Is it possible to recover data from a truly bricked phone? - Samsung Galaxy Nexus

I used these searches before compiling this thread;
"how to recover data from a bricked SGN"
"data extraction from a SGN that will not boot"
"removing the HD from samsung galaxy nexus"
These searches did not yield results that replicate my situation. The only search that resulted in many entries were for people with "bricked phones" that (at least somewhat) responded to input. I associate the term "bricked" with a phone that does not respond to input, or show any indication of getting power.
My phone is a Samsung Galaxy Nexus on verizon wireless. It has been rooted and is running a custom ROM by...AOKP i think. I had some assistance each time I rooted and updated my ROM.
Here is my problem, what caused it,my troubleshooting steps, and what I'm trying to do. My phone was partially submerged in water for an unknown amount of time. The battery and SIM were removed and kept in a water proof container within an hour of submersion. The water damage indicator stickers (on both the battery and the phone have not been triggered). About 24hrs later, the phone was placed in a zip lock bag with 4 desiccant silica gel packs where it will remain for the next 24. Per vzw's tech support, I tried to power the phone on using the charger and the battery removed. No change. Verizon was not advised of the partial submersion, only the non triggered water damage stickers. This phone is under warranty and a replacement has been shipped. I confirmed that my contacts are backed up to google.
The reason for this post is, I have close to 30GB of pictures and videos that I stored on this device's "internal SD" that I want to recover. Looking through the searches I mentioned above, it sounds like this isn't so much a separate card, but more of a partition on the phone's HD. I have been told by vzw that neither their branch office tech support, nor their recovery/diagnostic team that analyzes returned phones has the capability to remove and return this data.
If someone here has hardware experience with cracking open a SGN and swapping the "internal SD card" I would greatly appreciate any information available for this task.

if it cant turn on, you cant retrieve data.

Zepius said:
if it cant turn on, you cant retrieve data.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well..OK. I'm not ready to give up just yet. When my desktop PC's power supply failed, the PC was unusable, and didn't indicate power. I swapped that out and it now it works fine. This seems like it could be a similar situation. I at least want to exhaust every option I have before throwing in the towel.
Those 30GB contain hundreds of pictures of the first 2 years of my kid's life.
It seems to me that data recovery should still be possible if an replacement power source is utilized. Maybe more than just the power source has failed. Maybe every other hardware component in my wet phone has failed. But maybe, that "internal SD" is recoverable.
If anyone here knows what the "internal SD" looks like, and has successfully swapped one, I'll risk it. I know I can't trust vzw with such a task.
I realize this is a developers forum, and I'm asking for hardware failure advice. If anyone can refer me to a different forum that is more specialized to my specific task, I'll gladly take my trouble there.
Thanks for reading,
Jef

you're assuming 1 thing. the nand that houses the storage is in good health. When water is introduced, you have the unknown factors of what it does to circuitry.
im sure there is a ifixit teardown showing where the nand is. The problem is its soldered to the mainboard of the phone. You might be able to unsolder it, but thats a stretch.

Zepius said:
you're assuming 1 thing. the nand that houses the storage is in good health. When water is introduced, you have the unknown factors of what it does to circuitry.
im sure there is a ifixit teardown showing where the nand is. The problem is its soldered to the mainboard of the phone. You might be able to unsolder it, but thats a stretch.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you very much Zepius. I googled "ifixit teardown samsung galaxy nexus" which lead me to a page (that I'm not able to paste here as a new user).
which is exactly what I was looking for. I wouldn't go so far as to say that I'm assuming the nand is in good health, just wishful thinking.

Anncoco - sorry, I don't remember what I did with this. It's been about 4 years, and this was 3 phones ago. I think I had some of the photos backed up somewhere else, enough that I never went to the trouble to disassemble the Nexus. From my notes - I remember the phone did not indicate it was getting power when plugged in.

Related

Why can't a bricked phone be revived?

