[AT&T Samsung Galaxy Note I717] alejov77:
Many thanks

Hi, I'm in colombia and I'm like the biggest noob about this and yet I was able to root/unroot/softbrick and finally unlock my phone. I will tell you a bit about my story even if you didn't ask for it hehe:

I received my SGH I717 like 3 weeks ago, it was sent by my uncle from the us so I needed to unlock it. I then began to search through different forums and found out that I could call At&t and ask for this. Unfortunately, after several calls (both in spanish and in english) and chat talks they told me that they couldn't do this because I needed to know a registered mobile number besides the IMEI. Apparently, back in the us my phone used to be several people's ***** so it was impossible for me to find the AT&T registered-number. After that, I started updating my phone to jelly bean 4.1.2 through kies (really simple) then I rooted it (struggled a bit) to get rid of bloatware and see if that could unlock it. Finally I found this thread, read through several posts that said that it required ics and I had jelly bean; nevertheless I decided to give it a try by flashing the tmobile radio or modem (don't really know) attached here and found out that not only my phone had become much slower but also that the service mode didn't work well.

At that time I knew that I needed to wipe everything out and return the phone to its initial stock, so I found that 800mb tar and flashed it through odin (I was starting to lose hope) then when I tried to reflash the tmobile thing I found out I did not longer have the cwm but just the stock recovery mode (really confusing for me) and I was unable to get the file in the phone cause it showed an error with some signature verification so I headed back to the net and got around reinstalling the cwm and toggle the signature verification check ( I think that's what it said)

After that I rebooted my phone, followed the steps in service mode, re-rebooted and found out that my virgin sim got finally accepted and everything seems to work fine, I receive calls, messages etc. I can make calls and would send messages but I have no money so I'll try that later.

**** I did all this without ever backing up any data (IDK why but it didn't get wiped out) or rom, I was lucky I didn't hard-bricked my phone but I was unable to do a backup because when I was doing it in cwm in the internal sd card (haven't been able to buy an external) it prompted an error saying something like: fail to .... image /DATA (no idea why or what that meant) and when I had titanium backup I didn't know how to use it to create a backup (oh the irony)

**** No external sd card as well

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NOW: My phone is fully functional (I think) but unrooted (lots of bloatware) and with the 2.6.35 android version using gingerbread (that's what says under build number, I thought I had ICS) So my question is : should I root it again (I do wanna get rid of the bloatware)? or just update the firmware through kies? (I know it's not the same) ..... If I do both, which should I do first? (when I rooted it for the first time I had already updated it to jellybean 4.1.2) And about rooting, just as I still have my data on the internal sd, I suppose I still have a bunch of zips and else, namely: superuser, tmobile thing, cwm---SU , etc. So I don't know which of the steps I should follow or if performing all of them (those that involve download mode in phone, odin, cwm...) and what do I do with the tmobile thing I flashed in my phone for the unlocking procedure? should I get rid of it? how?

BOy that was long, boring and confusing... but I hope you guys take the time to read it and try to help me. Many thanks again for the information provided.

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After I get done with the software, I will get my hands on the hardware.... My phone also came screen glass-broken( YES, IT DID), but only the front glass no digitizer involved so I'll look for advice when the time comes