[Galaxy S6 Edge General] tom0927:
You can boot up into download mode to see if BL is locked or unlocked. I'll add that on the instructions. However, locked and unlocked BL only limits you in flashing CUSTOM recovery/kernels so with a locked bootloader you should still be able to flash stock HK firmware. There's always a risk with flashing, so making a backup before you flash will always be recommended. There's soft bricks and hard bricks. Soft bricks you can recover from yourself using either Odin or Samsung's emergency recovery in Smart Switch. Hard brick (like borking your EFS partition and overwriting your phone's IMEI #) will require a visit to Samsung repair center. That's why all the flashing posts here have been prefaced with disclaimers and flash at your own risk. Now since we're flashing stock, as long as you don't disconnect your phone or lose power, you should relatively safe.

---------- Post added at 02:15 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:36 PM ----------

So on with the instructions... This is to flash the HK version of the 5.0.2 AOF1 firmware onto our China variant of G9250.

Disclaimer: Flashing anything is at your own risk and I'm not responsible if you brick your device. :o Please make an external backup before you begin as this WILL wipe your device including internal storage (photos/documents/videos/etc...) I have only tested flashing this firmware from China firmware AOF8 and so can only say this guide works for China AOF8 -> HK AOF1. Flashing from any other variant is at your own risk.

I don't take any credit for this guide as it's just a re-compilation from various sources online.

Prerequisites:

1) You should have Odin 3.10.6 installed (search for it online)

2) Download this version of the HK AOF1 firmware from my G drive:

3) Unzip the downloaded firmware, you should have 4 md5 files, one 1 pit file and 1 txt file. Ignore the txt file.

Here we go...

1) Put your phone in download mode. To do that, turn off your phone, then press Power+Vol Down+Home button at the same time. Hold all three pressed until you see a blue screen with a triangle exclaimation mark

2) Press Volume Up to continue and you should see a screen with a square down arrow. Side note: On this screen you'll also see the status of your phone, CROM SERVICE: Unlock means your BL is unlocked. KNOX WARRANTY VOID: 0 means you didn't trip KNOX and 1 means you tripped KNOX and warranty is now void.

3) Launch Odin and now connect your phone to your PC. *At this point if you want to chicken out and not go ahead, press Power + Vol Down + Home at the same time for a few seconds, your phone will turn off. You can then press the Power button to turn it back on and boot back up to Android. * You should see the ID column turn blue, means Odin sees your phone.

4) One by one, add the HK firmware md5 files to to the corresponding row. ie: add BL_G9250ZTU1AOF1_CL4635752_QB5147171_REV02_user_low_ship.tar.md5 to the BL button on Odin. * The AP file will take up to a few minutes to load into Odin due to the size. Odin may appear to be not responding, just leave Odin to do its thing and the AP file will eventually be loaded. *

5) The step that makes flashing the HK firmware possible, click on the Pit button from the bottom left quadrant, you'll see a warning not to use this tab. Click ok, and click the PIT button to load the pit file.

6) End result should look like this...

7) Confirm that on the Options screen, only Auto Reboot, Repartition and F. Reset Time is checked, Uncheck all other boxes.

8) Press Start and let Odin do it's flashing.. wait and pray :p

9) Once Odin is done and your phone is rebooted, congrats you now have the HK firmware with GApps! :good::good: