yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Galaxy S III General] II GHOSTFACE II:
Just google imei blacklist. One of the links allow checks to be done I assume. Already doesnt sound good if its different to your real imei under the battery. Maybe the old owner messed up backing up efs folder and possibly changed his imei to get it to work again but that is illegal as im sure your aware of. He may of done you over dumping his problem phone on you
[Galaxy S III General] JJEgan:
Last two /01 /03 etc are not relevant to the IMEI code working .

You can restore IMEI via the backed up EFS folder otherwise its a paid for service centre repair .

jje
[Galaxy S III General] II GHOSTFACE II:
Before you try that try restoring the EFS folder first, then flash stock firmware, modem and csc and definitely fully wipe.
[Galaxy S III General] rickerman:
I took an efs backup from the phone when I first got it, when it was running cynagenmod. This efs folder seems to have the "new" serial number and imei stored in it, because when I restore it nothing changes.

Looks like I got screwed over.

What I don't understand is how the phone was working when I bought it, and how I got it working when I flashed it back to stock (with ariza patch) and now it suddenly stopped working.
[Galaxy S III General] II GHOSTFACE II:
How long ago did you buy this phone? because if it wasn't long ago give it him/her back and say fix it or you want your money back.

If you just looking at a shot in the dark. http://forum.gsmhosting.com/vbb/f45...-click-i9300-imei-repair-first-world-1665600/

Check it out and try if you want and let us know the outcome.
[Galaxy S III General] rickerman:
Ok, So I phoned my network and they confirmed that the IMEI is blacklisted. :(

The seller is not much interested in giving me my money back.

I have access to a broken S3, screen is seriously cracked, but it is working. If I export the efs folder from this phone and put it in my wifes phone, will it start to work? or is it not that simple?
[Galaxy S III General] II GHOSTFACE II:
No its not that simple. The efs file is unique to each individual phone. You only way you can pretty much fix it is by sending it in to be officially fixed. If they will touch it (can enquire on it). Why dont you switch screens with the bust one n use that in future. Or pay for a new one but thats like 100 quid.

Also if you wanted you can use that phone as spare parts for the future, I do feel for you in your unfortunate events mate.
[Galaxy S III General] lucalunardi:
In this case the simpler and easiest way to get those 2 "broken" phones in one working one is to switch the motherboards. Actually you should take only a few minutes to do that.

Take the MB of the one with screen broken and place it on the one blacklisted.

Follow this guides or ask someone to do it for you.

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Installing+Samsung+Galaxy+S+III+Motherboard/12696/3

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Samsung+Galaxy+S3+Disassembly+&+Assembly/9413/1

Trying to remove the screen is hard, delicate and time consuming. You may also end up with 2 broken screens since the digitizer and lcd are as one unique piece. Does not worth the risk if you can just easily swap MoBos IMO.
[Galaxy S III General] II GHOSTFACE II:
I will 2nd this actually, i looked up screen replacement as i need to change my misses digitizer, its a jobs worth, the screen and digitizer are glued together and then the screen is glued to the phone. Replacing the motherboard is like 5-10 min, Remove battery, then screws and pop off the plastic casing easily, remove tiny black screw at bottom. Remove the speaker casing, pop out 2 ribbons on left side and antenna on right side and then the mobo will pull out easily.

If you plan to root or stuff after its sorted... After root backup your efs folder with "efs pro" which will backup a 200kb .tar.gz and will contain a .img 20mb inside. Then you will be safe.

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1695238 (Root,CWM)

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1957273 (Root, Stock Recovery)

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1308546 (Efs Backup)
[Galaxy S III General] blaxzen:
cause forslat

Just wanted to say thanks, managed to get my back to stock with this guide.

Installed Cyanogenmod 10.1, had a few problems with the flash on the camera and battery life.

Followed the guide, managed to get back square 1.

Cheers!
[Galaxy S III General] kopicha:
ruyQue and

thanks for the guide. very useful stuff here.:good:
[Galaxy S III General] Mr Faceless:
Hi bud, can you elaborate? What do you mean by "After pressing the volume key in Triangle away" ? I never press the keyin triangle away.

So I assumed you meant "After pressing the volume Up key in Download mode". But that didnt help either.

