OT - Samsung Galaxy S3 soft brick and Odin

[David]

Thanks - I should perhaps note that I have had the phone for nearly 4 years.

Bought new on contract, then upgraded 2 years later, and the newer phone (S4) is coming to the end of the contract.

Sadly, I may plump for an S5 as the replacement because it still has the exchangeable battery and the external storage which both seem to have gone out of fashion these days.

I forgo the latest Android, but that happens quite soon anyway.

Cheers

Dave R

[David]

Adds spice to the challenge then :-)

Although I may well give up if it bricks a second time.

[Mr Pounder Esquire]

It was given to me. I have zero knowledge of mobile phones and do not like them. Good luck.

[Bob Martin]

Also, you get the monthly security updates, usually before the Nexus phones.

[David]

One further question - I see that I can connect to the phone to upload a replacement ROM to try and recover from the soft bricking.

This implies that there is a minimum level of connectivity between USB on a PC and the filestore in the phone.

Is it possible to back up the phone filestore before re-flashing, or is this too much to hope for?

Cheers

Dave R

[Theo]

The phone has a number of partitions on it. Recovery, OS, data and cache. You can flash some partitions and leave others alone.

For instance, flashing a custom recovery may be enough to get at the data partition and copy files (eg to SD card). TWRP is one recovery that will backup.

Flashing recovery and OS may leave the data partition intact. The data would still be there, but with a new OS (which sometimes works and sometimes goes a bit screwy if the OS has changed radically). Clearing cache is usually a good idea because it removes temporary files left around by apps without touching your data or the apps themselves.

Theo

[David]

Thanks.

I've got as far as getting the phone to talk to Odin ( a mini-saga in itself) but Odin reports that it can't find the PIT (Partition Information Table I think).

Now looking for a PIT file but this is not looking good. A major failure out of the blue suggests hardware failure.

Cheers

Dave R

[David]

Thanks.

Working through SamMobile at the moment, but things are not lloking goo - see response to Tim W.

Cheers

Dave R

[Chris Bartram]

Same here: I'm still using a Galaxy S2 here, and only one step behind latest Android.

[David]

O.K. - I've decided that the phone is dead to all intents and purposes.

Plus points - I now know how to load alternative software on to phones.

Despite the poor performance of the S3 - that is, hardware died before 4 years were up - I've ordered an S5 because it has all the features which led me to chose the S3, especially SD card and exchangeable battery.

I had a bit of a struggle finding one, but tracked one down at Sainsbury.

Hopefully arriving tomorrow.

Meanwhile I have various S3 bits going spare (unless I find a very cheap S3 second hand). Not willing to pass on the failed handset just in case someone else can revive it because I haven't had a chance to wipe it (although it looks pretty wiped already).

Cheers

Dave R