yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] sfhub:
Try the troubleshooting in FAQ #E3 of the auto root sticky (also in my sig) It is basically a troubleshooting guide for adb connections.
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] phelps88ap:
ok so i used cwm to advance restore everything except data and when i rebooted recovery it booted into the ics system recovery and adb recognized it. where do i go from here now that i'm in?

---------- Post added at 10:46 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:23 AM ----------

how can i make sure it is in /sbin?

it must not be, ran the command and said not found
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] sfhub:
Sorry I didn't go back and read what you are trying to accomplish. What are you trying to do?

Woops, you edited the post before I read it.

Well mkfs.ext4 is usually not included. IMO it would be pointless to run it though as many people have tried formatting from CWM and had it fail. That would be doing the same thing you are trying to do.
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] phelps88ap:
ah, well thank you for stopping me before i wasted time trying.

so now the question is, what else can we try? i'm using my evo for now (glad i kept it!) and plan on using a usb jig and using insurance to return my epic if it turns out that the phone is just done for. so if you can walk me step by step through different ideas i'm willing to use mine as a tester. really appreciate all your help here.
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] Epix4G:
I tried to find it but it was posted here by sextape like 2 or 3 days ago maybe someone can find it

He said it was new maybe it's for ics and can fix this
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] static208:
so i tried to root yesterday and got stuck at modem.bin with odin. Now my phone is stuck on a screen saying firmware upgrade encountered and issue please reconnect to keis blah blah and i cant go back into download mode. Is my phone dead?
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] sfhub:
Are you sure you can't get back into download mode using Power+VolDn? I've gotten into that mode a few times testing releases and usually I can get back into download mode. The one time I couldn't I used a jig and got back into download mode. That screen you see is the standard behavior when you have a ODIN flash that did not complete to the end.
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] static208:
i swapped out the battery and i was able to go into download mode again. but im still unable to get past the modem.bin. then i tried to use odin and the stock tar just so i can use my phone and odin says the parameter is incorrect. idk if that has something to do with my drivers but ive uninstalled them and re-installed them
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] sfhub:
Never seen that message, perhaps you could post a screenshot.
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] static208:
here is the SS
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] shiftr182:
delete the .md5 at the end of it and try again
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] sfhub:
Are you sure you are in ODIN D/L mode? Usually the com ports are higher and only when you boot into recovery or Android do the com ports show up that low. Not that a low com port couldn't work with ODIN. It is just the pattern I see that the low com ports that show up aren't actually ODIN D/L com ports but some other diagnostic com ports.
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] static208:
thanks. i got it to run but it stopped at modem.bin
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] shiftr182:
How long is it sticking on modem.bin? Usually it takes a minute to install the modem. You might try odin again and go do something else for 10 mins or so, then come back and see if it went through.
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] static208:
i left it for 20 mins before

the last line says

RQT_CLOSE !!

what does that mean?
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] connexion2005:
To the folks with ODIN hanging, did this issue come about RANDOMLY after the phone was working fine for a while?
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] sfhub:
It means the download connection either shutdown because it timed out or because it was asked to shutdown. Normally it says "Completed." Then a few lines after that it is closed.

You can try flashing the individual components, kernel and ROM, while skipping the modem. They are in the 2nd post of the ODIN links in my sig.

Hopefully that setup will boot. Then if you really want to switch the modem out, install CWM and try using that to update the modem. Alternatively you could try flashing just the modem in ODIN.
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] Epix4G:
Also use a back USB port if you are using a front....if using laptop try using desktop....Odin takes power

Also try different USB may help
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] mpnieland:
Tried that command and just got back the command usage from busybox. This was using the Rogue 1.1.2 recovery. Was it typed correctly? I know very little about command line and linux but would really like to solve this on my own without getting a replacement. I have a backup phone for about a month so I can be a tester to help fix.
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] static208:
thank you i flashed the rooted rom by it self and now its working. still cant flash to modem in odin though.
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] phelps88ap:
Any luck finding it, or hear if someone else tried? I'm going to return the phone at the end of the week if I can't figure it out. I'd rather make this a learning experience and try everything before I give up.
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] sfhub:
It is here:

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=22943645#post22943645

I think he mentioned somewhere else that it was from a few months back and not something just released, but you are welcome to try.

