Hello Everyone,
I like most people upgraded my Bell i9000m from Kies to Froyo, only to have it bricked with the "can't mount /dev/block/mmcblk0" error at the recovery screen during boot-up. I upgraded it last week, where it took the firmware from JL8 to I believe JK3 or JL8 (not sure at this point).
Unfortunately I bought my phone from some guy on Kijiji using it on Rogers, so I doubt Bell is going to handle the return or give me any love
Anyways, I spent many days long days trying to get it back working, and I found a work-around that requires using an external SD card. and going back to Android 2.1 ECLAIR
Steps (This is what I did):
1. Install JK3 stock ROM via Odin (with re-partition at the pit on samfirmware.com, didn't update boot loader)
2. Install K13c speedmod kernel via Odin
3. Insert 16GB External SD card
3. Boot phone to Froyo
4. Reboot to recovery console and wipe data/everything
5. Install JL8 stock ROM via Odin (no re-partition, didn't update boot loader)
6. Phone will boot-up into recovery mode and automatically do wipe data
7. Phone will boot into ECLAIR
8. You will see internal storage of 1.85GB free.
9. Install Market apps - I installed twitter
10. If you remove external SD card, twitter will crash.
11. If you reboot phone without external SD card, you will get rebooting logo
12. If you put external SD card back it, phone boots!
This wasn't a fluke - I was able to reproduce if I flashed other ROMS (XXJPY or similar) instead of JK3.
Background:
Even though the phone can't boot with stock ROM, if I install JK3 ROM + speedmod K13b speedmod kernel, I can get the phone to boot to Froyo, but there is no internal storage (it shows up as 0 bytes available). So you can't install Market apps, and therefore is useless. I can't even mount the external SD card under the Settings app!
So I tried to log in the Froyo device using adb shell, and what I found is that internal SD card is no longer showing up under linux, and the OS thinks that the external SD card is the internal one. This is probably why the external SD card can no longer be mounted.
I figured out that the external SD card shows up as /dev/block/mmcblk0!!! WHich is the same block device as the internal SD card...so I'm thinking if I reboot into recovery and format SD card, how come it's not working? I even tried to partition the external SD card with android partitions, but still nothing!
I think Froyo is 'smarter' in that it knows the external SD card is not internal (whether it's grepping the device-info for manufacture data, don't know).
But if I go to JL8 Eclair, the Android 2.1 is 'dumb' enough that is doesn't see the difference between internal and external, so formats the external to look like internal.
Once I boot to ECLAIR, the external SD card is greyed out under Settings app, but I get 1.85GB internal storage!! OK I can't access the whole 16GB of the card, but at least my phone is not toast.
I can go ahead an install apps, which will install to the external SD card. But if you remove the external SD card, the phone will no longer boot. If I remove the card and apps are running, apps will crash (case in point: I tried twitter).
It will be nice if others can re-produce my findings. But for now my Samsung Galaxy S has been saved!
Kashif Shaikh
this sounds promising, can some more people confirm this solution to use External SD to imitate internal SD?
It worked for me as well! I have i9000M version, with internal SD failure. I'm also using 8GB external microSD card. I tried several 2.2 Android firmwares - specifically I9000XXJPY, I9000XXJPU. With update to speedmod-kernel I'm able to load device, but it doesn't see neither internal nor external SD card. So I couldn't install any applications, upload data or even shot with camera.
Based on this thread, on top of XXJPY with speedmod kernel I uploaded I9000XWJM8 firmware (Android 2.1) with Odin 1.7, no repartitioning. It worked right away - device loaded and I can see ~2GB of program storage (assume they storage is located on my external card). Both internal and external cards are shown as "Not available" in settings. I can install applications now, which made "brick" a bit better then it was before. Unfortunately, I still can't upload any data, i.e. a book for FB2Reader. And can't make a photo with my camera. And it's now Android 2.1, which looks slower.
First of all - thanks for the advice! It would be good to have this topic "sticked" and distributed - there might be other guys with no chance to repair phone under warranty.
Secondly - if someone can do a "hack" for Android 2.2 firmware so it can use external SD card for program storage specifically for I9000M device? And it would be terrific, if the remaining part of SD card (or at least some fixed size, like 4 GB) can be mounted as storage, so the data like music or photo or books can be uploaded.
I'm able to connect to the phone using adb tool, but I can't find a folder on the device where I can upload (push) a file to. I'd like to upload a book to the device so I can finally use it as a reader. I tried all "root" folders (adb shell -> ls) and all don't work. It says "No such file or directory" or "Permission denied".
Is there a folder on the device which I can push file to using adb tool? Maybe somewhere where applications are installed to, i.e. Program Storage location. Please help!
Anyone else following this thread with I9000M with internal card dead?
This isn't much of a fix. This will only work with phones with slightly corrupted (and not fully corrupt) sdcards; eventually your phone will probably stop booting with this "fix" as well. You're going to eventually loose some of the other partitions such as stl10 to corruption, and then you're screwed.
The OP's phone is corrupt in a specific way that allows this - and there are various procedures that will get your phone to a semi-bootable state if you only have a partially dead sdcard. Like the OP said - just installing speedmod kernel with an external SD in will allow your phone to boot, for example (I got my dead sd i9000m to boot froyo with the speedmod kernel, and others had reported the same as well). Then if you're technical enough you can switch around your mount configs and get it to work without the internal mmc device.
It doesn't matter if you bought your phone off kijiji or craigslist 2nd hand; send it back to samsung (or go thru futuretel or a similar provider). No receipt is going to be required (if they ask... just say you can't find it). Products like this will always be repaired under warranty based on manufacture date code.
Send your phone back; don't try to fix it - it's a hardware problem with the mmc connection.
Unfortunately, I'm 10 thousand miles away from Canada with no chance getting there. If I had option to send it back for repair I would do it right away. So I'm searhing an option to use this semi-brick as much as possible.
My i9000M phone has totally corrupted internal SD card - it failed two months ago and I tried all options for it reformatting / remounting / whatever. With speedmod kernel it loads even without external sd card. It just allows loading without internal storage - not use external card to mimic internal. Unfortunately, it doesn't see any storage then - no internal, no program, no external card. So it just loads.
With Android 2.1 and external card it loads _and_ see 2GB of program storage (on external card). It doesn't see any other storage - so I can't upload any file. But at least I can install applications.
I'll try this solution after buy a Microsd card. My i9000M internal sdcard dead in two days ago after fixlag use ext2 partitions.
hi all. i didn't find JL8 stock ROM for sumfireware.com.where can find it ?
i flash my phone step by step as top post.
but after flash 2.1 rom with insert SD card , my Phone still cannot boot into ECLAIR .
who can help me? thanks. my phone can boot to 2.2 system without internal card.
SHINE.YANG said:
hi all. i didn't find JL8 stock ROM for sumfireware.com.where can find it ?
i flash my phone step by step as top post.
but after flash 2.1 rom with insert SD card , my Phone still cannot boot into ECLAIR .
who can help me? thanks. my phone can boot to 2.2 system without internal card.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Samsung or bell can help you. Send your phone in for repair....
for same reason .i cannot send my phone to bell. so i very want to know find JL8 rom to let me phone canbe use . please help.
HI guys . thanks for your help.
actually ,every I9000 2.1 rom CAN use this solution. just need your external SD same as your phone internal SD size. if you are 8G internal SD , you must use 8G external SD card with 2.1 ROM . you can get 1.85G system space.
I've just tried XWJVB firmware - stock Android 2.3.3 - and it also works! Phone loads without flashing custom kernel.
I wonder, if there is a way to upload any file to the phone - so I can put there a book and read it.
does this mean this workaround still can't recover the files that were originally in my internal sd?
Nope. the internal sd is gone, probably forever.
workaround allows running the phone and having 2GB out of microsd card available for programs storage. it allows downloading and installing application from app market. still, you don't have other storage - can't upload a file or even make a photo with camera.
very wierd. if anyone would suggest a workaround to upload file to the device - even using any hacked way, like from abd or whatever
I flashed custom Kernel (CF-Root-XW_XEE_JVB-v3.1-CWM3RFS) over latest JVB. The device is now rooted.
Using adb tool I was able to push fb2 file to device - specifically to dev folder. (adb push file.fb2 /dev). Using Moon Reader I can open and read it! That's terrific after long time of finding a way of doing this.
Unfortunately, Moon reader is the only app that works. FBReader tries to open the book but fails with writing cache to sd card (which is broken).
This is a most useful post, thank you. I get the phone working on 2.2 which is great but I am unable to find the JL8 stock ROM, I locked for it everywhere but could not find it, would someone please indicate where to find it...
raullugo said:
This is a most useful post, thank you. I get the phone working on 2.2 which is great but I am unable to find the JL8 stock ROM, I locked for it everywhere but could not find it, would someone please indicate where to find it...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why would you need old stock ROM?
Just flashed XXJVP stock ROM to my I9000M. This is Android 2.3.4. Taken from http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1011901
Flashed CF-Root-XX_OXA_JVP-v3.7-CWM3RFS on top of it for rooting
Phone works
It needed some tricks this time to upload a file to deivce. For some reason all folders appear to be read only, including dev. So I used abd shell command to change folder permissons
adb shell
$ su
# chmod 777 /data
then exit and
adb push file.fb2 /data
File is stored and is not lost on reboot, like it was for dev folder
stuck on step 6..
first of all, this is a great post for those who still stuck with a dead i9000m and no help from Sammy!
