Database Users

[Q] Can IMEI be changed?

I want to buy a new HD2.The seller says he has some hd2 produced in June and it can be inquired on htc website by imei.
Can IMEI be changed ?
I worry it's refurbished
thanks

zero2zero said:
I want to buy a new HD2.The seller says he has some hd2 produced in June and it can be inquired on htc website by imei.
Can IMEI be changed ?
I worry it's refurbished
thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
not easily and not legally, but it can be done.

orangekid said:
not easily and not legally, but it can be done.
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Click to collapse
agreed, its not easy but it is possible

is there a way to know if it has been changed?

zero2zero said:
is there a way to know if it has been changed?
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Click to collapse
I SERIOUSLY doubt it's been changed. Well the box should have it as well as if you remove the battery it should say it on the back of the phone, so the guy would have had to hard program it into the phone and also changed out inside the phone.
Don't worry about it.

Maybe I think too much
I'm from China. In China many 'refurbishers' specialize in these works.
I need to examine the whole phone and I wish I won't be unfortunate.

zero2zero said:
Maybe I think too much
I'm from China. In China many 'refurbishers' specialize in these works.
I need to examine the whole phone and I wish I won't be unfortunate.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Check to make sure the IMEI on the back of the phone under the battery is the same one listed in settings > about.
Also if you got a box make sure that it is the same IMEI as on the phone.
If all three are the same it is very highly doubtful that it was changed.

Thank a lot Carphone Warehouse

Thanks a lot Carphone Warehouse.
Well,
I lost my my imei for the default one of 0004 etc. Yes, it was my fault for messing around with the efs folder and not knowing what I was doing. I did not think it was that easy to semi-brick a phone with no known way of getting my imei back, seeing- apparently-it is hard coded in the phone. No imei = no phone calls, as most of you will know. Anyway, I thought that if I put stock ROM on, it would rectify the problem. Ha! Forget it. After that I used a jig to reset the count. I then rang Samsung to tell them that my phone crashed whilst on kies update. Oooo, Liar! They told me to take it to CPWH as they are the repairers. What? I took the phone to them. They said they had had a few sgs2's in with the same problem- I wonder why???-any, they said they would repair the fault...NICE!
Went to collect the repaired phone, repaired my arse, they just shoved the stock ROM on; they are bright, just like me. Took the phone across to their engineer and he said it would have to go back to Samsung. Did it ? No. They said that Samsung refused to repair it because.......it had no imei. Lol. Liars. They did not even ring me up, like they said they would, to say what was happening or if it had been repaired. Well, I collected my brickette from them and took the drinks-mat home.
I rang Samsung and told them what had happened. They said to send the phone to their Glasgow repairers- Regenersis. The phone has been returned to me now . Imei is correct but they had to repair the phone by installing a part......Eh?
So, you can get the phone's proper imei back but do not take it to CPWH, they know nothing about imei's.
I cannot beleive that it is so easy to ****-up ones phone just by deleting the efs folder. Since then, the Revolution ROM guy, Leo, has added emei backup to the addons in his ROM market app.
Thanks Leo.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA Premium App

