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Galaxy S i9000m Brick or internal SD? stuck at boot/ won't boot

I have the samsung galaxy S i9000m with bell mobility in Canada.
Earlier today my phone randomly hung for a long time, while not doing anything in particular (i had just passed through the lock screen). So I pulled out the battery. Upon trying to reboot the device, after the colourful SGS animation, it would just stop at a completely black empty screen. If the capacitive buttons were pressed, then they would light up and stay like that indefinitely. In addition the power button would not work, leaving pulling the battery the only way to reboot.
Not knowing exactly what was going on, I tried download and recovery modes to make sure they were still working. And in the clockwork mod recovery mode I tried to do a nandroid backup to see what would happen. It did not progress far before failing as a result of the system being unable to mount /data . I tried going into the mounting section specifically, and /data was not mounted. Upon trying to mount it manually, the same problem occurred, in which it was seemingly unable to access the partition.
Since then things have progressively gotten worse. Later on, when trying to boot, it would just hang at the black and white SGS logo (the one before the animation). For a period of time, when trying to boot normally, it automatically went into the recovery mode. But now it has resumed at just handing at the black and white SGS logo.
Furthermore, clockwork mod recovery no longer seems to be accessible (normally to get into clockwork mod, you do apply update.zip at the first recovery menu, but when you try to do that now it doesn't work.)
My device was rooted, and I very briefly tried the One click lag fix (purely out of curiosity at it's effect on quadrant scores, I didn't really have any problems with lag, and even my GPS felt fine), but promptly got rid of all traces of it afterward. ( I believe I not only deactivated it and uninstalled it, but also reverted to a previous nandroid backup)
I've also never flashed anything at all on the device. Though I am about to try flashing the JH2 rom from samfirmwares to see if that helps anything.
What do you guys think could be wrong, I have the inkling that it is a dead internal SD, but I am unsure of the symptoms of such (though messed up partitions definitely raises a flag in my head)? And as an aside, could someone familiar with bell verse me of the likely procedures in the event I have to return this phone?
Well thank you all for your council, hopefully I can salvage this great device T_T
P.S.:
I tried factory reset, but that failed due to not being able to access /data or whatever. . .
Hmm though interestingly enough, at my current stage, if I try to access adb shell I get the message:
adb shell
- exec '/system/bin/sh' failed: No such file or directory (2) -
Fun, eh?
P.P.S
Even more goodness, now when I try to apply sdcard:update.zip it complains of not being able to mount /dev/block/mmblk0p1
So now seemingly it can't mount
/dev/block/mmblk0p1
/dev/block/mmblk0p2 ( i believe this was /data)
Not that you can eve get far enough for it to try to mount /data anymore
P.P.P.S
After flashing JH2, it has gone back to the point where it gets past all the logos and animations, and pretends to actually be able to work (that is, it seems like booting has finished, but we are left with a black screen that does nothing, and if you hit the capacitive buttons they stay on indefinitely. )
Well. . . after some initial recovery mode troubles (including a few times where I got an error upon entering recovery, and sometimes I didn't), though what had remained constant, was trying to utilize apply:sdcard update did not launch clockwork mod recovery.
Until now. Somehow magically the clockwork mod recovery has started existing again? Though the same /data mounting issues exist.
And with that, I am officially back to the initial problem stage Next step: trying to flash JPM i guess.

those are the symptoms of a corrupted sd card.
somewhere i read that it took a few flashes with odin to clear the sd card and get it working. have you tried flashing back to jh2 with repartition and a 512 pit? forget about froyo for now. i believe jh2 is a low level firmware, so it's your best option. good luck.
it has also been posted that using odin v1.3 with "android + spl" (not "gt-1000") in the title bar of the application helps. it took a few downloads before i got the correct one.

wang1chung said:
those are the symptoms of a corrupted sd card.
somewhere i read that it took a few flashes with odin to clear the sd card and get it working. have you tried flashing back to jh2 with repartition and a 512 pit? forget about froyo for now. i believe jh2 is a low level firmware, so it's your best option. good luck.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah I have already tried flashing JH2 (see one of the later post scripts), and indeed with repartition and the 512 Pit. So I should repeat the process a few times?
And I seem to have odin 1.3 with GT-P1000 in the title bar. Well it seems you can change the title from the ini file, but furthermore odin 1.0 has the title you describe.

any updates i have the same problem im gonna die

try flashing back to JH2 with 813pit then try 512.. I got my SD working again after fooling around for about 3 hours with different pits and flashing different firmwares. JG8 and fooling around with the different pits and repartition it just started to work when I flashed 512 and JG8.. also you need to use odin v1.3.. clockwork will not help you now..
before this my SD was so bad I could not even use the 3 button combo to get into recovery.. my phone would just show the logo in a loop.. but I could still get into download mode. and just before that I got an error saying that it could not mount my internal SD.

