yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] zonly1:
I do not think there is ANY way to currently back up your IMEI information at this point, I hope there will be a solution soon!
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] lordmorphous:
In the interest of ease of data collection, I have opened the spreadsheet back up to full access. Hopefully the vandals will stay at bay. Thanks to everyone who keeps their eyes on it with me.

The permission is giving me a hard time sticking, can someone verify they can edit for me?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] MMontanez347:
so the post in Verizon dosent work then? such a shame....this IMEI issue is the only thing keeping me from flashing any ROM or MOD or etc, i really hope someone finds a way soon...
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] lordmorphous:
Well, I'm tired of being scared to flash my phone, so here is my plan. When/if I find something I want to flash, I'm going to back up all the partitions, except system, data, pre, and post (system and data would change and pre and post have been proven to be the same on everyone's phone). Presumably, if I lose IMEI in the process, one of the other partitions would change too..correct?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] wavrunrx:
that is the thought, yes. :eek:
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] David Dee:
Mmontanez, I remember you from the Andromadus forums, nice to see I am not the only ex- vision person here, good to see you bro. The Verizon solution has not been ruled out, it needs to be tested on a device with wiped IMEI where the efs backup comes from that same device. You should back that up just in case it does eventually work.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] brfield:
Damn, that's a no-go.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] getsaf:
Is there some reason the CMW Recovery SD card format tools won't work? That'll give you an ext* format which can hold ginormous files.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] MMontanez347:
ahhhhh I knew the name David Dee was familiar!! really nice to see you too man! yeah reading the Verizon forum it seems noone has confirmed restoring it to work but its nice that there's at least a backup way! im fine on stock deodexed anyways but as soon as a stable Jellybean rom comes out, I will be flashing no matter what! heres hoping this IMEI issue can be fixed by then :fingers-crossed:
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] brfield:
It formats it, but then CM10 doesn't work with it. I don't think the CWM Recovery format is exFat, I believe it is just FAT.

I will try again in CWM and then try Ubuntu if all else fails.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] swa2k4:
Just got a galaxy s 3 for my girlfriend. Did the root 66 no trip tar Odin. And then installed cwm through rom manager. Then installed a stock based Rom freegs3. Then cm10 imei still intact. :)

Last week I got a galaxy s 3 for my sister and rooted same way. But installed cwm through Odin tar. Did not install any stock based Rom first. Went straight to cm10 and gapps, Lost imei seen when booting cm10.

My galaxy s 3 have had since 4 weeks now, rooted with Sprint based cwm port Odin tar. Then installed few of redrum stock based Roms then installed cwm touch via adb then cm10 and gapps with imei alive and kicking. I suggest you all stay away from cwm installation through Odin tar and should install a stock based Rom first following my history this is my third gs3 I've done. Good luck all!
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Artimus009:
Alright guys...I am tired of not being able to flash!!!! I am willing to go flash happy but before I do, what should I do in case I lose another imei? If I lose it, I'll just go and do a warranty exchange at the AT&T warranty place. If backing up the whole internal sd will fix it, then we're in business. I don't know how to do it. So if someone is willing to help me through it...I'm your huckleberry.

stock rooted and rocking kt747 kernel...still got my imei

Edit: one more thing...I also don't know when exactly I lost my imei due to still having data and able to make calls...I was flashing everything under the sun, moon, and stars. Also was flashing my backups to go back to stock. When I noticed it was gone, I was flashing the upgraded stock firmware.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] getsaf:
Ahh, didn't realize that. There's always an adb shell or terminal emulator if you don't want to go ubuntu.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] thacounty:
Make sure external SD is formatted exfat

Open an ADB Shell and run this command:

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

Edit:

I'm with you. I am going back nandroid to make my SD exfat and backup the entire internal, then I will be flashing whatever I please, first being sv5 because I think that is the kicker here. No one has reported lost imei with SV 5. Could just be coincidence and that sv5 has been out for a much shorter time than sv1 or 2.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Artimus009:
Will do in a few...got to give the kids a bath and put them to sleep.

stock rooted and rocking faux123 kernel...still got my imei
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] brfield:
Works when formatted by gparted in Ubuntu. Took like 2 seconds after confirming actions to finish.

Fat32 for now I guess. Need to build a kernel with the ex fat interface added.

Sent from my SGH-T999 running CM10.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] kssxs:
*BUMP*

Anyone? Need a complete backup method using netcat to backup to PC. I'm sure others would benefit from this method too, or will at least feel better by doing it ;) .

