yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] androholic:
You'll find twrp right here under Tmobile development section, it'll link you to rootzwiki where the original thread was & they say it's compatible with other carriers besides Tmo.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] zonly1:
Hey folks. Looks like I have to package up the broken phone today and send it back. Are there any last minute ideas that I can help out with?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] buvk:
i keep hearing people mention this could be a permissions thing.

any chance you can do an "ls -laR /efs"?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] zonly1:
Will do...give me a few. :)
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] henrys01:
http://pastebin.com/9zeSPLhB

This is from my phone with a zero'd out IMEI number.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] unboostedzc:
i haven't read through the 11 pages, but wanted to throw some info/questions up here.

i am on verizon and lost my IMEI & MEID sometime between last night after flashing up to CM10 (AOKP) and this morning when trying to restore a nandroid backup b/c of data issues i started having after flashing said CM10.

i was able to restore my nandroid backup from yesterday afternoon but still with no data or voice whatsoever. i reprovisioned my SIM card and was able to get 3G/LTE back but no MEID/IMEI. i odin'd back to completely stock VZW and reprovisioned my SIM card again. i've currently got my MEID back as well as all 3G/LTE/voice, but still have no IMEI.

question for you guys that have lost it; how did you handle it with your carrier? did you call and say you lost data completely, say you looked and the IMEI is 0, say it just stopped working, what? right now the phone appears to be operating fine without the IMEI; however i'm on my 2nd to last day of the 14days w/ verizon. not sure whether i should call them and say i'm having issues (even though there don't appear to be any at this moment other than an IMEI of 0 listed), take it in to the store or hold out for another day and see if there's any progress.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] zonly1:
TMO user here. I just went to the closest store and told them that my phone was stuck on Edge. They checked it out for about an hour and then sent me back to the store that I originally purchased it from. They looked at if for about 10 mins. and then warrantied it out.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] jgalan14:
Usually cdma networks don't check as much for that cause it doesn't have much troubles, but you probably won't be able to activated it in another line cause ir doesn't have IMEI the network won't be able to find it :(
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] buvk:
based on what you guys posted, and after comparing it to my /efs, i highly doubt imei is stored in /efs at all

zonly1, did you try restoring a complete device dd from your working phone to your non-working phone?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] zonly1:
I checked md5's on both the old and the new...Here are the only differences.

http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=29128274&postcount=421
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] androholic:
Hey Man, I say run down to Verizon & tell them your service has been in and out, and upon investigating it you realized that the imei was not present. Play dumb, get another one, and be careful, because the phone would be useless if you tried to sell it to someone else. I'd hate to see you stuck with a phone you could never sell when you're ready to get something different. Good luck, I think they'll replace it no problem for you ;)
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] buvk:
found this in the other missing IMEI thread...

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1791291

worth checking out...
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] androholic:
Because a couple of ppl asked about where to download twrp, I just wanted to clarify the steps I use when flashing.

1) Factory Reset

2) Flash zip

3) Wipe Cache

4) Wipe Dalvik

I've never wiped system, but I've seen others that say they have. I personally like to keep all of the data that's on my internal sd storage, and I believe a system wipe may format that, idk?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] kssxs:
Can anyone with a backup of their EFS partition confirm that this fixes it for them?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] zonly1:
I will test this right now...brb
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Narcistic:
Probably not going to find many who have done this prior to losing imei..... Unfortunately..
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] mrmako777:
Its easy to test...but who has the balls to test it on their perfectly working phone? Lol
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] naturefreak85:
Not at all.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] David Dee:
The wait is killing me....
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] zonly1:
I tried this:

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1791291

Well, a couple of things.

1. I'm on TMo

2. I'm on CM9

Went ahead and tried this..when I did the re-provision thing I got an error Connection problem or invalid MMI code. I assume that this is caused by being on TMo.

Bottom line, my serial # is for the correct phone, but this did not move over my IMEI from my working phone.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] zmore:
The only difference between the Verizon thread that's been linked to a few times, and the AT&T IMEI thread in the dev section, is the code he mentioned -- *2767*3855# -- to re-provision your (verizon) phone after dd'ing your backup back.

A lot of us who haven't lost our IMEI yet have already made FULL internal SDcard backups; not just that one partition. The code is probably verizon-only (and verizon is meid vs imei). Maybe there's another one for AT&T?

Also, nobody's chimed in in that Verizon thread to say it's worked either.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] buvk:
im pretty sure these codes are universal.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] zmore:
Many other codes have already proven not to be universal. Even many of the simple selftest / diagnostic codes don't work on all devices.

