[Q] borked /system - T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy Note II

I'm a total newb at hacking on my device, and my device wont start. I've got a bone stock t889, never been rooted or tampered with. for the last month or so when i reboot the device, i'm greeted with something about my UUID's being messed up (please forgive my lack of proper terminology here, i can't remember exactly and thats what my memory serves) and to proceed with caution. So i click the "I'm feeling lucky button" and continue on with normal use. Things were'nt totally right, apps wouldnt work and would randomly shut off. I let the device die one night. it got stuck and wouldnt reboot - hangs on the "Samsung Note 2" screen. If i plug in the charger it hangs on the image of the drained battery (wont show the battery with a little bit of green).
Now really getting to the point ... Just for poking around's sake i gave it the 3 finger salute and brought up recovery - which worked. It however speaks of system errors. Here what i see verbatim `E:failed to mount /system (Invalid arguments)`. It also says something about `# Manual Mode #` and then some more failed to mount (same as before).
So, can someone shed some light on whats going on? I did a factory reset/cache reset if that matters. Ultimately id like to just wipe everything and a newer os on it like 5.0.
So my second question is, with my device in this jacked up state, can/how would i go about flashing everything?
Like i said, im new to all this and have googled around on lunch breaks and have come across all kinds of stuff on rooting the device / copying files to it first then going into recovery ... / using odin to just do it / < enter x amount of articels on the subject >. I'm not totally sure where which way to turn.
Thanks for any help!

i would say try to odin it back to stock 4.3 with the factory image available on sammobile.com. read up before you do it though. theres plenty of walkthroughs for it

thanks, but im still on 4.3. i've done nothing to the device. i'm gathering intel before doing something.
initial post was long winded, togonna boil it down:
- can i recover from an error such as "E:failed to load /system (invalid arguments)" ?
- can i recover my device if and only if its booting only into recovery.
i know its a possibility, but i dont want to permabrick this thing if i can help it.

thats why you odin it back to stock. it'll put it or should put it back to the way it was when you took it out the box
tmobile hasn't released 4.4.2 for our note 2's yet let alone 5.0, which is why i said 4.3
sounds to me like a hardware issue which odin won't fix but worth A shot to get it working.
other then that i don't know what to tell ya.

ok understood re the versions.
im on a mac, so i dont have odin. i tried jodin3/heimdal, but given the state of my device i can't connect to it. adb wont detect. however, if i putthe device into "apply update from adb" or "apply update from external storage" i can get adb to _see_ the device.
idk, so far no good.
@overdrive, what makes you think this is a hardware issue?

based on original post. system sounds borked to me. almost sounds like internal storage space could be having problems reading. i could be wrong though
you don't have access to a pc? borrow a neighbors long enuff to run odin, put your device in download mode and connect it. let odin find it and load the md5 file and start it. see if it has any problems when restoreing system partition. it'll tell you. if it works fine then your device is fine and will boot right up when it's done.

Related

HELP! Trying to figure out how to unbrick my Galaxy Nexus.

