yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] forest1971:
I have tried using "parted" in the method described in the link and can see all the partitions of the Note as in the screen short file attached. That means the method should work and should let people see if one of their partition is damaged and then can recreate it. Or at least we can identify if the problems is with damaged one or more partition or something else.

If you can run the parted command under adb shell then you can compare the partitions of your (soft-brick) note and see if it is different from the original partitions I posted in the picture. If you can still flash kernel but could not flash system rom then it is likely that the system partition (in Note they name it "FACTORYFS' or/and the data partition, named as 'DATAFS", have been faulty. The good thing is Note has a large SD card partition (they name it "UMS" therefore you can resize it to smaller size and use the free space to create the replacement partition (using parted commands as in the thread I posted above) for the system or/and data partition. For the damage partition you just need to delete them (using parted commands) and those areas become unused space and they cause no harm.

To make it easier I have attached the file to run parted commands and other related commands to manage partition under adb environment. you just need to download zip file, extract it and copy all the file in the folder to the adb folder in your computer. Then you will be able to run all the command describe the post above. Do not worry that the guide above was for Kindle Fire. It should work with all android phones. In the link above try to look for post No 58 by "Soundwire" he described it in an easier way how he recreate all the partition in his android device. I have manage to recreate partition 10 after I mess with it. It is safe to re-partition those partition as Cache/data and Sdcard (with different names in different devices. But it is better not to mess with those partition as bootloader/recovery...Leave them alone if they are still intact.

Let me know if you have problem running the "parted" application/commands. Maybe I could help.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] shooter_mvp:
same problem

i have same problem with you, now i still cant fix it
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] conanjf:
I'll try it at home at night!!! Thx for helping !!!
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] jgaviota:
Also you could try with Linux and latest Heimdall, with pit file and repartition. I managed to revive a Tab that failed with Odin.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] anilisanil:
Do we have any app/program that could slide through the existing partitions to shift them or something? I see that FactoryFS is hardly 300MB (edit: it is 800MB, thanks for poitning out @forrest1971)and shifting it by so much should not be a problem. I hope I am clear.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] prabhu1980:
And that was what exactly I was speaking yesterday Anil.

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1656635
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] anilisanil:
Yeah, may be I should relook, thanks for pointing out. But it is not yet sure if we could shift the partitions.

I did that on my lappy using ubuntu. My windows drive failed and I shifted that drive by 50GB (I have a 500 GB drive) and reinstalled windows and then had to reinstall Ubunutu again (windows does not dual boot over Ubuntu, but the other way around works)

But here I am not sure if we could do it so intuitively, but hey we got nothing to lose on a bricked phone.

But what you said is something else, it is make a completely dead phone respond to download mode/recovery. This is more like changing the partition table etc.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] prabhu1980:
It is possible to shift the partitions. But I am not sure whether the hidden partitions where the triangle informations are located are shown on parted. Which may be causing all the problems to us.

There should be some work around. We have to look little deeper before rushing to the SSC as I did.

Also please look into the thread where this EMMC bug was located (Epic 4G forum)

I still feel that there should be a workaround. (Sorry Anil I am out of this business for as long as 11 years now. I used to play around with Linux a lot. After I m into a job nd family I could spend a very little time. Else I would have written a script for u using parted.)

May be we should support conan online on coming out of his brick.

Chainfire and Connexion2005 should get involved in this to debrick the emmc bug.

May be we are missing something that is very trivial.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] forest1971:
That "parted" partition manager program can indeed do all kinds of jobs about partition we need to do.

On another point: yes it is absolutely ok to change the size of partition and also the order of partition as long as the name of each partition is put correctly as in the picture I attached some post above, and the size of the partition is large enough to house what it is supposed to.

About FACTORYFS partition it is indeed 839 MB (as you can see in the picture) not just 300 MB. It is housing the system rom in it.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] prabhu1980:
is parted able to show the hidden partitions ?