*#0011# - service mode

*#SELF* - test mode

*#0*# - yet another test mode

... and some others i'm forgetting (but all three of the above work on my d2att)
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] naturefreak85:
Not at all, that code is VZW specific (Maybe sprint) because of the way CDMA phones register on the network. Remember the phone is dual CDMA/GSM. AT&T/Tmobile phones just need a sim card to activate on the network. That's it.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] unboostedzc:
gave verizon a call and they're warrantying the phone out without any issues. it went straight past the CSR to the advanced tech rep. first question out of the reps mouth was whether i've changed any software or anything, which i haven't of course. :angel:

no local stores in 500mi radius have any in stock so they're 2day shipping one to me and issued an account promo credit for my hassle.

anything you guys need/want me to try before this one goes back out that might help the cause?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] buvk:
if you backed up prior to losing imei, you can try http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1791291&page=3
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] David Dee:
Even if you haven't backed up, you should pm the OP from (and post in) that Verizon thread, as he may have a Verizon backup or other files for you to try (didn't work for Tmo that way, but could partially rule out carrier difference as an issue).

Thanks for offering man!
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] brfield:
Just backed up my entire internal with

dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0 of=/external_sd/mmcblk0.img

pulled it to my pc, it's a 4GB file that winrar compresses to 1.41GB with default settings.

Checked MD5 on Phone and PC, they match.

I'm ready for a failure *knocks on wood*. Hopefully the IMEI is in there lol
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] deeznutz1977:
ill re root and let you know Edit; yes it looks just like the picture
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] zmore:
Sorry to tell you, but your backup is flawed. Your internal SD is either 16 or 32GB; not 4GB. The reason yours is 4GB is because it got truncated by FAT32 not being able to support files larger than 4GB. The newer exFAT format -- which is default on new 64+ GB sdcards -- can handle it though.

See my post the IMEI thread in the dev section for a howto on using netcat (nc) to stream your backup over the network if you don't have a large enough card, or can't/don'twantto reformat it.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] lowandbehold:
What if he only had 4gb worth of data on it? It isn't going to back up blank memory, right?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] zmore:
dd images aren't compressed.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] brfield:
None of these work on T-Mo CM10

---------- Post added at 01:37 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:33 PM ----------

If I recall correctly, my SDcard is already exFAT. I'm using a 64GB CLassh 10 UHS-1
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] naturefreak85:
Right, some codes are Universal for Samsung also. There are Universal GSM codes, Universal Samsung Codes, and Universal CDMA codes. Then there are specific codes that are universal across all devices on AT&T/T-Mobile/Verizon/Sprint Individually.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] thacounty:
What ROM are you running? I only ask because AOSP doesn't support exfat, but if you are on stock you could be using either.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] brfield:
Well, this is crazy. It was exFAT when I had it in my G2, and until now, I presumed it was. I'm on CM10.

Going to reformat as exFAT in windows and see what the phone does.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] naturefreak85:
ExFAT will not work in CM at all. Licensing such is too difficult (saw it in one of the threads by Cyanogen himself), so it's Fat32 support only.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] brfield:
Well this blows.

I understand why, but it's some BS that M$ wouldn't open source or at least release under a respectable license the exFAT format. And the stock kernel in CM10 doesn't have NTFS either. FUUUUUUUUUU......
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] drothenberger:
The internal SD card is either 16 or 32 GB. If you got a 4 GB file, it was truncated, most likely because your external SD card is formatted as FAT32. FAT32 has a maximum file size limitation of 4 GB.

There is a script here that you can use to back up each partition separately. It skips /system and /data, so each partition falls below the 4 GB limit.

There are a few parts of the internal SD card that are not part of a partition, but these are identical across phones for the same carrier and so are unlikely to contain the IMEI number.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] naturefreak85:
NTFS is also not open sourced. No support in Mac and even *nix support is limited. ext3/4 is supported at least in Mac to an extent, I think HFS+ is quite well supported in both *nix and Mac, but not Windows. Welcome to a really bad fragmentation that will keep getting worse. Each company wants to stick to their own Formatting for it's various benefits, but it locks people into an ecosystem. That's a reason I'm working on building up a NAS with 6 TB storage. Keep everything on the network, 4+ GB files and no worry about Platform Compatibility.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] brfield:
And now my SDCard doesn't work in CM10. Windows sees it.

Tried to format in recovery, failed to mount.

Format in Win 7 to Fat 32, CM10 reports broken card.

Format in recovery, success.

CM10 still report broken card, won't let me format it.

Looks like I might have to boot up Ubuntu.

That's a good 30 second boot that I don't want to do.

And yes, I really am too lazy to boot into Ubuntu and format it right now. :P
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] wavrunrx:
try it in windows 7 again, but UNCHECK "quick format"
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] harlenm:
I'm an idiot, but I can't figure out how to add my info to the spreadsheet.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] rakhov:
I have been crawling over these threads for days and cannot hold my silence any longer. I am getting my hands a little dirty as we near some possibility on resolving this. I am hoping that I can can provide some information that seems to be lacking on most of these peoples write-up's. I am planning on doing this as thorough and documented as possible. It is my belief that a lot of these inconstant symptoms come from people doing what they are used too (as I was tempted to do) , and maybe not paying so much attention to details. You brave souls though I do respect.

I right now stand with a stock AT&T SG3. With a /05 IMEI. I am not sure what other information would be relevant to take note of before doing anything, but anything that would be important to note please inform me so I can either write it down or screenshot it.

As of right now my steps are:

Document any important information pre-flash/root

Install root via Odin using "no flash trip method" unless there is another suggested way

use netcat method to do block level backup of device

test functionality of stock/root without any other modifications

Install twrp/clockwork recovery, and make note of process

test various functions of recovery and how they affect imei status

try different roms
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] zmore:
It was made invite-only because of a vandal. PM the OP for access.

(or, maybe the spreadsheet can be made world-editable again, now that we have more admins around to revert if more trolls show up)
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] wavrunrx:
yeah, its invite only now; PM

LORDMORPHUS for access
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] zonly1:
Good luck!!!!!!!!! :good:
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] kssxs:
My apologies if this has already been asked/posted:

Are there a full set of instructions that, using your method, will allow us to do a complete backup image of the phone, including any and all partitions and all data on the internal storage (excluding the SD card)? I'm wanting to backup the entire device to my PC, BEFORE I start messing around with it.

Any help would be appreciated!
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] androholic:
I've received a few pm's regarding an invite to add info to the spreadsheet, and I just want to let anyone looking through the thread for the first time know that I am unable to process that request. If you would like to add your info to the spreadsheet, and we appreciate it, please contact Lordmorhous. Also, any info you would like to share regarding the imei issue is best shared in the thread as opposed to a pm directly to myself. Everyone that has contacted me thus far has been extremely polite, and did a very good job of providing detailed & organized information, however I am far from qualified to deal with this issue! Any ideas that I've provided are pure opinion or speculation, and the more qualified ppl are posting here in the thread. So, if you have anything to add or questions, please post them in the thread for the community to address, as I'm am only coincidentally the OP of the thread that most ppl with this issue have chosen to gather & brainstorm in:)
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] mt3g:
100% agreed

T-Mobile SGS III
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] sabre31:
This is bad this makes me regret getting a Samsung phone now.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] es7241:
It's either this or locked boatloaders lol
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] sabre31:
I know your right these companies are making it difficult for us. I am starting to realize that it's galaxy Nexus or bust it seems if you want to enjoy android any longer.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Product F(RED):
I know this is the carrier-branded forum, and I know that the EFS Backup tool in the international section doesn't seem to work on AT&T and T-Mobile models (I have an i9300), but have you tried this app? I ran it on my international and it worked fine:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.hellcat.droiddev.ktool
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] drksilenc:
no that does not work either hellcat is in the other forum posting and he says it wont work.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Product F(RED):
Blame the carriers man :/ It's not their place to f*ck with the software on such a low level like that.

And in response to the guy a few posts above, I used to love HTC. I owned the original Evo and Evo 3D, but once they started bootloaders I kissed them goodbye. At first I chose the SGSII (Sprint) for the Exynos processor and camera, ignoring the plastic body. I liked it, but mostly because it was so open and easily rootable. Then the One X came out (International Tegra 3) and I was considering it; I still think it looks better than the SGS3, and the Tegra 3 is no slouch. But what turned me away wasn't the non-expandable memory or non-removable battery. It was their stupid bootloader stance. I shouldn't have to tell the manufacturer that I'm tinkering with my phone in order to be able to do what I want with it. What if my phone has a hardware issue (like the wifi issue on the Tegra 3 One X) and I need to return it? Even if I set it back to stock firmware with an RUU (equivalent of an ODIN flash), they won't take it because they'll look up the IMEI and see that I rooted it. On top of that, the bootloader says "TAMPERED" and "RELOCKED" on top when you try to go back to stock after rooting. So that's why I won't buy an HTC ever again unless they reverse what they did.