This is a question for those in the know when it comes to programming.Why isn't there a way to revive a bricked phone? Can't there be some method for a host computer to manually write the radio to the device? How does HTC fix a bricked phone for it to be a refurb?
I'm just very curious about this because I see a few people attempt to update the radio only to lose power and brick their EVO. I have no programming experience so don't know what goes on at the internal component level. Thanks in advance for your input.
It goes back to the old bootstrapping problem when computers were being developed. A computer (in this case, your cell phone) is pretty dumb at the hardware level. All it can do is run programs. That's ALL it can do. It can't even load a program, only run them. Thus the problem. It gets solved by injecting a "bootstrap" program at startup (from the phrase "pull yourself up by your bootstraps") which is a program that runs and gives access to all the I/O, and the computer can then load more programs.
When you update this bootstrapping program, it gets dicey, because if it isn't written right, or if there's a glitch during the update, this most basic of all functions gets corrupted. If the program that tells the phone how to load programs goes away, all the phone can do is... sit there. Like a brick.
Hope this helped!
That helped me, thanks.
Soylent Grin said:
It goes back to the old bootstrapping problem when computers were being developed. A computer (in this case, your cell phone) is pretty dumb at the hardware level. All it can do is run programs. That's ALL it can do. It can't even load a program, only run them. Thus the problem. It gets solved by injecting a "bootstrap" program at startup (from the phrase "pull yourself up by your bootstraps") which is a program that runs and gives access to all the I/O, and the computer can then load more programs.
When you update this bootstrapping program, it gets dicey, because if it isn't written right, or if there's a glitch during the update, this most basic of all functions gets corrupted. If the program that tells the phone how to load programs goes away, all the phone can do is... sit there. Like a brick.
Hope this helped!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the info. That is interesting. So how does HTC initially put the bootstrap in and/or how do they handle a bricked phone?
Soylent Grin said:
It goes back to the old bootstrapping problem when computers were being developed. A computer (in this case, your cell phone) is pretty dumb at the hardware level. All it can do is run programs. That's ALL it can do. It can't even load a program, only run them. Thus the problem. It gets solved by injecting a "bootstrap" program at startup (from the phrase "pull yourself up by your bootstraps") which is a program that runs and gives access to all the I/O, and the computer can then load more programs.
When you update this bootstrapping program, it gets dicey, because if it isn't written right, or if there's a glitch during the update, this most basic of all functions gets corrupted. If the program that tells the phone how to load programs goes away, all the phone can do is... sit there. Like a brick.
Hope this helped!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks good explanation appreciate that.
rafroehlich2 said:
Thanks for the info. That is interesting. So how does HTC initially put the bootstrap in and/or how do they handle a bricked phone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is probably a JTAG interface somewhere in there. In fact,that's how the original hack of the IPhone was done. (Better ways were since found) Most devices have a quasi standard interface for programming the flash and accessing and the hardware for diagnostics. For instance,linksys routers actually have a spot on the board to solder a header and you can make a cable that connects to the parralel port. Do a google search for "Hairy Dairy Maid Debrick" and you will find it. A similar thing is probobally possible with the Evo (Ive even seen them on Hard Drives and CD Rom drives) The problem is,its not entirely standardized,and it might not even be a connector or pads on the board. It might instead be a matter of knowing where you can connect the leads on the board to something that under the right circumstances BECOMES the JTAG connector. (For instance,a pin that controls something else might be a JTAG interface for the first few hundred milliseconds of start-up,or if a certain other pin of the chip is grounded when the power is applied. It might also be completely internal to the chip,and there be NO connectors on the board (it almost CERTAINLY has the capability,they need it during prototyping) and the chips might be programmed BEFORE they are soldered in. It might take replacing the rom chip to get it to go. There are lots of ifs
Chances are though,the factory has a special cable and a special software program that can reprogram the device. To replicate that might be relatively easy or could be next to impossible but requires a certain degree of knowledge about the hardware. What I suspect is,until someone who has the skills to make such a cable bricks their phone,they wont bother figuring out how to debrick one. In fact,when that person bricks their phone,they will probably take it back to sprint and say "I dont know what happens" In fact,even if its stuck looping in an obviously hacked boot loader he for some odd reason cant undo,hes probably going to send it back to sprint. I know someone who did exactly that to their brand new HP laptop. He found that 15kv from the flyback of an old B&W television applied to the memory slots took care of the looping and Best Buy gave him another one. As he put it "I dont know what happened,but it smells bad and wont boot up"
pflatlyne said:
There is probably a JTAG interface somewhere in there. In fact,that's how the original hack of the IPhone was done. (Better ways were since found) Most devices have a quasi standard interface for programming the flash and accessing and the hardware for diagnostics. For instance,linksys routers actually have a spot on the board to solder a header and you can make a cable that connects to the parralel port. Do a google search for "Hairy Dairy Maid Debrick" and you will find it. A similar thing is probobally possible with the Evo (Ive even seen them on Hard Drives and CD Rom drives) The problem is,its not entirely standardized,and it might not even be a connector or pads on the board. It might instead be a matter of knowing where you can connect the leads on the board to something that under the right circumstances BECOMES the JTAG connector. (For instance,a pin that controls something else might be a JTAG interface for the first few hundred milliseconds of start-up,or if a certain other pin of the chip is grounded when the power is applied. It might also be completely internal to the chip,and there be NO connectors on the board (it almost CERTAINLY has the capability,they need it during prototyping) and the chips might be programmed BEFORE they are soldered in. It might take replacing the rom chip to get it to go. There are lots of ifs
Chances are though,the factory has a special cable and a special software program that can reprogram the device. To replicate that might be relatively easy or could be next to impossible but requires a certain degree of knowledge about the hardware. What I suspect is,until someone who has the skills to make such a cable bricks their phone,they wont bother figuring out how to debrick one. In fact,when that person bricks their phone,they will probably take it back to sprint and say "I dont know what happens" In fact,even if its stuck looping in an obviously hacked boot loader he for some odd reason cant undo,hes probably going to send it back to sprint. I know someone who did exactly that to their brand new HP laptop. He found that 15kv from the flyback of an old B&W television applied to the memory slots took care of the looping and Best Buy gave him another one. As he put it "I dont know what happened,but it smells bad and wont boot up"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wow. Thanks for the detailed answer. Too bad this isn't a standardized item. I hope eventually things progress enough where this isn't even a thought. Thanks again for the good response.
Sent from my PC36100
rafroehlich2 said:
Wow. Thanks for the detailed answer. Too bad this isn't a standardized item. I hope eventually things progress enough where this isn't even a thought. Thanks again for the good response.
Sent from my PC36100
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yea,it would be nice if it were. Its kinda sorta quasi standard,so it HAS been done in some cases where its necessary,but often there are easier ways around it. Personally, I have allways thought that its a pretty stupid thing to make a piece of equipment that can fail due to a bad flash. The people who designed many of the flash memory chips seemed to agree,and they added something called a "boot block" to many,but the way its implemented,when its implemented doesn't fully protect you from a bad flash. Its even worse now that everything is in ball grid array chips soldered down to the board.

[Q] Samsung Captivate Blank Display

Hello,
Captivate Glide i927 replaced cracked screen
I replaced the cracked screen assembly and installed a new ribbon. The lower lights (home, search, back button etc) work and also the keyboard lights. The ATT chime sound works too but the display does not light up when powered on.
Connected the phone after replacing ribbon/ screen to the comp for Kies to back up and it is saying the phone is locked. It is the lock code that you set to keep others from accessing. Since the display does not light, the correct code can not be placed in. Can someone please place a picture of the unlock screen mode here? The display touch pad works so if the position of the numbers can be acquired, this may help me to get the phone files accessed and reset hoping to get the display working.
The phone is not rooted and upgraded to the ICS as of October 2012.
Up $86 for the ribbon and new screen and the repair shops want $100 plus the cost of possible parts needed. Would like to try my best so this route can be avoided.
Cheers,
Robert
By now the phone SIM is locked out. I believe there is a way to reboot the phone through a computer?
mer80cedes said:
By now the phone SIM is locked out. I believe there is a way to reboot the phone through a computer?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The only way I can think of is rebooting via adb. If you're not rooted (the "reboot" command in shell requires root, i don't know if "adb reboot" wants it), or haven't even turned on USB Debugging at all, then you're doomed.
However, since Odin-ing is not that hard (only requires several key pressing), you could try Odin in a custom recovery (or not, if you already have one), back your system up to external SD in tar or other formats, and then extract the data you want from the backed-up packages (I've done this with tar packages). If you ever need the screenshot of a particular version of recovery, ask again in this thread and I think we'll be more active (and easier) to help.
Sent from Samsung Captivate Glide @ CM10.1.2
AndyYan said:
The only way I can think of is rebooting via adb. If you're not rooted (the "reboot" command in shell requires root, i don't know if "adb reboot" wants it), or haven't even turned on USB Debugging at all, then you're doomed.
However, since Odin-ing is not that hard (only requires several key pressing), you could try Odin in a custom recovery (or not, if you already have one), back your system up to external SD in tar or other formats, and then extract the data you want from the backed-up packages (I've done this with tar packages). If you ever need the screenshot of a particular version of recovery, ask again in this thread and I think we'll be more active (and easier) to help.
Sent from Samsung Captivate Glide @ CM10.1.2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you AndYan.
This Captivate has only been upgraded to the Sandwich version. Non-rooted nor modified in any other way. The only reason to remove the files is due to it having solar cell module prototype designs and concepts on it (Reason why it can not be shipped out for professional repairs). Since most of the information was wrote on paper, it's best to just wipe the phone out completely to get it back to working condition for use again.
This is quite interesting learning about programming and such since I have never done this before. Just like building cars, took many many years to do and this programming is just another cool thing to learn about
It takes a special knowledge and experience to understand the programming of Odin and phones which I do not comprehend, I will be destroying the motherboard with a hammer and tossing it out. It is way too much to understand how to set coding and such. Best off investing in another phone and moving on.
The parts that will be saved if anyone can use will be the ribbon strip and also brand new display screen.
Paid $86 for the display and will sell for $75 free shipping with insurance.
Ribbon strip will be $20 free shipping with insurance. If both are wanted $95 free shipping.
Since I do love the Captivate so much another will be purchased.
mer80cedes said:
It takes a special knowledge and experience to understand the programming of Odin and phones which I do not comprehend, I will be destroying the motherboard with a hammer and tossing it out. It is way too much to understand how to set coding and such. Best off investing in another phone and moving on.
The parts that will be saved if anyone can use will be the ribbon strip and also brand new display screen.
Paid $86 for the display and will sell for $75 free shipping with insurance.
Ribbon strip will be $20 free shipping with insurance. If both are wanted $95 free shipping.
Since I do love the Captivate so much another will be purchased.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You mean you smashed your Glide?! God, I just had mine 5 days ago. Anyway, hope my tip still helps when you're in any smaller trouble next time.
AndyYan said:
You mean you smashed your Glide?! God, I just had mine 5 days ago. Anyway, hope my tip still helps when you're in any smaller trouble next time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No way lol! Only the mother board will be smashed to save the data on it from being used again. All of the other parts will be saved since another Captivate will be getting purchased.
mer80cedes said:
No way lol! Only the mother board will be smashed to save the data on it from being used again. All of the other parts will be saved since another Captivate will be getting purchased.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's still sad to see. Why not just solder off the storage chip, somehow destroy it, and find a similar model chip to replace it?
EDIT: I guess the Samsung-proprietary partition table and some data on special partitions like EFS are not reconstructible on a blank new chip. Then you did the easiest choice possible.
Sent from Google Nexus 4 @ CM10.2
Is it cool for someone to take a photo of their Captivate i927 when it is at the display for the personal unlock code (PIN). It will make a good reference point enough to possibly use my touch screen to unlock my cell to reboot. Just have to get the location of the numbers and also the OK button.
After many hours research (great learning experience), the phone was done on master reset without needing to see the screen. At least now it can be sent out to get repaired without the personal information being potentially taken by another.
Done
mer80cedes said:
After many hours research (great learning experience), the phone was done on master reset without needing to see the screen. At least now it can be sent out to get repaired without the personal information being potentially taken by another.
Done
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Woohoo, so no need to smash anything? You did an awesome deed to keep a nice phone alive

