[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] caniswesley:
First off, keep in mind that I am not the genius that [MENTION=4939386]Surge1223[/MENTION] and other DEVs clearly are. I'm just a madman standing over the traffic with his ear to an aluminum can pretending it's a smart phone. That being said, I've done some likely dangerous things to my aluminum and string Samsung Galaxy S4. But, at the end of the day, I got where I wanted to be: rooted NC5.

I was rooted in 4.3 MK2. From there, I unrooted and successfully took the 4.4.2 OTA. While browsing the forum I saw other people state there'd likely be no root for NC5 from NC5 for a long time. Surge1223 himself made it clear the most rapid way was likely going to be upgrading while rooted from 4.3 MK2 to a modified NC5 rooted (as he has brilliantly outlined in this post). I noticed other posts saying it was possible to downgrade to MK2 after having taken a 4.4.2 ROM. I suppose I'm almost grateful I didn't listen to the fine print saying once you went NC5 OTA there was no way back. I accidentally didn't see that this was for NC2 --> MK2, and not NC5 --> MK2. So, I decided first to following Surge1223 's instructions on his rooted 4.4.2 NC2 to downgrade back to MK2, and this failed. I then tried the NO WIPE MK2 and this did not work.

In a panic, I then tried the COMPLETE-WIPE method for MK2.

This royally soft-bricked my phone, so that any time I tried to flash the MK2 stuff, all I got was the following responses from ODIN:

<ID:0/006> Added!!

<OSM> Enter CS for MD5..

<OSM> Check MD5.. Do not unplug the cable..

<OSM> Please wait..

<OSM> I545VRUEMK2_I545VZWEMK2_I545VRUEMK2_HOME.tar.md5 is valid.

<OSM> Checking MD5 finished Sucessfully..

<OSM> Leave CS..

<ID:0/006> Odin v.3 engine (ID:6)..

<ID:0/006> File analysis..

<ID:0/006> SetupConnection..

<ID:0/006> Initialzation..

<ID:0/006> Get PIT for mapping..

<ID:0/006> There is no PIT partition.

<OSM> All threads completed. (succeed 0 / failed 1)

<ID:0/006> Removed!!

<ID:0/006> Added!!

I realized that one of the things that I saw on ODIN when I tried to flash was the whole thing about having no recognizable partitions. I needed a functional phone, and unfortunately no one on the help forum seemed to be able to help me immediately, so I decided to be adventurous.

1. I grabbed the PIT file from [MENTION=4939386]Surge1223[/MENTION]'s NO-WIPE and COMPLETE WIPE post, grabbed the MK2 downgrade zip file (also courtesy of [MENTION=4939386]Surge1223[/MENTION]), as well as the KitKatNC2 Leak and then went Flash-Crazy with ODIN in this sequence:

because I had softbricked, I could still boot into Download Mode (even though because I had no partitions recognized, I currently had no recovery mode). so from download mode I did the following flashes, and reboots into download mode:

a. I545VRUEMK2_Downgrade.tar.md5 into the AP slot (or PDA if using Odin 3.07), and the PIT file taken from the NO-WIPE post in the PIT file slot. I can't remember if it failed, but I'm pretty sure it did. As Surge1223 said, though "the file should fail at Cache, thats ok".

Reboot into Download mode.

b. I545VRUEMK2_Downgrade_system.tar.md5 file with the same PIT file (this probably wasn't necessary, but at this point I was a bit paranoid and praying for it to work). This rebooted, but got stuck at the Verizon boot screen.

I then booted into Recovery and tried a Cache Wipe and Factory Reset. These didn't work, but I'm giving the complete sequence of events because I am also a bit superstitious at times about electronics. Like I said, madman here with a aluminum can and string.

c. At this point I flashed the NC2 Leak in the AP slot. It flashed cleanly, and I was able to boot NC2. However, I decided I wanted to be able to root, so I repeated the steps a and b but without the PIT file <--- at this point just say NO to PIT.

At this point I was on MK2 (with a base band of NC2). My theory is that it is not possible to downgrade fully to MK2/MK2, but you can downgrade from NC5 --> NC2 base band and then load MK2 back on over the NC2 base band through Surge1223's downgrade method.

Of course, the only rooting technique I found for MK2 remains saferoot. That worked quickly and easily for me. From there, to fix wifi, I ended up downloading bypasslkm and having to install it to /data/local/tmp (meaning this is on your base directory). I don't know your background, so I'm just trying to be thorough. People have said you can "ADB push" the file, but that sounded too tedious to me. So since I had root, I snagged a File Manager with Root capabilities (I use ES File Explorer, but X-plore or Total Commander should do the trick as well). I copied the file "bypasslkm" from the zip file attached which I found among Surge1223's posts, and then I downloaded the Bypasslkm.apk from [MENTION=4168602]klabit87[/MENTION] 's post. Finally, I setup a script in Tasker triggered by Booting of the phone to load this app into memory every time, thus having Wifi functional on Boot. Initially before I installed Safestrap, I kept getting Security warnings about the bypasslkm that were annoying but livable. After safestrap installation, though, these went away.

Then, when Surge1223 posted his marvelous method to updating to NC5 with root, I followed his instructions (updated Safe upgraded to 3.72). My system is stable and highly functional. I'm happly on NC5 with root.