So today I was minding my own business, riding the subway and listening to some music when my Galaxy Nexus decides to reboot itself. After this, it gets into a reboot loop (never getting past the Google logo).
I tried restarting the phone into fastboot mode and using the recovery option, but I end up getting the icon of the android on its back, chest plate open and a red exclamation triangle thing coming out of it. I assume this is bad
A little back story... this is the GSM/Euro Galaxy Nexus. I've been using it for close to 6 months most likely and have never rooted/unlocked it. In actuality, I don't think I've ever done anything with it out of the ordinary (like I have in the past with other android devices). In fact, I don't know if I ever even plugged it into my PC via USB before (thus no drivers, may have never set it to USB debugging enabled).
Is there anything I can do here? I tried looking at a few options (Such as the WugFresh Galaxy Nexus Root Toolkit, which has a Stock resetting option), but since I never enabled USB debugging and installed drivers before the phone decided to go and brick itself, I don't know if I'm actually stuck...
What do you think? Is there an option I have not yet considered? Or am I going to try and convince Samsung to honor my warranty or something?
Moved to Q&A, please pay attention next time where you are opening a new discussion
When you see the android on its back you have to hold vol. up + power to enter the options.
There you can wipe data and reboot to see if it will boot up again.
If that doesn't work you can try flashing the stock images. Those will require you setting up fastboot on your computer. There are many guides on how to do all of that.
Good luck.
If you can get into Fastboot mode just fine, then hook it up to your computer and flash the stock images. It'll revert you back to stock fresh and you can go from there.
We also need to teach people how to debug at basic level at least. If we just teach them how to solve it without caring about what went wrong... they've got the phone might as well learn a few things more.
And yea, i know most couldn't care less. Also, this is no brick - this word very much starts to annoy me when it is incorrectly used and that seems to be getting typical around here. Most likely wiping data/factory reset from stock recovery will allow op to boot up again.
i had the same happening to me under stock. after quite some time it went into a bootloop out of the blue.
this:
bk201doesntexist said:
Most likely wiping data/factory reset from stock recovery will allow op to boot up again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
solved it. my data was gone, but at least the phone worked.
then i decided to root and use a custom rom and it never ever happened again.
bk201doesntexist said:
We also need to teach people how to debug at basic level at least. If we just teach them how to solve it without caring about what went wrong... they've got the phone might as well learn a few things more.
And yea, i know most couldn't care less. Also, this is no brick - this word very much starts to annoy me when it is incorrectly used and that seems to be getting typical around here. Most likely wiping data/factory reset from stock recovery will allow op to boot up again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sure we do but as long as :
1. people start threads that suggest they bricked their phone and
2. all they had to do is Google some around to discover that what they see is a stock recovery and
3. discover what they can do to solve their problems (like most of us do to solve our problems)
I think they couldn't care less about debugging... How sad as it may be.
If you discover problems with a device that is sold as much as the GN it is highly unlikely that you were the first to have that problem. If you are: just post away.

Flashed System Partition with Boot Image - Help I'm Stupid

I would be so greatful if someone could help me, I think I have really messed up.
Coles Notes: I flashed the 4.0.4 image to my System partition which I am pretty sure should have gone to the boot partition now... Holy **** I'm dumb.
Anyways now my phone is just stuck saying Google. Anyone who can point me in the right direction of even a System image I can flash over top I would be so greatful.
Ok. I'm a dumb newbie, but what happens if you pull the battery, put it back in, then hold down the Up/Down buttons and turn the phone on?
Moleculor said:
Ok. I'm a dumb newbie, but what happens if you pull the battery, put it back in, then hold down the Up/Down buttons and turn the phone on?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not a dumb newbie, checking if bootloader still works is a good idea
@OP: If you can get in the bootloader, your best bet would be unlocking, installing CWM and then flash a ROM through it.
You can also flash the stock ROM via the GNex toolkit.
Just read the guides and information here in the forums, it seems confusing at first but is really simple once you get used to it.
Good luck!
Thank-you for your quick response. I have CWM installed and can get into the bootloader. the problem now seems to be I cant get the device to show up in windows I always get <waiting for device> when going to flash it. Any ideas? I have been searching the forums trying to find an answer but nothing so far seems to have worked.
Another dumb newbie thing, but when you plug the phone in to the USB port on your computer, does your computer show the phone as having connected (ala the ADB driver in your Device Manager in Windows)?
If not, double check to make sure your ADB drivers are installed. I doubt they aren't, seeing as how you were flashing stuff earlier (from your computer, right?), but it's a wild guess anyway.
Thanks to everyone for the advise. Yes I could see the drivers and they were working perfectly according to device manager. However I guess it was stuck outside of debug mode?
Anyways from the boot menu the program was able to detect it, flash 4.0.4 to the phone, and then I was able to install the canadian radio without issue (hence the reason why I did this in the first place, we are stuck on yakjuux with 4.0.1).
Thanks again to everyone, great learning experience.
Sure thing!
Glad it worked
As a future reference, the "Boot Menu" is actually where you need to be for flashing via PC. The commands won't come through if you're in recovery.
Make sure to make an Android right now!
You enter CWM Recovery, go to backup and restore and then hit backup.
In case your phone ever messes up while you're not close to a computer, you can just boot into CWM and hit "restore", it's as easy as that.
I always have 2 recoveries on my phone just in case.

