yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] CNexus:
Yeah, the Odin flash of a stock/stock rooted tar

From reading your post, I understood that you were saying to Odin a boot.img and recovery, and then flash a rom to get the phone going again and bypass the stock tar flash altogether
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] Major_Nate:
I used my macbook to flash this to a 16GB microSD card, and it worked perfectly!

I just had to change the wording in terminal, and unmount the card first.

"sudo su" (then entered password)

"diskutil list" (to find the specific memory card drive path)

"unmount /dev/disk1" (where "/dev/disk1" is the path to your microSD card)

"dd if=debrick_sph_l710.img of=/dev/disk1" (where "/dev/disk1" is the path for the microSD card)

just figured I would share my experience of the minute differences using Mac OSX. :)
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] joshjunskorean:
When using win32diskimager the progress moves to 15% and then I get the error: Error21: The device is not ready
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] SixT7VDub:
It sounds like the SD card or the SD card adapter. Try reformatting. If that doesn't work, try a different SD card adapter.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] Azeedc:
Check my last post
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] joshjunskorean:
Ok so I redownloaded the de-brick file, the SD card is showing in the explorer, and my card is a 32 GB class 10. I do not think that the SD card holder is write protected because I can write other files onto the card, the format has been reformatted to FAT32 since my previous error and the results of the partitions command is as follows:

major minor #blocks name

8 0 976762584 sda

8 1 204800 sda1

8 2 976555008 sda2

8 16 30748672 sdb

8 17 30748378 sdb1

Thanks for the help
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] Azeedc:
If you remove the card, and run the command, Cgwin should show only this....

8 0 976762584 sda

8 1 204800 sda1

8 2 976555008 sda2

If that is the case, re-insert the card and re-run the command again in Cgwin, should get the previous reading.

8 0 976762584 sda

8 1 204800 sda1

8 2 976555008 sda2

8 16 30748672 sdb

8 17 30748378 sdb1

Just in case, although, I advise to never write to the partition with a number on it, in your case sdb1, for test purposes try

writing the image using Cgwin using this partition. There could be a problem identifying the partitions correctly.

Post results

Have to do some errand, be back later
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] joshjunskorean:
I actually have something to do too so this will be my last post for a bit. So the results came out to this

dd: writing to `/dev/sdb1': Input/output error

17860+0 records in

17859+0 records out

9143808 bytes (9.1 MB) copied, 53.3142 s, 172 kB/s
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] joshjunskorean:
I think that the problem might be my sd card. For some reason quick format works, but full formatting fails every time I try. I've used the windows formatter, the hp usb disk storage format tool, and SDFormatter. None of them work with full formatting. However, it is really strange because other than that issue the card seems to be working fine... Anybody have any idea how to fix this or maybe even what the problem is with my card?
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] SixT7VDub:
I had a problem with the full format in which it would stall after it got to around 40%. Did a quick format and the file flashed with no problems using win32diskimager and after unpacking with 7 zip.

What are you using to format the card?
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] styles420:
Both of these programs might need to be ran as administrator (right click the program icon, select "run as administrator" then click yes or okay in the permission dialog that pops up)
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] joshjunskorean:
**** guys... sorry that I wasted your time. I ended up being able to complete the imaging process on a different computer through a SD card adapter. I think that the problem might have been my original computer/SD card usb plug in. Once again I am very sorry for this. Thanks for all your help though. I really appreciate it!
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] styles420:
No worries, glad to hear that you made progress - that's what we're here for :)

So, any luck with the rest of the process?
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] Azeedc:
Glad you were able to sort it out. Since you are starting the recovery procedure from the beginning, would be helpful to if you post your results.

If the phone is able to boot with SD card, please post what you see on the screen since different people had different results.

And if you get no errors on the phone screen, please post what you get on ODIN once it passes or fails loading stock rom to phone.

