yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] 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.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] es7241:
I think it would be a good idea to include the manufacturing date in the spreadsheet to rule out bad phone batches.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] wavrunrx:
that has already been added a long time ago
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] es7241:
Oh okay fail on my part maybe I should have checked before posting
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] harlenm:
Added my info to the spreadsheet. Did it from the phone, which wasn't easy. Hope I didn't mess it up!
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] 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 ;)
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] wavrunrx:
hahahahahahaha :laugh:
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] 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.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] 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
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] 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) ;)
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] 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
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] drksilenc:
question can the settings apk be pulled apart to see where it draws it from?
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] stevessvt:
Has anyone lost it simply by using the TMo 'No tripping flash counter' method?
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] 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
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] 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.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] 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. :)
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] brummett:
My phone is stock, never rooted, never flashed, and the IMEISV is 02. I don't think that's anything to worry about.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] 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.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] 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
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] thacounty:
Please make the backup using the script from the first post and see what if it can restore imei on old phone.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] 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.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] 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
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] 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.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] deeznutz1977:
hold on spoke to quick give me a min
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] wavrunrx:
@deeznutz1977

----------------------------------^
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] deeznutz1977:
Question

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

http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=29233449&postcount=729
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] deeznutz1977:
what command do i use to push back to the phone? thanks in advance
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] thacounty:
Are you going back one at a time or are you wanting to do it all at once then reboot?
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] 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.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] thacounty:
Since the OTA update has been pushed no one with SV 5 has lost IMEI. What is in that partition?
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] 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.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] 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.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] 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.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] thacounty:
Edit: Already answered
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] 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.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] deeznutz1977:
I think it would make sense to go one at a time right ?>
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] 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.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] 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?
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] zonly1:
Since it predates our phones, I would be highly skeptical...the tools for our SGSII do not even work, right?
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] Narcistic:
Never heard of it..
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] 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
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] 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
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] Artimus009:
Pm sent

stock rooted and rocking kt747 kernel...still got my imei
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] ElBeaner:
Get with someone who has lost imei and see if that imei restore option works.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] stevessvt:
Can it be restored if the app didn't back it up?
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] wavrunrx:
we just dont know at this point if it can ever be restored, regardless of method
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] 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
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] thacounty:
I had to remove the . so I ran, /backup-block-devices.txt
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] deeznutz1977:
did you notice that xda is splitting up the gs3 forums
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] 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.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] 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
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] 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.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] 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
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] sabre31:
Does twrp work with CM10 and all roms?
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] 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?
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] gunnyman:
CDMA carriers like Sprint and Verizon don't use imei. They use ESN.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] neyenlives:
so far i have been unable to get the kexec kernel based CM9 and CM10 builds to work with TWRP 2.2.0
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] 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.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] naturefreak85:
They use an IMEI for GSM (World Phone) and LTE actually. ESN is just for CDMA.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] 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.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] 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!
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] 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. :(
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] 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.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] 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.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] thacounty:
Well said, cm10 here I come.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] The Archangel:
Some extra info

This thread is a direct copy from the AT&T threads, so they may or may not receive the same notifications. I don't know since this is my first thread copy move :D:cowboy:
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] cwalker0906:
I think something we are not looking at is how did they flash...what did they wipe what did they format. I only wipe never format or mount and I still have imei....just another angle to look and maybe find a common thread
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] sabre31:
Based on what I have seen and read from all the folks that lost imei it wasn't when they flashed or used custom roms it was when they had a custom rom and went back to stock either via Odin or recovery and then is when imei was lost.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] cmlough:
I have formatted /system and still have mine. I also have restored a nandroid back to stock after using Cyanogenmod 9 through the newest CWM for what it is worth.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] sabre31:
What rom did you restore to stock from? Was it cm9 or cm10?
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] MMontanez347:
some users who lost their IMEI said that they lost it when flashing to cm9 or cm10... so the problem cant be just when going back to stock =/
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] deeznutz1977:
honestly its just luck of the draw. or un-lucky lol.. ive done the same things with my new phone that i did with my last and i still have my imei :confused: im sure it will get figured out
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] mrmako777:
it is said this might be a partitioning issue

http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=29280671&postcount=791