SS2006 said:
any updates i have the same problem im gonna die
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well. . .at this point in time, i'm mainly contemplating how to return it.
I think I will try calling someone on the phone first so they can tell me what I need to do to exchange it. . .
Or I guess return it to the source, which is where I bought it. So sad Y_Y.
So yeah I am gonna just assume Internal SD failure. . . Quite peculiar.
edit:
Okies, I shall try using different PITs, I had tried JH2 and JPM firmwares, but I guess at this point I might as well just fiddle.

So what triggered the internal sd card corruptoin exaclty
the lag fix or JPM, or a bit of both

SS2006 said:
So what triggered the internal sd card corruptoin exaclty
the lag fix or JPM, or a bit of both
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Neither actually :/ I did the lagfix multiple weeks ago, and then took it off 5 minutes later, and then did a nandroid restore to make sure. . .
And JPM was after it died. Its me fiddling around with firmwares to see if eventually something would work. . .

TriC_101 said:
try flashing back to JH2 with 813pit then try 512.. I got my SD working again after fooling around for about 3 hours with different pits and flashing different firmwares. JG8 and fooling around with the different pits and repartition it just started to work when I flashed 512 and JG8..
before this my SD was so bad I could not even use the 3 button combo to get into recovery.. my phone would just show the logo in a loop.. but I could still get into download mode. and just before that I got an error saying that it could not mount my internal SD.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yup i have the EXACT prob i cant get into recovery, but can get into download, and got the could no tmount
so what you did (and what im going to try now )
is JH2 813 pit, the nJH2 512 pit,
then JG8 and 512 pit?

Also u mean UGJG8?
did u have repartiion checked in ur odin or not
thanks btw

SS2006 said:
yup i have the EXACT prob i cant get into recovery, but can get into download, and got the could no tmount
so what you did (and what im going to try now )
is JH2 813 pit, the nJH2 512 pit,
then JG8 and 512 pit?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I also played around with jpk as well and flashed it with different pits. but yes in the end it was 512 and UGJG8 and repartition that got it working.
I was in the same boat as you thinking about returning it but then I was like what the hell and tried flashing different Roms and different combinations

JPM with 803
gets me past the boot lop into the galaxy s logo...
but thats it..dark screen, i can get into recovery now again, but it says can't mount
theres a 'format internal SD' option, but it says its not set up, so internal sd card is still toast

I know for a fact JG8 is doing nothing for me
the JG8 ur using is it the .tar file that has everything in it

TriC_101 said:
I also played around with jpk as well and flashed it with different pits. but yes in the end it was 512 and UGJG8 and repartition that got it working.
I was in the same boat as you thinking about returning it but then I was like what the hell and tried flashing different Roms and different combinations
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
so in your case what actually caused the corruption

SS2006 said:
so in your case what actually caused the corruption
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
just was using the phone.. opened my weather app.. then all of a sudden got a lot of force close pop ups for every app on the phone.. then the phone just rebooted the 1st time and it would load up then the screen would go black.. then I rebooted again and give me the can't mount error. then after I rebooted about 2 more times it would only go into download mode and I could not even get to recovery.. but its fine now.. been fine for about 3 weeks now..

Do you reckon using an external SD card would help,
if used with Clockwork?

TriC_101 said:
just was using the phone.. opened my weather app.. then all of a sudden got a lot of force close pop ups for every app on the phone.. then the phone just rebooted and give me the can't mount error. then after I rebooted about 2 more times it would only go into download mode and I could not even get to recovery.. but its fine now.. been fine for about 3 weeks now..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you have the lag fix installed, and were you on JPM
those are the 2 things I did right before I got into this loop of death

SS2006 said:
Did you have the lag fix installed, and were you on JPM
those are the 2 things I did right before I got into this loop of death
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just had JPK installed.. no lag fix was needed with that rom.. now that I think about it about an hour before my wallpaper had changed... I wish I remembered the combination of Roms and different pits I flashed to get it to start working again.. but I know I played around with it for 3 hours.
I do know other people have recovered theirs as well by flashing different Roms and pits.

Alright then, let the flashing begin
wish me luck

Hey just noticed your in London, Ontario as well. well ya good luck...

my Nexus S just died on its own!

it was a rutine day as usual, running the GPS with CoPilot and playing music stream via BT to the car
and all of the sudden BAMN! the scary grey Google screen with the unlocked lock shows up
I was like *** BEEP ***, in my head i though oh, it might just be that reboot bug that is plaguing everybody but me, and now it's finally catching up
but noooooo... after i got to work i tried to reboot the phone (pulling battery out), nada, nothing, zero, zip... still the same dead google screen
then the worse case scenarios flashes through me head (knowing samsung past issues ) so i'm blazing for the worse...
currently i confirmed it can go into CW recovery screen and also go into the Odin Download Mode screen
so i'll try a nandroid backup first
if that is a no go, Odin is next...

Good luck, man. I feel your pain.
Hope you don't have to resort to odin, but if you do, that safety net will have proved its utility.
Again good luck!
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA Premium App

I can almost guarantee that ODIN will work. I resurrected a Fascinate that was locked out from itself using ODIN as well as a Captivate that had this same problem you are describing. ODIN dont **** around.

AllGamer said:
it was a rutine day as usual, running the GPS with CoPilot and playing music stream via BT to the car
and all of the sudden BAMN! the scary grey Google screen with the unlocked lock shows up
I was like *** BEEP ***, in my head i though oh, it might just be that reboot bug that is plaguing everybody but me, and now it's finally catching up
but noooooo... after i got to work i tried to reboot the phone (pulling battery out), nada, nothing, zero, zip... still the same dead google screen
then the worse case scenarios flashes through me head (knowing samsung past issues ) so i'm blazing for the worse...
currently i confirmed it can go into CW recovery screen and also go into the Odin Download Mode screen
so i'll try a nandroid backup first
if that is a no go, Odin is next...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hey what is your "flashing" history? (i.e. roms, kernels, etc.)

serialtoon said:
I can almost guarantee that ODIN will work. I resurrected a Fascinate that was locked out from itself using ODIN as well as a Captivate that had this same problem you are describing. ODIN dont **** around.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, that's if Odin is used right, otherwise it can ruin the phone. I've used it to bring back my Vibrant a bunch. It's good knowing that these Galaxy S phones are nearly brick proof.

All is not lost, honest...
AllGamer said:
it was a rutine day as usual, running the GPS with CoPilot and playing music stream via BT to the car
and all of the sudden BAMN! the scary grey Google screen with the unlocked lock shows up
I was like *** BEEP ***, in my head i though oh, it might just be that reboot bug that is plaguing everybody but me, and now it's finally catching up
but noooooo... after i got to work i tried to reboot the phone (pulling battery out), nada, nothing, zero, zip... still the same dead google screen
then the worse case scenarios flashes through me head (knowing samsung past issues ) so i'm blazing for the worse...
currently i confirmed it can go into CW recovery screen and also go into the Odin Download Mode screen
so i'll try a nandroid backup first
if that is a no go, Odin is next...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi AllGamer.
I had a similar disaster with the black google screen, and I had the unlocked bootloader as well, first I relocked bootloader, then used odin to reflash (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=947950 ) then used the e0b546c442bf.signed-soju-GRI40-from-GRH78.e0b546c4 update (http://android.clients.google.com/p...2bf.signed-soju-GRI40-from-GRH78.e0b546c4.zip) renamed it to update.zip, put it on root of memory, and ran it via the built in recovery mode after..phew.
Odin saved my life to!!
Good luck...

i guess i should have updated the post before heading out to lunch
not too long after i posted the original message, i was able to reflash any ROM, and got it to boot back to normal.
it was weird for some odd reason the ROM just got corrupted? i don't see how's that possible
I was on Bionix 1.3 beta for the longest time, and i've been on Bionix pretty much ever since December 2010/Jan 2011
I'm now back to Stock 2.3.3, but i replaced the stock recovery with CW recovery
I simply booted into the CW recovery mode, and then loaded a new ROM from zip

Yipee
AllGamer said:
i guess i should have updated the post before heading out to lunch
not too long after i posted the original message, i was able to reflash any ROM, and got it to boot back to normal.
it was weird for some odd reason the ROM just got corrupted? i don't see how's that possible
I was on Bionix 1.3 beta for the longest time, and i've been on Bionix pretty much ever since December 2010/Jan 2011
I'm now back to Stock 2.3.3, but i replaced the stock recovery with CW recovery
I simply booted into the CW recovery mode, and then loaded a new ROM from zip
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Glad your sorted....

