yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] wavrunrx:
@ OP !

i think we should add the windows procedure to backup our partitions to your first post.

1) install adb ([URL="https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=oaNM-lt_aHw"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?featur...&v=oaNM-lt_aHw[/URL]) --- follow video to the t

2) (YOU MIGHT BE ABLE TO SKIP THIS STEP -- TO FIND OUT: open a windows command prompt, and type "adb shell". if you get something along the lines of cannot connect, youll need to follow this step ---------------> go to device manager on windows 7, and under the entry "Portable Devices" right click and click "Update Driver" and point it to this one: [URL="http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1379875"]http://xdaforums.com/show....php?t=1379875[/URL]

3) install cygwin (you can use all the default settings the installer reccomends, but be sure to install cygwin to the root of c:\

4) right click drothenberger script and save too C:\cygwin\home\(your pc name)

5) double click cygwin terminal shortcut on your desktop and a terminal window will pop open.

6) type "chmod +x backup-block-devices.txt"

7) reboot your phone into recovery

8) on the cygwin terminal type "./backup-block-devices.txt"

9) give it about 10 min or so to finish, and you will have successfully imaged all blocks except for /data and /system, and they will be available in C:\cygwin\home

[COLOR=DarkRed][B][SIZE=4]drothenberger script avaliable HERE:

[/SIZE][COLOR=Black]http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=28528532&postcount=38[/COLOR]
[/B][/COLOR]

ALSO:

we should start a new bounty thread, OR start adding users names with their contribution to a proven and effective way to backup and write their IMEI

to the OP.

**OP, maybe you can request a sticky for this thread too
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Artimus009:
Pm sent

stock rooted and rocking kt747 kernel...still got my imei
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] ElBeaner:
Get with someone who has lost imei and see if that imei restore option works.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] stevessvt:
Can it be restored if the app didn't back it up?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] wavrunrx:
we just dont know at this point if it can ever be restored, regardless of method
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] deeznutz1977:
I run ./backup-block-devices.txt and i keep getting error: device not found error:device not found Edit: i also installed the mentioned drivers
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] thacounty:
I had to remove the . so I ran, /backup-block-devices.txt
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] deeznutz1977:
did you notice that xda is splitting up the gs3 forums
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] thacounty:
Yea, some users are thinking that the reason for the missing IMEI is flashing a rom that is not for their device. It could be the culprit, but I'm not 100% sold yet. They were getting rather large with 2 forums for each of the 4 carriers development alone, but it wasn't too bad I didn't think.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] deeznutz1977:
Thats not the reason at least on my part and if thats the reason for some people splitting it up wont save em either lol
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] thacounty:
Yea, I think there are many reasons this is happening, one of them being bad luck. I am sure an incorrect ROM wouldn't help, but yea this wouldn't be a fix.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] jerrygooch:
Heads up.. TWRP is official for our device. Used goo manager to install. You can find the post in the development section. Wasn't sure if this has been mentioned. Waiting for a ROM update before I flash but I think this is the best way to discover if cwm is the cause.

sent from the next best thing
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] sabre31:
Does twrp work with CM10 and all roms?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] fabzbear:
So the imei is for phones that are on at&t and T-Mobile and the mei if for Sprint and Verizon?

Or it applies for both?

If not is there a thread in the Sprint forums like this?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] gunnyman:
CDMA carriers like Sprint and Verizon don't use imei. They use ESN.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] neyenlives:
so far i have been unable to get the kexec kernel based CM9 and CM10 builds to work with TWRP 2.2.0
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] fabzbear:
So it takes away the esn for Sprint and Verizon users.

A couple of the method posted on this thread of copying/backing up the imei, would those methods work to back up the cdma esn out the problem doesn't apply to us.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] naturefreak85:
They use an IMEI for GSM (World Phone) and LTE actually. ESN is just for CDMA.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] androholic:
Hey Thanks Wavrunrx & everyone else who has been helpful in typing things out so that I may just copy & paste in the OP! I just finished updating everything with current info, and I apologize if it's getting a little lengthy or out of order. If there are any other changes I can make, then just throw me another heads up, or if you pm me then Tapatalk will notify me immediately. If I don't get back to you or modify the op right away, then I'll be with you shortly, as I tend to be a little tied up at times throughout the day.