Steps (this is how i followed)
1. fine
2. fine
3. fine (i inserted a 16gb Sandisk class 2 in FAT32 format)
3a. i couldn't 'boot to froyo' i'm not sure if you mean fully boot into the OS or not, but it was in a bootloop
4. i was able to get to step 4 somehow to the recovery (3e) and wipe data (there was still the cant mount error when wiping data but no error when wiping cache partition - is that normal?)
5. i cant find JL8 but others here suggested any other 2.1 ROM works so i tried JM8 (no repart/no update bootloader)
6. the phone did do something other than boot loop! (first time wow!) it was trying to copy something but it didn't go all the way through.. there was an error saying 'efs format failed /dev/block/mmcblk0p2' after/during 'coping media files'.
- could it be the wrong format going in (should it be something other than FAT32?)
- could it be that class 2 was not the right class (no fast enough??)
- the copying process stopped after it finished copying media files.. (the micro sd card did have some media files
- there was 2 folders Samsung folder (with media files) and svox (i think that was the name of the folder)
can anyone shed some light on where i did wrong, thanks everyone, love this forum btw.
pavbul said:
Why would you need old stock ROM?
Just flashed XXJVP stock ROM to my I9000M. This is Android 2.3.4. Taken from http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1011901
Flashed CF-Root-XX_OXA_JVP-v3.7-CWM3RFS on top of it for rooting
Phone works
It needed some tricks this time to upload a file to deivce. For some reason all folders appear to be read only, including dev. So I used abd shell command to change folder permissons
adb shell
$ su
# chmod 777 /data
then exit and
adb push file.fb2 /data
File is stored and is not lost on reboot, like it was for dev folder
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for the instructions, tha only reason to look for the jl8 rom is to follow the instructions to the letter. I trying your method right now, thank you for taking the time to give me another shot at my SGS, I will let you know how it goes
I rooted my A500 and installed Honeyvillian along with the kernel for it. Kernel verison is 2.6.36.4 1.0+ build is 1/05
Everything was find until my son started messing with it and it appears that he did a factory reset. Still have root and the above kernel. Can no longer see my external SD at all no even though it showed before. Even tried the sd format program listed in various threads but no go. Have tried 4 other sd cards and it can not see them either.
I would like to go back to stock but without being able to access the sd what are my options?
boot into recovery
Have you tried to get back into recovery.can you use Acer recovery installer to reinstall cmr.most likely your SD card will be available there.
But im no expert.
Good luck
Can get into recovery just fine but still no sd available.
ok I grabbed Acer_A500_1.139.04_4.010.40_COM_GEN1_1310549093367_fc47717e.zip from another thread and put it on my thumb drive and recovery was able to see it. Now showing kernel version 2.6.36.3 and the above build number.
Can someone confirm that this is correct for stock? Appears root is now gone but still can not see sd card.
uk version
The current us Verdun ends in.13
Am I the only one having this issue?? I went ahead and installed the 3.2 version of HoneyVillain and no instead of seeing unavailable under SD card, it now says Mount SD card. Have a total of three SD cards that use to work but now none do.
What are the correct permission settings for the external SD? Mine is showing -------.
Short story: Was running the latest (as of Dec. 4-5) ICS ROM(s) - the ones with the SD card bug - and my SD card appears to be shot.
Long story:
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I had been using the various betas of the ICS ROMs since I noticed Tytung's first Alpha was out and the ROMs had been improving rapidly. I guess when the headphones issue was fixed it caused problems with reading the SD Card which was documented and seems to be well known.
The constant SD messages didn't bother me much, but eventually I noticed launch icons missing and went to the Market to re-download one of the apps I use (I've been flashing so much, I wasn't sure which apps I didn't bother restoring). The Market app tells me I need a SD Card to install apps, so I just figured it's just the instability of the sd card mount for this latest batch of ROMs and I'll flash an older ROM off my SD card when I get the chance. I also noticed the messages started saying I inserted a blank SD Card but I brushed it off (couldn't look into it at the time).
I get home and find out Clockwork refuses to mount my card which means I can't easily wipe and install something else, so I switch to USB storage mode in CWM to simply transfer a ROM from my PC and my PC only sees ~30mb of my 16GB SD! I initially thought it was just some corruption but I tried all sorts of format and partitioning programs and nothing recognizes more than 30mb of space and none have even been able to format that little space that's showing.
I've been Googling for a while and came up with nothing I haven't already tried so I finally decided to post here. Is there any hope for my SD card? Being the holiday season and for once I've got most of my Christmas shopping done early, I'd rather not waste the little money I have left to run out and buy another SD card right away if it's not necessary.
