Database Users

Help! My HTC HD does not startup anymore

I don't knwo where to post this exactly so here it goes.
I installed revolution 2.09 on my rooted HTC HD without any problems.
Run perfectly. Then today I installed a ROM of a theme from this forum as well called media 1.3 with rom manager.
After the reboot my phone only shows a the text android with a slight moving glow over it. It does not repsond to anything any more. I removed the battery but the same thing is happening.
Did I brick it? What can I do?

Willem Kloppenburg said:
I don't knwo where to post this exactly so here it goes.
I installed revolution 2.09 on my rooted HTC HD without any problems.
Run perfectly. Then today I installed a ROM of a theme from this forum as well called media 1.3 with rom manager.
After the reboot my phone only shows a the text android with a slight moving glow over it. It does not repsond to anything any more. I removed the battery but the same thing is happening.
Did I brick it? What can I do?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thats just the default android boot screen, looks like the theme messed up your framework... hold on i'll make a .zip you can flash from recovery to fix it

Thanks, but how do I get the zip on the phone? It does not react to anything anymore. I attahced it to my PC but nothing....

Willem Kloppenburg said:
Thanks, but how do I get the zip on the phone? It does not react to anything anymore. I attahced it to my PC but nothing....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
im just downloading the rom for you now so i can extract the framework, if you pull your battery out, you can either plug in your charger while its off, this will bring up recovery, or while its off, hold vol down and press power, that will take you to bootloader, and just pick recovery from the list, now when in recovery, if you navigate to the mounts and storage menu, choose the option mount usb storage, you can now connect to a pc as a disk drive and copy stuff to your sd card

im having trouble uploading attachments to xda at the min dya want me to upload it to megaupload for you?

AndroHero,
Thank you for helping me out. I didn't know about the vol down press power option which allows you to acces the sd card and intall a new rom. I had the revolution rom 2.0.9 already. It's installing as we speak. Much thanks for the tips!

To early hooray. I choose the option with the revolution zip for a complete install. After the install I selected rebouut system now. Now it stays on the white HTC screen with the text HTC quitely brilliant. Flashing every 3 seconds or so....
What to do now?

Everything is resolved. revolution is up and running again. I had to un the fullwipe.zip and that did it!
THANKS a lot for all the tips....again

Willem Kloppenburg said:
To early hooray. I choose the option with the revolution zip for a complete install. After the install I selected rebouut system now. Now it stays on the white HTC screen with the text HTC quitely brilliant. Flashing every 3 seconds or so....
What to do now?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you do a full wipe before re-flashing your ROM? even if you did just repeat the process , full wipe /cache, /dalvik-cache, /system and then re-flash the rom fingers crossed it should work

Hi,
I am having a similar problem. I tried flashing the cyanogen mod and after installing it the phone doesnt boot up. Its stuck on the t-mobile boot up logo. Ive tried restoring my back up but I get the same problem.
Any help would be great!
Thanks

mo123456789 said:
Hi,
I am having a similar problem. I tried flashing the cyanogen mod and after installing it the phone doesnt boot up. Its stuck on the t-mobile boot up logo. Ive tried restoring my back up but I get the same problem.
Any help would be great!
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
boot into recovery do a full wipe (system, data, cache and dalvik-cache) then re-flash your rom

mo123456789 said:
Hi,
I am having a similar problem. I tried flashing the cyanogen mod and after installing it the phone doesnt boot up. Its stuck on the t-mobile boot up logo. Ive tried restoring my back up but I get the same problem.
Any help would be great!
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Could it be possible that you installed cwm 3005 and tried a restore with that. I had the same problem. Went back to cwm 2.5.x and then restore worked.
Sent from my Desire HD

I think there will be a lot of scare because of this CWM 3x...
Same happened to me the other day, stupidly accecpted the update prompt from Rom Manager, did my backup and went to install Cyanogen 6... Got stuck at HTC logo next boot.
Thankfuly, had Leedroid 2.0 on the SD, too, and that one flashed properly
Thing is that when I try to downgrade the Recovery to 2.5x I get an error and really can't be bothered with ADB pushing stuff around, so using Cyanogen 7 for the time beeing
Anyhow, CWM 3.x is likely your problem, easy to fix ^^