If it works that will be great for other to know. If not, no big loss since your phone is pretty useless right now.
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] static208:
thanks a lot sfhub after rooting i was able to change the modem with CWM. My phone is so much better now i was missing out.
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] Epix4G:
Good find I remember seeing it but could not find it...thanks
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] oscarthegrouch:
I keep checking back here to see what progress there is. Looks like you people are still gnawing at that bone! Any luck with the data partition?
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] phelps88ap:
well it didnt work, not that i had much hope after trying everything else. i'll keep checking and if you have any ideas let me know here or pm me.

many many thanks to you sfhub and Epix4g. like i said i'll still have the phone til probably early next week and if you need a tester i'm more than willing.

this has definitely made me want to learn more about developing so if i have questions i know who to go to.
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] brennam7:
Mine is super bricked the same way. I can get to recoveries and odin and such. Sfhub, if you'd like, i could ship you my phone. I have a NS4G on the way, so if it'd help anyone else out, or if it could unbrick my E4GT, i'd be willing to send it your way.
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] Dchibro:
Wow this has gone on awhile without any progress on the data partition. This must really be a whopper. Has anyone gotten a response from mobiletechvideos about a successful JTAG?
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] stonesaber:
Mine arrived yesterday. Hopefully I'll hear something from him today or tomorrow.
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] connexion2005:
Unfortunately I have now worked with 2 of these and a dead/defective EMMC chip is to blame. One of them was not even writable via JTAG and the other, although it took a full JTAG write is hanging on the boot animation and start up sound. I've fixed hundreds of actual bricked D710's but this issue is separate from a standard brick. A good rule of thumb is that if something just randomly dies, it is most likely hardware and not a software based issue (i.e. phone turning off during regular operation of any kind). Now if you flash incompatible bootloaders or PIT files, I'm the man to talk to... ;)

I'll update more as time goes by...

EDIT: I've also seen this issue on other Exynos based devices with this EMMC chip. It seems to be a quality control issue at the factory level as all of a sudden several D710's are being plagued with this issue. I only see it in about 1-5 out of every 100 Exynos devices I repair though so it is quite rare.

Just PM me if you have specific questions related to your brick...
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] Dchibro:
Nice thanks for the response Josh (I assume this is you heh)! But if you have the time to read this thread, while I'm no expert on this stuff by any means, you'll see that it's probably unlikely that all of these folks are having failing EMMC chips. All of this started happening after the first ICS build leak, and something in the flashing process for some (depending on all the variable involved) is causing a problem with the data partition. Can a bad firmware flash cause the EMMC chip to fail?
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] brennam7:
Any chance i can get some info on the devices you were working with?

Did they boot at all?

Only reason i ask, mine will get tot either odin/cwm, and will also boot to the boot animation and just stay there.... forever....

And now that i think about it, sbrissen had his external sd mounted to emmc in the build i was using before i tried to wipe data.

Related? idk
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] stonesaber:
I just received my notification of my phone being shipped back to me from mobiletechvideos. Neither one of the emails stated that he was unable to repair it. I would assume that if he wasn't successful he would have stated that in the emails. I'll know in a couple of days I guess.
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] nanos1982:
Sprint Exchange

