[Galaxy S6 Edge Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] cyphol4:
Hi. I have spent the past 10 hours trying to root my phone :eek: and install an XtraLite type of ROM because I am so sick of have 75% of my RAM used up when I haven't even started using the phone. I softbricked my phone, and after hours of trying to solve every minor issue that came up I finally found a solution and managed to flash a stock ROM. I have a lot of questions that I would love to get answers to because I am a little bit confused right now.

My history.

Bootloader

I spent so much time googling this and I decided to trust one site that said, if you can't find the "OEM Unlocked" option in "Developer Options" then your bootloader is probably already unlocked. This was the closest I got to an answer, along with many people with SM-G925F saying the root was successful for them without doing something to their bootloader. Can someone please clarify what I need to do with the bootloader with my EU SM-G925F?

Flashmode/Download Mode

Prior to this I spent very long trying the "adb-windows reboot bootloader/flashboot-windows oem unlock" without any results. However I somehow came to the conclusion that "Download" mode for my Samsung was no different. Any clarification on this subject please?

Rooting

The first rooting guide I trusted was the CF-Auto-Root page. This is where the bootloader question was raised but as I came to the conclusion that the bootloader already was unlocked, I decided to give it a shot. I downloaded SM-G925F file, added it to AP on Odin, and flashed my phone. Now my phone was locked in a bootloop. According to CF-Root page "A modified recovery and cache partition will be flashed, which will install (only) SuperSU, then clean-up the cache partition and re-flash the stock recovery. For the root to work, the device must reboot into recovery. Most devices will do this automatically after flashing these files, but in case that does not happen, please boot into recovery manually.". As you probably guessed, my phone never booted into recovery mode, and I was never able to manually do it either since the phone was in a unstoppable bootloop. Did I do something wrong here or misunderstand anything?

ROM Instructions

My first choice was: http://xdaforums.com/galaxy-s6/sams...xtrestolite-deodexed-mod-edition-1-3-t3119968

I failed the first step, never even managed to root with CF-Root. And regarding TWRP, I did download the correct version "twrp-3.0.0-0-zerolteeu" I assume. However, many descriptions say my phone needs to be rooted before I can install TWRP so I never tried to install it. Even if, I couldn't find a detailed enough description of how to install TWRP. All it says is "flash it". Problem is, I am not sure if I am supposed to be in "Download mode" and use Odin loading TWRP into "AP" or how does this work?

Never got to the ROM installing, but it would be nice to have something more detailed than "Put it on your phone, install it". Like, do I enter recovery mode and navigate to the rar file and chose to install it? Not sure how this works.

My solution to bootloop

This part took me the longest. For those stuck in a bootloop. Holding DownVolume + Power button for at least 15 sec will simulate disconnection of the battery. This helps you turn you device off. Also, if you nothing happens, make sure you unplug the USB cable as it keeps trying charge and show the status it tries to boot and keeps looping as a result. I could always manage to get into "download mode" through DownVolume + Home Button + Power Button no matter what, and I am grateful for that. I managed to find the exact build I was using on my phone "G925FXXU3COJ1_G925FOJV3COJ1_G925FXXU3COI9_HOME". But everytime I tried to flash, it always failed in the end. I spent hours on google. Someone mentioned something about it failing on a certain point of the writing, involving hidden.img. I googled for info on how to resolve this, and someone suggested to rename hidden.img to hidden.tar but it did not help. I also read some threads regarding using a matching PIT file and there were about 7 different ones to chose from. I tried them all without success. Finally I read something about removing hidden.img from the ROM. I renamed the ROM from .tar.md5 to .tar. Unpacked it, and then repacked it without hidden.img using tar-Tool from these forums. The following flash of the new created tar.md5 (without hidden.img in it) was successful.

Slave for stubborness

Unfortunately since I spent so long getting through this horrible experience, I would feel bad have wasted an entire day just to get a phone that is now reset. I could have done that in 30 seconds. However I am persistent to get this working and I am truly grateful for any help you people can supply my with. I did manage to root and ROM my old S3 but that was a while ago and I only remember a few small things about Odin and so forth. However things seem much more complicated now than before.

Thank you in advance,

Alex