[Q] MyTouch 4g: Multiple problems... PLEASE help.

Okay, I've searched and searched and no one seems to have the specific problem that I'm having with my phone, so I'm taking to the forums myself. I've been rooting since the G1, I know how to adb push things, I have used google and multiple forums to try to fix this problem. So here goes, anyone that can help I thank you in advance.
1-My phone, like some other MT4G users, reboots itself each time it's plugged in. Initially I thought this was because I was using a Kindle cord to plug it into the pc, so I bought an MT4G usb cable from tmobile, and still it boot loops (just the first white screen for maybe 4 seconds, then black then again and again). The only way to charge it is to let it start boot looping, take the battery out, turn it on, and if I'm lucky enough that it begins to boot up correctly I plug it in mid boot. If I wait til it's fulled loaded it just starts rebooting again.
2-It will not at all from any angle go into Recovery mode. If I try to go to recovery from Rom Manager, or from the screen you get when holding power and lower volume key or by flashing a rom through Rom Manager, it just boot loops just like mentioned above, until I pull the battery for a while (it is currently sitting next to me with the battery out) and then put it back in.
3-If by chance it's on, and plugged into the computer, it is not at all recognized. Ever. While it's booting up my computer finds something, but doesn't know what it is, and doesn't allow me to view any folders on the SD card. Yes I've installed the HTC drivers file. I've adb'ed things to this phone before, now it says device not found. I don't know when it stopped being recognized...
4-I've even tried to fastboot something over to it, but to no avail, still not found.
If I try to do a factory reset, it boot loops. If I sneeze it boot loops.... I don't know what to do, and if I trade it in under warranty, I have to reset it to stock rom, or they're going to charge me for a new phone. Any ideas!?
I have Cyanogen mod 7 on here.

have you tried a fastboot wipe? or have you tried to reboot to recovery from adb?

First, I don't trust using the actual ROM Manager app to do the flashing/installing.
Since you've been flashing since the G1 days why not use Clockwork Recovery? Just go into recovery and do the necessary wipes.
So I suggest to do a complete full wipe in Clockwork, meaning wipe data, cache, and dalvik cache. Install the newest CM nightly (Which is working wonderfully BTW) and see if your problems still persists.
Edit: I didn't realize you tried to enter recovery, oops. But yeah try what the buy above me said. Try re-installing the latest CWM recovery, if that still fails then try heading into there via ADB.

mackster248 said:
First, I don't trust using the actual ROM Manager app to do the flashing/installing.
Since you've been flashing since the G1 days why not use Clockwork Recovery? Just go into recovery and do the necessary wipes.
So I suggest to do a complete full wipe in Clockwork, meaning wipe data, cache, and dalvik cache. Install the newest CM nightly (Which is working wonderfully BTW) and see if your problems still persists.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I second that, flashing ROMs from ROM Manager a terrible idea.

Well...if all else fails and if you are really thinking about returning it and still under warranty...few seconds in the microwave method should work just fine. They wont be able to see that its rooted if the phone wouldn't turn on, would they???

glimmer of hope...
So by the grace of god I did get it flashed back to unrooted, stock 2.2 by putting it as pd15img.zip on my sd card and going into bootloader. Once that was done I thought I would be out of the woods... I even plugged it in last night and no boot loop!! but this morning I unpllugged it (and I'm using a tmobile cable for the phone attached to my pc) and here it sits, next to me again with the battery out of it because everytime I try to turn it on (for over 40 minutes now) it boot loops to that stupid white screen (that is honestly driving me insane at this point). I know that it isn't rooted (because I dl'ed rom manager and it won't let me do anything without being rooted) so do we think that I'm safe to go to the store today to request a new one be sent? Thoughts? And thanks for the help thus far!

yeah I would send that back

Bad emmc chip? I'm sorry man, that's a terrible story.
Sent from my HTC Glacier using XDA App

I survived the Encryption Unsuccessful error unscathed?!