I ordered a jig to reset my custom binary download count and took my phone back to sprint. They replaced my phone free of charge. Not saying this will happen to everyone, but I'm happy it worked out for me. I was another one eager to try ICS and I flashed FB21, used it for a couple days and tried to restore a Nand backup then all hell broke loose. I think I'm gonna wait until an official build of ICS is released my Sammy....good luck and happy hunting all. :D
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] stonesaber:
Yeah, if he was unable to fix mine I'm gonna try Sprint. I bought mine second hand but I think the manufacture warranty is still applicable.
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] sfhub:
Clearlyif jtag is not writing successfully then something low-level is wrong. I can believe that fake flashing cwm touch onto a 3.0 kernel and restoring or wiping did something out of bounds rendering portions of the emmc inaccessible, but i would find it hard to believe this is coincindental emmc failure due to quality issues with the emmc. It is simply too specific, both in reproducability, symptoms, and prerequisites.
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] D_A_M_A_G_E:
I have the same issue with my phone and it was definately CWM touch that messed it up . Samsung has a one year warranty on these phones.....and even though mine was bought as soon as they were available which was last june I called samsung and was told my phone is indeed under warranty until december of this year by it`s lot number...so as you can imagine I am sending mine directly to sammy free shipping out and back ;) She expected to have my phone back to me in five to seven days !!! Samsung support number 1-800-726-7864 Hope this helps !!!
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] Dchibro:
Well, it's certainly possible that he recently worked on a phone that had a bad EMMC, coincidentally around the time all this mess started happening. It sounds like we should start getting reports from people who sent their phones in from JTAG service soon. My money says JTAG gets them back up and running, where that blue light means a good thing not bad. :D
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] connexion2005:
You are correct in your statement sfthub. JTAG is about as low a level initialization of reading and writing from the EMMC chip as you can possibly go. It's pure binary serial communication between the EMMC/oneNAND and CPU so if I am experiencing the inability to write at that level, then yes the EMMC chip is truly problematic and it is a hardware problem. With that said I'm not going to state the ROM flashing experience is to blame here as it would be highly unlikely but at the same time I have seen very odd things happen such as ROM's causing documented digitizer problems on the HD2 when Android or Windows Phone 7 are installed. A while back on the I9000M platform a leaked firmware was causing similar issues to the oneNAND and it was documented as true hardware failure as I could never pull one out of it's partition problems either.

EDIT: Also the blue light only represents that the boot.bin zone is intact which in nearly all cases it is as the primary bootloader is NOT on the EMMC chip but yet on a smaller segmented individual chip. In all cases where I can't write to the EMMC chip, I'm still able to write to the primary bootloader chip without issue.
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] nanos1982:
Come to think of it, I did use touch CWM to attempt a nand restore. Insurance and warranties are wonderful things. If you're going to be a mad scientist, of course you're gonna kill a few subjects. Let me know what happens with the sammy warranty process. I'm curious to see the outcome.
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] Dchibro:
Man, to hear that while highly unlikely, there "could" be a kernel/recovery scenario that could permanently damage the internal memory chip to the point where even JTAG can't write to it is a bit unnerving.
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] sfhub:
To clarify, we are not talking about the act of flashing a rom causing emmc issues, we are talking about partition operations issued from recovery which are interfacing with a new linux 3.0 kernel. This brings into the the picture the possibility these are device driver level issues being exposed.

Imo it is equally hard to believe all these people who combined cwm touch with the ics linux 3.0 kernel are the only ones suddenly having an issue with just the /data partition, and only if they performed a wipe or restore using previously described setup. In addition nobody who has used the previous gb linux 2.6 kernels packed with cwm has ever reported such an issue.

There are too many specifics, imo, for this to just be arbitrary emmc failure. I'm not saying emmc isn't hoarked in some way, clearly it is, as your jtag bit blasting is failing, just imo the previously mentioned actors are somehow involved.
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] connexion2005:
I agree 100% although hard to believe, the specific way these phones died are all the same as everyone was working with a specific build of ICS at the time this damage occurred. I've seen strange like this happen and be associated with flashing a file. In nearly all cases it's also the data zone as well that has the issue and not the entire chip. However in some cases I've seen the entire chip be un-writable...
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] sfhub:
So perhaps you could add your expertise, what is different about the data partition making more prone to these issues. Is it on a separate emmc chip? Or is everything on one chip that gets segmented? Is the issue with the section of emmc memory containing /data or is it with the meta data the keeps track of the sections?