[Q] Need help fixing my Gnex

Hi,
it is the second time my Gnex went into endless reboot loop sessions.
It will boot, load crash after few seconds and reboot again.
I had it unlocked in the store i bought it, and had stock rom (Not sure about the version).
Tried to do factory reset from fastboot, from recovery, and from android. Also tried to flash custom boot loader, Nothing works.
Although fastboot writes it successfuly completed the action so does the factory reset. The phone will work for few seconds but no more.
Also tried using WugFresh, for factory reset and for Flash Stock + unroot in soft-break status
I have no ideas what to do next,
Please help.
Mike
Hi Mike, I think more information is required.
- What action did you take immediately prior to having your phone get stuck in the bootloop? Were you trying to install a Custom Recovery or ROM?
- You mention that this is the second time this has happened. Do you know what caused it to bootloop the first time, and if yes what fixed it?
- When your Gnex is in Fastboot/Bootloader mode, and using a tool like Minimal ADB and Fastboot on your computer, does the tool recognize the Device ID after using the fastboot devices command?
You may also want to read through this thread.
AvidPhisherman said:
Hi Mike, I think more information is required.
- What action did you take immediately prior to having your phone get stuck in the bootloop? Were you trying to install a Custom Recovery or ROM?
- You mention that this is the second time this has happened. Do you know what caused it to bootloop the first time, and if yes what fixed it?
- When your Gnex is in Fastboot/Bootloader mode, and using a tool like Minimal ADB and Fastboot on your computer, does the tool recognize the Device ID after using the fastboot devices command?
You may also want to read through this thread.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi thanks for the reply, i am a simple user, prior to the bootloop i was using whatsapp, actually the android crashes few seconds after getting a whatsaap message (i recieve notification and it goes down). Previous time also i didn't do anything special. i never installed custom recovery or roms... previous time it was fixed by a lab the phone was on warranty.
And yes the tool recognize the device.
So your device receives a WhatsApp message/notification, restarts, and then gets stuck in a bootloop?
That is very strange, as personally I've only ever encountered bootloops after bad ROM flashes (usually after I accidentally skipped a step somewhere during the process). Bootloops usually don't happen to regular users who are just using their phone purchased as-is from a store/carrier.
If you can get it to boot back into Android, try uninstalling WhatsApp and see if that helps. Hopefully it's still under warranty, as you may have to take it back to the store and have them look at it.
AvidPhisherman said:
So your device receives a WhatsApp message/notification, restarts, and then gets stuck in a bootloop?
That is very strange, as personally I've only ever encountered bootloops after bad ROM flashes (usually after I accidentally skipped a step somewhere during the process). Bootloops usually don't happen to regular users who are just using their phone purchased as-is from a store/carrier.
If you can get it to boot back into Android, try uninstalling WhatsApp and see if that helps. Hopefully it's still under warranty, as you may have to take it back to the store and have them look at it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tried to uninstall whatsapp but it crashes before i manage to do so.
even managed to access memory via TWRP and delete whatsaap manually but somehow it appears again after restart.
Something is terribly wrong
Have you tried using Odin to repartition and restore to stock? Could be a corrupted partition. Check out this guide
nthnlee said:
Have you tried using Odin to repartition and restore to stock? Could be a corrupted partition. Check out this guide
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why???
Just use fastboot, Odin is evil. Nexus aren't Touchwiz crap phones.