Take care
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] joshjunskorean:
Well the SD card worked and I was able to boot it up. There were no errors on the phone screen either. However, I am sorry to say that after I ODIN-ed my phone back I closed the window thinking that I wouldn't need to post anything about it. Sorry.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] Darealone1:
OK ive been following this method and i wrote img to sd using cygwin now what does this guy mean when he says he had to remove all partitions??? how do you remove all partitions and ":rolleyes:let dd do that part on its own" what does that mean? im a noob, to this site lol:rolleyes:
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] styles420:
He means to not specify a partition. When entering the dd command, the of= part tells it where to write the data. /dev/sdb indicates the entire disk linked to the sdb identifier, while /dev/sdb1 indicates the first partition on that disk. If you do it the correct way (by leaving off partition numbers) then it doesn't matter how the sd card is positioned initially because all formatting information will be overwritten (not modified - what you get in the end has no correlation to what was there before you started).

If you do it the wrong way, then an entire filesystem and partition map will be written to a single partition as if it was an entire disk, which will be unreadable by most computer applications, and completely useless in your phone. So don't specify a partition number and you'll be fine :)
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] Darealone1:
Oh ok then what i was doing is correct...ive wrote the img to the sd a couple of times...how many times am i supposed to do this? I am not getting a response! the only thing i get is windows recognizes it and thats about it. when i take out the battery and put it back in after 15 mins, the flash light flickers but thats about it. am i missing something here? i downloaded the file, 7-ziped it and wrote it to the sd card. help!!!
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] styles420:
Ideally, you should only need to write the sd card once. The reason some people need multiple tries is because the data doesn't always get written correctly - they have to keep trying until it works (I think adding "bs=4k" after the "of=..." part should decrease the chance of a corrupted flash, but even if it doesn't, it still speeds up the process drastically).

So why are you waiting fifteen minutes? There's no reason to do that... it sounds like you should re read the instructions, because you're adding steps and skipping others... (you made no mention of actually trying to boot up the phone - you still have more steps after inserting the sd card, it doesn't happen automatically from there).

It sounds like you're panicking, which is causing you to rush... that's understandable given the state of your phone, but it makes it more difficult to help you, just as it makes it more difficult for you to process the instructions yourself - once you have a better idea of the steps to follow, you're questions will be more specific and our answers to them will be more helpful ;)
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] Darealone1:
Hey sorry i was following the directions. i unzipped the img file, use cgywin terminal, then write to sd. Then i try to boot to DL mode but the phone is unresponsive. is there more files that i have to write to the sd card?
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] styles420:
The successful attempts at this method so far have not required any additional files...

Do you have the Sprint version, or another carrier? And do you have the 16gb model or the newer 32gb model?

And just to be clear, did you attempt to boot into download mode with the three finger combination? (Volume down, home and power buttons)
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] Azeedc:
You mention " the flash light flickers but thats about it ", is this the flash itself, back of phone ?, that is normal when you insert the battery.

When you write the card, do you get a normal output on the screen with no errors. See my post #318 for things to check when writing to SD card.

If possible post the output of the Cgwin or Linux command that is on the screen...( number of records read/written ), just copy and paste.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] killsec:
I'm also experiencing the same pit problems as some of the users have. In Odin when trying to flash a stock rom, I'm getting an output of THERE IS NO PIT PARTITION. When flashing a pit file I get this error: RE-PARTITION OPERATION FAILED. Used a class 4 sd card, ran the command through cygwin.

I guess no one has yet to find a solution or it that the phone is totally dead for me?
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] Wired66:
Nope, no solution yet.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] Azeedc:
SD card must be class 10 for reliability, refer to my post #318 guide on working with Cgwin.

Did you get any errors on phone screen (red text) ?, generally you get write errors and read errors on ODIN.

I have been trying different approaches to this problem and seems to be related to write permissions on phone memory, this

problem happens when the device gets bricked in a particular way, since it works ok for some people and yet it fails for others.