Cheers
[Galaxy S III General] II GHOSTFACE II:
Within triangle away its says press vol up to wipe or down to cancel and basically when you use triangle away it will reboot your phone with a 0 counter but because having a custom recovery or kernel it will change it back to one upon rebooting. So once you flash stock rom you would need to root use triangle away again then flash stock again or unroot. What he says to pull the battery out after triangle away does its thing you prevent the reboot and prevent the counter going to 1 again, so you go straight to download mode see its 0 still and can flash stock and thats all (no having to repeat processes to fully clean out modifications etc) hope that helps.
[Galaxy S III General] HC4Life:
Hi,

I decided to revert to stock firmware. I want to know which rom i have to flash corresponding to my country.

My PDA: I9300XXUFME7

My CP: I9300XXUFME7

My CSC: I9300OXAFME7

Thx :)
[Galaxy S III General] II GHOSTFACE II:
OXA refers to unlocked/unbranded so you want BTU as the standard for UK, where are you located? FME is located Malaysia
[Galaxy S III General] HC4Life:
Portugal :)

Edit: Maybe TPH?
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
Go to sammobile.com and fill in the drop down boxes in the firmware section.
[Galaxy S III General] II GHOSTFACE II:
If thats correct with your network yes. You may or may not need to change your csc but you can check that after of course. You should of had a nandroid of stock for safe keeping and prevention of issues like this plus its much easier.
[Galaxy S III General] HC4Life:
I already did that.

Thx :)

Thx 4 the info. :)
[Galaxy S III General] HC4Life:
DONE!!! :D
[Galaxy S III General] galaxys3lover:
Hello. A support question ? ... I m running PAC 4.2.2 and CWM , so i guess i should follow your steps , i am thinking i ll use the 3rd one since i am anyway required to flash a stock recovery , my question is Can i use the download link provided in the OP for stock recovery - http://stockroms.net/file/GalaxyS3/i9300/stockrecovery/International-GT-i9300-StockRecovery.tar , ?.. and for the kernel that i have to use , can you provide me the link from where to download it? ... I m sorry , i have never gone back to stock , since i rooted my phone and i want to do it properly , because i think there might be a hardware fault in my phone :(
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
You can't use the 3rd one because you're not on a stock rom. Use 1st one
[Galaxy S III General] VikkiLee:
reset binary on an already unrooted SIII

Hi all,

I have an i9300 that was rooted and then unrooted so now has official samsung flash but the binary counter shows 2 counts (the person that did it didn't rest the binary). I need to send off to insurance for screen repair so wondering if I should reset the binary so it looks fresh from the box. Do I need to reroot the phone (I have TriangleAway (thanks to Chainfire)) to reset the binary or is there an easier way? I'm assuming I have to root the phone, rest the binary, unroot the phone again to flash official software again :eek:. Have all the software if I have to do that but kinda hoping there will be an easier way!:fingers-crossed:
[Galaxy S III General] JJEgan:
If binary is above 0 then warranty is void .

How to Return to stock for warranty thread in the stickied faqs and guides .
[Galaxy S III General] VikkiLee:
Thanks, I know I need to reset the binary, my question was whether I needed to root the phone again to do this as it is now back to samsung official binary - the person who unrooted it didn't reset the counter. For some reason running it through Odin with Autoroot isn't working so was hoping to avoid this. As the repair is to the screen its not a warranty claim, but no doubt they will avoid doing it if any modifications to the phone are found
[Galaxy S III General] VikkiLee:
yes i did have to root it again, but all done now :victory: thanks for the help on the forum, much appreciated
[Galaxy S III General] saviorj:
Excelent post ! Was looking for this !! Thanks !
[Galaxy S III General] II GHOSTFACE II:
Root your phone using cf auto root (root only version). Then use triangle away app and once you reboot and be asked proceed or cancel you press up to continue to reset your counter. Upon reboot get into download mode, Use odin pc flash stock firmware then wipe data/cache and factory reset with stock recovery. Under 5 min job

Edit: the posts above didnt load until I posted this for some reason.

Also make sure device status is set back to normal under settings/about device/status (very bottom)
[Galaxy S III General] glynnpel:
Noob question:

Do you guys think it's ok to use this method even if my i9300 cannot boot any ROM ( Bootloop ). Never mind the binary counter i just want the phone to boot. Any suggestion is highly appreciated , thank you.
[Galaxy S III General] Septembrie:
Man, I gues you can enter to recovery/download mode.

Go to recovery, do a wipe data/factory then put the phone into download mode and flash any ROM you want with Odin.