beekay201 said:
Why???
Just use fastboot, Odin is evil. Nexus aren't Touchwiz crap phones.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When fastboot didn't work. i had to try something else. But, odin didn't work either.
mishkap said:
When fastboot didn't work. i had to try something else. But, odin didn't work either.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Let's see then. Be prepared to spend at least 30min reading, and re-reading, until you actually feel comfortable in what you're doing/typing in. If you're not sure about the technical terms and what lies behind them, read this thread's #1 First Post.
What's your device variant? maguro? toro? toroplus? This will tell which factory image you need to flash.
You need to flash latest factory image, which is (for maguro variant) Android Build 4.3 (JWR66Y). Read #1 First Post on this thread. And I mean, READ IT! Do not do anything else to your device until you do.
After you flash the factory image, that first boot will take a while to reach Android. Chill out. Go get yourself a drink. Take your time. It should have booted into Android already when you get back. It should be fine, but if not, you need to enable USB debugging under Settings > Developer Options, to check the system log.
If after 15min, it still has booted yet, pull the battery out, wait a few secs, put it back in.
Use the 3bc (3-button combo) to reach fastboot mode again. Flash a custom recovery. That's done by downloading the latest TWRP or CWM (i'll leave that choice up to you, be mindful that you might wanna try them both in the future), and running on the host (the PC):
Code:
fastboot flash recovery recovery_filename_here.img
Don't reboot the device. Use the volume keys to "Reboot to recovery" straight from fastboot. After a few seconds, you should be seeing the custom recovery you've flashed with the fastboot command above.
Now comes the part where ADB is required. I hope you've already read the answers to questions "Where do I get the driver for my PC?" and "Why do I need to install the driver twice?". If not, read them now. Also, read "What is ADB?". TIP: When a custom recovery is actually running on the device, ADB mode is already active by default, so when hooking up to the pc the device will show as an ADB interface, so installing the driver (if needed/not done yet) is piece of cake.
After you get ADB to recognize your device (like, you see your device's SN on the output of command `adb devices`).. You need to copy a custom ROM to your device, and flash it. That will get you, most likely than not, Android's USB debugging by default (read answer to "What is an insecure boot image?" on the first link), and that will allow you to see the system log, WHILE Android is booting up. Why do we wanna do this? Cos we want to see if any errors show up, something that may tell us what's failing.
When choosing a ROM from the Android Development section, ask around in the thread if the ROM has USB debugging enabled by default.
Read "What are the ADB commands?" in the thread I first linked to. You'll need to learn at least `adb push` for now.
Once you get the ROM in your /sdcard/ or whatever folder you like, disconnect the USB cable, wipe data/factory reset, then install zip from sdcard (that zip you pushed before).. Forget about gapps for now.
Connect the usb cable, reboot, and once you see padlock screen go away, start trying to run `adb devices`. Do you see your SN in the output? Once you see it, good, it already connected to adb on the device. Run `adb logcat` and try to look out for errors. Logcat is the system log.
To know how to grab that output to a text file so that you can share it with us.. Google it, my fingers hurt.
Thanks beekay201,
As a matter a fact. shortly before you posted this answer i gave up and gave my phone to a local lab.
But unfortunately they were useless and didn't manage to do anything claiming they don't have spares for my phone, tried to explain that it is not a hardware issue, but all in vain .
Anyway, ill go over your instructions and ill update the results soon.

