I managed to brick my phone; first to the endless boot logo loop, then to having no file system, and then all the way to a phone, exclamaintion point, computer logo.
This blog post will take you all the way from this rather bad state to a fully working phone, with a custom ROM installed. I happened to choose BOCA this time, but you can choose whichever ROM you find most appealing. This post will focus on recovering using Linux but I am sure that you can do almost exactly the same in other OSes.
Things you need:
- Bricked phone (duh)
- A SD card
- Heimdall download link
- One-Click Unbrick download link
- Restock ROM download link (Overcome GB-Stock-Safe-v5)
- New custom ROM download link (BOCA RC2 2.09)
Unbricking that lost phone
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cd Downloads sudo dpkg -i heimdall_1.3.1_amd64.deb |
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java -jar OneClick.jar |
You should now see:
Now power up your phone and connect it via USB to your computer. Just click the unsoft brick button in the application. This doesn’t even take a second to complete. You’ll hopefully get a success message, just as I did.
Disconnect your phone now and keep it powered off. Also exit the One-Click Unbrick application by simply clicking the close window button or CTRL-C your way out of it in the terminal window.
Recover filesystem and restock your phone
I assume that you still are in your Downloads folder in your terminal window which is still open.
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mkdir tempfolder mv GB-Stock-Safe-v5.zip tempfolder cd tempfolder unzip GB-Stock-Safe-v5.zip tar xvf GB_Stock_Safe_v5.tar |
Good you are now prepared to run heimdall and recover your phone with a stock ROM and kernel.
On your phone, press and hold volume button down and press the power button. Your phone should now, after a short while, power up in download mode. Connect your phone to your computer via USB, and go back to that terminal window.
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heimdall flash --repartition --pit ./gt-p1000_mr.pit --factoryfs ./factoryfs.rfs --cache ./cache.rfs --dbdata ./hidden.rfs --primary-boot ./boot.bin --secondary-boot ./Sbl.bin --param ./param.lfs --kernel ./zImage |
Yes Sir, that is a long one liner but it works. This will take a few minutes and your phone should boot up just fine after this. We, however, don’t need to boot it just yet. Press and hold just the power button until it shuts down completely. Disconnect it. Power it up again while holding the volume down button pressed. Reconnect the phone to your computer when the phone is back in download mode.
We will now install a newer kernel in the phone.
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rm zImage tar xvf Overcome_Kernel_v4.0.0.tar heimdall flash --kernel zImage --verbose |
This just takes some 10 seconds to finish. You have now installed a custom kernel on your phone that will let you install any custom ROM of your liking. I did chose BOCA but you can go ahead and install any ROM you like.
Installing custom ROM, BOCA
I used the download link shown in the beginning of this blog post. Copy the zip file to a sd card. The sd card doesn’t need to be blank. Just make sure to put the zip file in a folder on the sd card where you will find it.
Make sure that your phone is powered down and that it isn’t connected to your computer.
Hold the volume up button pressed and press the power on button. Keep the buttons pressed until the phone boots to a recovery menu.
Use the Volume buttons to navigate up and down in the menu, and use the power button to select an item.
Now navigate to the install menu and select it.
You will now come to a sub menu with new selections, navigate to “choose zip from external sdcard” and select it.
Find your ROM file on the sd card and select it, in my case RC2.0.9.zip.
A confirmation question will show up, choose “Yes – Install RC2.0.9.zip.
Everything should be straight forward from that point. It will take a few minutes to complete.
Navigate back out to the main menu when the installation process is completed and select reboot.
Congratulations, your phone is now perfectly working with a custom ROM.
It is fine if you want to close the terminal window now…. 