[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] mybook4:
I had made a QCN backup of all my NVItems previously. I never had to restore it though, so I don't know how restoring the whole set of them would go. One by one might work (as restoring just 550 has worked for many). Is QPST EFS Explorer fully compatible with the MSM8960 (I really don't know much about QPST other than the basic idea and what was mentioned during the IMEI loss issues)? If that's the case, we wouldn't have to find where the NVItems were actually stored. One reason behind finding where the NVItems were stored on the device was to ensure we could properly back up before attempting NVItem changes (dd the whole partition(s) ). Another reason was that we weren't sure whether or not the version of QPST we were using would properly write all or new NVItems (other than the successfully tested item 550 writes to restore IMEI). Again, excuse my ignorance in the matter.

Interesting info. Thank you. We found something similar early on involving the i535 recovery partition. Odin wouldn't flash custom recoveries but a manual dd or a dd in a CWM script would successfully write the custom recovery.

I think we'd be able to flash another modem no problem. It is just unclear whether or not the presence of an improperly signed modem would trip the boot sequence into the MSM8960's "emergency download" mode because of secure boot. With currently known methods, only JTAG can recover from that condition (not to say that using emergency download mode couldn't allow for flashing or booting from sdcard, we just haven't been able to do it yet). Hence the hesitancy. Hopefully we don't have to cross that bridge. If mimicking the AT&T NVItems does the trick we wouldn't have to go there.

If the backup is a true bit for bit dd copy of the partitions involved in storing the NVItems, you don't think it would prove to be a successful backup method? Not sure I understand why it wouldn't be.

Sounds like the best route to go down IMHO. Dealing with people's NVItems is a sensitive issue. I'm not too knowledgeable about the subject. Should I ask a Moderator about the best way to go about it? We aren't trying get any user-specific data. We just simply want to compare the user-agnostic NVItems from the i747 to the i535 in hopes to enable 1900Mhz HSPA.

Not discouraged at all. More knowledge is good knowledge. "When the facts change, I change my mind".

I rewrote my IMEI, ESN, MEID, and phone number in a copy of my QCN backup for privacy. It also has the benefit of making it easier to find. I looked for a few variations of the real numbers (forward, backward, byte swapped, nibble swapped) but didn't find anything. I'm sure there was a combination I forgot (that's how those things go late at night), but it may not matter. You mentioned that the Sprint variant had the info hidden. Were you referring to the EFS directory structure ounce mounted or the actual EFS partition (0p11)?

---------- Post added at 08:29 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:14 PM ----------

Just to follow up, I couldn't find anything close to my IMEI in PARAM, EFS, or PERSIST. Hopefully QPST EFS Explorer can write to or create all of our NVItems without a problem.