Wanting to change my theme on the Samsung spica I had theexact problem on cyanogen mod. Had to redo the whole rooting and installing the Rom again to get to work.
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App

yes, is some script...back to recovery 2.x

[Q] EVO Rom/Root problems

I am having some serious issues with my evo. I have tried 10 different methods, googled 100 different help guides and still no fix.
I had originally rooted my phone using simple root and put the "fixed" froyo rom on there. Everything worked fine, but I was outdated and having some really slow issues so I wanted to try a new rom...Fresh.
Well I tried a few methods, but I somehow reverted my evo back to a nonroot of the original OS. Whenever i go into hboot, my recovery does not work. I push the PC36img and load it, then restart then I attempt to go to my recovery where it gives me the error picture with the yellow/red triangle. I then select recovery (after pressing UP volume and powerbutton) and try to load update from sd card. Everytime I do that I get a Failed error.
I've tried to reroot using several methods off this website, I've done everything I can to get it working but can't. Any help would be GREATLY appreciated!

Try reflashing your recovery image.

BTW I have hboot 79.0 with S-ON, so it looks like I def became unrooted.

noweakness said:
BTW I have hboot 79.0 with S-ON, so it looks like I def became unrooted.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not sure how it would have just unrooted itself. I would run an RUU from here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=884060
Then, I would re-root and start clean again.

Heaterz16 said:
Try reflashing your recovery image.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have a recovery-ra.img, how do I tell it to flash it?
I pulled up this list of recovery files, is there a particular one I should use?
htt p://goo-inside.me/amon_ra/supersonic/

Heaterz16 said:
Not sure how it would have just unrooted itself. I would run an RUU from here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=884060
Then, I would re-root and start clean again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok I downloaded the top item:
RUU_SuperSonic_S_Sprint_WWE_3.70.651.1_Radio_2.15.00.11.19_NV_1.90_release_161482_signed
Ran the exe, surprisingly picked up my phone and started the image update. My phone restarted and it forced closed the app on my computer. Now I have a new HTC logo for about 5 min on my phone not doing anything. Should I wait it out or restart my phone?

noweakness said:
Ok I downloaded the top item:
RUU_SuperSonic_S_Sprint_WWE_3.70.651.1_Radio_2.15.00.11.19_NV_1.90_release_161482_signed
Ran the exe, surprisingly picked up my phone and started the image update. My phone restarted and it forced closed the app on my computer. Now I have a new HTC logo for about 5 min on my phone not doing anything. Should I wait it out or restart my phone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would have waited about ten minutes then restarted the phone. If the phone is stuck at the HTC logo, then I would go ahead and re-run the RUU.
Let me know how it turns out.

Heaterz16 said:
I would have waited about ten minutes then restarted the phone. If the phone is stuck at the HTC logo, then I would go ahead and re-run the RUU.
Let me know how it turns out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ok, finally got it working. Had to restart the phone manually and try it on a different computer. It updated it to the newer version of android and hboot, thank goodness! That was the easiest and most productive thing I've been able to do so far, thanks!
Well now I try to boot into recovery and get the same error:
can't open /cache/recovery/command
Then I get :
E: signature verification failed
Installation aborted
When i try to load update from sdcard

noweakness said:
ok, finally got it working. Had to restart the phone manually and try it on a different computer. It updated it to the newer version of android and hboot, thank goodness! That was the easiest and most productive thing I've been able to do so far, thanks!
Well now I try to boot into recovery and get the same error:
can't open /cache/recovery/command
Then I get :
E: signature verification failed
Installation aborted
When i try to load update from sdcard
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, so, I think you said you got the RUU working which would have completely restored the phone to unrooted and stock from factory.
Now, you need to re-root your phone using one of the methods on xda. I used the manual method here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=829045. However, many people have had success with the one-click methods.
After you re-root (which will likely included installing a recovery), select a rom you want to try, boot to recovery, wipe and flash it. A great starter ROM is MikFroyo 4.6 or 4.5.

Try downloading the PC36IMG.zip from here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=705026
put that on the root of your SD card, then boot into HBOOT and it should find that PC36IMG.zip after a few seconds and ask if you want to flash it. Choose yes and let it finish. Should then be able to reboot into recovery.

ok thanks, i'll try it when I get back home

jesuspgt said:
Try downloading the PC36IMG.zip from here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=705026
put that on the root of your SD card, then boot into HBOOT and it should find that PC36IMG.zip after a few seconds and ask if you want to flash it. Choose yes and let it finish. Should then be able to reboot into recovery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, I tried this method...the filesize of pc36img.zip is only 3.5mb, but it didn't seem to work. It scanned the file then just went back to the hboot screen with my options never asking to flash.
I'm going to try to reroot using the other method now...

