[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] flentus:
Hi,

I'm launching this thread to work on an unbrick procedure for fully bricked I9070/P without JTAG or Riffbox (same as Adam Outler, TheBeano, Odia etc... 's project "let's save some bricks")

Reminder : fully bricked = no download/recovery mode, no display, not charging, not going to recovery with a 301k Ohm jig.

I have a fully bricked I9070P and a fully functionnal I8090 (same processor).

Based on the sources and tools for the U8500 that were disclosed in january, I've managed to make my dead phone and my PC talk "a bit" together (under Windows with the VSIW tool, and under linux with recompiling the "flashkit" tools): when plugged in and inserting the battery, the tool sees the terminal, gets its serial number and various data and fails while trying to send and execute a boot file because the terminal closes the USB port.

I've managed to get a certain degree of communication with the "riff" tool (open source) of the Snowball project too (the dev board based on a U9500).

Based on this half successes, I'm pretty sure we are close to a clean solution to revive a fully bricked terminal without soldering JTAG.

Here are the main docs I've read so far :

* most posts from the threads "let's save some bricks" and "fun with resistors"

* the reference documents of the I9070 (Samsung_GT-I9070_Galaxy_S_Advance_Galaxy_S_II_Lite_service_manual.rar)

* the reference manual of the U9500 (http://www.calao-systems.com/reposi...X/DATASHEETS/AP9500_reference_manual_rev1.pdf)

* TSU6111 datasheet from TI (the USB/UART switch the 9070 is using, cf the service manual -> Lite Schematics -> u-USB SW IC part)

* lots of docs from the "flashkit" sources

My setup :

* a fully bricked I9070P

* a fully working I8190P

* an 8GB SDCard

* a Windows/Linux workstation (Ubuntu 12.04LTS + Android compiling environment + disclosed sources)

* terminal emulators

* a Prolific cable (PL2303) (any USB to TTL adapter would do it, you can buy one for 3$ as Arduino accessory, or reuse a Nokia DKU 5 -see hackaday website for a link). Take care with Prolifics : they don't work under Windows 8 with the last driver, you have to use the version before, Google is your friend)

* a set of resistors

* a multimeter

* libusb win32 drivers setup, see sourceforge (use the tool included in the drivers package to generate the right .inf file for the U8500 (or use 04CC and 8500)

Here are my conclusions so far :

* based on the Snowball docs and the U9500 spec, we don't seem to have any need to modify anything (resistors) on the mainboard to change boot sequence. The dev board does not have any switch for that and my dead I9070 and working I8190 exibit the same behaviour at bootup : the appear as a "U8500 USB ROM" for a seconds and disconnect when going on farther in the boot sequence.

Moreover, the fact that I managed to have my dead phone talk with the flashtool confort me in the fact that we are almost done.

* I have *not* managed to get any output on my terminal with my Prolific cable plugged in with a 630kOhm resistor on the pins 4 and 5. My resistor setup might be good because it make my working I8190 boot when I plug it in.

But I'm not sure of my RX/TX setup, I have crossed the RX/TX of the phone and the ones of the Prolific but I might have been wrong identifying the pins of my modified USB plug (D+ and D-).

But I'm sure the RX and TX wires of my Prolific are the right ones : when I connect them together (nullmodem configuration), the characters typed on my terminal are displayed.

So the main issue is : how can we have the dead phone keep the USB port open and not close it after 2 seconds?

My assumption is that it is always probing different boot methods (UART, USB, MMC etc) and then attempts to boot normaly from eMMC.

I don't know which part of the bootchain sequence I've garbaged on my I9070: IBL, PBL, SBL, PARAM? Managing to get any debug output on my console would greatly help me.

Has any of you tried to achieve something similar? If yes, could you post your setup and results?

Let's save some bricks another time!