Sent from my GT-I9300
[Galaxy S III General] II GHOSTFACE II:
If you freshly flashed something you can clear the data/cache/dalvik/factory reset if it hasnt been done that should solve your issue if it doesnt then reflash your rom etc and you will be sorted, if not tell us what you did you end in bootloop.

Somethings may get you into bootloop repeating the process can solve it.
[Galaxy S III General] darki0xox:
problem CSC number i9300xxufme7

now i have a great problem !

i9300xxufme7Please note: it is IMPORTANT that you download the correct ROM. Dial *#1234# to find your CSC (country code) and CP number which you can match up to the ROM.

its all on I9300XXUFME7 .. leaked 4.2.2 android ! WHAT SHOULD I DO ! :crying:
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
Please stick to your existing thread. Do NOT mix 'n' match advice from 2 threads. You don't know what you're doing so you'll probably brick your phone. Best to stick to your thread

-----------------------

Sent via tapatalk.

I do NOT reply to support queries over PM. Please keep support queries to the Q&A section, so that others may benefit
[Galaxy S III General] wilfmoralee:
Hi

I was hoping somebody could help me. I have followed this awesome guide but it managed to remove my IMEI number. It took 9 hours, but I managed to get my phone restored to the custom ROM with IMEI number.

I am currently running a 4.3 custom ROM, but wish to return to stock. The most up to date stock ROM for the UK is 4.1.2. I have been reading somewhere that the EFS folder was rewritten somewhere between 4.1.2 and 4.3, as as such my current EFS folder is not readable in a 4.1.2 ROM. I do not have a backup of my EFS folder from an older version of android, just from 4.3. Does anybody know of a way I can return this to stock and retain my IMEI number? Or am I stuck on 4.3 until the stock ROMs release a newer version of android?

Thanks for your help in advance.

Regards

Wilf
[Galaxy S III General] angelshie:
....Try Flashed MG Rom Based and MH Rom Based
[Galaxy S III General] wilfmoralee:
Thanks for the super quick reply but you have lost me a bit with your answer. Is MG and MH the variation of the ROM, or a process?
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
Please just read General > Sticky roll-up > "IMEI / EFS - Know this stuff"
[Galaxy S III General] elight3:
Sorry to jump on the bandwagon late here, but I needed to restore to factory today to take my phone in for service. While this guide was extremely helpful, I do feel that it's a bit overcomplicated. A few people allude to a simpler method but it's not laid out clearly. I hope this post will be helpful to others in the future. In my experience, if you are rooted with a custom recovery and custom ROM, only the following needs to be done:

1. Reboot to Odin and flash stock recovery for your phone (you will still be rooted).

2. Reboot normally, and use TriangleAway to reset your counter.

3. Reboot to Odin again and flash stock ROM for your phone.

4. Reboot to stock recovery and wipe data and cache.

Done. For #3, be sure to boot directly to Odin. Going into recovery first will increase the flash counter. If you mess up, just start again from #2.

Some addition information:

1. TriangleAway can be downloaded for a small fee in the Play store, or can be found online for free and installed with an APK installer.

2. If you're using a Galaxy S3 like me, you can find your stock ROM from sammobile.com.

Hope this is helpful to others (and to my future self).
[Galaxy S III General] isholay:
Hello everyone, after going back to stock rom my battery drains faster. I'm on MG4 rooted. What do I do please?
[Galaxy S III General] galaxys3lover:
Great post! But what do you mean by boot into Odin directly. .

How do I reboot to Odin? ..
[Galaxy S III General] II GHOSTFACE II:
Odin/Download mode. (Phone off) power button+home+down vol
[Galaxy S III General] elight3:
Sorry that I didn't go into detail for any of the steps. Here is some additional information:

To boot into Odin download mode (which is where you flash recovery and flash ROMs), with the phone off, press and hold the power button, home button and volume down button together until you see the warning screen. Press volume up (as it says to on the screen) to enter into Odin download mode.

With the phone in Odin download mode, you connect the phone to your computer, and run the Odin program on your computer. (Note: you might have install the drivers for your phone on your computer.) You can find links to download Odin and the stock recovery for a Galaxy S3 on galaxys3root.com (unfortunately, it won't let me post the direct link here). I'm sure it's not hard to find other stock recoveries by Googling for them. Make sure you only flash a recovery specifically designed for your phone and carrier, or else you could brick the phone.

