[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 Android Development] incisivekeith:
The "guy" who "bricked" his phone...

Thanks for the detailed reply and actually something that's useful. I will respond to the seller policies in a later post, as I want to focus on the phone's technical issues first, if that's okay.

I CAN get into download mode, as I mentioned in one of my very first posts about this issue. Apart from that, I have a prompt on the screen when I turn on my phone that says "Firmware upgrade encountered an issue. Please select recovery mode in Kies and try again." Is my device fixable? Can I flash a kernel that will allow me to go to CWM and do something to revive my Note?

As I said in my earlier post, and for the benefit of people who would really like to know what happened, here are the clear details:

To root my Gingerbread installation on my phone, I followed this video from Ashiwn and deodexed ROM " and used Odin 1.85 (which is linked under his video)

I flashed this ROM "3*Files No-Wipe N7000XXLA6_N7000OXEULA1_XEU Europe (03/02/2012)" from Bodivas' thread that Ashwin linked to.

After rooting the phone, which went perfectly fine without any issues, I followed another video of Ashwin's that he linked to - this was to do with flashing Abyss kernel using mobile Odin to install custom recovery - this step went fine too.

Then, I flashed the venerable (sarcasm, of course!) stock ICS LPY ROM using Odin - again, the flash went fine without any issues. I used this installation for a few days.

Last night, I followed all the instructions from dr. ketan's guide and flashed the ICS LPF ROM, which wiped all data on my phone as expected, and again, the flash went without any issues. I did not flash the CF kernel or SU, thats also mentioned in his guide.

This morning, I flashed LPT modem on the LPF ROM as I wasn't satisfied with the wifi performance of LR1 (the modem that came with LPR) and wanted to figure out what was causing it. After this, I flashed back LR1. Following this, I reflashed LPF and all associated files from dr. ketan's guide. This time, too, I did not flash CF kernel or SU.

After all this, I was trying to wipe data; I wiped data from the CWM that dr. ketan linked and that deleted everything, apparently. I wiped as I read somewhere in these threads (can't remember where) that, because the LPF has its own bootloader, it's ok to wipe. When I rebooted the phone, it got stuck at the Samsung logo. In a desperate attempt to save my phone, I went to download mode, and tried flashing LPY, LPF, and the stock odexed ROM from bodivas' thread - none of which went beyond the "Factoryfs" prompt in Odin.

As there was no way of doing anything else, I disconnected the phone from my laptop, removed the battery, and rebooted the phone. This time, I did't see the Samsung logo, but I saw this message "Firmware upgrade encountered and issue. Please select recovery mode in Kies and try again."

That's the whole story. Now devs can analyze the scenario and save others from going through what I am going through. I would certainly advise people posting guides and such to include "things that we should not do with this version" or "be cautious with doing this or that" so people are aware.

Yes, most people read the instructions (and I am not a newbie to flashing) but the unfortunate reality is that reading thousands of posts with no definitive conclusions does more damage to the "knowledge" that's supposed to be gained rather than improve it. it's always a good practice to include "not-to-do's" in the guides - just like when you write a program, you write excellent comments for the commands so the user can clearly understand what the program is meant to do.

Now, please look at the first few lines of this post again and let me know if you can help with fixing my phone. Thanks.