Please and thanks!
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] drothenberger:
http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=29031884&postcount=429
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] wavrunrx:
edited.

already answered

http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=29220942&postcount=702
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] MMontanez347:
as stated a few posts ago, use this method to backup your IMEI/EFS

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

noone has confirmed this working yet so we need someone to make a backup, go flash crazy, lose their IMEI, and try the restore method to see if it works!

i just backed it up a few minutes ago and it was really easy to do, I recommend you do the same...and good luck :good:
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] wavrunrx:
yes, go flash crazy, but PLZ DOCUMENT EVERY STEP YOU MADE ON A NOTEPAD and inbetween EVERY step, check if IMEI is still displayed !!!

(not only do we want to find a FIX AND confirm it; but we want to find WHAT is breaking it !)
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] kssxs:
Thanks, I had found that through the search as well. How many memory blocks would you do those commands for?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] David Dee:
You guys are brave, I am going to sit tight for awhile longer and hope this gets solved.... At least until cm10 gets out of the preview phase.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Artimus009:
Will do. I just got the kids in bed and I am waiting for them to doze off. So far I'll tell you is that I installed CWM and rooted using Team Epic instructions in the sticky. I flashed faux123 kernel for stock and then flashed kt747 kernel for stock...that's it so far. Hopefully the imei trigger isn't already half way pulled...

stock rooted and rocking faux123 kernel...still got my imei
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] kssxs:
Which is why I'm still trying to get the backing-up procedure sorted out... just so I can be sure I'm ready to do whatever once the issue is resolved, and have a complete backup for peace of mind if necessary. $700+ is too much for me to mess around with ;) .
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] drothenberger:
The command listed in that post will dump your entire internal SD card. This is 16 or 32 GB large and that command can take 1.5 - 3 hours to run, maybe more. It requires that your phone and your computer are on the same network (i.e., you phone is connected to wifi) and the computer's firewall is configured correctly. In the command, the IP address is the address of your computer (you'll have to change it).

This will give you a complete backup of your phone. However, restoring it will be ... interesting. You can't just reverse the dd command (at least, I don't think you can) because you'll be trying to overwrite the SD card from which the phone's OS is running. You'd have to carve it up into pieces corresponding to the various partitions using dd, a task for fairly skilled people only.

Furthermore, the complete backup of the phone is (probably) unnecessary. If you dump the full SD card and then look at it, you'll find this partition table:

$ parted mmcblk0.img unit B print
Error: The backup GPT table is corrupt, but the primary appears OK, so that will be used.
OK/Cancel? o
Warning: Not all of the space available to /srv/tmp/mmcblk0.img appears to be used, you can fix the GPT to use all of the space (an
extra 12239 blocks) or continue with the current setting?
Fix/Ignore? i
Model: (file)
Disk /srv/tmp/mmcblk0.img: 15758000128B
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt

Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 4194304B 67108863B 62914560B modem
2 67108864B 67239935B 131072B sbl1
3 67239936B 67502079B 262144B sbl2
4 67502080B 68026367B 524288B sbl3
5 68026368B 70123519B 2097152B aboot
6 70123520B 70647807B 524288B rpm
7 70647808B 81133567B 10485760B boot
8 81133568B 81657855B 524288B tz
9 81657856B 82182143B 524288B pad
10 82182144B 92667903B 10485760B param
11 92667904B 106954751B 14286848B ext4 efs
12 106954752B 110100479B 3145728B modemst1
13 110100480B 113246207B 3145728B modemst2
14 113246208B 1686110207B 1572864000B ext4 system
15 1686110208B 14826864639B 13140754432B ext4 userdata
16 14826864640B 14835253247B 8388608B ext4 persist
17 14835253248B 15716057087B 880803840B ext4 cache
18 15716057088B 15726542847B 10485760B recovery
19 15726542848B 15737028607B 10485760B fota
20 15737028608B 15743320063B 6291456B backup
21 15743320064B 15746465791B 3145728B fsg
22 15746465792B 15746473983B 8192B ssd
23 15746473984B 15751716863B 5242880B grow

If you read that, you'll see there is about 4 MiB on the SD card before the first partition and about 6 MiB after the end of the last partition. lordmorphous and I have both extracted those pieces from our phones and compared them; they are identical. Therefore, it's quite unlikely the IMEI is stored in those sections.