So I clicked the link and he forwarded to the autoroot.bat page so I used his method. It worked well (the 2nd time around) all the way until it started to push amon_ra_1.8-mod.... then after that it says rebooting into the bootloader, and it reboots into it and just says waiting for phone...
It does appear that my phone is rooted now, but my recovery is still not working. If I use ROM manager will it work since my phone is rooted or do I need to have a rooted ROM to run it off of?

noweakness said:
So I clicked the link and he forwarded to the autoroot.bat page so I used his method. It worked well (the 2nd time around) all the way until it started to push amon_ra_1.8-mod.... then after that it says rebooting into the bootloader, and it reboots into it and just says waiting for phone...
It does appear that my phone is rooted now, but my recovery is still not working. If I use ROM manager will it work since my phone is rooted or do I need to have a rooted ROM to run it off of?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does your phone show s-off while in the bootloader? If so you should be able to run the FlashZip script and use that to flash the pc36img-sprintlovers zip. That one contains everything needed to bring your phone up to date and will leave you with a rooted rom and recovery.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA Premium App

xHausx said:
Does your phone show s-off while in the bootloader? If so you should be able to run the FlashZip script and use that to flash the pc36img-sprintlovers zip. That one contains everything needed to bring your phone up to date and will leave you with a rooted rom and recovery.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
FINALLY! Thanks a million! My recovery is now working and it installed the built in sprinter lovers rom, I guess the anti-virus was stopping it so I disabled it and ran the flash script. I was able to install Fresh on there, just to try it out. I do have a few questions though:
1. I noticed after going through many pages that to update to a newer ROM version you don't always have to wipe clean, you can just install (or flash) the new update? I noticed in Fresh there is a built in app that does that. Is this true for most ROMS or only certain ones?
2. I assume I am using the RA recovery. I noticed the backup/restore feature on there. What exactly does that backup and when should I use it?
3. I've noticed I've been very low with memory on my phone (not SD card), I have about 258MB free. How can I clear space and when I mount my phone what files are important to keep and can I get rid of, is it okay to get rid of my rom.zip's and radio.zip's?
Thanks again to everyone, autoroot was def the most painless root ever.

noweakness said:
FINALLY! Thanks a million! My recovery is now working and it installed the built in sprinter lovers rom, I guess the anti-virus was stopping it so I disabled it and ran the flash script. I was able to install Fresh on there, just to try it out. I do have a few questions though:
1. I noticed after going through many pages that to update to a newer ROM version you don't always have to wipe clean, you can just install (or flash) the new update? I noticed in Fresh there is a built in app that does that. Is this true for most ROMS or only certain ones?
2. I assume I am using the RA recovery. I noticed the backup/restore feature on there. What exactly does that backup and when should I use it?
3. I've noticed I've been very low with memory on my phone (not SD card), I have about 258MB free. How can I clear space and when I mount my phone what files are important to keep and can I get rid of, is it okay to get rid of my rom.zip's and radio.zip's?
Thanks again to everyone, autoroot was def the most painless root ever.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1) You'll want to always wipe your cache/dalvik (I do everytime I'm in the recovery) but the Data depends on the ROM. Usually if you are going from one sense rom to another you are ok and the same for AOSP to AOSP. Going from Sense to AOSP you'll need to wipe data though.
2) Autoroot comes with a modified version of AmonRA, they are mostly just speed tweaks. To make a complete backup of your ROM select Boot (kernel), System (ROM), Data (Apps & Settings) and .android (apps on SD card)
3) You can delete the zips from your sd card if you don't need them but that's about normal for free memory.

[Q] Gapps won't install on CM7 stable

I just installed CM7 stable using eyeballer's guide but can't get gapps to work. When I installed everything from the bootable CWM it all seemed to work fine. CM7, gapps, the OC kernel, and CWM all said they installed correctly in CWM. I booted into CM7 just fine and it seems that everything is working, except there aren't any gapps. I tried reinstalling them several times with no luck. I saw in another thread that "fixing permissions" in CWM worked for someone, but it didn't for me. I did some more searching but didn't find anything else that seemed to help in my situation. I'm sure I missed something in my search, but it's late and I need to get to bed.
Any ideas? Sorry I couldn't find the answer on my own.
Thanks!

