[Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014 Edition) Q&A, Help & Troubl] mikmock:
/EFS HELP!!!

Hello, sbreen94, Xluco & all other Galaxy Guru's Hopefully that raised some eyebrow’s If not: HELP!!!!

I am sorry for such a long post but my brain has turned to mush and I need some guidance.

Short Version: "E: failed to mount /efs (Invalid argument)" Stuck at animated logo screen.

Longer Version:

I have been running Hyperdrive v4.1 with Xluco’s v3 Kernel (Stock FW: NK1) without any issues since I bought my SM-P600 in December. About a month ago I began using Xposed Framework with the Xblast module just for a dark blue “Halo Dark Background”. Again no issues whatsoever.

A couple weeks back I flashed Xluco's V4b3 release (which was working quite well initially). Of course before the kernel flash I uninstalled Xblast/Xposed, backed up with TWRP & Titanium, cleared all caches and then flashed the kernel and all was well.

A couple hours later I installed Xposed & Xblast without incident but when I opened Xblast, I started getting bootloops; everytime I opened xblast. So say good bye to my background, time to back out…

…uninstalled Xblast/reboot (all good)… uninstalled Xposed/reboot (NOT good). After the reboot, it became stuck at the animated Hyperdrive logo. I can boot into Recovery & Download mode and thru all this I still can.

I have tried all my nandroids, including the first one I made after rooting. I then wiped & reflashed Hyperdrive (which lets me go thru the whole aroma procedure) but never boots past the hyperdrive boot screen. I have used the older TWRP 2.6.3.3 and Philz CWM.

Flashed all available stock firmware with Odin3 (1.85, 3.07, 3.09, 3.10.6) and even tried Kies3. All with the same results, except now i have the "Glowing" Samsung Logo. But now at least, I have seen my first error message, Stock Recovery gives me:

"E: failed to mount /efs (Invalid argument)" it now happened the first time & every time I use stock firmware and end up with stock recovery.

So I have tried all kinds of fixes on the internet short of flashing a PIT File which sounds great in theory but several people made their tablets worse & I am not 100% sure I even have the right PIT file. I also have 3 types of /efs backups (.img .tar .zip) the .img & .tar actually show 20MB which according to my searches is correct but never could get anywhere with them, tried EFS Pro & Dr Ketan EFS backup.

I have also tried the ADB fix but no go. The only other thing I can think of is that everything I flash seems to make it on to the tablet. Looking at it with the file manager in recovery.

Since this has turned into a novel I will stop here and beg for help!!! :crying:

I'm sure I left a lot out that I will gladly provide if needed. I am so ready to move on & up to Hyperdrive 5.1!!! I can actually flash it too but it just gets stuck at the logo screen.

I have tried to pull a log of some kind and I either end up with nothing or I get a couple lines saying everything was successful (minus the /efs error)

Thank you for even reading this nightmare & if you have any suggestions that would be EXTREMELY COOL :D

UPDATE: Spoke too soon about the /EFS backups, they were from my N5110. (oh well)

I tried Odin 3.10.6 again because there is a dedicated Tab for "PIT" so i tried to click on it and it came back indicating that if a .pit was required, it would pull it from the CSC portion of the ROM (Huh? first time i had heard that). Anyway, at the time i was trying to flash the brand new "0B2" firmware,. which like all the "XAR" firmware seems to unzip to one single .tar.md5 file So just for the sport, I added OB2 rom into the CSC box in odin. Actually it ran thru the flashing procedure twice and "Error" free. Unfortunatly, didn't do a thing, still at square 1.

At this point my motivation is to fix this tablet, but also to help awareness of this Samsung anomily. I am a hardcore backup freak & it bit me. In my travels since this issue began, I have seen quite a few people unaware of PIT files & /EFS. If anything, maybe someone will take percautions before flashing new firmware.

UPDATE: I don't know if I feel smart or dumb. There was alot of information out there but it was more of a piece meal.

It was mostly old post & Phone related (losing your IMEI)

I also found that using CWM to mount system with ADB worked best, TWRP never seemed to respond to the commands.

So, then i took half of one post:

adb shell

mke2fs /dev/block/mmcblk0p3

then half of another

mount -w -t ext4 /dev/block/mmcblk0p3 /efs

the "/efs" was missing from the first post. I'm not even sure if the last line was necessary.

I rebooted, and everything was back like magic!, no corruption, no factory mode. Just a wiped clean tablet ready for Hyperdrive 5.1.

I guess /efs folder was just lost & luckily all the secret information, including the all important IMEI was intact.

BTW...Hyperdrive 5.1 Rockz! running perfectly.