I've been a stalker on here for a long time, as I've been interested in custom ROMs but I never pulled the trigger, until last night. My Vibrant has served me well for a many years, I bought it shortly after they came out. All I'd ever done to it was network unlock it so I could keep using it after I moved to the UK.
I've been toying with getting a new phone for a few months now so I decided why not try and flash a custom ROM and get ICS on my Vibrant, if I got the EU error and bricked it, oh well, I'd get a new phone. So I after much reading and research, studying the tutorials on here I went for it. I am vary tech and computer savvy. I build my own computers from scratch, I've flashed my routers and set up networks so I was pretty confident I could do this with the help of the forums here.
I've read every thread I can find on the EU on here and I know that the community needs as much info as possible to try and solve this bug, so I will try and be as specific as possible and list everything I did. But bear in mind, I'm new to this and this was my first time doing much of this so some things may be muddled as I was up til quite late messing with all this.
To start my phone was running 2.2 which was updated using Kies Mini. The only thing I'd ever done to it was network unlock, and for that all I did was find the file on the phone with the code and then enter it to unlock.
I decided to follow Woodrube's guide (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1464423)
I followed the guide to the "T".
1. Used Odin to flash back to stock 2.1, worked fine, phone booted back up and everything worked. Phone Data showed I was on 2.1.
2. I put Clockwork Recovery downloaded from Woodrube's sig block on my internal sdcard labeled as Update.zip
3. Created a folder called ICS on my internal sdcard. Found and downloaded CM7 from the forums here and dropped it into the ICS folder. Found and downloaded the ICS Passion ROM from the forums and dropped it into the ICS folder
4. Booted to recovery mode and did Reinstall Packages. It ran but brought me back to the blue recovery screen. so per Woodrube's guide I did it again and the second time it brought me to the green CWR recovery screen
5. I did wipe data/ factory reset
6. I did wipe cache
7. I went to advanced and did wipe dalvik cache
8. I went to mounts and storage and did format system
9. I went to install from sdcard and found the ICS folder I made and ran the CM7 fille I dropped there. It worked the first time and booted right up, I let it sit for about 5 mins waiting for the request to install my google password as Woodrube mentions, but it never appeared, so I moved on after 5-6 min of waiting.
10. I then booted back into recovery mode using the extended power button menu
11. I went to install from sdcard again and this time ran the ICS Passion file. It ran some text lines showed on the screen as id did somethings and then I sw a Random Offset error and a small hex string but then it said successfully installed but didn't leave the recovery screen. So i scrolled up to reboot system.
12. The phone rebooted, showed me the Passion splash screens and a progress bar which filled and completed, then showed a few other splash screens and then it booted up showing my signal strength bar and notifications bar. I thought YES! I did it and it worked. then the screen flashed, it showed a single multi-colored line horizontally across the middle of the screen and then flashed again and I was looking at the Encryption Unsuccessful screen.
13. I DID NOT PUSH THE RESET BUTTON, I set the phone aside and followed Woodrube's link to the Captivate Forums and read up on the error, read all of it, then searched the forums for more threads on the error and read all of those, then I Googled the error and read everything else I could find.
14. First i tried just shutting the phone down with the power button and then restarting it. I did this about 5-6 times. Every time it rebooted it showed me the Passion splash screens then boots up shows my notification bar and signal strength meter and the EU screen. That didn't work. I next tried rebooting 5 times without my external sd card installed. Same results
15. Next I decided to see if I had lost access to my internal sdcard as I had read about. I wasn't sure if I had because I had never pushed the EU screen reset button. So I booted into recovery mode, went to install from sdcard and my sdcard list popped up. I still had access to my internal sdcard.
At this point I was torn... do I stop playing with fire and just got back to stock, update with Kies Mini and go back to using the phone as I had always been and forget all this or do I try and figure this out? Well my stubborn side hating to be stumped had encountered a problem and so wanted to move forward... on i went.
16. I decided, ok, I can still see my internal sdcard so why not try reflashing the ISC Passion and see if maybe it will take this time with no EU. I ran it and exactly the same thing happened as the first time.. right down to the flash with the horizontal line and all. (I did not wipe data, cache or anything, just reflashed. Not sure if I should have or not)
17. Back to recovery mode and check... yes still see my internal sdcard. hmmm
18. Decide ok, how about it I do Woodrube's guide all over again from the start? Maybe that will work. I followed the guide again using all the same files and wound up right back at the EU screen again.
19. Hmmm, how about a different ICS ROM? Went and found ICZen and downloaded it. Hmm, how do I get this unto my internal sdcard if the phone won't boot all the way? Booted it back to the EU screen and just plugged the phone into the usb on my computer, windows recognized it, made the device plugged in noise, and both my internal and external sdcards on the phone showed up as drives. Navigated to the ICS folder in the internal sdcard and dropped the ICZen file into it.
20. Rebooted the phone into recovery mode using the power button menu
21. Used install from sdcard and flashed the ICZen. (Again, I didn't wipe anything before hand. Again not sure if I was supposed to)
22. The ROM installed and got stuck in a boot loop. I pulled the battery and rebooted to recovery and reflashed the ICZen again with no wipes. This time it worked and the phone rebooted and I got the ICZen splash screens, then the notification bar and signal strength meter showed up.. and AGAIN the weird flash with the horizontal bar and then the EU screen. SIGH
23. Booted back to recovery mode and checked if I still had access to internal sdcard. yes it was still there.
24. Shut down and booted to download mode and ran Odin and flashed back to stock 2.1
This is where I am now, It was too late to try anything else and my wife was glaring at me to go to bed so shut off the phone and went to bed.
I tried to put everything I did down with as much detail as I could. I'm sure some of you pros out there might be wincing at stuff I did, but again this is all new stuff for me and I'm slowly learning.
If you have any questions or need clarification just ask and I will try and help/explain better.
Hopefully this might help in the quest to solve this bug or it may just be a waste of time to read, dunno.