I have even bricked my one Sprint on purpose and recovered ok but I have the same problem you have with the second Sprint phone,

shows the, 'there is no PIT partition' problem and the de-brick file method does not work.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] killsec:
No problems on cygwin, writing to SD card is fine. Problems seem to occur when flashing a ROM. Maybe how phone got bricked is the problem as you have mentioned.

At boot up, I encounter a flash write failure. Upon flashing a stock Md5 file without pit, I get a flash read failure. When flashing a pit file, I get a "PIT fail: Total sectors (0)." These errors are on the phone display.

The odin output errors are either "There is no PIT partition" or "Re-partition operation failed."
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] styles420:
You shouldn't actually flash the pit file - you provide it to Odin in addition to the full stock tar, so that Odin knows how to properly partition the internal memory before it flashes the tar...
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] Azeedc:
All these errors are the way I described the problem, " write flash failure on phone boot-up ", " read failure on ODIN ".

I still think that the problem is related to READ-WRITE permissions on the device, and the way the partition gets damaged.

I have tried multiple combinations on my bad phone, but I got nowhere. I do not have extensive knowledge about the Android operating

system or how to access the file system otherwise, but even if I could, I do not know if this type of damage is repairable with this method.

The only thing we can do is keep trying and hopefully one of us comes up with the right solution without having to jtag.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] vicvega:
THANKS! This really saved me headaches and $$$$

It took me a while but it worked for me. I was trying with a 32GB card and when I realized I needed a 16GB I went out and purchased then everything worked.

1. Downloaded the image file: "debrick_sph_l710.img" and extracted it with 7zip

2. Downloaded and installed Cygwin Terminal to write the "debrick_sph_l710.img" image on to the SD card

3. Launched Cygwin Terminal

4. Typed "cat proc/partitions" without the micro SD inserted to see which is the hard drive as to not delete my hard drive and got the results below:

example:

admin@E6220W7 /

$ cat proc/partitions

major minor #blocks name

8 0 244198584 sda

8 1 102400 sda1

8 2 244093952 sda2

5. Typed "$ cat proc/partitions" again to get the SD card info which was sdb and sdb1

example:

admin@E6220W7 /

$ cat proc/partitions

major minor #blocks name

8 0 244198584 sda

8 1 102400 sda1

8 2 244093952 sda2

8 16 31166976 sdb

8 17 31162880 sdb1

6.Typed: $ dd if=/cygdrive/c/dd/debrick_sph_l710.img of=/dev/sdb

example

admin@E6220W7 /

$ dd if=/cygdrive/c/dd/debrick_sph_l710.img of=/dev/sdb

When done I got the output below

163840+0 records in

163840+0 records out

83886080 bytes (84 MB) copied, 274.635 s, 305 kB/s

7. Took the sd out of the computer and inserted it into the phone

8. Booted the phone into download mode

From Odin I installed a Stock Rom. Got my phone back!!!!! Thanks a million
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] Azeedc:
Glad that it worked for you, but the damage on many phones will not allow to boot without error or ODIN without errors.

I outlined the whole procedure on my post #318 guide on writing the SD card but damage is not always the same.

In our case the phone never allows to boot into "Download Mode" but instead boots straight into "Recovery Mode" and fails.

Still working trying to find a solution for those cases where this procedure does not work due to partition read/write errors.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] Darealone1:
This is what my output was from cygwin:

Marlon@Marlon-PC /

$ dd if=/cygdrive/c/Users/Marlon/Desktop/debrick_sph_l710.img of=bs=4k

163840+0 records in

163840+0 records out

83886080 bytes (84 MB) copied, 2.28875 s, 36.7 MB/s
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] Azeedc:
The output of the Ggwin command looks normal.

You mentioned that the computer recognizes the phone, does the RED charging light appears after a while ?

If you insert the fully charged battery alone without the SD card, .......

do you get any response besides the flash light, ......like a vibration or buzzing ?

If you insert the SD card and then the fully charged battery, ......

do you get any reaction when pressing POWER or volume down+home+power together ?