As far as getting the thread stickied, I'm not sure how to do that? Would I just PM a mod? Also, if so is there any more cleaning up or changing of the op that you'd like me to do first? I can also turn the thread over to another user to be op if that's possible, if there's someone who's more knowledgeable of these backup procedures and such? Just let me know what you'd like me to do & I'll be on it.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] androholic:
Why is it that they're taking our forum & assembling it in these off the wall formats, and then as soon as I get used to where everything is they go and change it again? What makes the most sense is just leaving it one way for good, because changing it every 3 weeks is confusing the **** out of ppl!
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] androholic:
How the Hell did this thread end up in Att forum, alot of us are on Tmo here? I would hope that this thread is over in the Tmo forum also, so that we don't have to start yet another one in order to get ppl informed! Wow, this place is getting all mixed up again. :(
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] David Dee:
Be thankful, at least you guys have forums, as opposed to us on the Canadian carriers, with no officially supported placement anywhere. I feel like a vagrant, constantly on my knees at the AT&T door, begging for support/acceptance :crying:

My guess is the placement of this has something to do with being under Mr.Highway's supervision, as I believe he has been posted to the ATT forum (even though he is on T-mobile). He probably took this with him.

You should start a thread on T-mobile linking into this one as I don't think a thread can exist in two places, and so much has been covered here.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] lumbu:
I dont know how much further we are going to get until somebody who has backed up all the partitions actually loses their IMEI and tries to restore them one by one. That or we get somebody from Samsung to tell us where the hell they store this and who approved a design that allowed one of the most crucial things in the phone, something that should not ever change, to be over-writable.

As far as I can tell, people have lost their IMEI with multiple root methods, multiple recovery types and versions, multiple ROMs and multiple carriers. The only common thread that I can find is that everybody has an s3. I myself have done everything that multiple people on T-Mobile who have lost their IMEI has done, as far as I know, and mine is still fine (as he looks at the sky and sees a lightning bolt form). Luck cant be responsible for this, or at least it shouldnt be. This is a computer, and we have essentially the exact same computer. Running the same process should result in the same solution. The engineer in me is screaming at me, yelling that we have to be missing something that people either did or did not do that is causing this.

I think we have gone as far as we can with trying to get a back up process in place, at least until we get somebody who has a backup and loses the IMEI and tries to restore. I think we should re-focus our efforts in trying to find a common thread between those who have lost their IMEIs, a thread that doesnt unravel with others having done the same thing without losing the IMEI.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] thacounty:
Well said, cm10 here I come.

---------- Post added at 08:30 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:57 PM ----------

Wiped cache, dalvik, cache, dalvik, dirty flash cm10, flashed jb gapps, imei intact.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] gpgorbosjr:
Sounds like the the common thread is they didn't backup lmfao.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] mrmako777:
Flash back to stock with Odin and see if you still have it?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] androholic:
Actually guys, Mr. Highway has made the thread accessible from both Tmo & ATT general sections. He also is going to stickie it so it will be easy to find. The mods have got a lot on their plate right now, and I was just going through a loop there when I exited the thread & found myself in a different forum, lol.

And yea, you poor Canadians are scrambling all over! Lol, they would probably make separate forums for you, but it would probably have much less development then you find in the Tmo & ATT forums based on the fact that there don't seem to be as many Canadian users here on XDA? If there are more then I'm assuming though, pm a mod & ask for specific forums?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Andrew_han:
we don't really need separate forums though as all the canadian models are pretty much identical to american models
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] The Archangel:
They are stuck btw. See you around :D
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] David Dee:
Mr. Highway is a great mod here, I am not surprised he did all that for you.

Lol, per capita, there are probably just as many Canadians on XDA, but population wise you guys out number us by more than 10 to 1 :). Canadian specific forums are definitely not the way to go. What they need to do is follow the precedent set with the One X, where Canadian carrier firmwares, development and names are combined with the relevant US equivalent carrier forum: Ie. Rogers/Bell/Telus/Sasktel with AT&T, Wind/Mobilicity/Videotron with T-Mobile. I have already put in this request, now it out of my hands.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] androholic:
Yes, things are similar and have been for a long time on the sensation forums too. They do a very nice job of keeping everything labeled & giving carrier/country specific directions. Good luck, and I hope it goes in your favor! It would be very sensible & helpful as well for newer Canadian users.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] thacounty:
Ok,but I rarely deal with Odin So I can really mess this up haha. I'll try it before bed.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] kssxs:
Guys, take a look at this and let's see what you all think:

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1753833&page=16

My post is #792.

Thoughts?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] es7241:
Didn't I read earlier in the thread that it is maybe a qualcomm specific issue and there was a link to another forum about the issue as well and fixing it... I am starting to think that, the issue is the same here and happens only occasionally.