I got to:
"To start my phone was running 2.2 which was updated using Kies Mini."
and stopped there
Come back to Froyo - always welcome here

Moped_Ryder said:
I got to:
"To start my phone was running 2.2 which was updated using Kies Mini."
and stopped there
Come back to Froyo - always welcome here
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LOL, yea I know, but up until this adventure last night, I just used the phone with the Samsung updates as it was, didn't really have a need to do otherwise.

I think that you should flash one of Moped's ROMs and make sure that it will boot up and run ok and that you did, in fact get out of the EU bug safely.
Couple of things:
I did get your PM and I thank you for the info. This post is far more detailed, which is a ton better.
You say that you were unlocked. There was a theory not too long ago about a corrupted EFS file, but AdamOutler uploaded his and someone else replaced theirs with it and it didn't work. But I am thinking that there might be a link here bc I have seen several posts over the last few months that ICS ROMs have been out where someone's data has been borked or their IMIE was gone. Wonder if there is a correlation to that? I'll have to ask some people onver in the Captivate thread and if anyone in the Vibrant thread can chime in too(?).
If you want to flash another ROM, just follw my ICS guide but where it says to install CM7, just install your shiny, new 2.2 instead and there you are.
Great Job dodging that bullet and hope that you no longer lurk, but be a part of the community at large. If your intelligence is reflected in your post, you are welcome here anytime.

Thanks Woodrube,
I was thinking the same thing about loading a 2.2 ROM and be sure I'm all good.
I know the 2.1 I loaded last thing last night seemed to work fine. But I will try a 2.2 once I get home and will update on here after I do.
Funny thing about all this is that my wife now won't let me near her Captivate ROFL.

Can you blame her ?
For the sake of the thread i can chime in on the unlock part. I'm still untouched by the EU bug "touching wood(rube)" . I'm using the i896 version of the Captivate from Rogers and there was never codes inside of it so most app were unsuccesfull at pulling them. I had to use the free SGS Unlock website where you upload your nv_data.bin and it returns you a unlocked version. I also never encountered any efs/imei issue.

hi.
I saw you have not wiped when installing the ROMs. I think maybe you should try and do the wipe before installing the ICS ROM.
Wipe system, data, cache.
Good luck

romitkin said:
hi.
I saw you have not wiped when installing the ROMs. I think maybe you should try and do the wipe before installing the ICS ROM.
Wipe system, data, cache.
Good luck
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
BINGO!
So I followed Woodrube's guide again.. started from scratch... only change I made was I wiped data factory reset, wiped cache, wiped Dalvik cache, and under mounts and storage I format system BEFORE flashing the ICS Passion.
Logged into Google Account and set up phone and now I'm rockin' ICS
Not sure how or why this worked but it did.
Thoughts?

