[Android Software/Hacking General [Developers Only]] DashBlacK:
Android Dev here.

I was able to flash and boot into GT-S5570's ClockworkMod recovery, and it seems like the FSR modules were unable to load because of it having the 2.6.35 kernel. I was also successfully able to revert back to my stock recovery using the dd if=/ of=/ method. This SGH-T499's hardware is exactly the same as GT-S5570's (Mini). It also has the same partition layout as the Mini, so I think any Mini ROM running 2.6.32 could easily boot on our phone. The reason why 2.6.35 kernel doesn't work on our phone because we need a Gingerbread arm11boot. Our phone has a Froyo arm11boot which only supports 2.6.32 kernel.

The sources for this phone have been released on opensource.samsung.com

Partition layout according BML mapping info (same as Galaxy Mini GT-S5570):

bml0: contents of the entire flash

bml1: mibib

bml2: qcsbl

bml3: oemsbl

bml4: amss

bml5: block level representation of /dev/stl5 (efs)

bml6: block level representation of /dev/stl6 (empty)

bml7: arm11boot

bml8: boot image

bml9: recovery image

bml10: unknown

bml11: empty (contains only 0xff bytes)

bml12: block level representation of /dev/stl12 (/system)

bml13: block level representation of /dev/stl13 (/data)

bml14: block level representation of /dev/stl14 (/cache

PLEASE DO NOT GO OUT AND FLASH A GALAXY MINI (S5570) ROM from samfirmware.com (now sammobile.com) on to the SGH-T499. WE DO NOT WANT TO REPLACE THE arm11boot, mibib, qcsbl, oemsbl and amss as they are unique to a model of phones. However you could remove these flash only the system.rfs, boot.img and recovery.img as these are recoverable.

We can get the gingerbrad from S5570 working if we rebuild it with the 2.6.32 kernel.

TO backup your system, recovery and boot partitions, do this (you need to be rooted):

1. Open command prompt and run "adb shell"

2. Request Superuser: run "su". You should now have a # symbol.

3. To backup boot.img, run "dd if=/dev/block/bml8 of=/sdcard/boot.img bs=4096"

4. To backup recovery.img, run "dd if=/dev/block/bml9 of=/sdcard/recovery.img bs=4096"

5. To backup system.rfs, run "dd if=/dev/block/stl12 of=/sdcard/system.rfs bs=4096"

You now have a backup of the system partition, boot partition and recovery partition. Now having these, you can recover if you have flashed a S5570 ROM.

To Restore:

1. Flash S5570's ClockworkMod.

2. Boot into recovery, Volume Up + Power.

3. In recovery your screen won't work correctly due to the 2.6.35 kernel not being supported by our arm11boot.

4. run the same dd if of commands from the backup tut, but switch around to if and of. eg. To restore system partition, you will run, "dd of=/dev/block/stl12 if=/sdcard/system.rfs bs=4096" from adb shell. Notice the if and of is switched around.

I will be trying to rebuild the S5570's ClockworkMod with the 2.6.32 kernel from my extracted recovery.img, but right now I do not have a Linux machine for me to do this. If someone else want's to try, they sure can, because we can recover.

Also, we can't use fastboot, but we will have to use Odin. The S5570's .OPS file and Odin, theoretically should be compatible with our phone.

One last thing, I got the SGH-T499Y being sold as Galaxy Mini: http://store.mobilicity.ca/product.asp?pf_id=62863P

The source code for my exact phone is released and also for the SGH-T499, but they are the same thing just different regions. Mine is form Canada.