inkyadrian said:
Thanks a lot Carphone Warehouse.
Well,
I lost my my imei for the default one of 0004 etc. Yes, it was my fault for messing around with the efs folder and not knowing what I was doing. I did not think it was that easy to semi-brick a phone with no known way of getting my imei back, seeing- apparently-it is hard coded in the phone. No imei = no phone calls, as most of you will know. Anyway, I thought that if I put stock ROM on, it would rectify the problem. Ha! Forget it. After that I used a jig to reset the count. I then rang Samsung to tell them that my phone crashed whilst on kies update. Oooo, Liar! They told me to take it to CPWH as they are the repairers. What? I took the phone to them. They said they had had a few sgs2's in with the same problem- I wonder why???-any, they said they would repair the fault...NICE!
Went to collect the repaired phone, repaired my arse, they just shoved the stock ROM on; they are bright, just like me. Took the phone across to their engineer and he said it would have to go back to Samsung. Did it ? No. They said that Samsung refused to repair it because.......it had no imei. Lol. Liars. They did not even ring me up, like they said they would, to say what was happening or if it had been repaired. Well, I collected my brickette from them and took the drinks-mat home.
I rang Samsung and told them what had happened. They said to send the phone to their Glasgow repairers- Regenersis. The phone has been returned to me now . Imei is correct but they had to repair the phone by installing a part......Eh?
So, you can get the phone's proper imei back but do not take it to CPWH, they know nothing about imei's.
I cannot beleive that it is so easy to ****-up ones phone just by deleting the efs folder. Since then, the Revolution ROM guy, Leo, has added emei backup to the addons in his ROM market app.
Thanks Leo.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA Premium App
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Not the correct forum at all for a rant, but have a hunt around in the general forum - there's a post from a chap who had the same problem; I'm prtty sure he ended up being able to re-generate the correct IMEI for his phone by pushing a parts of the /EFS folder from another person's SGS2?
If I can find the link I'll post it here.
Edit: Found it: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=15666725#post15666725

IMEI can be recovered without having the efs folder - Do a search for Odia super dev thread

nofam said:
Not the correct forum at all for a rant, but have a hunt around in the general forum - there's a post from a chap who had the same problem; I'm prtty sure he ended up being able to re-generate the correct IMEI for his phone by pushing a parts of the /EFS folder from another person's SGS2?
If I can find the link I'll post it here.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1103357

Questions or Problems Should Not Be Posted in the Development Forum
Please Post in the Correct Forums and Read THIS
Moving to General

This is a clear example of not reading anything at all.. lol
glad you got it sorted.

You can't recover your own imei without a backup, using someone else's efs folder will land you with the generic imei or the other person's, and changing the phones imei is illegal.
Best bet if you don't have a backup is to get it back to samsung asap.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium

veyka said:
You can't recover your own imei without a backup, using someone else's efs folder will land you with the generic imei or the other person's, and changing the phones imei is illegal.
Best bet if you don't have a backup is to get it back to samsung asap.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium
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Click to collapse
Have you even read the thread?
Yes you can

Northern-Loop said:
Have you even read the thread?
Yes you can
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Click to collapse
I have read the thread, and unless something changed they didn't get there own imei back but the generic one!
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium

veyka said:
I have read the thread, and unless something changed they didn't get there own imei back but the generic one!
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium
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I was that person and yes my imei was restored without backups of the efs folder
It's possible to restore from the Samsung generic number to your own.
Sent from my GT-I9100

Northern-Loop said:
I was that person and yes my imei was restored without backups of the efs folder
It's possible to restore from the Samsung generic number to your own.
Sent from my GT-I9100
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Oh, wrong thread, I got mixed up, my mistake
Of cause you *can* restore your IMEI, but as in that thread you need to find someone with the know how to edit the correct files, and unless you are lucky, you wont find someone.
If not in part due to legality issues.
Theres still no easy way for the average user to fix there imei without a backup so I stand by my comments

ok, i'm curious. if you copied someone elses efs folder, have you essentially cloned their phone then? you wont get their calls as that's down to the sim card right?
so what is the imei for?

tommo123 said:
ok, i'm curious. if you copied someone elses efs folder, have you essentially cloned their phone then? you wont get their calls as that's down to the sim card right?
so what is the imei for?
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I believe it is impossible to use someone elses imei because it is hard-coded into the hardware.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA Premium App

BrokenPixel said:
This is a clear example of not reading anything at all.. lol
glad you got it sorted.
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Ta.
There is so much in this forum, that as a noob, it is a wonder I have a phone left.
Now, putting OS X 10.7 Lion on a PC , anyone up for it?
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA Premium App

inkyadrian said:
Imei is correct but they had to repair the phone by installing a part......Eh?
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From what I've read they replaced the mother board giving you a new IMEI?

bruflot said:
From what I've read they replaced the mother board giving you a new IMEI?
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Click to collapse
Same imei, not a clue what they replaced.
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[Q] removing imei sticker

Is this a bad idea for any reason? It really mars the beauty of this phone imo
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

v3rk said:
Is this a bad idea for any reason? It really mars the beauty of this phone imo
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2
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The IMEI sticker on the back? That's part of the screen protector that comes with the phone when you first opened the device. I thought it was separate when I had it on for the longest time haha.

