[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] mwso:
Today I tried to put a ROM on my Samsung GS3 (Verizon) and ended up soft bricking it. The error that appeared was after restarting where I got the message “SECURE FAIL: KERNEL” in the top left corner of my screen. On that same screen was a message saying that my software was not approved by Verizon. I showered the internet for a solution and the only one I could find required me to use ODIN which is only for Windows and I have a Mac. So, I did research and fixed it myself. I decided to make a guide to help others. It’s not a great guide, but it’s the best I can do at the moment.

NOTE: I’m not responsible for any damage done to your device, continue at your own risk.

This has only been tested on my Samsung GS3 (d2vzw) and this is only intended for this device.

Download and install the Heimdall suite from:

glassechidna.com.au/heimdall/

Since I'm new I can't post links so you'll have to copy and paste, sorry.

Once Heimdall is installed, you should have "heimdall-frontend" in your applications folder.

Now, get your phone and put it into download mode. Here's how:

Make sure your phone is off

Press and hold the volume down, home, and power buttons simultaneously until the warning screen appears.

It will give you the option to cancel or continue, choose continue. In my case, volume up was continue and volume down was cancel.

Now that you're in download mode, connect your phone to your mac via USB and open the heimdall frontend.

The first thing I did was go to the utilities view and made sure heimdall detected my phone by clicking "detect." If it does detect your phone, it will say so in the "Output" box.

Now you're going to need to download your device's PIT by making a destination file and clicking "download." It doesn't matter what you name this file, I called mine "backup.pit" for instance.

I think that it's a good idea to verify that heimdall actually downloaded the PIT, because I had some troubles early on. Do this by using "Print PIT" and choose "Local File" and select the destination file you made in the previous step. Click "Print." You should see the PIT file in the "Output" box. My PIT file had an entry count of 27, and the first entry's partition name was "SBL1" for example. I will include the full output at the end of this so that you have something to compare to.

Now you need to download VRALF2.boot.tar.md5 and VRALEC.bootloader.tar.md5

which can be found at goo.im/devs/cmwiki/d2vzw/root/

Switch to the “Flash” view.

Under “PIT” browse for the pit file you downloaded from your phone.

Now, under “Partitions (Files)” click “Add”

Under “Partition Details” select “BOOT” for partition name and choose VRALF2.boot.tar.md5 for the file. It will give you a warning saying that it expects files with the extension “img” just click OK.

Following the same routine as above, under “Partitions (Files)” click “Add”

Under “Partition Details” select “ABOOT” for partition name and choose VRALEC.bootloader.tar.md5 for the file. It will give you a warning saying that it expects files with the extension “mbn” just click OK.

Now comes the point of no return: click “Start” if this was successful, your phone should boot up just like it used to. If not, one potential problem I had was that Heimdall didn’t communicate with my phone, I simply unplugged the USB and plugged it back in and tried again and it worked.

AS PROMISED, A COPY OF MY PIT OUTPUT: