[GiONEE Elife E7] gry0:
I've used SP Flashtool software to perform all manipulations with this phone. You have to go to http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1982587 Read to understand basics of how it works. Screenshots are for 3.x version, indian rom archive also contain 3.x version, but you have to use 5.x version. It has slightly different interface. But in general everything is similar. Download link: http://androidxda.com/smart-phone-flash-tool

Basically it can read and write directly into chip's flash memory.

Note that Flashtool and SP Flashtool are different tools.

Chip in our phone has 4 different memories with separate address spaces. We are interested in user_mmc, this is main flash (32gb in my phone). All manipulations we will do to this memory. We shouldn't touch other ones. One of the others contain preloader which is early boot program which essentially allows SP Flashtool to work. Even if you completely erased user_mmc, you can still reflash it from backup and unbrick your device using SP Flashtool, but if you erased/corrupted preloader SP Flashtool will not work. Note that you CAN flash preloader with SP Flashtool, but you really SHOULDN'T without real reason. Because if you interrupt process or flash wrong preloader, SP Flashtool will stop working. I've read somewhere that even in this case you can try to unbrick your device using some other techiques, but I never tried that. Also note that on other phones preloader can be located in the beginning of main flash, so formatting it will corrupt preloader. I don't know purpose of other 2 memories, just do not touch them either.

1. So first thing you have to do is download stock rom. Do not flash it yet! Go to needrom http://www.needrom.com/download/gionee-elife-s7/ for chinese stock rom or to xda firmware http://xdafirmware.com/gionee-s7 for indian. Download one that is currently preinstalled on your phone. Inside you will find scatter file which is a text file that describes partition layout in the memory of the device. Some partitions will have img or bin files associated with them. These files also present in rom archive and can be flashed to the device. Not all of partitions are present in rom and can be flashed. For example nvram partition. It contains some information that is unique to each device, it contains imei, mac addresses and more. So it cannot be flashed from rom that you downloaded. It should be backuped. There are more such partitions. Also note that partition layout for cn and ind roms are different. Which means you will have to reflash some of such partitions to different addresses when you migrate to different rom.

2. Now you have to do a backup of your userdata to your computer, if you have something usefull there. Do it using recovery or in some other way you know.

For next steps I assume you've read article regarding SP Flashtool, installed usb drivers, etc.

3. Do a backup of current rom that you have on your phone along with nvram and other partitions:

Open scatter file corresponding to rom that is currently on your phone (cn or ind) in text editor. Find address of cache partition. In flashtool load this scatter file and, go to readback mode, backup user_mmc memory starting from 0 adress till the beginning of cache (as we are reading from zero use cache address as size to read). You have to get binary file around 2GB in size. This is a backup of everything except cache and userdata partitions. If something goes wrong you can flash it back using advanced mode of SP Flashtool and then do a factory reset in recovery and get your phone back to working state. Hopefully you won't need this. But do a backup anyway!

If you need to write back this raw binary backup you have to open SP Flashtool in advanced mode (Ctrl+Alt+V) go to Window menu, click Write Memory. New tab will appear, go to Write Memory tab select 0 address, file name of the backup and flash it. Factory reset from recovery mode and your phone is back to life.

4. If you plan to migrate to different rom (cn->ind or ind->cn), do also separate backups of partitions that are not included to the rom (proinfo, nvram, protect1, protect2, seccfg, para, expdb, metadata):

Note that I have no idea what is purpose of some of these partitions (if someone knows, let me know). So I decided to backup and then to flash them back to be on the safe side.

Go to readback tab, add addresses and sizes of your CURRENT rom partitions you want to backup along with file names. Do a readback. If you will migrate to different rom, you will need to reflash these files to different addresses in new rom.

5. Now you can flash rom you want:

Load scatter file of rom you want to flash to SP Flashtool. UNCHECK preloader! Flash rom using download mode. DO NOT use upgrade or format+download!

Note that same rom will work for both 16gb and 32gb phones. Flashtool is smart enough to resize userdata partition to whole space available.

If you are migrating to different rom flashtool will not allow you to flash it, because partition layout is different. You have to erase partition table first. In this case flashtool will flash even if layout is different and will recreate partition table for new rom. Partition table is pgpt memory region (check scatter file, it starts with zero and 0x80000 in size). Go to Format tab, select manual format, enter address and size of pgpt partition. Format this memory region. DO NOT use auto format or full format, this will format whole flash. Now you can go to Download tab and flash new rom. Do not forget to UNCHECK preloader. If you accidently forgot to uncheck it, just let it flash, DO NOT interrupt process! Because interrupted flashing of preloader will brick your device.

6. If you migrated to new rom you should restore partitions you backuped previously to new addresses:

Note that if you didn't formatted/corrupted your flash and done everything exactly, you can skip (proinfo, nvram, protect1, protect2, seccfg, para) because up to logo all partitions are exactly match for ind and cn roms.

Turn on advanced mode. Go to Write Memory tab, one by one enter addresses (from NEW rom you just flashed) of partitions you want to restore. And flash them.

7. Finally you can normally boot your device. First boot can take quite long. So be patient. If you migrated to different rom you may experience some issues. In my case I had no cellular connectivity, invalid imei, couldn't make/receive calls. And some graphical artifacts during animations on phone's desktop. I assume that this is because of slightly different hardware (different revision of radio, etc). I managed to resolve these issues. Will post later.

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Regards

Grygoriy Fuchedzhy