[Samsung Galaxy S7 Questions and Answers] JJWitch360:
SOLVED AT LAST - MISSING IMEI and EFS DAMAGED SOLUTION

Hi Guys,

First off, please take GOOD note - I am NOT a techy, just an old boring flashaholic who works in an office and likes pyjamas more than partying. This is my account of me fecking up my phone and finally reaching a solution after three days and most of two nights to a missing IMEI, messed up EFS and non-working phone - hoping that it might help anyone as desperate as I was. You do what you do with your phone and that's your business and I'm not responsible if you mess it up, but my hope is that you have have a brain (that's all I have) and you get some helpful piece of info here as I did from a whole ton of posts I read that finally led me to this.

Next - I am not sure what landed me in this mess. I've seen Superman Rom mentioned a couple of times..I didn't use that but I did use Batman Rom which is by the same Dev. It was great to use, too, so I'm not faulting the Dev by any means. What did happen, though, is that when I flashed other ROMS, maybe 3 or 4 of them following, the Batman splash screen was always there before the new ROM's boot sequence, so there were clearly some residual things of it in there ...so perhaps the same coding is in there and could have had something to do with it, I don't know. The breaking point came when I flashed Sac23 Rom hoping to get Pie on my phone. It was cool but I decided to revert to Resurrection Remix - always my favourite overall - and all of a sudden I get errors.

What should have been a routine "Restore" of my backed up RR ROM via TWRP gave "Error mounting EFS". Reboot, wipe, retry. No joy, same again. A couple of tries to restore the EFS from the backup in TWRP didn't work either.

Next go to is flash "original firmware" (more on this wording later). I had that on my PC (not a phone backup, just the firmware so it's clean copy with no data).

Get Odin out, download mode, correct files in correct boxes, all that standard stuff you can find guides on most places - no joy.

Error showing was "Fail at pm.bin" or something like that. Install aborted.

Try again. This time "Fail at cm.bin" Install aborted. Reboot from recovery also fails. Oh sh1t.

Several more attempts made. I have five different Odin vers. I have seven different firmware vers. I have two USB ports and about 8 Samsung cables. Not a single combination I tried worked.

The XDA heroes will know what to do, I thought. I read and read. And read. And CubZ (who is a hero even if he IS from Lancashire ;) ), says MAKE SURE YOUR PHONE IS RUNNING ORIGINAL SOFTWARE. Well...I kinda did that mostly already...but maybe I need to go RIGHT back to the rubbishy 6.0.1 version that came actually ON my phone when I got it....almost 2 years ago? Who remembers that stuff?? I'm about 18 ROMS down the line now. I was desperate. I'm telling you...I even got out my bank statements to trace when my first payment to my current provider was...I read about firmware numbers and country codes, and I chose one from Sammobile with a build date, country code, unbranded code (which my phone always was) and correct phone model (of course!) as I needed. And it WAS .."the ORIGINAL" firmware.

This time I swear Odin failed me a second BEFORE I pressed the start button! No joy.

Have a flask of coffee and a few valium sandwiches and off I go back to XDA again. I read a loooong series of "Missing IMEI" stuff and there's CubZ again with an IMEI/EFS fix guide guide...brilliant! And it WAS brilliant, and clearly he helped tons of people (kudos, man). But I had messed up MY phone in the time-honoured "right royal" way - worse than his guide could help me. My IMEI was Unknown, my EFS was empty, My SIM wasn't being recognised, no network info or signal...nothing. But genius that he is, he CubZ DID post a Combination file that gave me a base to keep trying on when firmware after firmware had failed almost immediately with errors either of pm.bin/abort or cm.bin/abort.

I almost wore the print out on CubZ guide, I read it so much and tried so many times. Then...I see people saying things about U1, U2 and U3 firmwares. Turns out you shouldn't mix the two. I got that snippet from CubZ too. More research and the little coffee-fuelled connections in my brain are like.....ok....

My ORIGINAL firmware has in its name "U1" and there are similar ones with "U2". Might that be it? My phone has been screaming "DEVICE 2 FIRMWARE 1" (or something like that) at every aborted 'original firmware' installation via Odin and download mode that I've tried, including the EXACT firmware that was on my phone the day it was unwrapped and I danced happily round the room with it.

So if DEVICE 2....FIRMWARE should be 2 maybe? Back to Sammobile. There are firmwares with the same model number, country code, branding info as mine..but with a "U2" where mine said "U1". But...they were Oreo and Nougat where mine was "originally" Marshmallow.

It's now day three in the Big Mother House. My valium and coffee and running out and my communication with the outside world has ceased. I've had about five hours sleep, my food is running low and I cannot call for takeaway cos I ficked my phone up good and proper. I even....get this....start looking up PAID services to fix this. I KNOW, right!!??

I pick up a Nougat firmware from Sammobile...careful to match model, country, branding AND U2 - wondering if I can match it up with CubZ's Combi file as a base to appease Odin......and then maybe revert to my 'original' stock from that to start another attempt at the IMEI/EFS thing.

It loaded. Odin was pleased with my sacrifice. And lo and behold, it had restored the whole lot WITHOUT me having to go any further with stock ROM reversions. It frickin' worked. I got my signal back. My SIM card was detected. My phone number was showing. My IMEI was showing. My E-Frickin-S was mended. I feel like Judd Nelson at the end of Breakfast Club.

So here's the semantic bit that I hadn't known and that is unclear in many many posts. My phone is now working 100% on stock firmware....but is is NOT REALLY the ORIGINAL software - it's the MODEL......COUNTRY......BRANDING.....LANGUAGE - specific firmware but it is Nougat where my original was Marshmallow, and it is a U2 firmware where my original FW was U1. THAT was the killer difference, it seems. Thanks to all of you who posted anything - many many of you - who helped me get this. It's a compatibility issue detail I've never seen or had issues with before.

I now have G930FXXS2DRDI_G930FXEU2DRB5_XEU

Where G930F is the model number, XEU is the country code for UK and Ireland (even though UK is a nation and not a country - just sayin' :D ) and the U2 sits there hiding in the middle of the second section of the name.

Which gives unzipped files as follows: NOTE - THESE ARE NOT LINKS.

AP_G930FXXS2DRDI_CL12365438_QB17789072_REV00_user_low_ship_meta.tar.md5

BL_G930FXXS2DRDI_CL12365438_QB17789072_REV00_user_low_ship.tar.md5

CP_G930FXXU2DRB6_CL648265_QB8952207_SIGNED.tar.md5

CSC_XEU_G930FXEU2DRB5_CL13061583_QB16917099_REV00_user_low_ship.tar.md5

HOME_CSC_XEU_G930FXEU2DRB5_CL13061583_QB16917099_REV00_user_low_ship.tar.md5

It's Nougat, but that's okay for now; I got my IMEI, EFS, SIM, BIN, probably ENT, RAC, SUV and BMX too, everything :)

And now, with my working phone, I am gonna phone the local Chinese Takeaway for food, answer all my emails that popped and binged and tinkled at me when it became resurrected, and leave CubZ with huge thanks and all of you guys with the hope that this helps somebody out there.

And maybe look at backing this sucker up and reverting to my Oreo RR ROM I love so much..... I HATE Touchwiz!!!!

Good luck!

:good::good::good: