[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] painiac:
Restoring, Upgrading, and Downgrading

If you are on 4.4.x, you can update to 5.0 and keep root.

CAUTION: If you want to preserve your ability to downgrade to 4.4.x, never upgrade via an OTA or other official update; Only upgrade with flashable ROMS or modified Odin files that do not upgrade the bootloader past BOD5.

If you are on 5.0 BOD5 or earlier, you can freely downgrade to 4.4.x, but do not upgrade your bootloader to BOE1 or later if you want to be able to downgrade later

If you are on BOE1 or later, you can freely upgrade but you CANNOT downgrade.

If you need any restore files for NCG through OC4, Misterxtc has provided them here.

I advise you to download these files now if you need them, because I have noticed with previous phones that as people lose interest in particular models, files that are hosted in only one place tend to disappear.

If you need BOG5 and BOK3 restore files, jrkruse has provided them here

Note that he has provided a version that will update (lock) the bootloader, and a BOD5 bootloader version that will not lock the bootloader if it has not previously been locked. If you are on Lollipop there is no good reason to not update to the latest BOK3 firmware, but if you're still on a BOD5 or earlier bootloader then use the "BOK3 firmware with BOD5 bootloader" it in order to preserve your option to downgrade to KitKat.

Recovery Mode and Download Mode

Recovery Mode: This phone has a built-in recovery environment (typically referred to as "stock recovery"), which you access by first powering off the phone (and making sure it's not plugged in), then holding the Home + Volume UP + Power buttons at the same time. After a couple seconds, blue text will appear at the top of the screen which says "Recovery Booting..."

CAUTION: Never attempt to install a custom ROM or unofficial update file from the stock recovery mode: the phone will flip out and brick.

The stock recovery mode contains the following options:

1) reboot system now

2) apply update from ADB

3) apply update from external storage

4) wipe data/factory reset

5) wipe cache partition

6) apply update from cache

Wiping the cache is an easy and painless fix to a lot of vague problems and even solves some boot failures after installing a custom ROM. Doing a factory reset can solve a lot of things too, but be aware that you'll have to reinstall and reconfigure all of your apps unless you keep good backups.

Download Mode: The phone also has a mode where you connect to software on a computer and flash files to it, sometimes referred to as "Odin Mode". Access Download Mode by first powering off the phone (and making sure it's not plugged in), then holding the Home + Volume DOWN + Power buttons at the same time ("down" = "download"...get it?). After a few seconds, a screen will appear giving you a dire warning that installing a custom operating system is known to the Surgeon General of California to cause cancer, or...something....I don't know, I've never actually read the whole thing. Just press Vol-Up to acknowledge the warning. While in this mode, connect the phone via a microUSB cable to a Windows computer.

Flashing Files With Odin

The operations in Download Mode will be performed with a piece of Windows-based software called Odin. This tool is reported to be the actual software that Samsung uses to flash and repair phones, which has been leaked to the Android community. I caution you to only download this from XDA-provided sources. Odin is used to flash files to the various system partitions of the phone (firmware, kernels, modems, factory restore images, etc). Odin cannot be used to flash custom ROMs.

Odin 3.09: can be downloaded here.

Note that when you have the phone in Download mode, your computer won't show it as a device in "My Computer" because it's not connected as a media device., but Odin (or any other software that knows how to look for it) can see it. Odin will highlight blue in its first "ID:COM" box when it detects your phone.

[IMG="Odin"]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y241/painiac/FAQ%20odin%20small_zps1hssg90g.jpg[/IMG]

You'll see several boxes on the right side when you open Odin.

BL = Bootloader

AP = Your system, recovery, and boot.img (this was labelled "PDA" in older versions of Odin)

CP = Modem

CSC = Cache and Hidden CSC features

Everything on this phone is flashed using "AP" box (highlighted in blue in this picture), and you'll want to leave every option at the default setting unless specifically told otherwise.

When you click "AP", a file browser window will pop up, and you browse to and select the flashable file you've downloaded. The file needs to be one that ends with a file extension "tar.md5", or Odin can't see it. If what you've downloaded is a zip archive, the image is inside that and you need to extract it first.

Only extract a flashable file if the contents of the archive are "FILENAME.tar.md5", because that itself is the Odin-flashable archive. But do not attempt to extract the contents of the tar.md5, just flash it with Odin. If the file is a .zip that contains "META-INF" and/or other files and folders, it is to be flashed with SafeStrap or FlashFire rather than Odin.

MD5 Checksum: Before flashing ANY file, you need to verify that it downloaded fully and accurately. To do this, you use an md5 checksum tool (such as this one provided by Misterxtc), which generates a hash string based on the exact bit content of the file you've downloaded. You then compare that string of characters to the one provided along with the original. For example, AndroidFileHost.com will always list it here (as I've highlighted in red). You don't have to manually compare them, as most md5 tools have an input box where you can paste the string for comparison. If the file you've downloaded is even slightly corrupted or incomplete, the md5 checksum will not match and you'll know immediately that you need to re-download it. Obviously, attempting to flash a corrupted file will fail. You should check the md5 after you download a file, and again after moving it to your phone's storage. Here you see the md5 hash, which I have outlined in red.

[IMG="md5 sum"]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y241/painiac/FAQ%20md5%20small_zpsaq6ldrdz.jpg[/IMG]

After you select your file, Odin will verify its integrity. When that process is complete, click Odin's "Start" button. The file will flash to your phone, then when the flash is complete (unless you unchecked that option) the phone will be rebooted automatically. The text box on the bottom-left of the Odin window will report the results of the flash operation, including any errors.

CAUTION: Do not unplug your phone or allow your battery to die while a flash is in progress!

Odin troubleshooting (if your phone is not recognized by Odin, or a flash fails)

1) Verify the md5 checksum of the file you're trying to flash

2) Ensure the USB drivers for the phone are installed and up to date on the computer you're using. If you have problems, you may have to "uninstall" the phone from the computer's "Device Manager" and then reinstall it.

3) Check that your microUSB cable is fully seated in both the phone and the USB port on the computer.

4) Try a different microUSB cable and/or a different USB port on your computer (a bad cable or bad USB port are very common causes of a flash failure)

5) Examine the microUSB port on your phone to ensure it's not damaged, or plugged with pocket lint which may be preventing a complete connection

Samsung provides a free tool called "Kies", which allows you to do various things including installing drivers, transferring files to/from your phone, etc. You may find it useful if you are having difficulty connecting your phone to your computer. Just be aware that if you have Kies running, it will prevent Odin from functioning.

If Windows is not an option for you, you might try the open-source alternative to Odin known as "Heimdall Suite". I have no experience with Heimdall so will not try to comment on it further, but if anybody has any important info about it I would be happy to edit it into this guide.