[Samsung Galaxy S (4G Model)] Benjamin Dobell:
Being the developer of Heimdall and all I figured I might as well chime in ;)

This largely depends on what you refer to as "fine". Based on the information in this thread it certainly seems as though it may be possible to flash bootloaders to your device that prevent it booting (and prevent display output) but don't prevent access to download mode.

Personally, if a device doesn't boot normally with particular bootloaders, then I'd say the bootloaders aren't fine.

I've mentioned this before, but just to be clear to anyone else reading this. close-pc-screen will (or should) get rid of the Phone <---> PC screen on a device. However this is by no means a way of unbricking a soft-bricked device, all it does is allow the device to "attempt" to boot. If it turns out nothing was damaged then you're good to go, otherwise you'll need to flash firmware anyway. Typically this is why I recommend users un-brick soft-bricks by flashing, rather than just running the close-pc-screen command.

This is incorrect. The Odin protocol used in Galaxy S devices is totally undocumented. I reverse engineered it with no third-party help whatsoever. As such the best documentation you can find is Heimdall's source code.

Heimdall can potentially do more/less than Odin based on the set of functionality that is made available to the end user. For instance Heimdall allows users to flash partitions that are unflashable from Odin (EFS, recovery etc.) These limitations are introduced by Odin and not the flashing protocol itself, which I typically refer to as the Loke flashing protocol.

That's correct, if you can use Heimdall then you should theoretically be able to use Odin as well. So this fix may be equally applicable using Odin. However if you are going to flash bootloaders I'd certainly recommend you use Heimdall over Odin as user feedback (and my tests) indicate it is much safer.

I think a lot of confusion in this thread comes about because different people have a different interpretation of what it means to be hard-bricked. It doesn't help that the definition of what it means to be hard-bricked changes when users discover new ways to un-brick a hard-bricked device. I don't think it's even something really worth discussing. As long as your posts are descriptive enough users will know what you mean regardless of terminology like soft- vs. hard-bricked.

Realistically I don't think either of you handled this particularly well. Adam, you do have a slight tendency to hi-jack threads although I believe your intentions are generally good. In this case it might have been a better idea to make suggestions about how RaverX3X could have improved his original post rather than attacking his work. I think most serious developers on this site are capable of taking constructive criticism, but keeping it constructive is very important!

RaverX3X, I can't confirm your work myself, as I don't own a SGS4G. However it does look as though you've helped at least two users recover their device so that's absolutely great. Personally the thought hadn't even occurred to me that download mode may still be accessible if you flash bootloaders from another device that also supports it, even if the device doesn't boot. So that in itself is a noteworthy discovery.

Actually, I've got a piece of constructive criticism to offer myself. Although I've done it myself numerous times, I typically don't recommend that other people flash just bootloaders by themselves. What I tend to recommend is that users include param.lfs as well as one other file. param.lfs is recommended because some param.lfs files seem to be incompatible with particular secondary bootloaders that are not the same version. The additional file (typically a kernel or modem) is recommended simply as a type of safety net. If Heimdall is going to fail to flash a device, due to a bad cable, USB hub etc, then it's likely going to fail pretty much straight away. By including additional file(s) Heimdall intentionally flashes bootloaders and param.lfs after any other files. This decreases the likelihood of corrupting critical boot files.

As such if you're willing to distribute files then this guide could be largely simplified by a Heimdall Firmware Package for Heimdall Frontend 1.3. I don't distribute any firmware files/packages myself so if you're unwilling to do so then I certainly won't hold that against you!