[Galaxy S III I9305 (4G LTE + 2GB RAM) Q&A, Help & ] chinaman88:
Hi ya!

I am a long time lurker and am always amazed that the collective knowledge here.

I've never spent much time with the inner workings of mobile phones, but am otherwise quite good with tech and very very persevering :)

My problem is a S3 LTE GT-I9305.

HISTORY (just FYI, as the phone is currently soft bricked):

It was working fine for ages. Delivered with stock 4.1.2 and last had stock 4.4.4 (I9305XXUFNL1_DBTFNL1) running (via OTA - Triangle Away worked well to hide the root). It was rooted (@ 4.1.2) using CF Autoroot and SuperSU worked fine. I am not sure if I ever installed Custom Recovery (if, then it was CWM).

Then about two months ago I started getting persistent error Messages about Media, Media Storage, Download Manager, Hangouts, etc having stopped.

After a lot of reading and troubleshooting I finally backed up my stuff and did a factory wipe. Everthing worked fine after that.

I never restored everything, so the phone and firmware was lightly loaded only, when ...

YESTERDAY:

Having not looked at the phone for a day or so, I surprisingly heard the Samsung shut down tone and went to have a look. What I saw (some 20-30 seconds later) was the white on black boot logo and it never went past that. Thinking that it might have been crunching on an OTA update or similar, I hooked it up to my charger and watched it for 3 hours (I swear, 3 hours). I then pulled the battery and it now (continues) to get stuck on the white on black boot logo.

NOW:

(1) Booting gets stuck at the white on black logo.

(2) I can start it in recovery but it is the Samsung stock recovery only. Please refer below for the error messages I get. I can't clear the cache and even the factory wipe does not work.

(3) I can start it in download mode but ODIN 1.85, 3.04 and 3.10.7 give me persistent FAIL results when trying to flash TWRP 3.0.2-1, 3.3.1-0 or CF-Auto-Root-m3-m3zh-gti9305.tar.md5. I have tried 2 otherwise good cables and all 3 USB2 ports available on my Win7 laptop.

(4) Kies 3 says 'not supported device'

I am at a loss right now. The water is way too deep for my knowledge level.

I have read more than 50 websites and forum posts (includung pretty similar ones, before deciding to write myself).

If someone could point me in the right direction ... eternal gratitude will be yours ;)

What I have downloaded but not used yet (since ODIN is not able to write at the moment) is the I9305XXUFNL1 factory ROM containing:

AP_I9305XXUFNL1.tar.md5

BL_I9305XXUFNL1.tar.md5

CP_I9305XXUFNL1.tar.md5

CSC_I9305XXUFNL1.tar.md5

M3_EUR_OPEN.pit

Since I can't make any screenshots or provide log files ... here is more (and hopefully all) Information needed.

Top right of the screen in download mode:

ODIN MODE

PRODUCT NAME: GT-I9305

CUSTOM BINARY DOWNLOAD: No

CURRENT BINARY: Samsung Official

SSTEM STATUS: Custom

Secure Download: Enabled

KNOX WARRANTY VOID: 1

AP SWREV: A3

ODIN 1.85 after attempting to flash TWRP 3.3.1-0 (using PDA button and only 'F. Reset Time' checked):

Setup Connection..

Initialization..

Get PIT for mapping..

Firmware update start..

recovery.img

NAND Write Start!!

Complete(Write) Operation failed.

All threads completed. (succeed 0 / failed 1)

Recovery mode upon start:

E:failed to mount /efs (No such file or directory)

E:failed to mount /system (No such file or directory)

# MANUAL MODE #

-- Applying Multi-CSC...

E:failed to mount /system (No such file or directory)

can't mount '/system' (No such file or directory)

E:failed to mount /cache (No such file or directory)

E:failed to mount /cache (No such file or directory)

E:Can't mount /cache/recovery/last_recovery

E:failed to mount /system (No such file or directory)

E:failed to mount /cache (No such file or directory)

E:Can't mount /cache/recovery/log

E:Can't open /cache/recovery/log

E:failed to mount /cache (No such file or directory)

E:Can't mount /cache/recovery/log

E:Can't open /cache/recovery/log

E:failed to mount /cache (No such file or directory)

E:Can't mount /cache/recovery/last_install

E:Can't open /cache/recovery/last_install

E:failed to mount /cache (No such file or directory)

Recovery mode upon selection of 'wipe cache partition' or 'wipe data/factory reset':

Much of the above 'can't open+mount' error messages, but with additional mention of:

/cache/recovery/last_log

(Block device required)