If you did not make any backup of your EFS folder, and your IMEI is messed up, this could be your solution to recover your lost IMEI. NOTE THAT AT LEAST YOU MUST HAVE THE SHIPPED ORIGINAL EFS FOLDER ON YOUR PHONE ( even if you didn't make a backup of it yet and even it's messed up ) FOR THIS METHOD TO WORK
My history with my IMEI:
I flashed my phone with some ROMs, and I didn't backup my EFS folder before, then My SGS2 IMEI was changed to 004999010640000, and we know this is the fake IMEI that is assigned to the phone if the nv_data.bin file is messed up.
so I researched. searched all the forums and didn't find anything that could cure my phone's IMEI and set it to the original IMEI number. so I experimented and after some hours, I fixed my IMEI.
one thing that led me to the conclusion that " .nv_data " file is the thing that I need to fix the IMEI is that they share a very look alike name, and they have the same 2MB size.
PS: I restored my phone's firmware to it's original PDA, Phone and CSC, rooted it with CF-Root, and then done this procedures below
here is what I have done:
you must have:
-Root
-Root explorer for copying files to and from EFS folder
-Android SDK for the ADB tools or Terminal in your phone.
It is interesting to know that the IMEI is stored in ".nv_data" file in ORIGINAL SHIPPED EFS folder too, so you just have to do these:
1) make a copy of your EFS folder to your sdcard using root explorer and then make a backup of the folder to your computer [ to have another copy if you had to format sd card sometime ]
2) delete the EFS folder (BE SURE YOU HAVE BACKED IT UP IN A SAFE PLACE AS SAID IN STEP 1) from the root of your phone using root explorer.
3) reset the phone, after that, go to the root, and you can see that the EFS folder is still there, don't make any mistake, this EFS folder is new and generated by the android OS.
4) go to EFS folder using root explorer, and delete "nv_data.bin", "nv_data.bin.md5".
5) go to your backed up EFS folder on your sdcard, copy the "imei" folder to the EFS folder at the root of your phone, then again go to the backed up EFS folder at yout sdcard and copy the " .nv_data " file to your EFS folder at the root of your phone using root explorer, NOTE: the dot in first of nv_data is not a mistake, copy the ".nv_data" file.
6) make another copy of the ".nv_data" file in EFS folder in your phone, so you would have 2 copies of ".nv_data" in EFS folder
7) rename one of ".nv_data" files to "nv_data.bin" and another one to "nv_data.bin.bak"
8) at your PC open CMD at the ADB tool path, or run Terminal at your phone enter these commands:
adb shell ( use this command of you use ADB, if you're using terminal, skip this line )
su ( ALLOW THE MESSAGE CAME AT YOUR PHONE's DISPLAY BY SUPERUSER PROGRAM )
chown 1001:radio /efs/nv_data.bin
9) reset your phone.... after that you have your original IMEI. you can check your IMEI by dialing *#06#.
and DO IT ON YOUR OWN RISK.
and PLEASE MAKE A COPY OF THE ORIGINAL EFS FOLDER BEFORE DELETING IT. IT HAS IMPORTANT FILES IN IT.
and sorry for bad English.
Thank you very much for taking the time to write this helpful thread, but can you please tell us how your IMEI was changed to a fake one in the first place so that we don't have to go through all this?
maddada said:
Thank you very much for taking the time to write this helpful thread, but can you please tell us how your IMEI was changed to a fake one in the first place so that we don't have to go through all this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Flashing a rom may often be the only reason .
jje
Had you already made a copy of your EFS folder before your IMEI was changed?
kcaz said:
Had you already made a copy of your EFS folder before your IMEI was changed?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, I didn't had the back up before IMEI change.
To make a conclusion:
... You didn't backup your EFS folder.
... Your IMEI changed because of ROM flashings.
... You want to recover your IMEI.
For the purpose of making a backup of the EFS folder, how about simply copying the whole folder into a safe place?
There is an app called Nitrality (if my spelling is not wrong) which one of its various functions is to backup and restore the EFS folder. I've made a backup using this method and it seems that what the app actually did was simply copying the whole folder into a different directory. If it's simple like that, it seems that Root Explorer or similar app would be enough for that purpose.
Nevertheless, as there are numerous guides on this topic, all of which providing more complex methods, either using ADB or Terminal Emulator (I've made a backup using it as well, just in case, which resulted in the EFS being saved as tarball file), I have some doubts whether simply copying the whole folder would be enough for a eventual restoration. Would it?
angelomaldito said:
For the purpose of making a backup of the EFS folder, how about simply copying the whole folder into a safe place?
There is an app called Nitrality (if my spelling is not wrong) which one of its various functions is to backup and restore the EFS folder. I've made a backup using this method and it seems that what the app actually did was simply to copy the whole folder into a different directory. If it's simple like that, it seems that Root Explorer or similar app would be enough for that purpose.
Nevertheless, as there are numerous guides on this topic, all of which providing more complex methods, either using ADB or Terminal Emulator (i've made a backup using it as well, just in case, which resulted in the EFS being saved as tarball file), I have some doubts wheter simply copying the whole folder would be enough for a eventual restoration. Would it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just copying your EFS folder to a safe place is enough, using any method, but copying EFS folder messes up wih its permissions, so if you want to restore your nv_data.bin file, you must set the owner of the nv_data.bin using "chown" command in ADB like described in my post.
After all, I hope this method works for everyone, worked for me though.
Have copied the efs folder onto my PC.
At least i now know i have a backup, i can mess about with permissions there and then if it ever comes down to it!
I do not have the .nv_data file. onle *.bin or *.bak. Any suggestions or do I have to stick with the generic 00... IMEI? The whole procedure did not word for me, but thanks anyway.
By the way I think you do not need adb for that. You can execute the chmod command in a Terminal editor on the phone.
Schindler33 said:
I do not have the .nv_data file. onle *.bin or *.bak. Any suggestions or do I have to stick with the generic 00... IMEI? The whole procedure did not word for me, but thanks anyway.
By the way I think you do not need adb for that. You can execute the chmod command in a Terminal editor on the phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes you can use terminal in your phone, but as for information for the other users, you don't need to enter " adb shell " command in step 8, because you are already connected to the phone's kernel.
I think you deleted your original EFS folder that came preinstalled with your phone, because I had " .nv_data " file.
anyway, use " nv_data.bin.bak " instead of " .nv_data " and see what happens.
thanks for the update.
---------- Post added at 07:55 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:53 PM ----------
superleeds27 said:
Have copied the efs folder onto my PC.
At least i now know i have a backup, i can mess about with permissions there and then if it ever comes down to it!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thank you for your reply. but please don't play with EFS folder too much. the Android OS can't recover your IMEI if you lost it completely. I've been lucky with this method to restore my IMEI.
thanks.
Do you know if there are providers that block your
IMEI? I do not have any problems with my carrier now but I will soon go to the states, and I don't know wether my phone will get blocked there.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App
Im not messing with it at all. Basically just copied it onto my SD card and then onot my PC. That way i know i deffo have a backup if anything was to happen
Schindler33 said:
Do you know if there are providers that block your
IMEI? I do not have any problems with my carrier now but I will soon go to the states, and I don't know wether my phone will get blocked there.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know any providers. but as a guess, I think some providers MAY block an irregular IMEI because of their security policy. but it's just a guess.
vaskodogamagmail said:
No, I didn't had the back up before IMEI change.
To make a conclusion:
... You didn't backup your EFS folder.
... Your IMEI changed because of ROM flashings.
... You want to recover your IMEI.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't understand how you were able to apply the steps you describe to your case if you didn't have a backup of your original efs folder...
Help
My SGS 4G IMEI is corrupted showing some random symbols. Now I have taken backup of my EFS folder. EFS>root>afs>setings has .nv_state and nv_data.bin.
In IMEI folder there are only two files bt.txt and mps_code.dat.
Can it be repaired back to original IMEI? I don't have back up of my original EFS folder.
jerome.d said:
I don't understand how you were able to apply the steps you describe to your case if you didn't have a backup of your original efs folder...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I didn't had a backup of my original EFS folder BEFORE IMEI CHANGE.
after my IMEI has been changed to the fake one, then I backed up my EFS folder and do the steps in the first post.
---------- Post added at 05:22 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:13 PM ----------
s_d123 said:
My SGS 4G IMEI is corrupted showing some random symbols. Now I have taken backup of my EFS folder. EFS>root>afs>setings has .nv_state and nv_data.bin.
In IMEI folder there are only two files bt.txt and mps_code.dat.
Can it be repaired back to original IMEI? I don't have back up of my original EFS folder.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the Content of your IMEI folder is correct, we don't have any business with the IMEI folder's content.
but look at your EFS folder contents, find the file named " .nv_data " (no post-fix), then do the steps in the first post.
but NOTE: my SGS 2 is a GSM model, not the 4G model, so I cannot guarantee that this method works with your phone too as it did for me.
thank you
Works in galaxy s too?
Thanks.
Hi...
I don't understand very well what you mean by
NOTE THAT AT LEAST YOU MUST HAVE THE SHIPPED ORIGINAL EFS FOLDER ON YOUR PHONE
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you mean that we should have the efs folder with the sud-folder and files structure as it was when the IMEI was not corrupted???
I.E.