Please look into Chainfire thread of Triangle Away for partitions referred as hidden.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] anilisanil:
But the problem is not with hidden, it is with FactoryFS.

Also, as long a partition named HIDDEN (or for that matter all the partitions that are required are there) PC ODIN should be able to flash the OS.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] forest1971:
Yes,

Please look at the attached picture from my post (no 26 in page 3). the hidden partition is No 12, size 537 MB. Certainly we should not touch it. It should be safe to work with three partitions in Notes: FACTORYFS (system rom partition), DATAFS (data partition) and UMS (SDcard).

Edit: the hidden block mentioned by Chainfire seem to be something different from the hidden block No 12 shown in parted. Never mind we should not deal with any hidden partition anyway. Just need to deal with the above mentioned three partitions.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] prabhu1980:
These are the partitions I was asking about.

The pic posted in parted only shows about the /mmcblk0.

It is very clear from Chainfire's Post that there are hidden partitions, which are responsible for booting. (It is nowhere on the Parted.jpg posted here)

a) Was it misbehaving in LP1 and LPY ?

b) Is FactoryFS image having a different size of LPY than of Gingerbread ?

c) Is FactoryFS Readable only mode while flashing ?

Some Partition issue maybe causing the serious trouble....
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] nicholadia:
guys, i soft bricked my note as well before..i was with LPY then i factory reset the phone and it's stucked to samsung logo..I tried using PC odin but i was getting failed to write error....i tried all of the steps mentioned but it didnt work...when I started to play around PC Odin I put the ROM in PDA instead of phone and flashed it..it worked...I was able to flash the stock GB rom...and my phone was saved...just sharing my experience... :-)

Sent from my awesome Phone.....Love you Samsung Galaxy Note.... :-)
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] conanjf:
which rom u flashed succesfully???

Sent from my computer because my note is super-bricked =/
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] conanjf:
My not is able to flash only the kernel, when I do it, I enter in recovery but an error appears when I try to flash a rom.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] jeynaval:
Conseguiu resolver seu problema?

Bom dia estou com o mesmo problema que você, se você conseguiu resolver seu problema me da uma ajuda, obrigado
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] prabhu1980:
can you please try to load a stock rom by inserting the rom in pda using pc odin
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] conanjf:
Cara, to correndo atras disso para caramba, mas pelo jeito ainda nao tem conserto. Vou esperar até domingo, e se não aparecer um jeito de consertar vou mandar a assistencia tecnica segunda =/
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] rupalazzi:
Something like happened to me once, I downloaded odin 1.85 + pit file, partition device with it, then flashed stock GB and that is how I recovered my device.

Hope it is of help.

Regards.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] conanjf:
I did all the ways possible to flash stocks roms in pda using odin. And I tried almost 10 different roms
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] conanjf:
I also tried this haha. Same thing, stuck on factoryfs.img

Sent from my computer, becausa my galaxy note is hardbricked, lol
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] prabhu1980:
did u try pit file flashing alone and let me know are you successful.

then flash the oldest stock rom with full wipe.

My previous experience is that pit file shall match with specific firmware.

normally the pit files we are getting belongs to october released fw.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] greigster:
English please
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] jeynaval:
I am having the same problem! Yes and I can just pass the PIT file, but then tried to pass the GB and got the same thing, stuck in FACTORYFS.img
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] dzontra11:
I think i am soft bricked too.

I run stock ics with chainfire couple days withou any problems but today when i start google translate app,,suddenly, FC,then again.Okay i start Twitter app ,,the sam Fc.

I decided to restart the phone but now i am stuck on the Samsung logo.

I can go to dowload mode but i am concerned about how to flash back to GB now.Only via pc odin,right?