What IMEI sticker?

Zaimojin said:
The IMEI sticker on the back? That's part of the screen protector that comes with the phone when you first opened the device. I thought it was separate when I had it on for the longest time haha.
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Ditto.

I would say it shouldn't be a problem. The IMEI is software accessible and on the original box too. Probably internal on the casing as well. I am sure most people take this off with no issues. Mine is still on because I've had to RMA this phone and I am awaiting my replacement.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda app-developers app

The IMEI is also found on the SIM tray.

The IMEI is displayed on several places as mentioned already.
Settings / About Phone / IMEI
is probably the easiest one to check.
So peel with confidence!
(But since it's an important thing to have you might want to write it down somewhere.
You know, in case your phone doesn't boot one day for whatever reason)

S4 got stolen...

hello there, i bought a new galaxy s4 and it got stolen today...
im really upset and i need your help.
i still have the box and i think that the serial is still on it.
can i track the serial and hopelly find it?
i remeber that if i could enter the iphone imei into an website it would tell me what network is he connected to.
my sim is closed and i bought it contract free so its unlocked.
i live in israel and the police is not so helpful...
can i do something? please i need this help.
Thanks in advance!

Did you try to track it with Samsung Dive (you need to have a Samsung account and enabled this feature)?
http://findmymobile.samsung.com/login.do
asafhaim147 said:
hello there, i bought a new galaxy s4 and it got stolen today...
im really upset and i need your help.
i still have the box and i think that the serial is still on it.
can i track the serial and hopelly find it?
i remeber that if i could enter the iphone imei into an website it would tell me what network is he connected to.
my sim is closed and i bought it contract free so its unlocked.
i live in israel and the police is not so helpful...
can i do something? please i need this help.
Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Have you entered Samsung account to the phone and setup ' Find my mobile ' Thing in settings?

LegendJo said:
Have you entered Samsung account to the phone and setup ' Find my mobile ' Thing in settings?
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Click to collapse
i guess i did because its working but the man took out my sim card and the phone is off... im going to catch him when he will connect to the wifi.
maybe tomorrow... never lose hope!
maybe other options?

Human always smarter than machine. Samsung got a disadvantage which is included built in recovery. He can just simply boot in and factory reset everything. Or just remove all accounts that in your s4. Let's pray for the stealer is stupid.
Sent from my GT-N7000 using xda premium

asafhaim147 said:
i guess i did because its working but the man took out my sim card and the phone is off... im going to catch him when he will connect to the wifi.
maybe tomorrow... never lose hope!
maybe other options?
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Click to collapse
You will be lucky if the thief has not factory reset the phone. Especially if you set pin to unlock, he will surely factory reset the phone.
Sent from my GT-I9500

asafhaim147 said:
i guess i did because its working but the man took out my sim card and the phone is off... im going to catch him when he will connect to the wifi.
maybe tomorrow... never lose hope!
maybe other options?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hope you find it
If you find it (or get another mobile) install Cerberus . In can be set to hidden and is able to send a message if SIM is removed :good:

Mittaa said:
Hope you find it
If you find it (or get another mobile) install In can be set to hidden and is able to send a message if SIM is removed :good:
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he was online for a couple of minutes but i couldnt track him... did he get a message that i tried?
anyway he looked stupid because i think i saw him but im not sure.
in israel there is a new thing that called Arsim (ערסים) you can google that.
if it was him then hes more stupid than my dog, that loves to bang his head in windows and chairs.
more option people?
thank you all for trying! makes me fell a little better.