/efs (dir)
nv_data.bin (file)
.imei (hidden file)
.nv_data.bak (hidden file)
.nv_data.bak.md5 (hidden file)
nv_data.bin.md5 (file)
nv_state (file)
/.android (hidden folder)
/imei (folder)
bt.txt (file)
mps_code.dat (file)
nvmac.info (file)
Another issue i'm facing is the fact that I can't do a chown radio:radio because i get the error that user/group radio does not exist...
And would this work for SGS I?
Like others I am confused.
I flashed a ROM night before last.
I ended up with a phone that wouldn't work and the fake IMEI number.
By some chance I was able to get my phone working again with HC-kTool by restoring a efs.tar file -- I have a number of efsxxxx.tar.gz files in a folder called EFS_BACKUP on my sdcard (I don't how it got there but there are various dates of these files).
Now my phone works with data on the ATT network but my IMEI number is still the fake one.
SOOOO -- if I DON"T have an original backup of my EFS folder (or at least one I'm sure of) HOW do I restore my origianl IMEI ???
Thanks for this!
I hope some of you guys can help me, didn't find any similar to my problem.
I am not able to restore a TWRP nandroid via TWRP and a CWM nandroid via CWM anymore.
The backup finishes correctly in both of the recovery systems, but when I want to restore it they don't show up.
I can't access the folders sdcard/clockworkmod/ or sdcard/twrp/backup to copy these nandroids to my pc.
I tried it via MTP: sdcard shows up but the directories aren't listed in my structure. A reboot doesn't solve it(either PC nor cellphone).
In Root Explorer the folders also don't show up.
I tried clicking through every folder I found when I was browsing my file structure on my cellphone.
Then I found a folder /mnt/shell/emulated/TWRP/ and /mnt/shell/emulated/clockworkmod/ where I finally found my missing files.
I can't see these folders via MTP, only via Root Explorer. So I tried to copy them to the root of my sdcard.
That took some time, no errors when copying etc.
The folders are not there. They just appear in the /mnt/shell/ folders mentioned above.
What do I need to do to restore my nandroids? What did I do wrong?
I recently flashed the stock android lollipop tgz file on my nexus 7. I rooted it, and then wanted to restore my nandroid backup. But, the backup does not appear in the recovery menu. I couldn't also copy the backup files to the tarp folder (no such folder existed, and when I tried making one using es file explorer or root explorer, it gave an error message.) How do I fix this problem. Please help guys I am sort of new to the forum[emoji16]
Same problem here. It does show up but it's a 0 bytes file last modified in 1970 (start of unixtime)
This is on my Nexus 4 though. Flashed manually with official images from Google and rooted with SuperSU.
- make sure you're using the latest twrp recovery for your device. get the latest img file for grouper (nexus 7) and mako (nexus 4) here: http://techerrata.com/browse/twrp2
- if you look around the forums, you'll find that people have had similar issues since lollipop. forget about trying to access twrp folder in android/es explorer for now (BTW droiderrr18 is probably getting the error when trying to create the folder because it's already there, just doesn't look like a folder and can't be opened, it looks like the 0 byte file looking thing LooieENG mentioned).
What you want to do instead is boot into twrp recovery and connect to your computer. you should be able to access your folders and files in MTP connection from Windows and move to your old backup that way. if not you can always use adb push command. the backup folder for twrp is storage/sdcard0/TWRP/BACKUPS
you can also do a new backup and find it, then move your old backup there to restore.
(side note: twrp also has its own file manager where you can see and if necessary manipulate your files, but be sure you know what your doing in there)
dtg7 said:
- make sure you're using the latest twrp recovery for your device. get the latest img file for grouper (nexus 7) and mako (nexus 4) here: http://techerrata.com/browse/twrp2
- if you look around the forums, you'll find that people have had similar issues since lollipop. forget about trying to access twrp folder in android/es explorer for now (BTW droiderrr18 is probably getting the error when trying to create the folder because it's already there, just doesn't look like a folder and can't be opened, it looks like the 0 byte file looking thing LooieENG mentioned).
What you want to do instead is boot into twrp recovery and connect to your computer. you should be able to access your folders and files in MTP connection from Windows and move to your old backup that way. if not you can always use adb push command. the backup folder for twrp is storage/sdcard0/TWRP/BACKUPS
you can also do a new backup and find it, then move your old backup there to restore.
(side note: twrp also has its own file manager where you can see and if necessary manipulate your files, but be sure you know what your doing in there)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the same problem. I need to access its data.f2fs.winxxx files for restoring my backed up apps using Nandroid Manager, which cannot access the folder, even though the original folder (/data/media/0/TWRP) can be accessed from ROOT EXPLORER and TWRP recovery file system
Nandroid Manager looks for only /sdcard/TWRP directory i guess, thus is unable to get backup storage location. Changing the Storage location in Nandroid Manager also has no effect.
I need to restore my backup apps. Please help if u can!
