yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] nvan7891:
Well from what I gather, 80mb is the minimum needed to boot to download mode, but maybe like 128mb? The partition table for block devices is stored within the first mb or two, so anything more than that will at least contain the table. As long as I have an image with the table from a 32gb, I can use that and then manually dd sets of images from different firmware versions until I find one that works. I've tried the image in the OP, the "Debrick_L710.img" one, and the "Debrick_Sprint_S3_L710_4.3.img" one. I'm not sure what android version my 32gb was running when I accidentally dd'd an image of the EFS partition to the sbl2 partition. Maybe it was a 4.4 rom?

All I know is, this method should work to debrick this phone. I have sandisk class 10 32gb and 64gb sd cards, and a off brand class 2 16gb, all of which I have written, rewritten, and tried over and over again with a full battery, plugged/unplugged from computer running windows and linux, with 3 different usb cords. Red light comes on when I plug phone into comp with no battery, and linux always shows this:

[135244.787729] usb 3-1: new high-speed USB device number 96 using xhci_hcd
[135244.801996] qcserial 3-1:1.0: Qualcomm USB modem converter detected
[135244.802089] usb 3-1: Qualcomm USB modem converter now attached to ttyUSB0

Also, if anyone reads this and is familiar with or knows a link to somewhere that shows how to identify and differentiate between the different SPH-L710 boards by just looking at the actual board, let me know. I googled it for a bit the other day and pretty much only came up with ebay listings.

---------- Post added at 07:46 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:09 PM ----------

No, I think it is just neglected as an option because most android users dont use mac. The OS used by apple is mush more akin to linux than windows is. I believe it's a variation of BSD, but don't quote me on that. I once had to use my roommates macbook to follow this guide on imaging internal memory to a computer written for windows users that uses linux tools ported to windows. I believe dd and all linux the command line format tools used to do this are available on a mac. I remember having to set up an apple developer account and download a package of development tools from apple. The guide I mentioned required using dd, netcat, pv and adb.

Just google "How to use dd on Mac OS X" and I'm sure you will find what you need. Setting up a stupid apple developer account and getting the tool package is the key. After that, it's just command line use that's pretty much identical to linux. Developer accounts are different from a regular apple ID, and only take a couple mins to set up.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] diamondcanopy:
Thanks!
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] 2012crazymexican:
does this work for samsung 4g epic ?
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] nvan7891:
A quick google search didn't bring up any promising results. I think that these kinds of hardware fail-safes have only been recently deployed. Does the epic boot at all, or is it completely unresponsive as if it the battery was taken out? I'd put my money on the epic being too old to have a hardware recovery option like this. If it's 100% unresponsive when you try to power it on or plug it in, then unfortunately JTAG repair is probably your only option, but might not be worth it for a phone that old. I don't know what all you've tried, but removing the battery for a few minutes and then reinserting it and trying to boot it up might be worth a shot. Do you know exactly how the epic was bricked?
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] 2012crazymexican:
yeah it was bricked after flashing a modem i think soo ..
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] styles420:
Which part of the stock tar contains the boot loader? That should be the only part that is always required for this to fix the hard brick, right?

Even if it turns out that both the rom and recovery are still corrupted (soft brick), restoring the boot loader includes download mode, which can be used to flash a custom recovery - I would save time by flashing the recovery with the boot loader (easy to do with heimdal), since if it isn't broken then it will just be overwritten with a duplicate copy. But the rom component is considerably larger, so skipping it would save time (and fewer components flashed in Odin means fewer components that can fail during an Odin flash).
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] godslam:
May I ask you what brand of SD card you used?
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] jaymaj:
SD Card

SanDisk Ultra 16 GB MicroSDHC Class 10

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009QZH7D8/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] godslam:
Thank you very much. I picked up a Class 10 Polaroid one, but it doesn't seem to work.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] godslam:
I've been trying this for hours now and I still can't make any headway.

Here's the steps I've done.

