[Galaxy S II Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] AnthonyFitz:
SOLVED

Thanks Immortalneo. But I read that since the ICS update android stores and accesses the MC in a different way so I just wasn't sure about it. Also I read so many contradicting comments on various forms about this so didn't want to take the risk as I had just recently taken some photos and videos at my Dad's 80th Birthday that I didn't have time to back up, which I didn't want to take the risk and loose them.

Anyway I managed to get access to the Internal Memory before doing the Factory reset.

So for anyone else who stumbles across this thread and needs help this is what I did. I am not sure if everything I did was necessary but I will list everything I did so you can try some or all of it yourself.

Before I start I should mention that my phone was Stock, never been flashed. It was using the latest official Samsung phone network provider Jellybean update.

Using Odin I flashed with latest Jellybean original ROM for my country phone network from samsung-updates. You need to boot your phone into Download mode by holding Volume down, Menu, Power button. By the way Recovery mode is accessed by holding Volume Up, Menu, Power button.

You can probably use any custom rom but I specifically wanted to put on the same ROM to see if it might overwrite some broken files and fix the stuck boot loop issue. It didn't fix it, so maybe this step could be skipped in fact.

Next I decided to ROOT the phone as I read there were extra options in the Recovery boot screen. So again I used Odin to install SiyahKernel. This was the start of my eventual recovery. After I did this and booted up into Recovery mode I had some new options available, specifically lots of Memory card options. I mentioned in my OP that I could access the phone memory using ADB shell but I could not see anything in the SDCARD as it seemed like a link or placeholder. Anyway using Siyah's Kernel I now had an option to Mount the USB storage. As soon as I selected that option my Laptop popped up a message that a new device was connected and would I like to open the folder and view its files. ALLELUIA !!! I could now see the Internal Memory mapped as a drive and I could access all of my files and backup all of my precious videos and photos. However my phone would still not boot up! Arghhhhh :mad:

So now that I had my files backed up it was safe to do a Full Data Wipe and Factory Reset. I did that that, and during the process I got an error:

Wiping data
Wiping cache
[B]Error mounting /sdcard/.android_secure![/B]
Skipping format
Format complete

Anyway I tried booting up and it was still stuck on the Samsung Screen. :mad: F&%K I thought.

I was almost beginning to loose hope. But then I decided to just manually format memory card first before doing the Factory Reset. So I booted back up into recovery mode and selected Format Memory. Then did a Factory Reset and rebooted. But it was stuck again on the Samsung screen so I just left it down on the desk and started looking again at the forums then I saw the screen change to updating or initializing applications in the corner of my eye. Holy Sh1tballs, its working! It did seem to be stuck on the Samsung screen for ages, but in reality it was probably less than 30 secs,

As soon as I set up my Google account all my apps and settings and contacts started to automatically download back onto the phone. The only thing I lost were my SMS messages, but no big deal there.

So there you have it. I am back up and running with stock Samsung Jellybean phone network version as before, but now with a rooted phone with all the extra delights that enables me to do :D

In case any of this does not work for you there is another option you could try. It could be your internal MC is actually corrupted. This post below relates to re-partitioning the MC so its not for the faint hearted but it may be worth a try if all else fails.

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1760107

Cheers,

Anthony.