jmeuphonium said:
I just installed CM7 stable using eyeballer's guide but can't get gapps to work. When I installed everything from the bootable CWM it all seemed to work fine. CM7, gapps, the OC kernel, and CWM all said they installed correctly in CWM. I booted into CM7 just fine and it seems that everything is working, except there aren't any gapps. I tried reinstalling them several times with no luck. I saw in another thread that "fixing permissions" in CWM worked for someone, but it didn't for me. I did some more searching but didn't find anything else that seemed to help in my situation. I'm sure I missed something in my search, but it's late and I need to get to bed.
Any ideas? Sorry I couldn't find the answer on my own.
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you actually look to see if they are there in /system/app? Did you try reinstalling them, maybe gapps didn't actually install?

connect to wifi after flashing gaaps

I never checked the systzem/apps folder. I just assumed they'd be in the launchers app tray that shows all your apps. Each time I installed gapps in CWR it looked like it installed just fine. There was never an error message. Ill check that directory when I get home.
I've been connected to wifi since I installed CM7 so I wouldn't think that was the problem. Should I disconnect wifi, reinstall gapps through CWR, boot into CM7, turn on wifi, and gapps should show up?
Thanks guys!!!!

jmeuphonium said:
I never checked the systzem/apps folder. I just assumed they'd be in the launchers app tray that shows all your apps. Each time I installed gapps in CWR it looked like it installed just fine. There was never an error message. Ill check that directory when I get home.
I've been connected to wifi since I installed CM7 so I wouldn't think that was the problem. Should I disconnect wifi, reinstall gapps through CWR, boot into CM7, turn on wifi, and gapps should show up?
Thanks guys!!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Honestly I know it sounds weird but its been confirmed from several people that if after flashing GAAPS you dont see the market icon, then connect to wifi. I can also confirm that it was hidden for me after flashing. Then wifi connect, then then icon shows up on the home screen....weird.

colbur87 said:
Honestly I know it sounds weird but its been confirmed from several people that if after flashing GAAPS you dont see the market icon, then connect to wifi. I can also confirm that it was hidden for me after flashing. Then wifi connect, then then icon shows up on the home screen....weird.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just got home from lunch and booted it up. I turned off wifi, rebooted and turned it back on and there was the Market app. Everything's working great now. I'm still an idiot
Thanks again you guys!

yeah it wont show up right away after first installing - after you activate a WiFi connection then market shows up. click on market and it will ask you if you want to download the rest of the apps
jmeuphonium said:
I just installed CM7 stable using eyeballer's guide but can't get gapps to work. When I installed everything from the bootable CWM it all seemed to work fine. CM7, gapps, the OC kernel, and CWM all said they installed correctly in CWM. I booted into CM7 just fine and it seems that everything is working, except there aren't any gapps. I tried reinstalling them several times with no luck. I saw in another thread that "fixing permissions" in CWM worked for someone, but it didn't for me. I did some more searching but didn't find anything else that seemed to help in my situation. I'm sure I missed something in my search, but it's late and I need to get to bed.
Any ideas? Sorry I couldn't find the answer on my own.
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Thank you very much colbur87 for this information! I was going crazy trying to figure out where those apps went after this same process.

Gapps Still Not Working
I have installed CM7 and Gapps on a Samsung Fascinate via this thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1116424
After it didn't work the first time, I started digging for a solution. Following the advise in this current thread I reinstalled Gapps, booted up and started WiFi. Still no market icon on the home page. So I disabled WiFi, rebooted for good measure, and re-enabled WiFi. Still no market icon.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks!

I figured out the issue! This is VERY IMPORTANT and I couldn't really find it spelled out anywhere. You cannot boot into recovery mode via the 3 finger method when installing the Gapps. You must use the menu within Cyanogen (reboot -> recovery) to get into recovery mode. Then everything works as expected.

Had same problem with ZTE v9 tablet, had to add my Google account in settings -> accounts & sync while having a decent data connection (wifi / good 3g) and then market app and associated apps installed automatically.

hey there.
i flashed cm7 on my sgs2. and with it the latest version of gapps. i had the market from the beginning. but no other google apps. i tried everything you posted here. but it did not work.
since i had access to the market i now installed maps (and along with it latitude and navigation). but there is no gmail-app on the market. so i do not have that. any other idea to get it?
tyvm
kws

I have this exact same problem. I have just installed CM7 on my samsung galaxy pop/mini. I installed the gapps zip file through CWM. Installation finished just fine without any errors. Reboot done. No market icon or any other gapp icon shows up on the homescreen on the app drawer. So I started wifi. Connected. Still no icon. So I installed just the market apk from the internet. The apk installed fine but it asks me to add an account. So I click on yes and it takes me back to home screen. I went to Settings>Accounts and Sync. Clicked on Add account but it doesn't give me an option to select the type of a/c(Eg. Google, FB, Twitter, Etc.). The wizard that I get says Add an Exchange a/c. It just simply doesn't allow me to add a google a/c. Please help guys.
Note: I never got any option to sign in with my google a/c at first boot..