If in either case you get no response at all, then the device may not be bricked but probably dead, to the extent that this method may not work.

.

.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] poppyseeds:
All Good

and even Sprint technicians said that hardbricked phones is a done deal. Boy were they wrong! Doing all those stupid sales pitch instead of trying to really help. But i'm glad i found this forum because no doubt it saved me a grip of money. Good job!!!! This fix works for sure!
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] Darealone1:
Yes, the red light appears when i plug the phone to the computer.I get no other responses though. i try to boot it by pressing down home power and nothing.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] Azeedc:
Did you use a fully charged battery, if you leave the phone on the charger after you insert the battery, is the red charging

light turning off and coming back on and stays on until it is fully charged and changes to green or stays off ?

One of my Sprint phones had the charging red light on, never charged and did not boot with the SD card but was recovered

with jtag, but if the damage is extensive enough, not even jtag will help.

For what I can see these phones can get damaged in different ways, whether is water damage, wrong rom or update-upgrade

problems and depending the extent of this damage some units respond to the SD card method and others do not.

.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] styles420:
No device can ever use a software based method to recover from water damage... anyone trying to use this sd card method to save their phone after it took a swim is wasting their time - damaged hardware has to be replaced, not reprogrammed, lol
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] Azeedc:
Just a comment............ DO NOT TRY ANY WATER TEST AT HOME

When talking about water and electronics, THEY DO NOT MIX, so protect you device, but being in the electronics

business I can say that water, vapor or humidity are very bad but not always destroy electronics.

I had somebody repair two phones with water damage, both of these phones were recovered with jtag and that is an

indication that the circumstances on how this damage happens dictate whether the device can be recovered or not.

.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] styles420:
I'd guess that either they didn't actually have water damage (perhaps corrupted data due to an unexpected shutdown related to water that managed to short something without actually causing water damage?) or the "fix" was temporary and problems returned at some point - true water damage means that the hardware was damaged by water, and nothing will undo physical damage except replacing the physically damaged components
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] Azeedc:
Not to be argumentative with you, ....and I mean no offense, but both phones had all stickers RED and " water damage " labels on

them and neither of these phones turned on except for charging light, that is the way I bought them in a lot with a bunch of other items.

Having worked in the electronics industry for many years, I can say that " water damage " is a wild card and does not indicate whether any

electronic item can be recovered or not, nor it always indicates that the item is dead or hardware needs replacing until properly tested.

Again, this is my experience only and I have recycled many types of electronics and from my experience as a technical person, not as

a phone specialist, phones are no different.

.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] styles420:
I understand where you're coming from. But remember that those stickers only indicate that water was present where it shouldn't be - they don't confirm with 100% certainty that the water actually did any damage. I've known a handful of people who had devices that still worked, but were unable to get a cracked screen or other unrelated component replaced/repaired because of red stickers - those stickers are more for insurance and warranty purposes, because you don't make money in those industries by paying out 100% of the time ;)
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] Azeedc:
Understood

I am a senior, but in this forum you are the senior and outrank me by 2021 posts....... so I won't be picking on you anymore. LOL

.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] Darealone1:
before the phone went dead it was charged. the red battery does come on when i plug it into the computer or wall socket and insert the battery.

also the red light comes on and the it goes off again after a couple of minutes. i tried this method but i will do the jtag method now.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] IDontKnowMang:
This method doesn't work if your memory became corrupt. Only a riffbox can clean it out to accept the Bootloader. My phone would only take 2% of a JTAG flash before my memory was repaired
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] jebinshakya:
I have two questions? can this be done with a mac (I know it says use linux ubuntu but i dont have one in the moment.)

other how i do i decompress a dmg.tz file. i am new to tz.

thanks again guys.

Also anyone heard of jig tools?
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] Azeedc:
I do not knot about mac, but if you have windows you can do it using Cgwin. Download and install Cgwin, it is free.

