Hello XDA, I've been trying to solve this problem on my own for months now, but I haven't been successful, so I'm posting now in the hopes of having someone help.
About three months ago, I was browsing through my Tumblr feed when all of a sudden, my phone (a Samsung Galaxy Express, GT-I8730) shut off on its own. It wouldn't turn back on.
So of course I started to panic, but I tried plugging it into a PC. Windows found it as something like Qualcomm QHSUSB Download Mode. I did some research, and came upon @darkspr1te's "brixfix" tool, which I modified to work with my phone. I tried using it to no avail, so I did even more research. Turns out this happens to the S3 a lot (something about a bug in the eMMC firmware?), and people have recovered from it by using a special SD card onto which a dump of working bootloaders from another exact same device is copied.
So I tried that method, asked for a bootloader dump from one of my fellow I8730 users here on XDA, and burned the dump onto my spare 8GB Class 2 SD card. (I've read somewhere that one must use Class 10, but I can't afford to buy a new card. I later read on the same forum that slower, smaller cards are fine as long as they are able to contain the first 200MB of the bootloader dump.
I popped the card into the phone, switched it on, and it greeted me with this screen:
I assumed that this was normal, and so proceeded to Odin-flash the bootloaders (aboot, sbl1-3, tz) and the whole system (system, boot, recovery, modem, hidden, cache) onto the phone. It rebooted and hung at the splash screen, so I rebooted it into recovery mode; thinking that the ROM must have gotten corrupted somehow.
However, when I would normally see the recovery screen, Odin Mode greeted me with the message
Followed by the usual Odin info:
I tried flashing SYSTEM again at this point, but Odin Mode gave me
and rebooted. I put it in Download Mode again, scoured the internet for a PIT file, and tried repartitioning; to which Odin Mode responded with
I don't have the money for a new phone, let alone a JTAG box, so I'm at a loss as to what to do next. (And someone just released a working Lollipop ROM for my device, so I'm really excited to get this thing to work again. :good:)
My device info (accurate as of the last time I was able to use it properly):
I also opened it up (it's out of warranty) and listed down all info I could find:
About three months ago, I was browsing through my Tumblr feed when all of a sudden, my phone (a Samsung Galaxy Express, GT-I8730) shut off on its own. It wouldn't turn back on.
So of course I started to panic, but I tried plugging it into a PC. Windows found it as something like Qualcomm QHSUSB Download Mode. I did some research, and came upon @darkspr1te's "brixfix" tool, which I modified to work with my phone. I tried using it to no avail, so I did even more research. Turns out this happens to the S3 a lot (something about a bug in the eMMC firmware?), and people have recovered from it by using a special SD card onto which a dump of working bootloaders from another exact same device is copied.
So I tried that method, asked for a bootloader dump from one of my fellow I8730 users here on XDA, and burned the dump onto my spare 8GB Class 2 SD card. (I've read somewhere that one must use Class 10, but I can't afford to buy a new card. I later read on the same forum that slower, smaller cards are fine as long as they are able to contain the first 200MB of the bootloader dump.
I popped the card into the phone, switched it on, and it greeted me with this screen:
I assumed that this was normal, and so proceeded to Odin-flash the bootloaders (aboot, sbl1-3, tz) and the whole system (system, boot, recovery, modem, hidden, cache) onto the phone. It rebooted and hung at the splash screen, so I rebooted it into recovery mode; thinking that the ROM must have gotten corrupted somehow.
However, when I would normally see the recovery screen, Odin Mode greeted me with the message
Quote:
Could not do normal boot. |
Quote:
ODIN MODE CUSTOM BINARY DOWNLOAD: Yes (1 counts) CURRENT BINARY: Custom SYSTEM STATUS: Custom QUALCOMM SECUREBOOT: ENABLE |
Quote:
ODIN: flash read failure |
Quote:
SECURE CHECK FAIL: PIT |
My device info (accurate as of the last time I was able to use it properly):
Quote:
|
Quote:
Component Type: Name [Associated Markings]
|
Any help would be appreciated.