Hopefully we hear back from the people who sent their phones to Samsung to fix.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] androholic:
I think I'm starting to sway towards the same thoughts. It kind of a shame to, because it's more or less a hardware issue then, and we can't really avoid it other then not flashing at all:(. We had a user confirm Samsung had to swap the board because they were unable to restore lte, even after restoring the imei.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Narcistic:
You would think though if it was hardware related people who just rooted would be having issues as well... I'm starting to wonder of everybody who has had the issue maybe had a bad build of a rom or something at some point... Or corrupted nandroid backup files...
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] androholic:
Well Im thinking (pure speculation) that maybe when we're flashing, part of the chips memory that were writing to is vulnerable because it's prone to becoming corrupted? If Samsung had to swap the board which was definitely stated somewhere in the thread, and the company that does the imei restoring has also been reported to have said they can't seem to get lte functioning(I'm sure someone said something close to this, but not sure of the exact phrasing) then we could very well have a snapdragon s4 hardware defect or vulnerability if you will, because it functions out of the box just fine so long as we don't flash? Again, I have no ground to stand on as far as arguing my point, I'm just throwing it out there that this is a likely possibility.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Ratchet556:
This happened to me last night and I don't think it has anything to do with the actual process of flashing the ROM. I had rooted and flashed recovery using the "dd" method and then flashed CM10 and CM9. Last night my battery died and after it was at 100% i turned it back on the BAM! no IMEI. So mine became corrupted out of no where. Not during rooting, not during flashing. I really hope we can sort this out because I want to be able to flash things on this without having to worry about this. Luckily it was pretty easy to go into a Bell store and get a new on :D
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] androholic:
All was well & data was definitely functioning prior to the battery dying? That is extremely strange. Everyone else that had the loss related to cm has reported that the imei was gone immediately after flashing and the discovered it upon rebooting.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Ratchet556:
Yea exactly. all was well before the battery died and as soon as I turned it back on after topping it up it was gone, couldn't even send text messages any more.

I should add that my IMEI read 00/01
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] lumbu:
I aint calling you a liar, but that literally boggles the mind. If losing power can cause this, that should honestly be cause for a mass recall.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] lordmorphous:
Don't know whether to consider myself brave or just stupid, but here's what I did:

To start with, my IMEISV was 05, I hadn't seen one of those lost on the spreadsheet.

I did a nandroid backup through CWM.

Flashed TWRP through the goo.im app.

Nandroid backup in TWRP.

Flashed the JB AOKP rom.

Flashed Gapps.

Nandroid backup in TWRP again.

Restored first nandroid backup in TWRP.

I still have my IMEI!

I rebooted in between each step to track the status of the IMEI.

On a side note, and a little off topic, I am learning that I really like the stock rom with just a few customizations anyway.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Ratchet556:
I still assume it has something to do with flashing a rom but for me the symptoms were delayed I suppose.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] :
Where do get the goo.im app
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] lordmorphous:
its call goomanage in the play store
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] :
Goomanager beta? I can't figure how to flash the recovery
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] lordmorphous:
http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1793224&highlight=twrp
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] :
Follow the instructions and got this.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] lordmorphous:
You should try asking for help in that thread. The original instructions just worked for me. There were others that had the same problem.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] rakhov:
I'm diving in. Going to flash over to stock rooted via odin and then do the block backup. From there I will attempt recoveries and roms.

Wish me luck!

UPDATE:

Finally rooted, rebooted and played with phone and still getting 4G. My signal is weak but I think that is more to do with me being in a basement hah. My imei is still in tact and at 05 using the current "no flash counter increase" method. I don't think this comes as a suprise, but with talk of people loosing it on reboot now, who knows. I also installed busybox from the play store, gave it superuser permissions. Everything is still wroking fine even after reboots.

I have installed adb, cigyn, and the script all ready to go. The only thing I am seeing is that it looks like I have to install a recovery and boot into it before I run the script? Is this true? Is there any way I can backup before running installing recovery? I feel like that may be something worth having? As it seems like having recovery and using it may be one of the causes. Is this just me over-analyzing this? haha
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Ratchet556:
Don't get too scared by my situation. It could be totally different and unrelated. For example every once and a while mine would look like it connected to Bell's network but in reality it didn't. Sometimes it would even display full bars. I don't know if you guys get the same thing but if not then we can assume my situation with it disappearing on reboot is totally unrelated to flashing anything.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Superguy:
I'm kinda surprised there hasn't been talk of this on one of the Android news sites, with an outreach to Samsung to see what's going on.