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Does anyone have any ideas how I could fix this? I'd greatly appreciate it because I now stuck with WM6.5 and realize how much I didn't miss it for the past year
This is also a heads up for testers to be sure to upgrade their ROM ASAP (or at least to the kernel that fixes this) if they're on a ICS ROM with an SD card bug. I'm not complaining - I know this is a part of testing early builds (please ignore my sorry post count; I've been flashing for quite a while) - but there's no reason for others to go through this issue if it can be helped.
Have you tried EaseUS?
Sent from my LG-VM670 using Tapatalk
Yes,
Try Easus Partition Manager and/or MiniTool Partition Manager.
They can help but you will have to format your SD card I think.
Good luck!
I had the same problem. I plugged my card into a USB reader after it working error free, it then said it needed to be formatted and was only showing 30mb. After formatting repeatedly it still doesn't read. I haven't retired any positioning software but i think the card may just be done with.
Sent from my HD2 using XDA App
probably you'll need a replacement.
have you tried the SD formatter? there's like a 0.000001% chance it will work in your case, but why not try it?
I've gone through 3 nook colors by now because the recharger cable continuously breaks and best buy refuses to simply replace the cable and instead replaces the ENTIRE SYSTEM (I guess it makes sense from their point of view), so I'm pretty experienced when it comes to rooting and un-rooting/factory resetting the nook, and when I received my latest one I decided to try a dual boot after being slightly impressed by the 1.4 update and enticed by the numerous comics now available on the nook store.
I used this method manually rooting the nook after repartitioning the internal data to the pre-blue dot packages, and finally booted up my old backup through a CWM flashable sd card, then unmounting the sd card while in CWM and then mounting my data SD card. Everything was working really well, and I was very pleased with my nook and it's improved performance and accessibility to the much better stock reading software, while still being able to access kindle and other games
But then, after leaving it alone for a couple of days, i booted it up to play some fruit ninja, and suddenly my nook was unable to read the sd card. It said the card needed to be formatted, and that unreadable file types were found, and oddly enough the stock OS said this as well. Then after a couple of reboots, it could read the SD card just fine. But then, many apps started either freezing on boot, or immediately closing on startup. I tried to boot into CWM recovery, but I kept getting an installation failed screen, and after flashing CWM i was finally able to boot into it just fine.
My only problem now is occasionally apps will again close or freeze, and occasionally the system will reboot by itself or simply force shutdown. Also, it says that my 8gb data SD card has no free space which conflicts with my 385 mb when I plug it into my computer. I'm a little confused.
If anyone could help with my app problems, that would be much appreciated.
Also, Can someone explain the differences between the Internal Storage, /mnt/emmc, and /mnt/usbdisk. I'm confused on what their purpose is considering their different data, and where the dual boot roms are stored.
Thanks and Cheers
-Meaty
You have mentioned about "dual boot".
What is the other ROM you are running now?
What is your uSD brand?
Hi everyone,
I have a S5 klte with Samsung SD card formatted as Internal Storage.
Yesterday, I thought I will update my Slim rom 0.6 to the newest version 1.3. After flashing the rom, wiping cache and dalvik cache phone stuck on boot animation. Now, the stupid thing I've done was to push "Fix permissions" in TWRP recovery. After that, I was able to boot my phone, but it lacked most of the apps which were installed previously, none of the google services would work, I could see all the pictures/videos in my gallery, however. When I tried to backup those to my PC, I could see only a small part of it. Tried flashing previous rom, different gaps, wiping cache - nothing.
Then, I thought, I will do a regular wipe, since I didn't cared much about lost apps. From the experience I knew, that wiping does not touch media stored in internal storage. So I wiped my phone and restarted (with old slim 0.6 flashed before).
Now the phone works great, but there is HUGE problem. All internal storage is gone including pictures and videos and Samsung card, which was formatted as internal storage, now says "Unsupported card" and asks me to format it either to external or internal.
What could I do? Is there any way to "re-link" the internal card so that I could see its contents? Or I should use some file recovery software and see what I can get?
Thank you in advance for the help!
Did you try popping out your SD card out of your phone and using an SD card reader to get data off it onto a pc
Sent from my iPhone 4s using Tapatalk I also own a g900v
Well, I am using Mac for the moment, so when I try to connect sd card to it the notification pops up, that drive is not accessible, or something similar.
Tomorrow I will be able to try it on PC, but I believe nothing will change. The biggest problem is that sd card is formatted as internal storage and linked with phone's internal storage. I do not know these inner mechanics, but I believe that I need to somehow recreate that link.
Hmm your probably right good luck trying to fix it
Sent from my iPhone 4s using Tapatalk I also own a g900v
Sadly, there is not much of info due to complexity of this issue. Still waiting for at least some hints what should I do...
UPDATE: PC does not respond to the sd card at all, there is no sound, no drive, nothing.