[Galaxy S 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] BruceElliott:
Unrooted SM-G900T (TMO USA Galaxy S5) Still Soft Bricked

Hi All,

Further to my post #3825 (previous page), my phone is still down after two weeks as I have been unable to work on it due to more pressing issues. Thank you in advance for any assistance that the community is able to provide. The problem in detail is:

(1) Using an earlier version of the powerful BK Disabler app, which exposed individual services within each app and permitted selectively disabling services, I was a bit too aggressive and disabled some system service required for booting the phone. (Shame on me, of course.) The phone boots through the Android sequence, displays the TMO boot screen, sounds the TMO boot tune, and then freezes and overheats if left in that state. Of course nothing is visible at the USB port because the OS is not functioning and therefor the regular USB driver is not functioning. Thus, I cannot get to my data files. Fortunately, the stock recovery USB driver probably IS funtioning.

(2) The silly Samsung Smart Switch was not working correctly and at each backup has been telling me for over a year that some of my data was not backed up. Of course, you know the old story, "my whole life" is in the phone and I simply cannot lose it. Thus, I am trying to be very careful about what portions of the stock system that I flash to the phone in order to avoid a factory reset scenario.

(3) I have not messed with phone flashing/ROM installation since rooting my original Galaxy S Vibrant back in the day; so I am a bit rusty. The good news is that I can boot into stock recovery, where I can see the currently installed system version: G900TUVU1GQC2 (6.0.1/MMB29M/G900TUVU1GQC2). That appears to be the last-released TMO version (to fix exploits), released March 1, 2017. I have downloaded: G900T_TMB_G900TUVU1GQC2_G900TTMB1GQC2_Original.zip from Sammobile. The latter file unzips to: (the same firmware name)_HOME.tar.md5. If I delete the ".md5" from the tar filename, I can uncompress the file to the following eleven component files:

cache.img.ext4 (73,145 KB)

system.img.ext4 (2,377,317 KB)

NON-HLOS.bin (8,581 KB)

boot.img (12,377 KB)

recovery.img (14,095 KB)

aboot.mbn (1,037 KB)

rpm.mbn (224 KB)

sdi.mbn (56 KB)

tz.mbn (354 KB)

sbl1.mbn (311 KB)

modem.bin (54,066 KB)

(4) Specifically, I need to know:

(4)(a) In what portion of the system does BK Disabler set the "no run" flags for apps/services disabled by the user? That is likely the portion of the system that I need to flash over with a fresh image in order to get rid of the flags. I assume that it is "system.img.ext4" but not sure.

(4)(b) The tar file downloaded from Sammobile appears to be the entire stock ROM. It is labeled "_HOME.tar.md5". I have read that flashing using a "CSC_HOME" in the Odin CSC slot will result in a non-destructive flash, which is what I need. However, I can see no file at all labeled "CSC" in the decompressed files (unless "cache.img.ext4" is the CSC file). And even if "cache.img.ext4" is the CSC file, it is not labeled "HOME" in the filename.

(4)(c) In the XDA Galaxy S5 General Discussion there is an old post by "tornado92" including a stock recovery tar file for a G900F (international?) version of the S5 that can supposedly be flashed in the Odin AP slot to resolve "stuck at boot screen" problems without deleting data: https://xdaforums.com/galaxy-s5/general/sm-g900f-stock-recovery-5-0-lollipop-t3228871 Not sure why that would work in my case, though, since my recovery environment seems to be working.

(4)(d) Thus, I am looking for sage guidance as to what to flash in order to get past the TMO boot screen/jingle without destroying data. Although it seems like overkill, I will just try flashing the stock _HOME.tar.md5 image in the Odin 3.13.1 "AP" slot if I can get some reassurance that doing so will not overwrite my data or format my flash memory.

(4)(e) If I do (4)(d), should I leave the .md5 suffix appended to the file or rename the file by deleting the ".md5" suffix?

(4)(f) If I do (4)(d), should I expect my system settings to be retained or to be at factory default? If they are reset to factory default, is there a backup file somewhere on the system that I could get to after rooting in order to restore my current system settings? Or does one of the eleven component files in the stock tar image contain default system settings? In the latter case, could I delete that file from the stock tar image in order to prevent overwriting my current system settings?

Many thanks to anyone who has the knowledge and takes the time to look over my way-too-long post and to think about my problem.

P.S. I promise myself to never, ever fail to root a new phone and create regular nandroid backup images; individual file backups just won't cut it when the phone dies...:o