[Galaxy Ace S5830i General] Miss Winston Churchill:
[MENTION=6251244]ehsanotaku[/MENTION] - it's "Winston Churchill" here. Go away for a few days, come back to sign in, tells me I have to pick a username. So I pick my usual one. No I can't have it. Have I forgotten my password? Click on it, get error 404 page. Not having a good time of things :\ Hopefully someone hasn't hacked my Google+!

Hehehe. The night before I saw this quote from you I though "ehsanotaku is going to tell me to stop messing about" - true story.

I actually came to the same conclusion as you the night before you posted. I was going to try a different V firmware (which I did, didn’t work but that’s due to below plus I didn’t want to keep the Vodaphone screen and spam).

I had that link you gave me for unbricking the S5830i with the Open Australia baseband bookmarked last week and I was thinking about it because I had found a snippet in a post elsewhere saying that a V user had flashed i successfully.

So, Firmware for S5830i works perfectly on a S5830V device. I also have decided to stay on it because I imagine that using the package with the Open Australia baseband, this might be better for me? Not restricted like Vodaphone?

OK back to why things didn’t work initially with my “unable to mount /data” so yeah, I tried partitioning with cooperve .pit file and that didn’t work with V and i firmwares. BUT THE BOOTLOADER DID. All I had to do was make sure I used the .pit file/repartition AND include the bootloader.

I’ve done some further research, and the firmware I was initially flashing at first (the only non-vodaphone one: DULK2) IS the correct firmware for my device and thus I’d wager for ALL GS5830V users who are NOT on a locked phone with Vodaphone.

Now I am left with one problem: EFS Partition/IMEI Number (yeah, I know)

So we’re way off track/thread topic now but I thought I’d try your considerable expertise and kindness on this issue… but I’m happy to go post somewhere else if it isn’t appropriate.

- My IMEI number shows up in my settings because I’m running a restored CWM backup

- I cannot make calls (I can receive them)

- I have an EFS folder present at root, but it is EMPTY

- If I copy said folder onto a PC, it is still EMPTY (some tutorials say I should be able to get the files even if I didn’t back it up and it’s showing empty but I can’t)

- I have used a few apps to backup EFS partition and they say I DO NOT have an EFS Partition so I’ve stuffed that up.

- When installing AceJB (first time I installed a custom ROM) it did say to back up IMEI. I was given a link to download “Galaxy Toolbox” – not the nice one I’ve seen around through the store, it was in a zip and a manky old thing for S5830i devices (and similar). All it could do was reset network binary counter and backup the bml15 partition (whatever the hell that is) – it is QUITE possible that when I used the restore bml15 partition this is what stuffed me up.

Any ideas? I’ve looked around a bit and nothing seems to totally apply to my situation. I need to recreate an EFS partition and manually edit the data files. I’ve found a zip for a “blank” EFS partition, but it’s not for my device. It was Galaxy II or something so I dunno if I should try it. I’ve also found some tool that lets you edit the files but it’s hella confusing and also not for my device.

If I can't fix my IMEI I'll just have to save for a new phone but I will continue to test ROMs and all sorts so I can write a big long tutorial post specifically about GT-S5830V... but now I'm a newb again and will have to wait ages to post links!

Thank you SO MUCH :)