[Q] Phone Run Over

Hey guys,
Just signed up to ask a few questions, a very good friend of mine had her phone (T-mobile Samsung Galaxy SII SGH-T989) run over the other day. Needless to say she is not very tech savvy. She has a new S4 now. Now the problem is, that being she is not so tech savvy she didn't back up (ever?) So i am looking to somehow recover lost pictures and contacts if possible.
Now I have a small background in building computers and taking stuff apart so I agreed to take a look at the phone. The screen is shot. but besides that the other internals look fine. Nothing is broken as far as i can tell. When I plug the phone in with the battery nothing comes up at all, except when i leave it plugged in for a little bit the LED under the camera will flash about once every minute or so.
So i guess the question i have is did the motherboard somehow short circuit when it was run over? Has anyone had experience with a situation similar to this before?
And is there a way to get the phone on long enough to recover the lost info?
Help would be much appreciated if possible.
Justin
As phones don't have an actual hard drive, I doubt you can recover anything from a phone that isn't running.
Sent from my N5, N7, Moto X, G Tab 3 or S2.....
This is not easy, but can be done. I have done similar recoveries several times…
You’ll need:
1) The equipment & ability to remove a surface mount soldered chip, and re-solder it onto another board *without* damaging it.
2) Another identical phone to host the transplanted chip.
3) A service manual, or someone with intimate knowledge of the device, to identify the correct chip…
Note that if the pix were encrypted this will not work…

[Q] Sudden Death Syndrome on ATT GS3 i747?

