[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] yoeddynz:
Hello all,

My first post here and I cant really think of a better place where I might get help beyond the endless trawling through the internets. I have already done. My hair is going even more grey!

I have a problem that I just cant work out.. I have already spent far too many hours trying to find ways to fix. So its best I ask here and maybe someone will know how to fix it.

I have a Note 2. Owned it since new and its been fantastic, does everything I need out of a phone and I want to keep it working. I have no interest in buying a new phone ( nor that I can afford it! )

About 6 weeks ago it died after I had let the battery run flat over night. It just would not turn on. I tried all the internet fixes and nothing worked. Sudden death syndrome I think its called. Fairly common with these I have learned.

I bought a new motherboard from China on Aliexpress. Good feedback from seller. $35. It arrived two weeks ago. I swapped the motherboards and the new one worked. I had to change the phone over to English and re-load my favourite apps, exciting.. just like getting a new phone again :)

It worked well enough and I was happy. I noted that in the about section, plus in the apps draw, SUPERSU. I looked this up and figured that maybe the main chip had been rooted. Possibly that the motherboard was atually a fixed secondhand one, possibly they use another chipset that needs rooting to work? I don't know but it worked so I left it.

One thing that did annoy me was that when I connected my phone via USB to the laptop (a Samsung) the photo thumbnails would not show up like they used to. I looked this up and it was common. I suggested fix was to look for phone updates on Kies.

Then about 4 days ago I decided to install Samsung Kies onto my computer and update the phone. It said there were updates to install and I clicked go.

I went through the process and it all looked good until when the update process said it had finished. Then the phone just started to flash the Samsung symbol on and off, spaced every two seconds. Bugger!

So I tried a recovery mode on kies, that did not work. I tried booting into recovery (all three keys, volume up) and it does nothing at all. Samsung just keeps flashing on and off. I have tried everything!

However- it will boot into download mode so I have tried reloading the correct Samsung firmware back on with Odin three, several times! Everytime when it re-boots it just flashes. Cant get into recovery.

This is now where I am at. I want to know how to get into recovery via my PC. Maybe through some program. But I don't know how. I'll happily load on a new ROM but not sure which and most seem to need me to be able to change some settings within the phone first...which I cant obviously do. I have looked into Omegadroid and Lineage which both appeal. But there seems to be no way I can load them on from where I am at with this phone.

I am hoping that there some sort of program I can use to 'hard re-set' or wipe the phone completely start again?

Any help and suggestions very welcome. I am not at all adept at programming so keep it all in laymans terms (I have already learned so much in the last few days that my brain might well explode!)

Thank you in advance,

Alex