[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] AddamsonFlint:
Good evening,

As you can see, I'm a noob on XDA, but I have done my due diligence on searching, and researching, and at an impass which an answer to, would be greatly appreciated.

In addition to explaining my specific issues and what I've done to fix it, it would be great if this post could help contribute a sum of all issues/attempts at fixing, for this huge problem, because I've found bits and pieces of the symptoms and fixes scattered in many different posts.

Ok...so I know now that issues with an ICS kernel source, possibly some problems with CWM (especially Touch), ROM manager, and nandroid backups/restores back and forth from GB to ICS, etc., caused this problem, which apparently a lot of people are having, and it doesn't seem to be a solely stupid-noob mistake. I just wasn't aware of the problems of going back and forth between GB and ICS. I always wiped data before installs, did nandroid backups, basic due diligence, and "thought" I was safe. Obviously mistaken.

So...my mistake was- I flashed Calkulin's stock F22, kernel, modem (instead of Odin) Worked great, looked great- Backed up in ROM Manager (instead of recovery) Then went back into recovery later to do a restore, but not back to GB, but rather my freshly installed ICS. And that's where it occured.

I've got all the symptoms many others have explained in several other different post:

It hung on data, wouldn't restore. Tried to reboot- boot animation loop all the way.

Tried Odin, all attempts hung at data, I knew at that point- my data was likely corrupted, partition messed up, etc.

Emmc won't mount, data won't mount, can't wipe, etc.

What I've tried:

Numerous attempts with Odin (1.85, the one-clicks), Roms, recovery-only files, stock rom, .tars, kernels

Tried Pit on and off to help with partitioning (remember I'm a noob)

When I could get into different CWM recoveries off and on, I tried to flash everything under the sun: Stock unrooted, EL29 rooted, EL29 w/o data (really hoped that would work), zedomax kernel, retried to flash stock fc22 kernel and fc22 de'odexed rom, maybe in some f'd up way, get back into ICS.

I tried repartitioning, mounting, clearing cache, disabling signature verification, wiping, restoring, advanced restoring, applying updates, etc.

Emailed Josh who said JTAG couldn't help me.

Tried Heimdall one-click, looking at trying Heimdall full.

Probably at least one or 2 others, I'm missing. But long story short- is I've tried pretty much everything.

I'm still holding out hope I'm just soft-bricked, and can somehow get back from this, but I simply can't find a way to fix the data.img.

I've read the posts on "how not to brick your E4GT"- one guy wrote:

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Everytime i try a OC odin, it hangs at data.img forever, i can't restore any rom, tried reflashing the rom that 'broke' my phone, not sure where else to head.

You didn't read what me and stonesaber were talking about did you? your phone is not bricked, however, to get it back is extremely complicated and may not even be worth attempting. They're is another thread somewhere in which they fix this issue with a very in-depth procedure, keep looking and you will find it

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I searched for this "very in-depth procedure" but can't seem to find it, if there is one. I was to a point, where I couldn't install or get anything to load. I have fought my way back a bit, and hope I'm making progress.

Where I'm at now:

I can get into download mode

I can boot into recovery

I was even able flash a copy of Cyanogenmod RC 7.2 that I just happened to thankfully have on my internal SD. At first it had nothing on it, and couldn't get data/wifi. It would freeze up. But I was able to go back into recovery...advance restore, and restore boot, system, cache, sd-ext., everything but data. As a result, I could then get wifi/data signal. I tried to install titanium, but it said I had no more memory (obviously). It has developer tools, terminal emulator. But when I reboot of course, I lose everything I just restored, and would have to re-restore.

I don't know if any of that would help- I haven't been able to get my phone to do squat for 3 days, but now I can actually load a "half" working ROM again.

There have got to be outs from here, right??

What else is there left to try?