[Galaxy S I9000 Android Development] epsilon42:
hey guys, new here but thought i'd share my experiences flashing from JG4 to JP3. i actually only stumbled upon this thread after my whole ordeal but thought one more positive experience on here would help other people with their decision to attempt to flash their firmware.

i had a trip to malaysia and got myself a 16gb sgs for 2000 myr (~640 usd)... not sure how much they are in the u.s, but it was cheaper than any place i found back in dubai (where i live).

the phone wasn't sim locked or anything, but it was branded for SingTel (singaporean operator), and as such had a few applications on there that i wanted to get rid of.

i googled how to debrand the phone and was glad to see a number of tutorials. all tutorials mentioned that the phone had to be in download mode. i was disappointed to discover that i couldn't get my phone into download mode and started looking around for solutions.

(edit) first things first, here are the versions that came loaded on my phone (checked by dialing *#1234#):

pda: i9000dxjg4

phone: i9000dxjg4

csc: i9000olbjg4

(end edit)

the instructions regarding firmware flashing were fairly straight forward, but the problem i had was trying to figure out exactly which firmware i should get: jp1, jp2, or jp3? is each version actually newer than the previous, and if so, why were the released simultaneously (2010 august)? what was the significance of 803.pit and 512.pit? i'm sure there's an explanation somewhere (probably buried within the many pages of this very own thread :)), but at the time i just decided to take the plunge on JP3.

i downloaded this from:

w w w . samfirmware.com/WEBPROTECT-i9000.htm

sign up is required. password for the .rar file is listed underneath the download link. there is no need to download odin as this is already included in the package.

i had previously downloaded and installed the newest version of kies so the drivers were already installed.

the first obstacle was getting my phone into download mode. i saw that this could be achieved using ADB. i used the following tutorial to set up ADB:

w w w . addictivetips.com/mobile/what-is-adb-and-how-to-install-it-android/

set up for ADB involves editing the environment variables for windows... i'm using windows 7 so instructions on where to find this are at:

w w w . windows7hacker.com/index.php/2010/05/how-to-addedit-environment-variables-in-windows-7/

after setting everything up and rebooting my computer, it was time to try this thing out. i made sure that 'usb debugging' was enabled under 'settings > applications > development'.

i plugged my phone into the computer again and had some more drivers auto detect. bottom line, is we need the 'SAMSUNG Android Composite ADB Interface' show up at the top of device manager (see the link about setting up ADB for a picture).

if that's there. open up a command prompt (run > cmd (enter)), and type in: 'adb devices'. if it lists a device after you've pressed enter then you're in business.

i firstly just tested to see if 'adb reboot' worked. had no problems. i then tried 'adb reboot recovery'. this also worked fine.

it was time to try out this download mode. i typed in 'adb reboot download' and to my surprise my phone restarted and entered download mode. woo hoo!

i then fired up odin1.3 and put in the location of the PIT, PDA, PHONE (the file was actually named MODEM) and CSC file that was included in the .rar package.

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please note that i have a feeling that what i did in this next paragraph did absolutely nothing but i'm just mentioning it for the sake of accurately telling you how i got the JP3 firmware on. i have a feeling that the trick is to check 're-partition' (as other guides mention) - i didn't want to try this initially as i thought that potentially i'd be losing some space on the internal SD or something... i would love it if someone could clarify what exactly re-partitioning in odin does

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the first time i started odin, i was unsuccessful. i did not check 're-partition' on this attempt. my phone downloaded the file okay, but upon restarting it booted into recovery mode with some error message. i decided to reboot the phone again hoping it would go away :P, but this time the phone just hung on the SGS logo screen. my heart sank for a moment. i then found that the phone was still responsive by using ADB to reboot (phew!). i rebooted into recovery mode and tried ALL the options listed on the screen. i forget exactly what all the options listed were, but i tried them all :) upon rebooting again, i had the same problem.

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end paragraph

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i then ran odin again with the 're-partition' box checked this time. the file downloaded and the phone rebooted and displayed the SGS logo for a LONG time (maybe a minute or 2) before it loaded up the interface (yay!).

the language was in chinese :S i managed to find my way to the language settings and switch it to english. i checked the system info and was happy to see that i was now running android 2.2 JP3.

that's it!

i understand that a lot of this type of info is already on this thread and all over the web, but hopefully this will help someone.

now my turn for questions:

1) i'd really like to know the significance of the re-partition check box in odin1.3. is there anything bad about using this option?

2) for the first ~10-20seconds after the interface for the SGS loads up, i experience a bit of lag/delay with input. does this happen to anyone else? i don't intend to turn my phone off/on all the time, so it's not really much of an issue but was still wondering if this is normal. i never really paid any attention to it before installing the new firmware, plus i didn't have a bunch of media and other applications on the phone prior to the firmware upgrade.