I noticed the major/minor dev numbers changed for /data between the 2.6 and 3.0 kernel while the other partitions remained the same. That might just be a red herring.
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] connexion2005:
There is nothing exclusive about the /data partition. It resides on the EMMC chip with all other partitions (except for the primary bootloader). The fact that it would be the zone failing the most is beyond me other than the fact it most likely sees more I/O than any other segment...
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] brennam7:
well mine will get to cwm, and download mode. most people have just the blue light i hear. Im kind of out of options regarding this. this post might be my last resort.

http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=23131534&postcount=10
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] phelps88ap:
Well I gave up, decided to just make a jig and return it. So I did just that, they tried a few things (even though I knew good and well there was nothing they could do lol) but my sprint store is at Walmart and they know nothing beyond what they're told. I mean when they put it in download mode they stared at the screen for like a minute and then pushed down instead of up!!! Lol but long story short, after 45 minutes at the store I had a brand new phone for free. Totally worth it.

Big thanks to everyone who tried to help.

A word of advice to everyone else, FLASH AND RESTORE WITH ODIN OR ADB ONLY! lol
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] stonesaber:
That's what I'm gonna do as soon as mine shows back up from Josh. He was unable to jtag it so it's off to sprint Mon. or Tue. Can't wait to get my Epic back.
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] phelps88ap:
Yep, I think that the data partition is completely inaccessible. It could be weeks before anyone figures out how to fix it, if ever.
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] D_A_M_A_G_E:
Samsung has got my phone yesterday....Monday and are evaluating it ....hope to get an online update today and will post back if I do . So far I am impressed with Sammy's warranty service :-)
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] stonesaber:
I went to my local Sprint store today. Talked to a very knowledgeable tech there and will be getting a replacement tomorrow. We spent most of the time while he was checking for water damage and filling out the paperwork talking about rooting and ROMming. He told me as long as the manufacturer doesn't find out it's rooted, he doesn't care if it is. He first started out by telling me how he was running CM9 on his Nexus s. Really cool guy and very helpful. Josh at mobiletechvideos was unable to fix it and had I known it was this easy to get replaced, I would've went this route first.
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] connexion2005:
For the record, this appears to be an issue with CWM Recovery Touch. I'm not sure how but it is literally killing the EMMC chip and in a physical way. I will be beginning to study the art of replacing this chip and others like it in the future so that these devices will still have a chance even in scenarios like this.

To everyone with this issue, were you running CWM Recovery Touch?
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] Dchibro:
Very cool man. I'm glad to see you digging deeper into this issue. I do hope it's isolated to Touch CWM, but I'm not sure it's that simple.
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] caspersfi:
I was, and thanks for looking into this.
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] arsonic11:
I just got the following email from Mobile Tech Videos:

I regret to report that I was not able to resurrect your Epic 4G Touch. I will be sending it back today for 2-5 day delivery. The device is suffering from a physical EMMC chip failure in which data can not be written to the chip itself.

I wasn't running CWM touch when the phone bricked. I was running a recovery through Rom Manager. Trying to restore GB from ICS.
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] garwynn:
More spitballs

OK, just throwing out a couple ideas:

1) Is it possible to isolate the eMMC in question? Or perhaps find a duplicate somewhere outside of the E4GT/GSII where you could "play" with it a little more?

2) Is it possible in any known debug to get the last machine instruction from the CPU before this error? This may help point in the right direction.

In my brief curiosity about chip design I thought the only way to lose the ability to read/write was either physical damage or loss of instructions to read/write the storage. Since I doubt CWMT is doing the first I suspect the second is happening - maybe overwriting the embedded controller?

And since it's not happening all of the time it would seem that this is isolated to a certain hardware configuration - manufacturing date may help in this case.