I'm also having problems with installing gapps downloaded at http://wiki.cyanogenmod.com/wiki/Gapps#Google_Apps.
I try to reboot to recovery, but the blue text just says that "gapps was not found".
Is there a specific place that the gapps zip file needs to be saved? I downloaded it via the Nook and it got saved to the sdcard's "download" folder. I've read that I need to save it under the "boot" partition... how do I do that? Can I do this through the terminal emulator?
Thanks!

switch81 said:
I'm also having problems with installing gapps downloaded at http://wiki.cyanogenmod.com/wiki/Gapps#Google_Apps.
I try to reboot to recovery, but the blue text just says that "gapps was not found".
Is there a specific place that the gapps zip file needs to be saved? I downloaded it via the Nook and it got saved to the sdcard's "download" folder. I've read that I need to save it under the "boot" partition... how do I do that? Can I do this through the terminal emulator?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes... in T.E.:
mkdir /sdcard/boot
mount /dev/block/mmcbkl1p1 /sdcard/temp
cp /sdcard/download/GAPPS FILE.zip /sdcard/boot

For some reason "mount" was a not a valid command line operation... so I got off my lazy ass and moved the file over to the boot partition using a linux box that I had. Problem solved!

A couple of tips if you are installing the gapps. zip through CWR yet still find no google apis upon booting up.
1) wipe data and partition in CWR like usual, but also wipe DAVLIK cache before installing encore and gapps zip. you will find the wipe DAVLIK option in the advanced menu in CWR. I know that this step is omitted in many of the how-to's, because it is not always necessary. If you are having trouble with installed gapps not showing up, try this.
2) Pay attention to the version number of CWR! When I wrote the clockwork image to my SD card, I must have followed an old link. I didn't notice until much later that the clockwork that booted off mt SD card was 3.005. this caused major issues once I flashed a current version of CWR through the ROM manager (3.023). I encountered missing md5 sums in my back ups, and would get error messages "cannot mount system". Additionally, when I would attempt to reflash my zips, the google apis would not appear, and the only way to get them was to reinstall them through titanium backup.
I believe this wad because I wad using two incompatible versions of CWR. if I rebooted to recovery through the ROM Manager instead of simply loading from the SD card, I would be in the current version, where I wiped the data and partition like usual, wiped the DAVLIK to be sure, and then boom, the setup for google loaded upon boot.
Slip the registration process until you are connected to wifi. that is why some of the above users did not see the market until they connected to a network.
Hope this helps some people, it drove me crazy until I figures it out.

switch81 said:
For some reason "mount" was a not a valid command line operation... so I got off my lazy ass and moved the file over to the boot partition using a linux box that I had. Problem solved!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In this case... you can use:
busybox mount /dev/block/mmcblk1p1 /sdcard/boot
Sometimes busybox commands are not symlinked but are available by specifying "busybox" command

Google Apps google market no install cwm wifi on off register gmail wont install
Google Apps google market no install, wont install, not install= cwm install zip from sd....On boot up wifi on off - on... market icon will then show up then register gmail... wont install...Was searching for this tread then came across when I was about to post...Thought I'd add some keywords lol

vizionforever said:
Google Apps google market no install, wont install, not install= cwm install zip from sd....On boot up wifi on off - on... market icon will then show up then register gmail... wont install...Was searching for this tread then came across when I was about to post...Thought I'd add some keywords lol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
lol, whatever helps others out there!

Need help flashing CM ROM

I'm having trouble with my samsung vibrant (galaxy S) I want to flash CM on it. I have root access, Clockwork Mod recovery, and ROM Manager. I go in to ROM manager and select flash ROM from SD card, I select the CM ROM which I downloaded but it gives an error "Status 7" when trying to install, and will not flash the new ROM. Any help with this would be appreciated.

ok first go into clockwork recovery on rom manager and pick flash clockwork recovery and pick vibrantmtd then pick 3x NOT 2X! Then go to download rom and choose cm7 nightlie 8 or under as above have many probs. On ur nightlie choose all three! wipe data, wipe dalvik and backup rom. On ur second nightlie u just have to wipe dalvik and backup rom.