asafhaim147 said:
he was online for a couple of minutes but i couldnt track him... did he get a message that i tried?
anyway he looked stupid because i think i saw him but im not sure.
in israel there is a new thing that called Arsim (ערסים) you can google that.
if it was him then hes more stupid than my dog, that loves to bang his head in windows and chairs.
more option people?
thank you all for trying! makes me fell a little better.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes I this there is a notification telling that device "is found" ... but you can't prevent anybody from flashing a new firmware.
On your box there should be an IMEI number (or on your receipt) and IMEI is a bit more difficult to change so maybe you have a chance to trace it in some other way.

What about plan b from the play store?
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Mittaa said:
Hope you find it
If you find it (or get another mobile) install Cerberus . In can be set to hidden and is able to send a message if SIM is removed :good:
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Click to collapse
You can set sim change alerts in the standard s4 settings aswell. I only found out the other day and it can be set to text a friend or family member.
Hope you manage yo yrack and get the phone back, too many low lifes in the world needing to steal someone elses hard earned money/phone etc. Is there no way of having the imei blacklisted? Keep that as a last resort if it can be done, as far as I know soon as its blacklisted you wont be able to track it at all
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Bradden1 said:
What about plan b from the play store?
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Plan B only works with 2.0 - 2.3 versions of Android

Mittaa said:
Plan B only works with 2.0 - 2.3 versions of Android
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Thanks..I didn't know that
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You can have the imei blacklisted so the phone will essentially be useless. You arent getting it back anyway. Might as wll keep the thief from having it.
Sent from my SGH-M919 using xda app-developers app

Skipjacks said:
You can have the imei blacklisted so the phone will essentially be useless. You arent getting it back anyway. Might as wll keep the thief from having it.
Sent from my SGH-M919 using xda app-developers app
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Yeah but he'll still have a very powerful gaming machine.

lambstone said:
Yeah but he'll still have a very powerful gaming machine.
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... and a bad taste in his mouth

Mittaa said:
... and a bad taste in his mouth
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Click to collapse
Not to mention seething disappointment.
Sent from your phone. You should be careful where you leave that thing.

this is where the Avast anti theft comes into play. It comes back even after a reset. I have tried it on my galasy S3 and it works.... but too late for the Op... hope fully you catch the thief...

nm8 said:
this is where the Avast anti theft comes into play. It comes back even after a reset. I have tried it on my galasy S3 and it works.... but too late for the Op... hope fully you catch the thief...
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first of all, he stole it from my bag.
second of all, if he flashes a new firmware or disconnect from my samsung account ( or even a factory reset )
can i know it? or it will just stay offline for ever?

asafhaim147 said:
first of all, he stole it from my bag.
second of all, if he flashes a new firmware or disconnect from my samsung account ( or even a factory reset )
can i know it? or it will just stay offline for ever?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If he just reset (factory reset), wipe data or flash a new firmware, IMEI may survive.
So IMEI tracking is your last chance.
I don't know this company http://www.trackimei.com/ but maybe worth a try?
Some other info HERE ... and HERE
BTW I could imagine that he sell it to some innocent person ... knowing it's a bit to hot to keep for him self

[Q] Water Indicator Location

Hi, I'm sorry if anyone has asked this but I've tried to look up but I couldn't find anything..
Anyway, I'm thinking to get a used G2 and I want to know where to look for damage indicator on the phone before buying it.
Cheers.

tardcutt said:
Hi, I'm sorry if anyone has asked this but I've tried to look up but I couldn't find anything..
Anyway, I'm thinking to get a used G2 and I want to know where to look for damage indicator on the phone before buying it.
Cheers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Look down the headphone hole.
Some phones stick one down there

Nowadays it's located inside the phone on the main board

I'm sure there are more than one, but the biggest tattle-tale will be the one in the SIM card slot. It's the only one visible without removing the back.
Sent from my VS980 4G using xda app-developers app