1. Download and unzip file. Extract image.

2. Write image to SD card.

3a. Place SD in phone, place battery in, plug phone in, hold Volume Down + Home + Power

3b. Place battery in phone, place SD in, plug phone in, hold Volume Down + Home + Power

4. Nothing shows up on screen, but I can hear the phone being recognized if I'm plugged in while on Windows.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] Ragnar:
Well battery should be in place sd card in plug phone to computer then try to boot phone into download mode. This should boot into download mode from the SD card... Then put your computer into windows mode and use odin to flash the rom. It says this could take several tries even rewriting the image to the SD card.

Sent from the future via Tapatalk 4
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] godslam:
Yeah, basically all the things I've been doing.

I've re-imaged the SD card a few times and pulled the battery, cord and card multiple times.

Maybe this is just karma catching up with me? =P
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] zerogear88:
Look up a Samsung download jig works every time (the best thing about Samsung )
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] godslam:
I actually got it working.

I didn't realize that I had to remove all partitions and let dd do that part on its own.

(Either I missed it in the reading or it was something that most people just "got" automatically.)

I was going to go for a jig next though.

Thanks for your response. =)

(And thanks will be going to all who helped with this whole process as soon as I'm back on Windows.)
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] Ragnar:
Glad you got it going but a jig would not help with the S3 in this case. Jtag until this method had been the only way to recover.

Sent from the future via Tapatalk 4
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] jaymaj:
Yes, getting the partitions correct is the key. Check the partition table after the flash to make sure multiple partitions were created.

As a reminder to all, your SD obviously get wiped. It gets completely repartition. But it's well worth buying a $10 card to keep as a brick backup.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] deadlydecision:
I tried this method and still nothing is showing up. I have made sure to write the image more than once and it is still not working? Any advice? Is it required to connect the phone to USB after putting the SD card in?
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] dragonhart6505:
any chance this would work on S960L?

on the sticker under the model number, it says SPC-L710

anyone could link a similar bootloader image for S960L?
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] miraculousboy:
i need help please

let me start of by thank you all million times. you guys saved a brand new gs3..:)

i spent over 3 hours easily to find answer to my problem before posting here but had no luck

well, the phone is debricked as long as SD card in it. i tried to load the kernel and stock rom and odin gives me a green pass but as phone is still stuck at galaxy siii sreen. and my recovery menu is showing stock even though i didnt put stock rom back on it.

i guess i am not loading some thing right.

could some one who's done it before post some after post ops procedure for after getting the debricking the phone

thanks alot
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] TheKenRob:
Hey CNexus devout follower, I bricked, (duh, after download of TWRP 2.6) been at this 4 days finally got it to load to sd card as mmcblk (don't know if that's good or bad) put card in nothing. Tried Odin nothing, took battery pack out switched USB ports Q load pops up. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] Ragnar:
You have to Odin the stock rom tar. That's the only way the partitions will be corrected on your phone. Right now it's booting on the SD card. If you don't Odin a full stock non rooted tar your not accomplishing anything. There's no need to odin a kernel.

Sent from the future via Tapatalk 4
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] CNexus:
I'd suggest to Odin the corresponding PIT file for your account if storage to completely repartition your device.

Are you on linux?

dd if=debrick.img of=/path/to/sdcard/device (not mount point which would be /media/something something)
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] TheKenRob:
Yes new issue I finally got it to load and turned it on. Problem is it boot directly into TWRP 2.3.3.0 and there is nowhere for me to go from there. Thank you for the fix btw. But as i say I'm now back with this ish. So I'm sitting in TWRP with nothing to boot up
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] miraculousboy:
that sure did it, appreciate it.

existing problem is i cant turn on wifi thu

i am rooting and installing custom rom (clockwork) as we speak to see if it fixes the problem.

i was going to upgrade the root to clockwork 6.0.3.6 but cant find any instruction how to chane the img to tar thu

any ways thanks a lot:)
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] TheKenRob:
Can't get to ODIN because well I'm in TWRP
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] wizy321:
so i just ordered a 16 gb micro sd card

i have try both the cygwin method and the WIN32diskimager method

still no luck

by the way is any 1 else sd telling them it 14.8 GB?

if not can i get a any assistants on fixing it
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] angelglz:
Same request here.