Here are the instructions on how to use Cgwin from my previous post #318 on page 32.

http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=45722997&postcount=318

The original de-brick file for Sprint is " debrick_sph_l710.img.xz ", which you can decompress with 7-zip, as well as .tz file.

As for the jig tool, I do not know if you are referring to the usb jig sold on eBay to boot to download mode ?

Good luck

If this helps, say thanks

.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] styles420:
While I have no experience with it, Heimdall does have a native Mac binary. That addresses the Odin portion of the guide. Since Macs are based directly off of Unix (Linux is, by design, an open source implementation of the Unix standards), I believe there is sine form of the dd command available to write the sd card image, but further googling is required before I can offer more concrete advice on that aspect

The other option that is definitely possibly is to create a live CD or live USB to boot your Mac into Linux - the methods are apparently different than for a Windows computer, and since I haven't had an opportunity to bit a Mac into Linux the best I can do at the moment is suggest that you Google "linux live boot Macintosh" - if you're interested in trying it out, I'd be happy to help with the search to help you sort it out (I can at least point you away from information that definitely doesn't apply to Macs to filter out information that isn't relevant to your situation)
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] Darealone1:
would this method (sd card method) work using windows 7? im going to try writing it to a different sd card and if all else fails just send it to those JTAG services on ebay.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] Azeedc:
Yes it will work on Windows 7 using Cgwin, download and install. Run as Administrator.

Follow my guide from previous post #318, page 32, link below....on how to write to SD card using Cgwin

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=45722997#post45722997

If it helps..say thanks
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] finnmacool:
Cross posting from:http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2345860&page=18

You all have probably figured this out a long time ago but here is my 2 cents:

Hardbricked my i747m (Telus) and was crying the blues. I have no Linux experience but tried the cygwin stuff, all with no luck.

I could not find a way to get that unbrick image onto the sd card...UNTIL....win32diskmanager! Just burnt the img file using this program, held down the power button and boom! Loaded right into twrp! Going to install stock img and see how everything goes!
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] jdz7t8:
Can an 8gb micro sd card work?
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] rich204:
still hard bricked

I have the same i747m S3 and tried your method using diskimager to write the debrick.img file to the 16gb class 10 micro sd card then popped it in my hard bricked i747m and nothing happends? am i missing a step or something? what about Minitool Partition Wizard?
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] Azeedc:
SD card size must be same size as the phone's internal memory, 16GB or 32GB. I have used a 32GB on a 16GB phone and also worked.

But my advice is to use same size as memory, class 10 SD card. See my post, (go back post #426), for the link on how to do it in Windows.

.

---------- Post added at 01:56 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:36 AM ----------

Did you use the correct de-brick file for the i747 ?, the one on this forum from OP post applies only to Sprint.

Did you try using Cgwin in Windows ?, see my guide on page 32, #318. Linux would be another way to write to the SD card, 1st post OP.

Did you use a fully charged battery, if you leave the phone on the charger after you insert the battery, is the red charging

light turning off and coming back on and stays on until it is fully charged and changes to green or stays off ?, any life at all on the device ?.

Did you try using a different computer and USB cable and card to write the de-brick file to the SD card ?.

These phones can get damaged in different ways, whether is moisture, wrong rom or update-upgrade problems and depending

the extent of this damage some units respond to the SD card method and others do not, but may respond to Jtag.

.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] styles420:
When you say that you popped the card in your phone and nothing happens, do you mean that literally? Or do you mean that you popped in the card and tried holding volume down + home + power and nothing happened?

I've been trying to make sense of your statement for a while now, because this method is specifically for recovering from corrupted internal memory - if it didn't work for that, it wouldn't have any purpose at all. Do you mean that it doesn't work for physically damaged internal memory? Because that statement would be accurate...
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] rich204:
Correct. I can't turn it on or get it ib download mode.

I believe I got hard bricked because I flashed a i9300 rom to my i747m