To find the stock ROM for your phone, look at sammobile.com if you have a Samsung phone. For other phones, I don't know where to find them, but I can't imagine it's too hard with a little Googling.

Once the phone is in Odin mode, and the Odin application is running on your computer, click the "PDA" button in the Odin application, select the recovery or ROM file, and click Start. The recovery will take just a few seconds to flash, but the ROM will take a few minutes.

If you have any other questions, let me know. Good luck!
[Galaxy S III General] bender_007:
Oki doki, restored everything for waranty.

Custom binary download: No

Current binary: Samsung official

System status: Official

Now..since I DIDN't do the EFS restore and my latest carrier firmware is older than xxemg4, is it possible (unrooted) to restore it ?

Or should I send it back like that..because I don't care for the EFS and signal (I'll use new modems and I can restore EFS back later)..

What do you think is it stupid to send it like that ? (the digitizer chip is fried up).

thx
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
Latest for your region

-----------------------

Sent via tapatalk.

I do NOT reply to support queries over PM. Please keep support queries to the Q&A section, so that others may benefit
[Galaxy S III General] bender_007:
Ok, restored everything, had to manually restore efs and chmod.

Sent to warranty: 11.10.2013 - 11:50

Back from warranty: 11.10.2013 - 17:00 :)
[Galaxy S III General] PDAras:
Great guide!

BTW, I could not get the flash counter reset to stick until I switched Step 1 with Step 2. I think the reason is that every time you reboot the phone to a custom Recovery/Rom the counter ticks back to 1. If anyone runs into the same issue, a sure way is to first flash to stock rom and then use triangle away to reset the counter.
[Galaxy S III General] alwayseric:
stock recovery and custom recovery

i am confused here. i flash a stock recovery, then i should do the device wipe in custom recovery?? after i flash the stock recovery, there will be no custom recovery. do i miss sth here? anyway, i followed the procedure til device wipe. the only recovery mode i can reboot into is "android system recovery <3e>". i can only wipe data/factory reset and wipe cache partition. please help me.
[Galaxy S III General] II GHOSTFACE II:
I have already said about "custom" recovery in another post pages back. It clearly is stock recovery as that is step 2. You have followed it correct and can proceed.
[Galaxy S III General] alwayseric:
thanks, ghostface.

Could you and anyone confirm what i have done is correct. Here is what i did today:

1. flashed a stock (Voda AU) ICS rom (only 4.0.4 works on my phone, otherwise the phone will stuck at boot loop).

2. Installed and ran the triangleaway to reset the counter.

3. flash a stock recovery (the same one used by the OP. he is from UK, and i am from AU. dont know if there is a AU version of "stock recovery"??)

4. in the "stock" recovery mode, i did wipe data/factory reset AND wipe cache partition.

5. in the download mode, i flash the same stock rom (as in step 1) again.

now, this is what i get:

1. in the download mode: i still have one line of "E:failed to mount /efs (invalid argument)". (had 2 lines of this before)

2. in the download mode, it display at top "Android system recovery (3e)", i assume this is the stock recovery.

3. in the 4.0.4, setup/about device/status: ERI version not available, IMEI unknown, IMEI SV unknown. there is a serial number (;), Device status: normal. is it good?

4. in the download mode: Custom binary download: No; Current Binary: Samsung Official; System Status: Official. perfect??

Please let me know if it is good enough in the perspective of reset of the phone for warranty repair?

I also have two questions:

1. in the download mode, the first row shows "ODIN MODE". that's all right? does it show on EVERY single android phone? or only those rooted/customised ?

2. i flashed an pretty old stock rom. (Aug 2012), because the newer ones do not work. is it acceptable for samsung?

Thanks a lot!!! I will arrange the warranty repair tomorrow as soon as you guys reckon it is good enough.
[Galaxy S III General] II GHOSTFACE II:
Your welcome, id appreciate you hitting the thanks button more than actual saying, but im unaware of that efs mount part but you do have signal etc and the correct IMEI? If you've been flashing newer roms/modems your original efs folder could be needed to solve that. in settings it should appear i would of though as mine does and IMEI SV should say something too. Other than that ERI is unknown. " in the download mode: Custom binary download: No; Current Binary: Samsung Official; System Status: Official. perfect??" yes perfect.

Device status normal that's fine yes.