Softish Brick Recovery i9505 int

Hi,
My i9505 Intl (Australian Telstra LTE) SGS4 has been rooted for a year at least now, and recently (a few months) had TWRP recovery and CM13 installed and everything was going great. I loved CM!
Anyway I had done a few nightly patches of CM and all seemed good and then a week ago I installed the most recent nightly (possibly this one cm-13.0-20160819-NIGHTLY-jfltexx-recovery.img ). Well the subsequent reboot put the phone into a boot loop. So I thought no problem just boot to recovery and install my recent Nandroid back up. So did that but in my haste didn't clear cache or data. The nandroid reinstall seemed to go ok but a subsequent boot hung at the CM logo (I think it was a while ago now) and I couldn't boot to recovery, just hung with the blue text.
So I fired up Odin and booted to download and reflashed with TWRP. Boot to recovery still didn't work however I could still boot to download.
Tried different USB ports, different versions of Odin, re installed drivers to no avail. Also tried CWM, TWRP and Philz recovery and once I did get it to boot to recovery with Philz. THIS TIME cleared cache and data and loaded a good copy of CM that I had on my SD card. Again stuck in boot. Couldn't get back to recovery.
Tried loading the orginal samsung firmware and they I was stuck with a Samsung logo boot looping. Ditto recovery just hung at the logo and the blue text "recovery booting".
Rinse and repeat a few times and now the phone has started to become difficult to get into download or recovery. If I leave it with the battery out for a while it seems to come good again.
Odin when flashing a new recovery either hangs half way though or completes and says everything is OK. Full blue bar on the phone.
Rebooting however still leaves me in the boot loop.
There is no mention on Odin of any issues with the partition however I have d/l a PIT file from one of samersh72's posts but am not sure if it is the correct one for my Int phone or indeed if I need to use it as Odin doesn't seem to report any partition errors.
If any one has any suggestions I am very receptive to ideas right now.....
Thanks

Did you perform a factory wipe after flashing stock before booting the rom for the first time?

audit13 said:
Did you perform a factory wipe after flashing stock before booting the rom for the first time?
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I did a factory wipe and then installed CM from my SD card but that is the only time I have able to get into recovery since the first time when I reloaded my nandroid backup

Did you try flashing recovery without selecting auto reboot? Once flashed, remove USB cable, remove battery, replace battery, try to boot into recovery.

audit13 said:
Did you try flashing recovery without selecting auto reboot? Once flashed, remove USB cable, remove battery, replace battery, try to boot into recovery.
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Yup tried that, as I realised that the auto boot might be overwriting the custom recovery...........however as a new development I haven't been able to boot to download or even the stuck recovery since yesterday.
I think it has now moved to a full hard brick

Is still turns on? You have a USB jig to try?

audit13 said:
Is still turns on? You have a USB jig to try?
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No I don't have one but I have all the makings of one so i'll put one together and give it a go. Though I have to say that I am not that hopeful as I can't even get a peep out of it now.

A jig may be the last solution before sending it for repair or replacing the motherboard.

audit13 said:
A jig may be the last solution before sending it for repair or replacing the motherboard.
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Thanks Audit, Ill let you know how I get on. Just looked at some replacement motherboards and they don't seem too common for the LTE version used here in Australia AND USD60......pretty much get a working phone locally here on ebay for that and I get the rest of the parts too.

Have you tried already flashing a stock rom as a tar file from sammobile?

justgamer01 said:
Have you tried already flashing a stock rom as a tar file from sammobile?
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Yup did that as well!

Ghostdog1 said:
Yup did that as well!
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I'm not sure if it will work! But try emergency recovery with Smart Switch!

justgamer01 said:
I'm not sure if it will work! But try emergency recovery with Smart Switch!
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With Smartswitch I get the same outcome as with Kires
"GT-I9505 does not support initialising. Please contact our service centre."
But on the plus side it is actually responding to button presses today. I will pick up some 100K resistors tomorrow and finish off my USB jig. See how that goes.

Well it appears to have finally died fully. No response to any button or combination of button presses. Made up a USB jig but without some response to a boot that won't work either.
Thanks to Audit and Justgamer for your advice. Think it is time to draw a line under this one and move on. Maybe a new Nexus when they drop?