[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] Hashcode:
VERIZON SAMSUNG GALAXY S4 (JFLTEVZW)

THIS PROJECT HAS BEEN UPDATED BY A COMMUNITY MEMBER. SEE HERE.

*** DISCLAIMER ***

I work on projects that may brick your device. Don't sue me, hate me or try and kill my dog if that happens. I will feel bad the community will feel bad and hopefully we'll find a way to get you going again. But, the very nature of my projects involves a certain amount of risk taken by YOU. And by using the projects that I work on, you've accepted that fact.

CURRENTLY THERE IS AN UNKNOWN ISSUE WHERE IF YOU HAVE ENCRYPTION ENABLED AND INSTALL SS IT BOOTLOOPS. IF YOU FIT THIS DESCRIPTION PLEASE STAY AWAY FROM SAFESTRAP FOR NOW.

CURRENT PROJECT STATUS:

v3.71: Debugging some rom-slot issues (almost stable)

v3.65: Stable for ME7/MI1 builds

WHAT IS SAFESTRAP?

Safestrap is a Bootstrap / Recovery for locked bootloader phones. The goal is to avoid touching your primary system (I'll call this "stock" system) and only flash or make large changes to another place on your phone that Safestrap treats as a "2nd system" (in this case, it's a series of virtual ROM slots located on the internal emmc area: "/sdcard"). Once installed, you will see a "Splashscreen" giving you the option to hit "menu" to enter recovery. The recovery portion of Safestrap is now based on TWRP 2.6.1.0 (a touch based recovery) and you can perform .zip installs, backups and restores here. The additional features I've added to TWRP are mostly located under the "Boot Options" menu:

Here you can create virtual ROM-slots (2 on the S4 due to partition size and internal space) for flashing ROMs. These ROM-slots allow for 3 different sizes of /data partitions: 1GB, 2GB and 3GB. NOTE: The bigger you make the /data partition the less room you will have to make other ROM-slots.

You can activate a new ROM-slot by choosing the slot you wish to make active and then selecting the "Activate" button. Once active, you will see the "rom-slot#" up in the top of the screen shown in green. If you make the "stock" ROM active, then you can see it in the top shown in red.

Once a ROM-slot is active, all actions you would normally perform using TWRP are directed to that ROM-slot. For example, "Install" to flash a .zip, backup and restore.

For more information you can read up here:

http://blog.hash-of-codes.com/how-to-safestrap/

HOW DO I INSTALL SAFESTRAP?

Requirement: Root

Requirement: Allow APK install from Unknown Sources

Download the Safestrap APK

Find the APK using a Filemanager tool and open it on your device, then click "Install".

(If updating from an existing Safestrap you might be warned that this will over-write the existing installation. Click the "Yes" equivalent to this message.)

Once installed, open up the Safestrap application as you would any other app.

Agree to the disclaimer that you won't try to sue me and hunt me down with a rifle if you manage to break your phone..

Then use the "Install Recovery" button. You should see the current version down in the lower left corner of the window. And the "Status:" should say "Installed" when you're done.

From there you can reboot and you *should* see a new splash screen during the boot up. While this is showing you can enter Safestrap Recovery using the [ menu ] button.

That's it for the installation! Read below for a brief overview of Safestrap Recovery v3.x

HOW DO I ENTER RECOVERY?

During each reboot a splashscreen will be displayed showing whether the device is running a rom-slot or on the "Stock ROM".

Press under the button shown on the screen to either enter "RECOVERY" or "CONTINUE" booting.

By "under", I mean on the touch key portion of the front display on either side of the center button.

DOWNLOADS:

CONFIRM THAT YOU ARE USING A VERIZON WIRELESS SAMSUNG GALAXY S4

FOR USERS OF MJ7/MK2:

USE 3.71+:BETA Safestrap-JFLTEVZW-3.71.apk (updated 2013-12-27)

Mirror 1: http://goo.im/devs/Hashcode/jfltevzw

FOR USERS OF ME7/MI1:

USE v3.65 ONLY!: Safestrap-JFLTEVZW-3.65.apk (updated 2013-11-15)

Main XDA Downloads Page

Mirror 1: http://goo.im/devs/Hashcode/jfltevzw

ALSO DOWNLOAD THE KERNEL MODULES .ZIP THAT MATCHES YOUR BUILD # (FLASH THIS AFTER ROMS):

ME7: http://xdaforums.com/devdb/project/dl/?id=507

MI1: http://xdaforums.com/devdb/project/dl/?id=1342

MJ7: http://xdaforums.com/devdb/project/dl/?id=2459

MK2: http://xdaforums.com/devdb/project/dl/?id=2536

HOW TO MANUALLY REMOVE SAFESTRAP:

[ INSTRUCTIONS ONLY FOR v3.65. REMOVE VIA APK FOR v3.70+ ]

Enter adb shell from your pc:

su
mount -o remount,rw /system
mv /system/etc/init.qcom.modem_links.sh.bin /system/etc/init.qcom.modem_links.sh
rm -rf /system/etc/safestrap
rm /system/etc/firmware/q6.mdt
ln -s /firmware/image/q6.mdt /system/etc/firmware/q6.mdt
mount -o remount,ro /system

As of version 3.6x, Safestrap Recovery is now based on TWRP 2.6.3.x. For more on TWRP you can visit their website: http://www.teamw.in/

WARNING: Safestrap is heavily modified to be "Safe" for your device. Do not download TWRP from their website and expect it to work the same way. Also TWRP does not support Safestrap, tho some issues that may come up will be TWRP dependant, please try and contact myself or look on the forums for your device for answers before hunting down TWRP people. They won't be able to help w/ Safestrap specific questions.

For the purposes of direct user testing I've established a channel on freenode.net IRC: #safestrap

I'm in the channel mostly all the time, but may not be active for discussion.

This thread is a development ONLY thread.

For discussion go here:

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2428226

XDA:DevDB Information

Safestrap Recovery v3.71, Tool/Utility for the Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4

Contributors

Hashcode, DeesTroy & TeamWin

Source Code: https://github.com/Hashcode/android_bootable_recovery

Version Information

Status: Stable

Current Stable Version: 3.65

Stable Release Date: 2013-11-15

Current Beta Version: 3.71

Beta Release Date: 2013-12-27

Created 2013-09-12

Last Updated 2015-04-08