Same request here;

I am trying with different images of 16gb but without success, if anyone have a 32gb version working please upload, please.. :(

Thanks in advance.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] nvan7891:
I still have not had any luck. Only other thing I can think of is maybe it just requires the sdcard be a higher class 16gb. I have a 16gb card, but its a class 2. I'm pretty sure people on here have reported cards < class 10 have worked, but nothing as low as 2.

Aaaaanyway, I kinda just said "screw it." I've had my eye on a RIFF box for a while now, so I ended up ordering one and it's on it's way. It should arrive sometime this upcoming week (definitely by Friday) When it does, I'll make an image of my 32gb after I jtag it, assuming no one else has posted one by then.

Also, I'm not sure if anyone else has looked into or tried to use qdloader (qdload.pl) or QPST. I've been messing with it a bit recently. On paper, it seems pretty promising, but I don't think anyone has gotten it to work for our chip (MSM8960) as far as I can tell. Someone also made a "Brixfix" script for the galaxy note that uses qdload. It should theoretically work for our phone/chip by subbing in the correct bin/hex images for our MSM8960, but I haven't had any luck. It begins to write to the phone, but fails. The issue might lie with the image files not being properly signed. I'll post some links here if anyone wants to check it out. Most of the threads are from a year ago.

[R&D][QUALCOMM] Using QDL, EHostDL and DIAG interfaces & features

[REF][R&D] MSM8960 Info, Architecture and Bootloader(s)

[SOLVED]-[BRICKED]SHV-E160L Korean model

SHV-E160L Debricking Tool / Qualcomm Tool Pack V2-1

HEX files for MSM8960

Most of these are from about a year ago. I haven't been able to find anything more recent, and it seems like a reliable solution or method was never found, or at least no one reported it. It's all pretty technical, and in order to really do anything with it, or make any real progress, it would require someone with pretty extensive knowledge on the subject. Much more than I have. The "Brixfix" script was supposed to be a QPST substitute for linux. I'm going to mess around a bit more with QPST now that I have the hex files for the 8960. It seems to me, at least, that if our phone has the ability to enter QDL mode, then it should be fixable with QPST.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] wizy321:
if you updated to 4.3 before the brick, then yea the img wont work and there re no 4.3 img's out there. (my current problem)
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] angelglz:
I was using class 10 but of 32g because is the same size of the internal memory, unfortunately images posted are only of 16gb.. :(

Anyway i sent to a jtag service.. :fingers-crossed:

Thanks anyway ;)
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] CNexus:
The images are not specific to either storage size variant. If they don't work it is because of some other reason.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] jameseo21:
would you mind giving me the link to the sprint galaxy s3 boot image for android 4.3
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] nvan7891:
I never figured the images were reliant on card size, more that the phone would only respond to a properly sized and partitioned sdcard. Like maybe the 32gb would be looking for a total partition size of 32gb on the card etc. From what I can tell, the only difference between a 16gb and 32gb partition layout is the size of the data partition. I actually manually partitioned a 32gb card to the exact table of a 32gb, and manually flashed images of partition I pulled off a working 16gb (which was updated to 4.3 as well) and no luck.

These are the two 4.3 images I have:

One I believe I found somewhere in this thread: https://db.tt/6gJSCMtK

This one I made from my working 16gb on 4.3+: https://db.tt/k6pH9wpc

Let me know if you have any luck. Like I said, my RIFF box should be here in a few days. It's coming airsure from the UK, and it's already in Chicago, going through customs. As soon as I get it I'll jtag my 32gb and post some DeBrick images of it on here. Good luck!
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] thenexusgeneration:
I have a working 32gb L710 debruck image for you to try out, my friend.

Download from me here: https://mega.co.nz/#!4s1SQTAA!fVWpGc8Ww-DWv-0VA797V_Bd7MEBOt6EevFuglUNPrQ

I was able to revive ny long-dead s3 first try. Hope it helps. :)
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] emerybarnes:
Is this suppose to be a .bin file?
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] thenexusgeneration:
Win32 lets you select any kind of file (this one just happens to be in .bin format. You should probably be able to give it a new extension if you feel like it, without the data being affected.)
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] wizy321:
Still no luck. guess JTAG it is. :C
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] sapperox:
Bricked after DeKnoxed and custom 4.3?

Excellent work from all involved, and great to see so many members have had success. It gives me hope...