So I rooted my device, hten followed a guide, that Instructed me to replace two files in the system/framework folder, services.jar and services.odex, i backed them up, but like a fool i backed them up in the same folder, which i can't access, I can restore from CWM and i was actually hoping someone had a system recovery that i could borrow, since i can't seem to figure out how to change the files back within my cwm backup.
callen2011 said:
So I rooted my device, hten followed a guide, that Instructed me to replace two files in the system/framework folder, services.jar and services.odex, i backed them up, but like a fool i backed them up in the same folder, which i can't access, I can restore from CWM and i was actually hoping someone had a system recovery that i could borrow, since i can't seem to figure out how to change the files back within my cwm backup.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay, slow down. You can fix this. There are only a few steps:
1. Download the stock odexed rom. You can find it here: https://www.androidfilehost.com/?fid=23622183712466565
2. Extract the stock rom.
3. Navigate to the system/framework folder
4. Copy services.jar and services.odex to your phone (download folder or anywhere on your sdcard is fine)
5. Since you are rooted, you can use a root file explorer to copy those files to your system/framework folder on your phone. Locate the two files you copied from the stock odex rom on your computer. Paste these into system framework, and overwrite the two existing files (you can use ES file manager or other root browser to accomplish this)
That's it! There are many other ways to do this, but this is probably the simplest.
I'd just flash a custom rom with hotspot though
Hey folks,
I have GT-I9300I S3 Neo Duos. I brought it from Russia and i moved to India i don't have to unlock the device as its working without any problem for last 2years.
Is there anyway to repair the IMEI of my device a day before it was ok .
Device was lagging so i Restore to its original setting & after restart my device IMEI is gone for good.
Thanks in advance
Search for imei changer on playstore...
There r Xposed modules also to change write a new imei number
sahilkhan9557 said:
Search for imei changer on playstore...
There r Xposed modules also to change write a new imei number
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
actually i tried to put it via xposed but nothing worked or may be i not doing it the right way.
both of my sim are not showing.
if u can tell me the right procedure to work on Xposed.
thanks
mukulkas143 said:
actually i tried to put it via xposed but nothing worked or may be i not doing it the right way.
both of my sim are not showing.
if u can tell me the right procedure to work on Xposed.
thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
U need a root explorer app and of course root! Also
The steps are little bit tricky...
Step 1
Make a copy of your EFS folder on your sdcard using root explorer and then backup to your computer [ to have another copy if you have to format the sd card sometime ]
Step 2
Delete the EFS folder (Make sure you have the BACKUP in a safe place as mentioned in STEP 1) from the root of your phone using root explorer.
Step 3
Do a Factory Reset. After that, navigate to the root directory of your phone.
Step 4
Go to EFS folder using root explorer; delete “nv_data.bin” and the “nv_data.bin.md5” files.
Step 5
Go to your backed up EFS folder on your sd card, copy the “IMEI” folder to the EFS folder at the root of your phone, then again go to the backed up EFS folder in your sd card and copy the ” .nv_data ” file to your EFS folder at the root of your phone using root explorer.
NOTE: the dot in first of nv_data is not a mistake, copy the “.nv_data” file.
Step 6
Make another copy of the “.nv_data” file in EFS folder in your phone, so you would have 2 copies of “.nv_data” in EFS folder.
Step 7
Rename one of “.nv_data” files to “nv_data.bin” and another one to “nv_data.bin.bak”
Step 8
Open Command Prompt in your Windows PC (Terminal for all you Linux users) at the ADB tool path, or run Terminal at your phone enter these commands:
adb shell (use this command if you use ADB, if you’re using terminal, skip it )
su ( When the option comes up allow the superuser to access the file system by clicking “grant” on the phone screen )
chown 1001:radio /efs/nv_data.bin
Step 9
Reset your phone…. after that you have your original IMEI. you can check your IMEI by dialling *#06#.
You have successfully recovered
It seems to me the nv_data files are not present in the efs folder.
I was just going through steps but I didn't find these files.
I have backed up the files before flashing the phone using the twrp & Samsung tool box. But in both of the backups there is no nv_data files available. N currently in efs folder there is no no_data file.
the dot in front of .nv_data means they are hidden. you probably won't see them
mukulkas143 said:
I have backed up the files before flashing the phone using the twrp & Samsung tool box. But in both of the backups there is no nv_data files available. N currently in efs folder there is no no_data file.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try to Enable "show hidden folders" first
sahilkhan9557 said:
Try to Enable "show hidden folders" first
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yeah i have done that but still no good as there is no nv_data as well as no bak file.
Now i have no clue what to do next....
Tried xposed module & Imei changer by xposed.
Now both the sims showing the same IMEI n both are showing no service.
can anyone help...
Thanks in advance.
you could try flashing a fimware for india. maybe that could help.