TNX
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] conanjf:
Yes, I have success flashing only the pit file or kernel alone.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] conanjf:
Yes. I tried to flash a lot of different gb roms, with 1 or 3 file, with the pit together or not, and I also tried to flash the ics roms, including the new one with pit file and new bootloader... But the same thing happens, stuck in FACTORYFS.img =/
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] conanjf:
I bricked my galaxy trying to flash a custom rom from ICS xxlpy from the official lpy. There are some tutos on the development section, check it out before flash gb
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] dzontra11:
Tnx man.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] A31185:
Did you manage to get beyond "Nand write start!!" in ODIN? I am stuck here.

Should I try flashing a Wipe version of a stock GB ROM?
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] conanjf:
Yes, I stuck on this too. As I said before, there is no way to fix it untill now =/

I will wait till sunday. If no one fix it, I will send my note to samsung /=
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] prabhu1980:
dear conan and jeynaval

can you please try getting connected to adb shell.

you have to plug into usb and run the adb shell command parted.

please let me know if you are able to connect
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] forest1971:
Yes, please guys, this tool may help you to get out,

It is suspected that those who get stuck at "factoryfs.img" is having a corrupted system partition of the phone. to diagnose it there is a partition manager tool call parted which run under adb environment when the phone is in recovery mode.

Below is the detailed step by step guide to check if your partition is the problem. If it is I can give further guide on how to fix it.

1. download the parted and other supporting tools from the zip file attached in my post. Then extract and copy all the files to the adb folder of your computer.

2. Get into recovery (CMW)

3. connect to computer using usb cable.

4. Then run cmd and cd to the adb folder of your computer

Then run following commands.

adb devices

it should give you some number then it means your device is connect in adb

then run:

adb shell

it should give you the sign like this: ~ #

Then run (noted that umount is without N):

~ # umount /cache

This is to unmount cache and partition. Then run the parted.

~ # parted /dev/block/mmcblk0

It should give you bellow:

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)

Then run:

(parted) print

it will give you a picture of your partition table. The original partition table is in the file that I attached also. If you can see one or some of your partition is different from the picture I posted then those partitions are corrupted.

If you can report result and if the problem is with the corrupted factoryfs partition, there will be further steps to hep fix it.

A more detailed guide is posted here (post 12):

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1661590&page=2

Press thanks if it helps you.

Thank you
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] falk88:
i Have the same partition. i want to try to erase cache and facory and the i try to recreate it
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] Entropy512:
Why bother with parted when Odin itself can repartition?
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] anilisanil:
So can we have customized PIT file which will alter the partition table to have factoryfs.img written on to a partition made out of working partitions of EMMC?
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] prabhu1980:
Anil can we find whether the partition is read only or read write.

I have feeling that this is causing the trouble
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] falk88:
i can write to this partition but i don't know what i must to do.

Ican read and write partition with adb command.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] forest1971:
I suggest you erase factoryfs and and recreate it. IN Note it is the No 9 partition and the size is 893 mb, start from 281mb to 1174mb so the procedures will be as below:

1. run:

(parted) rm 9

this will erase factoryfs. So you need to recreate it:

2. Run code below to create new factoryfs partition:

(parted) mkpartfs primary ext2 281 1174

(parted) name 9 factoryfs

this will create factoryfs partition but the format is ext2. to concert it to the original ext4 run following commands (one by one)

(parted) quit

~ # tune2fs -j /dev/block/mmcblk0p9

~ # e2fsck -fDp /dev/block/mmcblk0p9

~ # tune2fs -O extents,uninit_bg,dir_index /dev/block/mmcblk0p9

~ # e2fsck -fDp /dev/block/mmcblk0p9

If e2fsck complains that it needs to be run manually, you should omit the -p flag. This happened to me the second time I ran through this process, but the first time it did not. I'm not entirely sure why. In that case, the e2fsck commands simply become:

~ # e2fsck -fD /dev/block/mmcblk0p9

Which will cause it to ask if you want to fix the group descriptors. Just answer 'Y' and let it run through.

After this you will have a new factoryfs partition in ext4

you can check again by running parted print command described in earlier post.