I have a Sprint S3 that had factory update to 4.3. I ran the DeKnoxer and was running a custom 4.3 ROM. I decided I wanted to get back to stock to sell back and trade up, so after reading the dev thread on the Stock Flash with counter reset was confident that it would work fine with my 4.3 custom, non-Knox ROM. After the flash completed I rebooted and hard bricked...!%$@!$^

Anyone have suggestions for me? I've successfully built a 16g boot img SD (tried both the one from the original thread and a 4.3 one provided around page 52?), but cannot get the device to boot. I do get the default USB device msg when I connect to my PC, but otherwise not a peep. I did notice that holding down the power button for ~10sec it would "disconnect" from the PC and automatically reconnect after a few seconds. Again, just enough action to give me hope...Thoughts?
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] nvan7891:
My riff box came friday. Get this, (most) S3's have a moorc12-pin molex connector on the board, for solder-less jtag. On int. gsm models, the connector is parallel to the vertical edge of the board. cdma it's... horizontal.

and for no good reason that is apparent to me. It just is. I swear, at some point, people in some conference room somewhere were talking, and one was like

Getting a new solder kit and stripping jtag cables sounds just awful, so I found the smallest cable set with the correct one (because of course you can't just get the one you need. I mean, why would you. That would just be ridiculous.)

Regardless, I'm really curious to know why exactly this just refuses to work for some of us. If anyone comes here and doesn't have any luck, if you wouldn't mind taking a minute and providing a few key bits of info, maybe it might make more sense.

Something like this, maybe: (my info included

16gb or 32gb -> 32gb

Firmware version -> ? probably non-TW 4.3

Size/class/brand of SD used -> 16/32 c10 sandisk, crappy c2 32 and 16gb.

Which partitions were messed up, and how. -> sbl2, accidentally dd'd an efs image to it.

Which and what size debrick image(s) tried. -> All of them, plus a bunch I made myself, from 80mb to full 16gb copy of another s3

emmc chip version. -> One not affected by any of the bugs.

Using windows or linux doesn't matter, I've tried both many times. I don't believe it has anything to do with the "sudden death" or emmc bug, either. There's no reason it shouldn't work.... It would be nice to narrow it down to a specific cause.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] sapperox:
at least I got a laugh...

Thanks for your post...just the humor in it more valuable than my phone (at the moment)...
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] okn0tok:
Will this work for my scenario?

[ROM/RESTORE][!MD4 OTA!](5-10)Quick Return to UNROOTED STOCK WITH FLASH COUNT RESET << Installed that and then >>> Okay so...I downloaded the file for my phone and installed it and it hung up at Samsung, I then rebooted into recovery mode and had only stock recovery and an error in red that said: E: signature verification failed. With a little android on his back with a red triangle. If I try to boot into download mode it shuts off so I can't even try the ODIN method. I read the key is to get into twrp or cmw recovery and then it wont check for signatures. I am kind of freaking out here. :rolleyes: So I reinstalled cmw via ODIN but for some reason its just shutting off when I try to go into recovery mode now ...

Can I use this method to fix this? Or should I try installing a stock ROM? My questions is I don't know which stock ROM is safe because I read is you were on 4.3 going back can cause issues (maybe this issue I already have).

NEVERMIND I fixed it by installing a recovery tar in odin. phew.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] sircharlieg:
When I tried to write the .img file to my sd card, it gave me

even though the file is sitting right there on my desktop.

How can I fix this? Should I include the path to the desktop?
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] fastman616:
Before I give up

Here is my story Sprint SPH-l710 OTA 4.3 with knox after getting th 4.3 the phone started randimly locking up and had to be powered down and back up. The last time it would not come back it wouldn't respond to anything.

After a lot of trial and error the 32GB debrick (backup.bin) file finally got me in to download mode as below

BOOT RECOVERY MODE

CHECK BOOT PARTITIONS..

COPY FROM T-FLASH..

BOOT RECOVERY..

WRITE 159488 sectors..