Think ive killed it :/ Tab S2 T813

ok so bottom line is, I was in the middle of flashing official rom when at about 25% it failed. Don't ask why! (i still had recovery at this point) so I went ahead and cleaned absolutely everything thinking i'll just try and reflash as before. Now with power lead out it won't switch on at all and when power is supplied it shows message "An error has occured while udating the device software." loops at approx 3 sec intervals cant do anything with it.
Ive tried everything I can think of all to no avail! yes its my own fault bla bla bla just wondering if i act have f***** it.
Thanks to anyone with any ideas
You probably going to get a better help at TAB S2 board this is for the tab S1.
If it is hard bricked there is JTAG methods that can help, just need to find one for your device, not easy though.
But all I can do is share my experience with something like this, in a more "cheap" way than JTAGs, dunno if it helps:
I never had a similar problem on the tab S. But in the past a galaxy player 5.0 of mine had a very similar problem (as far I remember the screen just powered the back light but without any letters or simbols)
in 2012, I bricked it trying to mount a swap partition (280mb RAM ftw) accidentally pointing the wrong partition, and got the entire internal storage corrupted.. everything.. system, bootloader, recovery etc
My player was turning on only connected to a USB or charger, like yours. in fact It was hard bricked
I was able to recover it using Linux (because it is the only system able to communicate with the bricked device I had)
The problem is that everything need to be very specific, for example I used a software made for the galaxy s1 to "revive" my player 5 (both have the same hardware) it just made the device be detected via ADB. So I needed to prepare a SD with the same size as the internal storage (in this case 8gb) using the Linux terminal to mount in the SD an exactly schematic of the internal memory using a dump of another device that a xda user shared, (the dump was empty only with the bootloader, recovery etc) but it still had 8gb decompressed. So after that I used ADB to push the SD card content to the internal memory. And it get back to life \○/
Well.. it took me 1 week with a guide!! On the trial and error method. But it worked.. not perfectly, I get bootloops every time I try to flash a rom via Odin, but recovery works, and I have the device working until today
Hi, I Greatly appreciate your reply and advice. Think tho that your solution is a bit beyond my know how I know a little about ADB etc but i would have difficulties in compiling necessary files to sideload. Also many tanks for the link din't realise. Thanks Pal!
Alpha1BA said:
ok so bottom line is, I was in the middle of flashing official rom when at about 25% it failed. Don't ask why! (i still had recovery at this point) so I went ahead and cleaned absolutely everything thinking i'll just try and reflash as before. Now with power lead out it won't switch on at all and when power is supplied it shows message "An error has occured while udating the device software." loops at approx 3 sec intervals cant do anything with it.
Ive tried everything I can think of all to no avail! yes its my own fault bla bla bla just wondering if i act have f***** it.
Thanks to anyone with any ideas
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you can get it in to download mode you can flash stock rom back on it.......refer to xda samsung tab s2 for more details on this........
thx for reply but it reboots approx every 3 seconds so I dont have enough time to do anything with it :/
Alpha1BA said:
thx for reply but it reboots approx every 3 seconds so I dont have enough time to do anything with it :/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Plug in changer and push power and volume up and down all together and you will see the battery charger icon then you can get it in to download mode from there.....
stinka318 said:
Plug in changer and push power and volume up and down all together and you will see the battery charger icon then you can get it in to download mode from there.....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Stinka ure a superstar (atm!) I did as you suggest to no avail but I noticed a slight increase in the time it took to start rebooting again. I do not know which buttons did this but some 20 later it lasted long enough for me to be able to flash twrp. Now i havent actually tried that as yet as i wanted to check with you first... I have the battery logo on screen, i tried recovery and it started as it should but then rebooted, now im unsure at this time whether the battery is almost dead or not so i got it on charge and have the grey battery with a white flash inside... is this what i want for now until its charged? if so i'll keep you informed thamnks more than u know if uve helped me fix this, the reason i was flashing was because when i received it (no warranty!!) the screen sometimes flickered and it would constaly end up rebboting after digging around re that im lead to believe it need a new battery and for the connecting wires to be resoldered. Anyways thanks again n as I say i'll keep this updated
Cheers
Tony
one of the probs i hab/have with this unit is that it takes approx a day to fully charge!!! when i received it the screen flickered on the odd occasion but it was rebooting much more frequently. It came with stock n not messed with previously (i new this prior to purchase so got it for right price thinking it only needed flashing, how wrong was I!!!) so I flashed and encountered the above mentioned problems! thanks to stinka I surprisingly managed to flash a recovery... now provided all goes to plan, which rom would one suggest for stability and generally hassle free and prusuming the aforementioned probs, rebooting etc are still there what could i try to stop that? other than a debloated stock I found Lineage an excellent rom but still the problems got so bad the unit became unusable and was lucky not to go out the window. Im thinking do i start with a replacement battery and check the wires etc or could this still be a software issue??
if i endevoured to do the hardware myself would I attempt it by removing screen or the base for access to battery/connector??
Thanks again
In the tab s1 the best way is removing the back cover, but for some reason tab s2 seen to be the screen... at least in this guide: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Samsung+Galaxy+Tab+S2+Battery+Replacement/56616
Look like alot more complex than the s1 :/
RoIlingThunder said:
In the tab s1 the best way is removing the back cover, but for some reason tab s2 seen to be the screen... at least in this guide: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Samsung+Galaxy+Tab+S2+Battery+Replacement/56616
Look like alot more complex than the s1 :/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for that!!!
Tony
does look somewhat OTT!!!
will i have to odin stock first then flash rom i want or will it go straight from first flash via twrp considering there is absolutely nothing on phone at mo apart from twrp.
Alpha1BA said:
if i endevoured to do the hardware myself would I attempt it by removing screen or the base for access to battery/connector??
Thanks again
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My guess is your issue is lack of charge in the device. That's the reason for the flashing failure and the reboot loop with the firmware error.
Bang it on charge for a while then irrespective of what it's doing, whether it's looping or not, hold POWER + HOME + VOL DOWN until download mode appears.
Reflash the stock firmware with odin.
swapped battery and reflashed stock via odin. It has helped although the issues are all still there its just they happen less frequently which doesnt mean its any less frustrating.

Galaxy A50 bootlooping

my phone was working normally and all of a sudden I came back to my room and it only displayed the galaxy a50 starting screen (the one before there is just "samsung" written).
Restarting it didn't help and it always gets stuck at the same display or restarts endlessly. Sometimes it makes it until the "samsung" display.
Firstly, I don't really know why it rebooted anyway and the problem started. There is a software update I should have been doing for quite some time, so maybe that got executed automatically (is that even possible?) and failed?
What I already tried:
Charging (100% charged)
Went into recovery mode and:
repaired apps (didn't help)
powered off and restarted after 20 minutes of being turned off (didn't help)
Run graphics/ locale test (didn't help, the graphics test said something about deleting so I got afraid and restarted it. Could I have lost some data because of that?)
click on mount/system (as far as I can tell nothing happened)
wiped cache partition (didn't help)
clicked reboot to bootloader (what does that do? There was written downloading but then I got scared and restarted the phone, could that have done some damage?)
Rebooted (nothing happened)
downloaded drphone, phone does not get recognized
As you might see, I'm a bit desperate and although being quite tech savvy I don't know that much about android.
What is most important to me is recovering/ not deleting the data on my phone (last backup is about one month old so not too bad but still very bad for me) so please suggest safe options first in that regard (if there are any).
Can I maybe just update the software via ADB without damaging my data?
Or use ODIN for that? Also heard something about TWRP. Don't really know how any of these three work exactly (but totally willing to learn how!)
Your help would mean the world to me
the deleting part in the graphics test is just texts it does nothing. i dunno if the usb debugging is enabled, but if it is get alternative boot partition (saved my pixel 4 like that). i used linageOS 20 recovery mode that got me to os i backed up my files and then reflashed.
KirinPixel said:
the deleting part in the graphics test is just texts it does nothing. i dunno if the usb debugging is enabled, but if it is get alternative boot partition (saved my pixel 4 like that). i used linageOS 20 recovery mode that got me to os i backed up my files and then reflashed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks very much for your reply! I found out quite a bit by now and it seems to me after intensely studying this thread https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/...ce-is-stuck-on-boot-loop.4536965/page-2#posts only reinstalling the software (most likely with ODIN) is the way to get back to the phone working properly. You don't know anything about that, maybe? I'm very afraid to do it wrong and wipe my data.
Can I just reinstall the already installed software version? Or should I go higher?
I restarted it once though and even put in my PIN but after the home screen appeared it fell back into the bootloop again.
I have no experiance with samsung odin. But what i say is you bring it to someone who does to back ya fils up. Then go play with flashing. Odin is far from the only way. Unfortunately i can not assist you on it because i never used it. Good luck!

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