Then once successful you can go back to odin to flash again and see if it work.

The cache partition in Note is partition No 7 start from 54.5mb to 264 mb. you can try to run the above procedures again just replace no 9 by no 7 in the respective commands. Still, I feel perhaps it is not the cache that has problem.

In case odin still gets stuck then you can try to resize UMS partition and make a new factoryfs partition in the space that has been freed. It take more time so that should be tried later.

Hope it helps
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] prabhu1980:
Now can we push factoryfs.img to this partition using adb
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] prabhu1980:
Sorry i had some issues and posted too late
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] conanjf:
dont recognize my device

error: device not found =/

Sent from my computer because my galaxy note is hardbricked
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] simonjcruse:
I joined the above club but i think you are still ok. My devise will not even enter download mode or recovery. The USB jig I thought would at least force it into download mode but my device was dead. Only good news is Vodadrone repair centre will not be able to tell whats happened due to me causing so much damage.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] falk88:
Sound good mate.... Its a good guide for me, now i will try it and tha i report to u.

tnks
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] forest1971:
device not found is the problem with adb driver.

you should re-install Kies and update it, then the driver will work automatically.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] falk88:
my phone finally died... i try to remove partition, anthen recreate it with your method and the phone is stuck to 89% afther that it go black and it doesn't tourn on. i have the jig but i don't know how to recovery.

please help me to enter in download mode
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] forest1971:
Hm. Sound weird. Normally it create partition in an instant. I never see thing work until certain percentage as your description.

I never use jig before. You should search in the forum.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] anilisanil:
Can you tell me if this is different or better or both than jtagging?
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] forest1971:
Do you mean Jig? I understand that Jig is to help the device to boot (when there is problem with the bootloader), so that bootloader can be reinstall. People use it to remove the yellow triangle after flash custom kernel via odin.

parted is to help manage and fix partition problems.

different things.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] prabhu1980:
Hey forest1971

ATLAST PEOPLE ARE DISCUSSING THE SAME THING ABOUT PARTITIONS IN THE MAIN THREAD

NOW ITS YOUR TIME TO TELL THEM HOW TO GO AHEAD

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=26256561

FALK88 TRY SEEING MY POST FOR USING JIG TO CONNECT TO DOWNLOAD MODE

FOREST1971

FALK88 GOT STUCK AT 89% INDICATES WE NEED BAD SECTOR FIX OR A FULL FORMAT REQUIREMENT

THROW LIGHT PLS
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] anilisanil:
No. I mean JTAG
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] Entropy512:
JTAGging is superior - it will completely rewrite everything from scratch.

Unfortunately some devices are so damaged that not even JTAG can bring them back - the eMMC has unwritable blocks.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] forest1971:
If that is the case then the way is to leave that block of memory unused. (if the phone is connected again in adb) you will then delete that faulty partition and leave that slot unused.

Then you need to resize ums partition by one gb (In Note it is partition 11) to give room for the new factoryfs partition. [(parted) resize 11 <begin> <end>

then create a new partition in the newly freed area.

This is also a way to resize/change the sizes of the system/data/and sdcard partitions of any phone if one want to.

Anyway, everyone seems to have brought their solf/hard-brick Notes to Sumsung service.

So, this is only useful for someone who want to change size of some partitions in their phone :D, I guess.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] prabhu1980:
Hey forest1971

Umfortunately people are ignoring our voice.

Only people like us are trying to solve it.

All senior members and moderators also almost recommend doing nothing for this issue. Hence people are falling into ending up paying samsung.

I thought of collecting users who bricked in one place so we can go ahead and suggest them to unbrick theirs before they give it ssc.

But thread was closed because of irrelavemt dicussions.

They are yet to realise that many are getting bricked.

Even they dont listen to our views.

But we have to try hard.

We will try discussing simple ways to solve this issue.

Atleast now people dont speak about overvolting and emmc fries they are saying about /data corruption.