A more useful way to back things up is to extract each partition separately. You don't really need to backup /system, /data, or boot, since these are backed up by a nandroid backup, but you can if you really want. There's an example of the commands you could use to do that here.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] es7241:
I think it would be a good idea to include the manufacturing date in the spreadsheet to rule out bad phone batches.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] wavrunrx:
that has already been added a long time ago
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] es7241:
Oh okay fail on my part maybe I should have checked before posting
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] harlenm:
Added my info to the spreadsheet. Did it from the phone, which wasn't easy. Hope I didn't mess it up!
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] androholic:
I think this is a pretty popular stand point, lol! I'll probably get flamed for this, but I am SURPRISINGLY pleased with the new touchwiz! I'm not a fan of manufacturer UI's and I love pure android as much as the next guy here on XDA, but I've found alot of very useful functionalities in TW. Samsung has definitely taken the world's ugliest UI, and at least made it useful in alot of areas, Imo. Until a nice stock Android Jellybean build arrives like CM10, I think I'll survive dealing with an ugly but feature packed UI. Touchwiz is like a fat girl with a great personality... I'll secretly love all over it, but it can forget commitment and I'm gonna be talking trash about it in front of the fellas, lmao! +1 if you share the same feelings ;)
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] wavrunrx:
hahahahahahaha :laugh:
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] androholic:
I'm your Huckleberry....

Doc was the man: "You look like someone just walked over your grave...... We're playing a game we never got to finish... A game for blood... "

Sorry back to topic.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] MMontanez347:
this made me laugh so hard that I scared my dog that was sleeping on my bed! lol +1 for you sir and I completely agree...im a hardcore pure vanilla android fan but this new touchwiz is just great! heck we might even get an official JB from samsung before there is a stable CM10 build!

http://www.androidcentral.com/internet-rumor-mill-says-jelly-bean-coming-samsung-galaxy-s-iii-soon
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] neoslink1:
Just a thought, but couldn't we use some kind of active logging app to trace the location of the IMEI when using the *#06# dialer command?

Like, start the app, then dial the command, and see where it pulled the IMEI info from? (just spitballing, I know next to nothing) ;)
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] brfield:
It pulls it from the settings menu in the phone if I am correct.

I think info like that is stuff that is broadcast by the device on boot, and read by the kernel/OS
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] drksilenc:
question can the settings apk be pulled apart to see where it draws it from?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] stevessvt:
Has anyone lost it simply by using the TMo 'No tripping flash counter' method?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] deeznutz1977:
Ok, so i used this method to backup the efs on my new phone http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1791291 than wrote it back to the "broken" one no imei but edge data and calls. my old phone has the serial number of the new phone. Then i dialed *2767*3855# worked ( said something about factory reset) but still no imei ?? EDIT: duh my new phone s on cm10 dont know if it would matter but ill go back to stock then try again
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] thacounty:
I think this should almost prove that the EFS does not carry the IMEI. But it does carry the serial number so maybe it is necessary to back up also.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] deeznutz1977:
Its something, ? Maybe some phones were /are "bad" withmy new phone the only thing ive done different is not flash cwm touch. Just so everyone knows im going to hold onto the bad imei phone for a while as i dont need it right now. Hopefully we can get this figured out. :)
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] brummett:
My phone is stock, never rooted, never flashed, and the IMEISV is 02. I don't think that's anything to worry about.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] ebatsky:
As others have asked, can you make a copy of all partitions EXCEPT system/data/cache from your good phone and copy them onto the bad phone and see if it gets the good phone's IMEI?

edit: What would be even better is if you did it 1 by 1 checking if IMEI got restored after each one.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] deeznutz1977:
ebatsky here you go dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0 of=/external_sd/mmcblk0.img do you have a 16 or 32 gig phone bucz it backs up your whole internal sd so make sure u have room Edit Check this post this one backs up to pc: http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=29031884&postcount=429
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] thacounty:
Please make the backup using the script from the first post and see what if it can restore imei on old phone.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] brummett:
According to this:

msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ee681827(v=vs.85).aspx

FAT32 supports last access time metadata for files. Which means that md5sums of a whole filesystem/partition will likely be different just because the files are accessed at different times (say, when the phone boots up), even if the file contents are the same.

Someone with root could check this out by making a backup. Then on the next day, rebooting and making another backup and comparing the md5sums.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] deeznutz1977:
sorry

Edit : fail sorry i had a special education moment j/k been messing arount with this phone to long pushed files back to the good phone fail
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] thacounty:
WAIT WHAT??? Does the data work??? Which pull did you do??