Thanks for the help. I tried that with a slight variation. I had to manually put the ROM on the root of the SD card and named it update.zip. I flashed clockwork recovery and selected 3.x as you said. I selected all 3 options for backup and wipe. Once in recovery I select "Reinstall packages" and it finds update.zip but aborts installation with "Status 7"

Ur doing it wrong. Update package is for only rooting ur phone.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA Premium App

First root ur phone! Then follow my directions to get cm7
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA Premium App

the phone is rooted. Is there an easy way for me to double check that? Maybe I'm confusing two processes, but I do have the ROM on the SD card. Am I trying to apply it incorrectly? When I'm in recovery my only options are:
Reboot system now
reinstall packages
delete all user data
delete cache data
format internal SD-card
I'm used to see other option such as on my MT4G which has "install zip from SD card" That is what I typically use to flash a new rom.
Sorry if I'm missing something, but I do appreciate the help

I've been messing with it all night. I wound up doing the ODIN to JFD to get myself back to 2.1. I installed rom manager again, and it appears that when I tell it to flash clockwork mod and then reboot in to recovery I am actually going to stock recovery. I think the options that I listed earlier are for stock recovery as well. I think the main thing I'm missing is the "Install ZIP from SD Card" option in recovery. I guess at this point I'm unsure if I'm rooted, and don't know how to get the correct recovery so I can flash the ROM I'd like.

If ur recovery is blue then u need reinstall packages twice then u will be rooted, then it will turn green. Then go into rom manager and flash clock work recovery. Then put ur rom on internal sd and ur ready to flash. Enjoy
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA Premium App

Ok, so we can narrow things down a bit. My recovery is blue. I've downloaded the update.zip that I found from "NOOB Root guide" here on XDA, but no matter how many times I reinstall packages recovery never turns green.
I've also tried the one click root method which does the same thing as above but it just automates things a bit. (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=739300)

Bump.
Many thanks to movieaddict who has helped so far, but it appears that I don't have root access, and the typical steps found in this thread are not working for me. Any other ideas?

ok is ur phone hardware locked?? by checking by doing this do the 3 button combo to get into download mode. First power off ur phone then plug in ur usb cable to phone and into pc then hold down the up volume and down volume and THEN hold down the power button and let go after a few sec u should see download mode.. If it goes into download mode then ur phone is not hardware lcked and we can go from there if it is hardware locked? then follow this link
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=801722
if it isnt hardware locked then make sure update package file isnt corrrupted and make sure u put it on ur internal sd card. Make sure the update package is 632 kb sometimes when downloading stuff happens.
im gonna tell u how i do root and flash! First odin back to eclair must easier to root then. Second put the update package on ur internal sd card and dont unrar it leave it as is. Then turn off ur phone and hold down the up volume and the down volume and THEN the power button and as when u SEE THE vibrant logo let go of power button. Ur recovery will be blue then select reinstall package and select yes, it will then go through stuff and come back to recovery blue then do it again and it will turn green. Once its green then select the rom u want to flash and ur ready to go.

Thanks again. From your instructions I can tell that the phone is hardware UNlocked. I've previously gotten in to download mode. also, I see some differences in how you describe the root process. The update.zip is 633kb, I'll try to redownload it again... also, when I hit reinstall packages I am not prompted with yes/no, it just does it. It is a very quick process, and then it auto reboots the phone, but you said it should bring me back to recovery. I'm not sure why that would be happening
I'll mess around with this some more tonight. Hopefully I can nail this down. Sorry to be a PITA.

yah it should bring u back to green recovery after doing it twice! Yah that was my bad it asks u yes or no when flashing...lol!
Sent u pm!!!

Try Superoneclick root! That always works for me. When u reinstall packages and it reboots, clockwork usually has NOT been installed, I always Odin then install Tom Manager, flash Clockwork, then its off to the races!
Sent from my Htcclay's SuperVibeCM7 using XDA Premium App

Sorry Rom Manager not Tom, lol
Sent from my Htcclay's SuperVibeCM7 using XDA Premium App

I've been going over the suggestions all night. I feel like I'm following the instructions... not that they are even that difficult. I get the update.zip on my sd card, I boot in to stock recovery (blue) I reinstall packages, the phone reboots in to normal boot mode, I reboot in to recovery and reinstall packages again. I repeat this process multiple times hoping that one of these times I'm going to see a green recovery. I know it's all smooth sailing from there. I even recorded a short clip of me doing this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPreHj16UEU
Is it possible that i've tried so many different way of doing this that I have the phone in a weird state, and now these guides aren't working due to those previous attempts? I tried super1click... wound up getting an error "Getting mount path" ... "failed"