E2fsck is being discussed now.

Forest1971 i still feel that we should look for some information in the hidden partition (the ones discussed by chainfire) that may contain some critical information.

We have to dump and compare this with normal and bricked user.

God give us strength. Forest1971 is doing a great job analysing the issue. Please help in developing a solution.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] conanjf:
I think i will send the note to samsung assistence =/
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] forest1971:
Thanks prabhu1980. You have made very good efforts trying to solve the problem. What you are trying to do is very good. So keep on going!

I have also learned and discovered some new good things as well :)

The key thing is: people can still flash kernel so the recovery partition is fine and the write mechanism still works. Therefore, the failure to install the system image should be the problem of the system partition (factoryfs in Note) or the data partition (datafs). So with some patients and effort the answer can be found. The easy way is using parted to delete all three partitions including factoryfs, datafs and ums. (of course people should back up their data to computer before). then recreate three new partition in the slot that used to belong to ums. you will lose about 2 gb of space, which is not so much for the Note. It is noted that UMS format is fat32.

By this way the answer should be found
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] Entropy512:
There's a possibility that the JTAG resurrection services might be able to update their procedure to fix it.

The problem is that right now, the guy who knows how to fix this is not sure if he can legally release the info.

See garwynn's posts in http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1648362 (Garwynn is not the guy who has the info we need.)

The only remaining question is why Gingerbread is safe, I'm going to take a second look at the source code to see if I can figure out why.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] prabhu1980:
Can you please eloborate how to run e2fsck in /data partition

Forest 1971

Can you please eloborate how to use e2fsck for scanning bad sectors in emmc.

Also can you tell me about the hidden partitions mentioned by chainfire.

Does that mean anything to you ??

I know you said we cannot touch it.. but is it possible to dump the information in those partitions and compare.

Indeed If chainfire can share how he visualised the hidden partitions it would be great.

Do u remember those days when we use harddisks we use a repair utility to repair bad sectors ? Is there any lowlevel programs for android ??
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] _bambam:
the flag to scan for bad blocks should be "-c" according to the man page
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] forest1971:
Hi, under parted there is a command to check if a partition is ok:

(parted) check <partition number>

So in this case we can check partition 9 (factoryfs) 10 (datafs) and 11 (UMS).

and here is the link for documentation for parted FYI and use.

http://www.gnu.org/software/parted/manual/html_mono/parted.html#SEC13

Update:

I would suggest not doing the "check" command above since it seems from other thread that the corrupted areas cannot be fixed. You just can avoid using it and leave it as "unused space".

There has been confirmation that relocating the corrupted partition to the good areas works. read the posts by "drnull" from post 331 in the thread under epic4g group.

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1504808&page=34

So for those who would like to use this solution I would recommend using parted and other tools I posted earlier (post 59 and 65-But do know try to recreate factoryfs partition in the same place as desribed in post 65). The major steps are below:

1. remove original factoryfs (which is the corrupted one). then leave the area unused.

2. remove datafs as well

3. create a 2 new ext4 partitions in the place of the removed datafs (from 1174 to 3332) one is factoryfs and the other is datafs. with the size of about 1gb each (follow steps in some of my earlier posts).

I believe that 1gb space is quite enough for data.

That is a more simple solution. If someone needs a larger datafs partition then they need to resize or recreate (remove and then recreate is a more simple way) UMS partition as well. The command to create UMS is simple and it does not require any conversion since it is in fat32 format:

(parted) mkfs 11 fat32

then

(parted) name 11 ums

Let me know if you have difficulties doing the procedures
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] matiasg85:
Hi, i do have a question, hope you can help me, right after i enter adb shell, i get the message:

"exec ´system/bin/sh´ failed, no such file or directory.

Any ideas?

Edit: Now i flashed cmw, and i can go to adb shell, but instead of ~ #, i'm getting ~ $, and when a try to su - it says it can't find it.

Any ideas?