Also, I had the Galaxy Nexus (before Jelly Bean was released, I sold it though), and while it was a nice phone, it has a horrible camera and less than 16GB of usable storage, which isn't enough for me. It also has an old processor that, while it's great for doing simple things, is not that great 3D-performance wise. I'm still waiting for a Tegra 3 or Exynos-based Nexus phone. The reason they went with TI-OMAP is because Exynos doesn't do LTE on-chip and it also doesn't do T-Mobile's 42Mbps on-chip.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] androholic:
Yes, I love my nexus, but if you want to venture outside of that there's always gonna be small bridges to cross, and the gsm nexus also had a similar issue. But, I believe it's been solved, and this will be too. I don't think manufacturers or Google are trying to make things harder, it's just that code & software are ever changing. There are alot of knowledgeable ppl out there that pic these things apart, and it only seems impossible to us at the moment because one of them hasn't had a chance to check into this yet, or just need a little more time. It will all work out, but the devs at samsung & the devs on XDA don't communicate w/ each other, so it takes time to analyze their work apparently. I wouldn't have any regrets if I were you. I really didn't post a thread to bring anyone down, it's just best to be informed, and now you are, so just follow directions and if something goes wrong you'll know where to look, and at the very least you'll pull off a warranty exchange I'm sure...
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Lieu10ant:
oh ****!!!! that's a HUGE issue
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Kevinl86:
I bought my ATT Pebble Blue BNIB for $415 on eBay which is a KILLER deal if any of you have been looking to purchase out of contract.

I've flashed about 4 roms since Saturday and now I'm on the CM10 Official. If it happens, it happens. It is what it is I guess.

And for anyone wanting the know. The CM10 is MOST DEF a daily driver as is, it is functioning at least 98% for me with camera and root.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] jgalan14:
I agree I'm loving jellybean freaking crazy fast :)
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] androholic:
I've formed an idea on a possible solution*I installed twrp recovery via terminal emulator & have done some testing. I immediately made a backup & checked where it was stored after rebooting my phone and it is stored on the internal SD card. Although, if you check a box under mounts twrp will read from your external sd card & install any zips you may have stored there. I then rebooted back into twrp recovery & wiped cache, dalvik, and did a factory reset. To my surprise I was still able to restore my backup because twrp doesn't wipe your internal sd card storage or media? To my recollection cwm wipes everything including your internal sd card, at least on the gs3? So I believe perhaps cwm is what is wiping the area of our device that contains our imei data? This is at least possible, because I haven't read any reports of anyone using twrp having this issue. I've even scoured different sites asking users in twrp related topics if anyone has heard of the issue, and I've been all over searching high & low for ppl with our problem. My next step is to take the leap into installing many roms from the Tmo development section later this evening (hopefully). I may try to install & restore from them all. I will report my results back & if all is well each individual may make their own decision as to whether they feel comfortable installing twrp & flashing away! As for why cwm is wiping the imei(if it in fact is) I haven't the faintest clue, nor do I know how those already effected will recover other than a warranty exchange, but maybe we can at least prevent any other instances?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] OTAw:
So Is this only happening to those who are flashing roms and/or kernels? Or is it for any rooted device period?

I'm asking because I'm staying with stock right now but might only want to root just for extra control options over my device.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Product F(RED):
Happens when you flash a ROM. I feel for you guys, I really do :/ Hang in there homies.

- Your i9300 cousin
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] jgalan14:
Man I still remember you on the evo forums :) good times
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] drksilenc:
i remember fred as well lol
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] OTAw:
Thanks!
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Product F(RED):
Most of my posts on XDA came from Myn's Warm Two Point Two thread xD It's funny; I'll be commenting on an article on Engadget or some other website and someone replies, "Hey Fred! I remember you from XDA!"
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] cashyftw:
Ahh man, that's not cool. Guess I'm never going back to stock lol.

Sent from my Aokp Galaxy s3! (:
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] mobilehavoc:
What if you use Odin to flash a rooted system tar. That seems like it should be safe right ?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] David Dee:
Lord Morphous' call, but I suggest the spreadsheet is unlocked now that the spammer has been taken care of and MrHighway is watching. I think entering every new piece of data is too much to ask of anyone and quite frankly won't get done.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] MMontanez347:
sorry if this has been answered before....ive been following this thread for days and for the first time i didn't check this thread out yesterday only to find a "solution" over in the Verizon forum....if this question has been asked then I apologize in advanced..

Im on T-mobile with my IMEI intact but I want to make a full backup incase I ever lose it down the line (this IMEI issue is why ive been scared to flash anything recenenty) can I use the method from this forum to backup my efs/IMEI/etc and restore it if i ever lose it when flashing a rom? and also has anyone confirm this working? it'd be nice to know if this imei issue was fully resolved...thank you

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1791291