A simple way to check for root would be to download Terminal Emulator from the market and type in "su" without the quotations. If you get $ or permission denied you are not rooted. If you get a super user prompt followed by a # you should have root. Also which rom are you on now? If you are on stock Kb5 the recovery could be giving you some issues trying to flash the CWM recovery or at least for me it did. I suggest using ODIN to go back to JFD, then using super one click root (make sure your screen is set to not go off for the 10 or 30 minute time frame) I suggest this because I have had the "failure to mount" issues many times and it only seems to happen if my phone screen goes off while attempting the root. Once super one click completes, reboot your phone, install Rom manager, then reboot into recovery. You will have to select re install packages from there. The clockwork screen will be green as a few others have stated. I have attached an image below of clockwork, mine is orange since it's cm7 but yours will look similar,but green. From here just choose install from zip sd card, choose zip and flash away. Best of luck to you!
https://picasaweb.google.com/117659...?authkey=Gv1sRgCMbSsp7F4ZHWfg&feat=directlink

Is there something that removes the root access when you reboot the phone? I flashed the recovery for Galaxy S Vibrant (NOT Vibrant MTD) and was able to get to CWR (green), but sometimes when I go in to recovery it is back to blue... if I reinstall packages it takes me to green. Along those same lines I notice SU keeps asking me if the same application can have SuperUser permissions, so it seems like something is not sticking.

are you on 2.1 or 2.2? if you'r on 2.2 and use the update.zip it wont work you have to use superoneclick root ,happened to me too.

Thanks for responding. The phone was on 2.1 because I used ODIN to go back to JFD.
I've since sold the phone (didn't care for it much) and gotten a G2X (which I'm also not wild about). Thanks for all the help everyone!

[Q] Help - I'm going mad!!!

Hello,
I wonder if you could help me. I'm going mad here. I've broken my S4 and I wasn't even tinkering with it, really.
I've had it since May.. When I set it up, I rooted it, but haven't actually used the feature for anything. I've been running stock kernel and ROM ever since.
I've also had that widespread issue that people seem to get all the time with SD cards where every single time you turn the phone off and on again, it comes up with a warning that the SD card is damaged and only a manual mount will fix.
It happened yesterday but on this occasion, my card wouldn't mount.. It just said that it was damaged and refused to mount.And that's when the trouble started.. i restarted the phone on multiple occasions, did battery pulls but it was just behaving oddly.. the camera kept saying 'camera failed' before and after the pulls (the SD card was out of it by this point)..the phone was overheating.. it kept on crashing..etc
So I did a reluctant factory reset.. It crashed several times in doing so and has now restarted without going through the Google welcome setup. That's because there are no Google apps on it.. there is no playstore and a thing comes up in the notification area telling me i need to install Google services but then crashes when I tap on it. I've sideloaded Google Play but it tries to sign me in and then crashes because it needs this Google Services thing.
I can't update the software because it's rooted so it comes up with a warning saying I have modified my device and don't have access to updates. Which means I can't take it back under warranty.
Without the Play Store, I can't access Triangle Away (which I assume I would need before de-rooting even if I haven't installed a custom ROM or kernel, just to remove any trace of rooting) and I can't download CWM to try to flash a new ROM to try to fix it myself.
I must also say I don't have access to a Windows machine to do anything on.. Just my MacBook Pro.
It's 30 degrees outside, I have a useless phone on my hands and I'm baking up here as I lose my will to live. Please, if anybody can help, let me know.
Thanks so much in advance.

try reflashing to stock firmware using odin follow this http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=41072426
i dont think you will need this still .... if flashing back to stock firmware doesnt solve the whole problem try this....
here -- http://forum.xda-developers.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=2060897&d=1371888678
apk for TriangleAway v3.00 install it using file manager on your phone..
dont worry your phone can be unbricked * most probably * :good:

noobismyname said:
try reflashing to stock firmware using odin follow this http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=41072426
i dont think you will need this still .... if flashing back to stock firmware doesnt solve the whole problem try this....
here -- http://forum.xda-developers.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=2060897&d=1371888678
apk for TriangleAway v3.00 install it using file manager on your phone..
dont worry your phone can be unbricked * most probably * :good:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank so much for taking the time to help me out here. I'm gonna try all this.