The best part about spending 30 minutes typing a post is having your browser crash. Anyway, if you have any further questions because this is going to be a bit brief, let me know.
My background: Fairly well-versed in Android, custom ROMs, flashing, rooting, doing development work on Android, reading directions, decent google-fu and RTFMing. But I really need help on this one. The phone in question is my primary phone, which I actually like to keep as stock because I don't want anything mucking up on it. It's 20 months old (daily usage), running stock 4.1.1, which was rooted about 17 months ago with cf autoroot, which I needed for development purposes. For the past 10 months, I have been using an extended aftermarket battery, because when traveling and thusly using navigation, gtranslate, lots of messaging, and whatnot with a bright screen whilst outdoors, I was tired of having my phone leave me without a communications device at 8pm.
Recent changes to phone: Several weeks ago, before another bout of traveling, I did my usual *#197328640# perso256 disable (one of the reasons that I like keeping my phone at 4.1.1), and voila -- carrier unlock.
What happened: Things were going swimmingly for a few weeks, when one day, I was out and about, typing something into google translate, and the screen just went black. It was early midday, and the phone was at 90% battery (extended battery life ftmfw). Every now and then, when doing serious multitasking (and, mind you, since the early days of owning this phone, as well as through the entire life of my GS1, which still works, by the way), my GS3 would occasionally reboot of its own accord. I thought nothing of this, except it just being a hallmark of samsung phones, and a minor inconvenience, at worst. This time, however, it failed to power back on. I removed the battery, held in power button in an attempt to discharge any residual power, and put the battery back in. Nothing. Panic. No ssung logo, no vibration, no lights, nothing. Just the black screen staring back at me. There was no moisture, and no trauma to the phone... nothing, save for a ridiculous sinking sensation.
Symptoms: Phone completely unresponsive. I tried a charged stock GS3 battery, and the symptoms are the same. If I plug the phone in without a battery, the led lights up red for a time, and that's it. Even though I haven't modded this phone at all, with the exception of the rooting almost 2 years ago, I tried everything I could think of and read online. vol up + power + home. vol down + power + home. Leaving the battery out for a while. So much reading through these forums and some others online. When I plug it in in windows (even though I primarily use linux), I get the QHSUSB_DLOAD problem, so I do not think it is a problem with the power button? Or maybe the power button can be permanently depressed or something that would cause this? Anyway, I've installed QHSUSB_DLOAD windows drivers, but don't want to start flashing things until I know there isn't another longshot option to get this to work. I even loaded up linux and ran pblclear, which allegedly attempts to knock HTC phones out of being stuck in QHSUSB_DLOAD mode. Didn't work, but figured it was worth a shot, and seemed relatively harmless.
Why I don't even know if it's SDS: The reason I'm asking this is because I'm completely at a loss. SDS appears to affect i9000s after 150-200 days, OR when people incorrectly flash a ROM, or something happens during flashing or modification. My phone is an ATT i747 has been fully operative for 600+ days, and I haven't done any flashing, rooting, whathaveyou in nearly two years (and it was just that simple autoroot that I ran once).
What I'm wondering: I really want to get this phone working, because of hundreds of images, notes, data, etc. that I have accrued over the past few years. Most of my videos and larger files were on my sd card, but literally hundreds of memories and works in progress that I would do insane things for were saved to the phone. I'm an idiot for not backing it up, but I wasn't doing anything to the phone, so wasn't expecting such a catastrophe. Will JTAG work? What about a debricking microsd image? Most of the ones I can find are for 4.1.2 or 4.1.3 -- are there any for 4.1.1? I'm nearly certain 4.1.1 is my version, because IICR 4.1.2 and 4.1.3 don't even have the perso256 disable menu, and it's why I had not upgraded to them. It seems like the microsd rewrites would wipe the contents, and then I would have to quickly attempt a recovery on the data? Or have there been any cases with similar failures that are something else dying on the board? To be perfectly honest, if it appears to be an issue with the board, it's not beyond my ability to perform BGA rework and remove the emmc entirely, and transplant it onto a new board, but I would ///really/// like to avoid that.
Thanks for reading... :angel:
Edit:
Additional information: I forgot to mention that I have found pages such as this samsung-galaxy-s3-sgh-i747-i747m-repair-dead-boot-1755452 [I'm afraid you'll have to google it because I can't post links if you want to look TT^TT] which have files that say, for example, "Samsung SGH-I747 Repair Boot Supported" if using JTAG. So, if there aren't suggestions about how I can fix my phone with an sdcard unbrick, or something else, does anyone know whether or not doing a boot repair will unbrick a phone without wiping the ROM itself? Thanks again~~
Top5a said:
The best part about spending 30 minutes typing a post is having your browser crash. Anyway, if you have any further questions because this is going to be a bit brief, let me know.
My background: Fairly well-versed in Android, custom ROMs, flashing, rooting, doing development work on Android, reading directions, decent google-fu and RTFMing. But I really need help on this one. The phone in question is my primary phone, which I actually like to keep as stock because I don't want anything mucking up on it. It's 20 months old (daily usage), running stock 4.1.1, which was rooted about 17 months ago with cf autoroot, which I needed for development purposes. For the past 10 months, I have been using an extended aftermarket battery, because when traveling and thusly using navigation, gtranslate, lots of messaging, and whatnot with a bright screen whilst outdoors, I was tired of having my phone leave me without a communications device at 8pm.
Recent changes to phone: Several weeks ago, before another bout of traveling, I did my usual *#197328640# perso256 disable (one of the reasons that I like keeping my phone at 4.1.1), and voila -- carrier unlock.