Odin mode is normal aswell yes... stock recovery can be flashed with your rom anyway as part of the package.

i flashed an pretty old stock rom. (Aug 2012), because the newer ones do not work. is it acceptable for samsung?"

if that is what you were originally on when you was getting trouble i dont see why not as you have put it back to your original troubled state. So you have tried and flashing your latest stock rom from sammobile and get bootloop?
[Galaxy S III General] alwayseric:
Thanks button hit.

no, this phone cant register into the network, because IMEI is null, aka the phone is messed up. that is why i want to send it back to the service centre.

the stock rom is not the one i used when my phone had problem. i flashed MIUI V5 on this phone. one day, i left the phone on the charger. the next morning i noticed the phone was stuck at the bootup image (samsung logo). initially i thought it could be SDS. but after i did quite a lot reading, i realised it might not be sds. anyway, long story short, the phone can only work with 4.0.4 now. i can flash a current version of stock rom, then, the phone will start bootloop.
[Galaxy S III General] II GHOSTFACE II:
Do you have a backed up EFS? SHOT in the dark you could also try using kies (it has helped phones in the past) to repair the phone if still no good send it back then.

See flashing the MIUI could of been the issue deleting your efs folder but you would of noticed no signal soon as you booted. The bit that i don't get is that you had it on charge then bootloop. If you did notice no signal and never had an efs to restore before flashing MIUI, well you won't be covered for warranty. Basically if all this is around your efs folder warranty will be void thus you will have to pay for the repair. Only solution you will have is the repair. Motherboard replacement or JTAG.

---------- Post added at 12:26 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:53 AM ----------

That is why RootSU's comment is stuck the the OP saying that happens and to remedy it use any of these steps. Easiest way is to pull the battery out after triangle away does its job (on reboot). that way you still in sequence of the step guide.
[Galaxy S III General] II GHOSTFACE II:
Because i dont think the efs can mess up without tampering... Well if I was the service my question would be why is he sending this in now on ics? Wouldnt he of sent this in just after 4.1 update? An id be saying hes scrwwed it up. By all means you can try just dont expect it to get done. They could stick to its been tampered to be in this situation so they may tell you to do one unless you pay, may ask an you play dumb an be lucky who knows... im just saying it may be a 50/50.
[Galaxy S III General] ronvasse:
Thx for the guide.

Just moved to the S4 and sold my S3.

Wanted it as clean as possible and with this al traces are gone :D

Verstuurd van mijn GT-I9300 met Tapatalk
[Galaxy S III General] crashineyes:
i cannot set it to "0" it is already "1".
[Galaxy S III General] JJEgan:
Read the OP in full
[Galaxy S III General] emokid09:
thanks alot. getting my phone ready to be sold :)

only thing is my binary still says 7 after using triangle away and said mentioned method. will try again though and see

if not i shall sell my phone to a noob that has no idea on how to check this **** out ;)
[Galaxy S III General] II GHOSTFACE II:
Try reinstalling triangle away an granting permission again. Is it latest version 3.10 if not get it, if it is revert back a version. I find it a bit unfair for you to sell it half a job done, whether it does or does not affect said buyer.
[Galaxy S III General] emokid09:
its ok now, i did all steps again from beginning and its on 0

dont know what i did different. maybe because it was all stock before retrying, stock rom, kernel, firmware ect..
[Galaxy S III General] samkol18:
Thank you very much.

Pondered for a couple of days to find the correct way to unroot my phone. This guide is fantastic. Followed the instructions to the word and it worked. Keep up the good work.
[Galaxy S III General] Bolemichel:
My flash counter stick at 1 due to JB Bootloader I think. So I would like to follow the steps from rootSU:

I have problems to understand "After pressing the volume key in Triangle away": When I open the app I can only reset the counter. Never pressed any volume key there... and then I will have to pull out the battery?

Second: Where could I find an ICS Bootloader for an international I9300 phone? I have only found the JB loader so far.

Thx in advance

michel... and sorry, may be my english understanding is not good enough
[Galaxy S III General] JJEgan:
This is how TA works

Press app TA ok asks for super user access ok .

TA screen

Reset Flash Counter .

Vol Up to reset .

Vol Down to reboot .
[Galaxy S III General] II GHOSTFACE II:
http://www.mediafire.com/?dlruvz9fib6c046 (Thanks to Dr.Love)

Refer to the guide be aware of changes/dangers etc http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2083860