philliplavelle said:
Thank so much for taking the time to help me out here. I'm gonna try all this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So, I'm stuck at the first hurdall.. I have no PC access.. Only my MacBook Pro.. I can't seem to find a working version of Odin for Mac.. the search on here brings up something called Heimdall.. Am I ok to use that?
UPDATE: Jeez, Heimdall looks complex! I don't think I can do it. It doesn't seem to want to play with the .tar files in the original FW I've downloaded and God knows how I'm supposed to extract it. This is way too complex for me. I am not exaggerating.. I have no access to a PC that I can use (other than my work one which has a strict IT policy stopping installation of anything on it.)
I'm looking around for Odin for Mac.. some places say it exists but I can't find an actual programme and I haven't a clue where to start with terminal. I'm a bit tech savvy - I'm not that much so though

@philliplavelle
Here's a link to a Dropbox folder containing an app called Sgs4 flasher install this, with this you can flash the PhilZ CWM recovery .tar file (also in the same folder) and I have also included Triangle Away by Chainfire.
http://db.tt/IUnFGpP6
Once you have PhilZ CWM installed you can then perform factory reset, wipe data and dalvik. If that doesn't work then go to mounts and storage and format system, data and cache. BEFORE YOU DO THIS MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A FLASHABLE ROM. ZIP FILE ON YOUR PHONES INTERNAL SD CARD, DO NOT FORMAT SD CARD.
then you can go to install zip from SD card and flash new ROM
Sent from my GT-I9505 using XDA Premium HD app

Obagleyfreer said:
@philliplavelle
Here's a link to a Dropbox folder containing an app called Sgs4 flasher install this, with this you can flash the PhilZ CWM recovery .tar file (also in the same folder) and I have also included Triangle Away by Chainfire.
http://db.tt/IUnFGpP6
Once you have PhilZ CWM installed you can then perform factory reset, wipe data and dalvik. If that doesn't work then go to mounts and storage and format system, data and cache. BEFORE YOU DO THIS MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A FLASHABLE ROM. ZIP FILE ON YOUR PHONES INTERNAL SD CARD, DO NOT FORMAT SD CARD.
then you can go to install zip from SD card and flash new ROM
Sent from my GT-I9505 using XDA Premium HD app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for this. The file I have of the FW was downloaded from the post the first person who answered quoted. On my Mac, it's not a .zip file, it's a folder with a .tar.md5 file and another ssl one or something. Am I not able to flash these? They are not .zip. Apologies if I'm being extremely stupid.
UPDATE: Flashed PhilzCWM - but the phone won't enter recovery mode. It boots up, and the little tiny blue writing at the top implies it is going into recovery mode, but it doesn't. Screen just sits at black and then it vibrates again and goes to normal boot.
UPDATE 2: And now it just sits on the black screen with the words: Samsung Galaxy S4 GT-I9505 and tiny blue writing in the top left and doesn't do anything.

philliplavelle said:
Thank you for this. The file I have of the FW was downloaded from the post the first person who answered quoted. On my Mac, it's not a .zip file, it's a folder with a .tar.md5 file and another ssl one or something. Am I not able to flash these? They are not .zip. Apologies if I'm being extremely stupid.
UPDATE: Flashed PhilzCWM - but the phone won't enter recovery mode. It boots up, and the little tiny blue writing at the top implies it is going into recovery mode, but it doesn't. Screen just sits at black and then it vibrates again and goes to normal boot.
UPDATE 2: And now it just sits on the black screen with the words: Samsung Galaxy S4 GT-I9505 and tiny blue writing in the top left and doesn't do anything.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just flash your phone with stock firmware and it is fine. Samsung still repair your phone for a fee. So if anything goes wrong take the phone to Samsung

Thanks for the response but as per the above post, I am unable to even flash anything because I can't get into recovery mode!

To go to recovery mode try two things:
Either press volume up+home and power and hold all 3, you will see the words 'recovery booting' keep all button held down still. Your phone will restart back at that i9505 screen and you'll see the blue words again, keep holding those buttons! You're fingers will be sore but this second time you should boot into recovery mode. Let go of buttons when in recovery
Or wait till you see blue writing the second time and when it appears wait 1 sec then release power button but still hold home ad volume up.
Sent from my GT-I9505 using XDA Premium HD app

Tried mobile Odin from the play store? Then flash stock firmware from sammobile?

philliplavelle said:
Thank you for this. The file I have of the FW was downloaded from the post the first person who answered quoted. On my Mac, it's not a .zip file, it's a folder with a .tar.md5 file and another ssl one or something. Am I not able to flash these? They are not .zip. Apologies if I'm being extremely stupid.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its not a meant to be flashed through recovery.... flash it using odin....donot extract it just flash it
Sent from my GT-I9500 using xda premium