Also hard to believe Samsung hasn't run into this internally at one point or another. Hopefully someone out there is reading these forums and testing this internally to avoid it happening. If it can happen with CWMT it's theoretically possible on OTA or any other solution... just the right hardware with the wrong instruction.
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] connexion2005:
To take this a step further, a similar epidemic is happening on the Galaxy Note right now where CWM Recovery mixed with ICS kernels is causing EMMC failure. Contrary to popular belief, the damage seen here is 100% h/w failure. I've seen them in multiple forms now, one will be solid dead with an immediate JTAG r/w failure, one will allow me to write for a short period of time then literally died on the table (sounds like a surgery gone bad lol) and I've had some respond to JTAG well but when formatting the data partition via recovery, it took up to 10 minutes and when booting would hang on the boot animation and sound religiously. This is a physical h/w problem we are dealing with unfortunately. Something is (over-driving) the h/w in a specific way causing it to fail, whether it be ICS kernels, CWM Touch Recovery or a combo of both of them. Personally my theory is some type of increased EMI that is destroying the EMMC chip itself as any form of magnetism will kill flash storage if strong enough and/or close enough.

For now though, it is all speculation and theory.

EDIT: GALAXY NOTE EMMC EPIDEMIC
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] daviddem:
I just found a file that can repartition your bricked phones and not get stuck on data.img
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] drnull:
Please, do share, daviddem!

In the meantime, here's my parted output.

parted /dev/block/mmcblk0
GNU Parted 1.8.8.1.179-aef3
Using /dev/block/mmcblk0
Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands.
(parted) print
print
print
Error: The backup GPT table is not at the end of the disk, as it should be.
This might mean that another operating system believes the disk is smaller.
Fix, by moving the backup to the end (and removing the old backup)?
Fix/Ignore/Cancel? i
i
i
Warning: Not all of the space available to /dev/block/mmcblk0 appears to be
used, you can fix the GPT to use all of the space (an extra 2048 blocks) or
continue with the current setting?
Fix/Ignore? i
i
i
Model: MMC MAG4FA (sd/mmc)
Disk /dev/block/mmcblk0: 15.8GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt

Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 4194kB 25.2MB 21.0MB ext4 EFS
2 25.2MB 26.5MB 1311kB SBL1
3 27.3MB 28.6MB 1311kB SBL2
4 29.4MB 37.7MB 8389kB PARAM
5 37.7MB 46.1MB 8389kB KERNEL
6 46.1MB 54.5MB 8389kB RECOVERY
7 54.5MB 369MB 315MB ext4 CACHE
8 369MB 386MB 16.8MB MODEM
9 386MB 923MB 537MB FACTORYFS
10 923MB 3070MB 2147MB ext4 DATAFS
11 3070MB 15.4GB 12.4GB fat32 UMS
12 15.4GB 15.8GB 327MB ext4 HIDDEN

(parted)
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] daviddem:
Sure I will post it in an hour because my internet is down

---------- Post added at 03:19 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:01 PM ----------

Here is the link http://db.tt/QHpV5D7t

Extract it and put it in odin with a stock rom and it should repartition your bricked phone without getting stuck at data.img
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] drnull:
This is the same one already tried here and here. Nonetheless, I'll give it a whirl as well.
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] brennam7:
Same pit file as used before. Won't work.
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] daviddem:
If you send your phone to Samsung they gonna fix it by this way

By the way if you dont like go to sprint store and $35 for replacement, you can send your phone to samsung under warranty and they will fix it for free
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] brennam7:
i doubt they'll fix it that way. If i run the same file they do, i don't see them having a different outcome...
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] Dchibro:
And how do you know this? I'm doubtful. They may try, and fail, with the end result being a refurb replacement being sent back out. I'd bet they're handling these dead EMMC chips by replacing the whole board and throwing it in the refurb pile.
[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] wildside84:
the guy at sprint said my phone was rooted and he couldnt help me. my custom binary says no. last night the only screen that came up was the samsung galaxy screen, now the 3d android guy comes up when u boot the phone...