FLASH WRITE FAILURE

ODIN MODE

PRODUCT NAME: SPH-L710

CUSTOM BINARY DOWNLOAD: No

CURRENT BINARY: Samsung Official

SYSTEM STATUS: None

QUALCOMM SECUREBOOT: ENABLE

Warranty Bit: 0

BOOTLOADER AP SWREV: 1

At this point I have tried the stock tar as well as adding a PIT file and the write always fails in ODIN

LL_L710VPUCMK3_L710SPRCMK3_2034598_REV03_user_low_ship.tar.md5

sph-i710-32gb

tar by itself or with pit file produces this error in odin

PIT FAIL : TOTAL SECTORS (0)

Anyone have any other ideas or is the motherboard toast?

Also at this point is there any chance of using something to try and get any data such as pictures off of it? It is the daughters phone and of course she never bothered to back anything up on it even though constantly reminded to do so in case something like this would happen.

Thanks,
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] noobiestnoob:
HELP HELP

i have a white sprint s3.

its been hardbricked. i tried to install energy rom with twrp and screwed it up.

im not good with computers but i heard about this method

im on windows and i have a class 10 32 gb card. also i have cygwin . Is there a way i can use this method if so could somebody help me out?? im out of warranty. please please help me. :confused::confused::confused::crying::crying::crying:
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] manager77:
Hi! l've hard bricked my LG G2 korean version...flashed a wrong firmware...now l can see only LG logo on display,no recovery mode no download mode no fastboot mode...can you help me...and if you can...what do you need.Thanks!
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] angelglz:
Add me to skype or facebook, may i can help you. :fingers-crossed:

[see my profile]

Greetings :cowboy:
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] nvan7891:
Heya. I just jtag'd my 32gb, and it's up and running. I believe the issue lies with KNOX. I'm guessing ones that have been flashed with 4.3 roms that haven't removed it (which I don't remember doing). The riff box 1-click dead-boot repair wouldn't even work with my 32gb. According to this, downgrading from 4.3 is only possible with a previous DCC backup. It does say that it is impossible to reset the new warranty void counter, though. I had to individually write boot partition images to the phone. I can't remember if I used images from an md4 tar, or from backups I made with the 16gb phone. Either way, odin failed trying to flash an md4 tar, and would only accept an mk3 one.

Anyway, I just made this image of my repaired 4.3 knox'd 32gb with the riff box, if anyone wants to give it a shot. If anyone who hasn't had any luck gets it to work, let me know. I know there's another 16gb 4.3 image floating around here, but it never worked for me. I now have a 16gb and a 32gb up and running (both 4.3). If anyone wants to try a 16gb image, or any other random partition/section of emmc, let me know. It's just a matter of uploading it to dropbox.

Lastly, to any who have/are interested in getting a jtag box, I can vouch for these Moorc "jpin" molex flex cables. It's pretty much plug and play, it beats the hell out of stripping and soldering hair-thin wires.

32gb_43_knox_debrick.img.7z - 26.91 MB

******FIXED IMAGE*******

I had an issue with the wrong pit file, I think. The image here is

correct

now.

It is from a 32gb phone with a 4.3 knox bootloader.

I just wrote it to a piece of crap class 2 32gb off brand sd card, popped it in, put in a half full battery, plugged it into my laptop and the thing immediatly buzzed on and went into download mode without even manually powering it on.

This being same 32gb phone that none of the other images on here worked for. I also renamed the image from .bin to .img, just to avoid any confusion. So try this if you've got a 32gb that hasn't worked so far.
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] garramdq:
THANKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You are my hero!!!!!, i have Hard Briked my SGH-T999 Tmovile, im from Argentine, JTAG here not exist, i thank you very much for your post, this work, i use the .IMG from gTan64, my phone star in one second in DL mode, odin to stock and voila is working, its aliiiiiive =)....

THANK YOU AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN!!!!!
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] jgkim:
g2 hard birck ref.

LGPNST TOOL TOT or bin for LG G2
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] manager77:
can you give me more info....l'm a noob with LGPNST...have the phone to be rooted?Thanks!
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] jgkim:
Other LG Flashtools

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2432476&page=22#215
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] manager77:
need download mode for this...l cant get into download mode with my phone
[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] jgkim:
enter fastboot possible?

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2476972&page=2

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2477595

Add an answer on this forum seems to be that it is not appropriate.