What happened: Things were going swimmingly for a few weeks, when one day, I was out and about, typing something into google translate, and the screen just went black. It was early midday, and the phone was at 90% battery (extended battery life ftmfw). Every now and then, when doing serious multitasking (and, mind you, since the early days of owning this phone, as well as through the entire life of my GS1, which still works, by the way), my GS3 would occasionally reboot of its own accord. I thought nothing of this, except it just being a hallmark of samsung phones, and a minor inconvenience, at worst. This time, however, it failed to power back on. I removed the battery, held in power button in an attempt to discharge any residual power, and put the battery back in. Nothing. Panic. No ssung logo, no vibration, no lights, nothing. Just the black screen staring back at me. There was no moisture, and no trauma to the phone... nothing, save for a ridiculous sinking sensation.
Symptoms: Phone completely unresponsive. I tried a charged stock GS3 battery, and the symptoms are the same. If I plug the phone in without a battery, the led lights up red for a time, and that's it. Even though I haven't modded this phone at all, with the exception of the rooting almost 2 years ago, I tried everything I could think of and read online. vol up + power + home. vol down + power + home. Leaving the battery out for a while. So much reading through these forums and some others online. When I plug it in in windows (even though I primarily use linux), I get the QHSUSB_DLOAD problem, so I do not think it is a problem with the power button? Or maybe the power button can be permanently depressed or something that would cause this? Anyway, I've installed QHSUSB_DLOAD windows drivers, but don't want to start flashing things until I know there isn't another longshot option to get this to work. I even loaded up linux and ran pblclear, which allegedly attempts to knock HTC phones out of being stuck in QHSUSB_DLOAD mode. Didn't work, but figured it was worth a shot, and seemed relatively harmless.
Why I don't even know if it's SDS: The reason I'm asking this is because I'm completely at a loss. SDS appears to affect i9000s after 150-200 days, OR when people incorrectly flash a ROM, or something happens during flashing or modification. My phone is an ATT i747 has been fully operative for 600+ days, and I haven't done any flashing, rooting, whathaveyou in nearly two years (and it was just that simple autoroot that I ran once).
What I'm wondering: I really want to get this phone working, because of hundreds of images, notes, data, etc. that I have accrued over the past few years. Most of my videos and larger files were on my sd card, but literally hundreds of memories and works in progress that I would do insane things for were saved to the phone. I'm an idiot for not backing it up, but I wasn't doing anything to the phone, so wasn't expecting such a catastrophe. Will JTAG work? What about a debricking microsd image? Most of the ones I can find are for 4.1.2 or 4.1.3 -- are there any for 4.1.1? I'm nearly certain 4.1.1 is my version, because IICR 4.1.2 and 4.1.3 don't even have the perso256 disable menu, and it's why I had not upgraded to them. It seems like the microsd rewrites would wipe the contents, and then I would have to quickly attempt a recovery on the data? Or have there been any cases with similar failures that are something else dying on the board? To be perfectly honest, if it appears to be an issue with the board, it's not beyond my ability to perform BGA rework and remove the emmc entirely, and transplant it onto a new board, but I would ///really/// like to avoid that.
Thanks for reading... :angel:
Edit:
Additional information: I forgot to mention that I have found pages such as this samsung-galaxy-s3-sgh-i747-i747m-repair-dead-boot-1755452 [I'm afraid you'll have to google it because I can't post links if you want to look TT^TT] which have files that say, for example, "Samsung SGH-I747 Repair Boot Supported" if using JTAG. So, if there aren't suggestions about how I can fix my phone with an sdcard unbrick, or something else, does anyone know whether or not doing a boot repair will unbrick a phone without wiping the ROM itself? Thanks again~~
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
same thing just happened to my 20 month old att s3.i unlocked the bootloader and flashed a twrp recovery.the phone was on 4.1.1 and rooted.
now just a lifeless phone
thorur said:
same thing just happened to my 20 month old att s3.i unlocked the bootloader and flashed a twrp recovery.the phone was on 4.1.1 and rooted.
now just a lifeless phone
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Click to collapse
Did it die closely after the unlocking/flashing? Or a long time after? Or was the unlocking/flashing an attempt to save the phone? Ever get it fixed? I'm so anxious!
I never heard of qualcomm chips doing this. There is a app called emmc brickbug check on the market though it won't be of much use to you now.....but it allows you to check the mem. Controller chip and check if its a "sane chip" and allows you to probe the memory for any bad sectors.....its really quite a nice app
Sent from my ATT Samsung Galaxy SIII using TapaTalk
crazymonkey05 said:
I never heard of qualcomm chips doing this. There is a app called emmc brickbug check on the market though it won't be of much use to you now.....but it allows you to check the mem. Controller chip and check if its a "sane chip" and allows you to probe the memory for any bad sectors.....its really quite a nice app
Sent from my ATT Samsung Galaxy SIII using TapaTalk
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Click to collapse
Well, thanks for the input! Makes me feel a better hopefully the emmc isn't completely fried. I just really want my files, and am continually irritated at myself for having been so stupid to not make backups.. although I have phones from 10+ years ago that have never completely died in such an unexpected manner. It's quite the agonizing wait for a JTAG programmer to come in the mail. If I can manage to get it to boot from SD, which I haven't been able to do so far, do you think it's logical for me to simply reflash the bootloader/CWM, then attempt boot? It shouldn't erase files, right?
You can try a bootloader and recovery flash which might yield results.....and the plus side of that is that it won't wipe the memory unless you format the /data partition or you do a full Odin restore with ROM kernel and everything
Sent from my ATT Samsung Galaxy SIII using TapaTalk
crazymonkey05 said:
You can try a bootloader and recovery flash which might yield results.....and the plus side of that is that it won't wipe the memory unless you format the /data partition or you do a full Odin restore with ROM kernel and everything
Sent from my ATT Samsung Galaxy SIII using TapaTalk
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Click to collapse
I've also searched everywhere for a debrick image for 4.1.1 AT&T... anyone know where I can get one? All I can find are ones for 4.1.3 =\
EXACT same problem here, let me know if you find anything
(Btw, my phone also had the "power button stuck down" issue, but your phone will vibrate when you put the battery in if this is the issue.)
If I'm not mistaken you will be able to Odin to 4.1.1 while using the 4.3 SD card debrick (again this is just guessing)
Sent from my ATT Samsung Galaxy SIII using TapaTalk
I've tried the SD card debricks for 4.3, and still nothing happens. Yea, I also don't get vibrate. As a long shot, I actually installed the qualcomm drivers and ran the qdload.sh script to attempt to send a signal which kicks the phone out of that mode (works on some... I want to say, HTC, phones), but, yea, I think the emmc just failed somehow. I'm hoping that the failure is just in the bootloader segment, and that by jtag reflashing the bootloader area, I should be able to boot. Either that, or even if one of the memory sectors died, hopefully it's not the one with my data partition. I still can't believe this ! Out of all the electronics I've ever used, aside from a hard drive or two, I've never had something like a phone just kick the bucket with no warning. gha !
Also, thanks for all the tips and stuff, guys and gals. Tell me if you figure out anything, and I'll let you know if I get it fixed with jtag.
OK plz let us know how it goes! I don't want to sound rude but your phone would be the only snapdragon I have ever seen fail....and I've been using snapdragons since the s1 on a HTC wildfire s
Sent from my ATT Samsung Galaxy SIII using TapaTalk
crazymonkey05 said:
OK plz let us know how it goes! I don't want to sound rude but your phone would be the only snapdragon I have ever seen fail....and I've been using snapdragons since the s1 on a HTC wildfire s
Sent from my ATT Samsung Galaxy SIII using TapaTalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ZOMG SO RUDE > haha, j/k ;P Yea, no problem, dude/dudette! I know how it feels reading threads with no followup... I'm actually surprised that people have come out of the proverbial woodwork mentioning having similar problems to me ! It really sucks spending inordinate amounts of time reading threads and not arriving at a definitive conclusion... so, yea, I especially want to let people know if there is a fix, and/or how I did it.
So, with regard to what you said about the snapdragons not failing... yea. This is rekking my mind, tbh, because I've just never had a device insta-fail on me like this (aside from some old computer hard drives that were server backed up, but yea that's essentially par for the course on that medium [yay for S.M.A.R.T.]). Especially a device that I'd only had for less than 2 years, and though my GS3 has heavy usage, I treat it very well (no drops, water, etc.)... so, yea.
Also, a minority of people with whom I have spoken via the æther have also experienced similar emmc failures on i747s, as well ! Which I was not expecting. It's still insane, though, to believe that, out of such a small percentage of phones that could potentially experience SDS, and then which ones actually do experience it... and then to not even have an i9000 and /still/ experience it on an i747... I feel as though I've won the lotto. Except ****ty.
I'm waiting on parts to come in, then surgery will commence.
Did you try going into download mode? If you can so that then the phone is fine. Another thing is try reflashing stock Odin which will erase msgs and stuff but not music or pics unless u tick "repartition".
Sent from my SGH-I747M using Tapatalk
Open serial port...OK
Connecting to the RIFF Box...OK
Firmware Version: 1.37, JTAG Manager Version: 1.56
Selected Resurrector: [Samsung I747 V1.0.5095.46594]
Connecting to the dead body...OK
Detected dead body ID: 0xhexhereisOK[redacted] - CORRECT!
Set I/O Voltage reads as 1.81V, TCK Frequency is 1 MHz
Resurrection sequence started.
Establish communication with the phone...OK
Initializing internal hardware configuration...OK
Uploading resurrector data into memory...OK
Starting communication with resurrector...OK
Detected an Initialized FLASH1 Chip, ID: 0x0015/0x0100 (000000, 0x000400000000 Bytes = 16.00 GB)
Detected an Initialized FLASH2 Chip, ID: 0x0015/0x0100 (000000, 0x000000080000 Bytes = 0.50 MB)
No Resurrection Data is available for the eMMC Chip with Capacity = 16.00GB
WARNING!!! Using Resurrection Data for the eMMC Chip with Capacity = 14,68GB
Flashing the dead body...
ERROR: DCC Loader has reported Error Code = 0x51 (0x000000). Trying to recover...OK
ERROR: DCC Loader has reported Error Code = 0x51 (0x000000). Trying to recover...OK
ERROR: DCC Loader has reported Error Code = 0x51 (0x000000). Trying to recover...OK
ERROR: Stopped due to multiple communication errors. Terminating at 0x0003AB3FBE00
Had to reduce the speed to that 2MHz/1MHz to get communication to work. So, 0x51 is a DCC power failure problem... but it is able to detect the initialized chips. So.. not really sure how to proceed at this point. I haven't checked the signal quality on my NRST line, which apparently can cause problems. Some people have increased the voltage from 1.8 to say 1.9, but doing something like that requires me to actually make my own resurrection file, which I haven't had the time to do yet.
Anyone seen a problem with something like this before?
The 000000 is somewhat unsettling, as the chip is apparently supposed to report some ID#? Although, the failures that I'm getting don't seem to be the typical ones that happen when the emmc becomes completely toasted.
Oh, yea... I can't seem to figure out wth is up with --> WARNING!!! Using Resurrection Data for the eMMC Chip with Capacity = 14,68GB
Like..... ??? I think I'm using the most up to date resurrector?!
EDIT: Dumping out the entire contents of the emmc (haven't had errors so far, but it will take a while at 1 MHz), into a bin file (this avoids the bad sectors in the bootloader).
Does anyone know what to do with the resultant *.bin file? I think that if I got another surrogate GS3, I'd be able to write that onto the phone, essentially cloning my dead phone. I'd like to avoid having to do that, though -- does anyone know how to write one of DCC bin jtag file dumps into a readable file system?