Edit: If this is true we just need a good imei pull possibly for everyones borked phone.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] deeznutz1977:
hold on spoke to quick give me a min
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] wavrunrx:
@deeznutz1977

----------------------------------^
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] deeznutz1977:
Question

i cant find the post that tells how to pull the whole internal . do you know what it is
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] thacounty:
Can you try the script first? Because pulling the entire internal might be overkill.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] wavrunrx:
i wrote a lil' how-to for windows last night:

http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=29233449&postcount=729
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] deeznutz1977:
what command do i use to push back to the phone? thanks in advance
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] thacounty:
Are you going back one at a time or are you wanting to do it all at once then reboot?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] drothenberger:
I dumped all my partitions again from recovery using my script and compared the MD5s with my previous backups. Here are the partitions that were different:

p10 (param)

p11 (efs)

p12 (modemst1)

p13 (modemst2)

p16 (persist)

p21 (fsg)

I did not compare p19 (fota) since I know this is used as a scratch partition for the OTA. I didn't compare p20 (backup) since I didn't save the dump I made of that partition the first time I made the backup.I also didn't compare p7 (boot) since I'm running a different kernel now.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] thacounty:
Since the OTA update has been pushed no one with SV 5 has lost IMEI. What is in that partition?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] drothenberger:
What is in which partition?

p19 is used by the OTA. It has these instructions.

ui_print("Update sbl2 ota");
assert(write_backup_sbl2("/dev/block/mmcblk0p3", "/dev/block/mmcblk0p19"));
assert(package_extract_file("sbl2.mbn", "/dev/block/mmcblk0p3"));
assert(erase_backup_fota("/dev/block/mmcblk0p19"));
ui_print("Package sbl2 Done.");

And so on for the other partitions it flashes (sbl3, aboot, rpmfw, tz).

I thought p20 was also used during the OTA, but I was wrong. I didn't save the copy I made from before, so I'll have to compare it tomorrow.

The modem itself is stored in p1. That is where the SV is coming from. I'm pretty sure the IMEI is not stored there since the entire partition is overwritten when you flash a new modem.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] babymatteo:
Hi guys haven't really been folowwing the thread, and i've read and searched thru about 30 pages already and can't seem to find the answer. To people who backed up their EFS folder, and lost their IMEI's after flashing something...were you able to just simply copy that folder back and regain your IMEI data?

Thankfully it hasn't happened to me, but just incase i'd like to know if this method works.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] drothenberger:
No, that doesn't appear to work. I'm pretty sure someone in the thread actually tried it.

The summary for thread at the moment is this: We don't know where the IMEI is stored or how to restore it. We don't even know if it's possible to restore.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] thacounty:
Edit: Already answered
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] drothenberger:
I should add that at the moment, the best protection appears to be to make a dd clone of all your partitions. If you lose your IMEI, it may be true that restoring one of those partitions will recover your IMEI.

Unfortunately, there are two kinds of people that read this thread: those that have just lost their IMEI and those that have heard of the issue and are paranoid of losing it. The first group doesn't have the backups. The second group does, but is pretty wary about flashing anything, so is unlikely to lose the IMEI.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] deeznutz1977:
I think it would make sense to go one at a time right ?>
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] thacounty:
You make a good point. But I backed up last night and as soon as the newest CM10 nightly comes out it is going on my phone. I'm not going to live in fear. At least if I do bork it I can try to go back and see if that works. If not we have no ground to stand on saying that we can backup the IMEI with our current tools.

---------- Post added at 12:43 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:36 PM ----------

Yea, definitely go one at a time if you can. Rebooting and trying the dialer code each time maybe? I have to go away from comp for a bit, but basically it is the if= of= that was at the beginning of the other thread and they have to be switched so that dd if=/sdcard/nameofblock of=/can't remember where it goes/nameofblock.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] babymatteo:
I'm definitely very paranoid about flashing new ROMs...Although i've searched thru XDA and google about possibly backing up your IMEI and restoring it after and found this app call 5iromToolBox. It is said to have worked in the past especially with using chinese made phones.

Any ideas?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] zonly1:
Since it predates our phones, I would be highly skeptical...the tools for our SGSII do not even work, right?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Narcistic:
Never heard of it..
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] babymatteo:
This is basically what it looks like. Doesn't hurt to try but it still very risky. From now on, its a 50/50 chance. Until someone can actually try it.

If anyones interested in an apk...lmk. I've got it in my dropbox.

sent from Galaxy S3 with Jellybeans using tapatalk 2