I was looking at picking this up, but I can't say I'm comfortable with it given the reports I've read.

And this supposedly existed on the Captivate too? I messed with that phone all the time and never had a problem with it. Anyone know how the issue was caused on that?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Narcistic:
Reason being this is affecting a very very small amount of people vs those that are not having any issues....
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] mrmako777:
thats the thing. its happened to so few people, im leaning more towards user error. now i dont believe necessarily that anyone is lying about what they did to achieve their imei being lost, but i think more than anything it points towards an error that was over looked during flashing...
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Superguy:
And if that's what it ends up being, that's fine. I'd just like to know what it is so I can avoid when I drop my cash on it.

I know people are trying to figure it out. It may be a small problem, but it happens enough that it's a deterrent.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] David Dee:
I am guessing you could have had a defective unit, by the sound of it.

Some of the users who lost their IMEI were highly experienced at flashing. I am not so sure I would go with user error just yet.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] DudeWatsThat:
I want to contribute to this thread by flashing and documenting the process to see if I lose my IMEI, thing is I need some guindence since im not a "pro" at any of this. The reason im deciding to do this is because I don't wan to to fear flashing just because of the risk of losing IMEI and I rather do it while I still have my 30 day Att return period that way I can put my mind at rest.

Here's how my phone is set up:

Used the no trip flash counter method for rooting and getting cwm

Have been on stock rooted for about a week without problems

Havent flashed anything in cmw absolutly nothing

My method going foward to flash roms:

Nandroid backup

The partion backup mentioned in this thread

Flash a modified stock rom maybe even a kernel

See if my IMEI is intact

If IMEI goes bad:

See if the theories work.

Don't bash me I just wanna help but I need some guidence here are my Qs

If I lose my Imei how do I restore the partitions?

If all hope is lost what steps do I have to take so that I can take the phone for an exchange? Flash stock rom unmodified with all the bloat, reset flash counter

Then flash back to stock using odin?

What is cygwin is it separete from adb?

-------Update-------

Successfully flashed ROM no IMEI problems yet.

Thank you to anyone who guides me during this process.

Sent from my GALAXY SIII
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] thacounty:
Restoring the partitions should be added to OP. I am not sure exactly how to do it. I know it is the if= and of= commands that are around you just switch the if and the of to go back.

You have all the correct steps listed.

Cygwin uses ADB. It is a way to run linux scripts (I think) in windows. It is a pretty powerful tool from what I can tell. I also just found out about it. Someone is making a PC app that will let you take all partitions from the phone and push them back. I don't know how far along he is on it.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] DudeWatsThat:
Can you put a link to the thread of the app?

Sent from my GALAXY SIII
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] thacounty:
Sure,

This Post:

http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=29297222&postcount=803

This Thread:

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=29309290#post29309290
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] drothenberger:
The script can be run with your phone booted into recovery or booted into normal Android. There's a variable at the top of the script that says "RECOVERY=1". Comment that out (by putting a # mark at the beginning of the line) if you don't intend to run it in recovery.

I personally preferred to run it through recovery because I felt there was less of a chance the partitions were being changed while I was backing them up, but I don't know if that's really true. If you don't want to install recovery, you can run it from a normal Android boot.

But, I don't see how you're going to flash anything without installing recovery. :)
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] DudeWatsThat:
I wonder if it will be ready by tomorrow, do you restore the partions after restoring the nandroid backup?

Sent from my GALAXY SIII
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] thacounty:
He didn't give an ETA. That is frowned upon with Android.

I am hoping that you don't need to do anything other than restore partitions. It would be awesome if that fixed it and you could keep the current rom instead of going to stock. I would try that first if I lost it, then I would go to stock if it didn't work and try doing it again while on stock.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] woody1:
Instead of installing Cygwin on my Windows machine, would it be possible to install ADB on a linux machine and accomplish the same thing?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] DudeWatsThat:
The only thing stopping me from starting is that I don't know how to restore partitions. I don't have extensive knowledge of adb and have no idea how to implement if= of=(correct these if I wrote them wrong) commands for restoring.

Sent from my GALAXY SIII
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] thacounty:
The if= and of= are commands that are used after dd. They are used in adb so it would be # dd if(inputfile)/sdcard/nameofblock and of would be the partition for output file.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] zmore:
FWIW, I summarized the issue and tipped Phandroid.com a few days ago, but they weren't interested.