd like window. Now make sure you phone has USB debugging enabled, connect to PC, don't mount USB. Click the SuperOneClick.exe icon and let it run. If it fails run it again, sometimes it does that. If anything pops up on the screen, read and answer. Unless you are using a Captivate leave the Captivate tab alone it is for getting an unlock code and you don't need that for your Fascinate. (works on all fascinate stock OS to include ED03, and EC09 GB, tested by me.)

CWR & SU Method: (DOES NOT WORK ON 2.2.1) Put superuser.zip zip file on root of SD card, odin in cwr, boot phone into recovery by holding power and volume at same time. To do this simply install battery after unpluging from PC press and hold power and volume buttons at the same time. DO NOT let the phone boot as far as the Samsung logo or you will have to odin in cwr again. Go to Install zip, choose zip, install from SD card. Find your superuser.zip file and install it. Reboot, you are rooted, install busybox, free from market if necessary. If you need odin or instruction on using it, see section 1.

GINGERBREAK Method: Gingerbreak v1.20.apk is an easy to do method, put the apk on your sd card, install from file manager, run it.​

KEEPING CWR3 IN 2.2.1: To keep CWR on any ED OTA release you need to make some adjustments to a few files. Don't worry I am going to tell you which ones, and I suggest a simple method of adding .no to the end of the file. That way if you ever need to undo it, simply go back in and remove the .no and your not trying to remember what the file name and extension was. Now here are the file names for each file, you will need something like root explorer and a rooted Fascinate to do this, and you can't rename a file unless you tap the mount system as r/w not r/o, its easy here are the examples of how I did it.

/system/recovery-from-boot.p becomes /system/recovery-from-boot.p.no

/system/bin/recovery becomes /system/bin/recovery.no

/system/etc/install-recovery.sh becomes /system/etc/install-recovery.sh.no

Superuser+busybox

CWR 3/30 Fix all

CWR3 Voodoo.tar Blue

times_infinity's recoveries

Gingerbreak v1.20

Special thanks to Adrynalyne, Imnuts, Jt1134, Nitsuj17, Landshark, Sbrissen, ChainsDD, Times Infinity, and Comradesven and anyone I forgot to thank, for creating and sharing, the heimdall, odin, and other files.