Mysterious i9190

Hello everyone! This is my first thread and I know it's the right site to ask this. (sorry for my english)
I bought this "suspicious" i9190 in Budapest 2 years ago. Since then it has been impossible to use it regulary.
Constant rebooting and freezes are part of its daily routine. As well as stopped apps and processes messages in a ridiculous way.
I have tried millions of ROMs, officials and customs, all kind of wipes and restores. I have even tried the eMMC brickbug apps looking for damaged chips or internal memory: Nothing, the phone is perfectly fine.
But here are some facts that may be relevant to find the problem:
- The phone came with the IMEI number scrached in the back of the battery.
- I've been using the phone for hours and hours perfectly fine as long as no update is performed and the Sync option is off.
- Doing the above I have even downloaded and used some little apps with no problems.
- When the major apps are installed, like Facebook and Instagram the phone begins to die, popping more and more "stoppped working" errors.
- The processes that fail the most are the google type but, in general, every single existing process has failed in this 2 years.
- I have noticed that when you start the phone for the first time after a wipe or a new ROM, it is better to create a new google account than using an existing one because the existing one, I think, will start updating everything while the new one will not. Anyway, using a new google account collapses the phone sooner or later.
Sorry for the long post, fellas. But I wanted to give you all the possible info I have about this phone.
Hoping for you can help me fix this issue... Have a good day.
Galaxy S4 mini GT-I9190
I'd guess at a hardware issue in the radio and related circuitry as you seem to get the issues when apps that send/receive data frequently are in use. Though it could be anything. You probably need to get it checked by an authorised Samsung repair centre ......... if your phone is not too "suspicious!"
IronRoo said:
I'd guess at a hardware issue in the radio and related circuitry as you seem to get the issues when apps that send/receive data frequently are in use. Though it could be anything. You probably need to get it checked by an authorised Samsung repair centre ......... if your phone is not too "suspicious!"
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Click to collapse
Thanks for your reply! Do you have an idea why they scratched the IMEI number? Maybe that could take me to where the exact problem is. Here is a photo of the back
http :// imgur. com/Sa0ptSm
Sorry for the link, my account still cannot post outside links
I was going to say they scratched the IMEI number probably because it was stolen so that it could not be tracked, but it is quite easy to see the number so that is probably not the reason. One place I used to work at the test department used to scratch the bar codes on faulty PCB's so that they cannot be scanned back into the system by mistake (if the fault tag comes off, etc) as that computer system did not prevent scrapped boards from being re-entered. So I would guess this may be the case with your phone, but of course we can't know for certain! But based on this and all tests of different ROMs etc you did I suspect it is quite likely the explanation.
What I would do is look for the same model that has a cracked screen on ebay etc so it's cheap to buy then swap the PCB's from the cracked phone to your good screen (swap everything to prevent the possibility of the boards not working due to different revision numbers, as has been reported when replacing the power boards on our phone). You can also buy a repair kit for a few dollars on ebay with screwdrivers, pry tool etc
http://www.ebay.com/itm/10-In1-Repa...et-for-Mobile-Phone-iPhone-6-5s-/281869038536
If the PCB on your phone was scratched to show it was faulty then taking to a repair shop is probably a waste of money, unless then run an assessment for free before they repair it.
Hope you can fix it for a few dollars!
not sure if this helps but that I actually managed read off the IMEI code correctly and it turns out its a turkish registered phone, I can PM you IMEI code if you want, also its not reported stolen (but i am guessing its most likely is), anyways thats all I was here to say, good luck.

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