Help Getting Backup Restored - Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshoot

I was given a framework-res.apk file that was going to give me a different power options menu. Before I did anything with the file I created a complete nandroid back up to the sd card. I also went the the original file and changed the name to .bak. I then or so I thought placed the apk in the folder and changed permissions. However the phone immediately restarted and now is in a boot loop stuck at the Samsung logo. Phone will not boot into recovery as it attempts to then just restarts over. i plugged the phone into the computer and it does not recognize it. Any suggestions on how I can either restore my backup or get to the original file to remove the .bak from the file to get everything working again. Thanks for the help.

Have you tried pulling the battery and manually going into recovery by holding up volume + power? Sometimes just pulling the battery and letting it boot normally will work but I doubt it in this situation.

Tried all the main things. Just fixed the problem though. I re flashed recovery allowing me to boot into recovery on the phone and backup is restoring as we speak.

Related

Help with screwed up clockwork recovery

In an effort to get back to stock I took things a step too far and now have a phone that won't power on. I had successfully rooted the phone and installed Rom Manager and flashed the clockwork recovery and immediately created a nandroid backup. Sometime later my phone started acting funny... usb connected/disconnected events when it was not plugged in, crashes, etc. I felt confident that this was a hardware issue (started after my daughter chewed on it when I wasn't looking). Anyway, I followed the instructions here in the dev forum (True Stock 2.1 firmware for vibrant) for the vibrant to get back to stock ( I apparently can't post the link because I'm new...) . So that I'd be able to try and get it replaced. I kept noticing that no matter how hard I tried clockwork was still installed... then I did the bad thing. I should have known better, but I made the rookie mistake and deleted the clockwork folder from the internal flash. I don't know what possessed me to do it, but I did. Since then the phone doesn't seem to boot. I can get it into download mode to flash images from odin (battery out, battery in, volume up + volume down, connect usb and download comes on). And after a successful download it seems to restart ok. But if it crashes (which it is now prone to do) or is powered off it won't boot after that. Worse I can't get to the stock recovery either.
I'm hoping that someone who has a nice rooted stock phone with clockwork installed can just help me get a copy of that folder back and everything will be fine... if not I may just have to see if playing dumb with tmobile will get the phone replaced as is...
Thanks in advance for any help.
Are you talking about stuff in /sdcard? If so, that won't effect the boot. You could delete everything in there and not change anything. Some apps might not work as you will have deleted their data, but if you're flashing a stock ROM with Odin, that's fine.
Enable debug mode in the settings and use "adb reboot recovery" at a command prompt. That should get you to the stock recovery. Try a factory reset from there, that might help. If not, delete anything in /sdcard that's not supposed to be there and swap with TMobile as it sounds a hardware issue at that point. Don't forget to keep your external SD card if you've replaced it.
Is USB debugging on?
When you get the phone up, can you connect to it via ADB and then adb reboot recovery or adb reboot download?
Thanks for the suggestions. I did get the sdk installed and used adb to reboot into normal recovery, so it's not completely boned. Since I could use adb for resets I went ahead and followed the rooting process again and reflashed clockwork. The phone still won't boot on it's own. I'm starting to think whatever was going south with the hardware has continued to get worse. I'm going to use odin to get back to "true stock" again and try to use adb to reboot into recovery and do a factory reset suggested above and see if that helps.
Thanks again.
I went back to stock with odin, ran the factory reset, and still can't power up normally or into recovery. I can get into download though, load with odin, come up normally after the reset. I'm going to try giving it back to Tmobile in it's refusing to power up state and see if I can get them to swap it. It's as stock as I can make it so the problem should not be mine.
Thanks again for the help.
FWIW - i just installed Rom manager this morning, the premium version, and today experienced 5 force closures, one on google maps
before this i've had maybe one FC some 2-3 weeks ago - and like you i did a clockworkrecovery backup or nandroid backup

[Q] Bricked Iconia...

I guess I bricked my iconia...
I installed Recovery, etc. But when I rebooted my device it starts up, and shows my initial display screen. But it locks on the display (it is past the Android, and Acer screen).
So I tried to recover the device using the unbrick procedures described in this forum, and others. But it seems whenever it tries to process any update.zip file including the unbrick the little android man either stops turning or displays a sign indicating things did not work out as they should have.
I have clockwordmod backup from my system. How do I use that backup? When I use my phone the device automatically boots into xrecovery and allows me to restore. How do I get that with the Iconia?
first of all your device is not bricked as long as you can boot into any type of recovery.
second you obviously have cwm installed, but anyhow even if you don't have it i hope you have an external sd-card.
dl any of the stock rom's from the dev section, basically best is to choose the rom made for your country.
extract the update.zip and put it on your external sd-card.
then install it with cwm if you still have it, or with acer recovery (volume - and power simultaneously until the recovery text shows up).
and then take it from there.
also good idea is to clean dalvik cache and data cache before restarting if you use cwm.
then you can reinstall root and cwm.
zoubidou said:
first of all your device is not bricked as long as you can boot into any type of recovery.
second you obviously have cwm installed, but anyhow even if you don't have it i hope you have an external sd-card.
dl any of the stock rom's from the dev section, basically best is to choose the rom made for your country.
extract the update.zip and put it on your external sd-card.
then install it with cwm if you still have it, or with acer recovery (volume - and power simultaneously until the recovery text shows up).
and then take it from there.
also good idea is to clean dalvik cache and data cache before restarting if you use cwm.
then you can reinstall root and cwm.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks... The problem is I can't boot into anything.
How do I boot into cwm? I can't boot into the operating system as once it hits the display screen with my picture the system freezes and tries to power down?
I have been playing around with acer recovery, but all of the updates I downloaded will not load onto the system. It tries to install, gets about 1/3 through and then gives me an error.
Hence why I was thinking that maybe my backup has something?
push volume - (left volume button) first and power and keep your fingers on it until it displays the recovery text message on top left of the screen
If you are getting into recovery. And flashing. A rom give you errors or does not complete. This issue is a bad d/load.or a bad currupt SD card.I would say format your SD card again.redownload the correct rom again.don't use a download manager.then decrypt. Unzip then put the update.zip on your SD card turn off your tab install SD card.
Reboot
Holding down volume up and power until you see the 4th line of txt. It should take you to cwr. Or flash your device
good luck
Yep.. use vol-down and power to boot into cwm. Keep holding vol-down until you see tiny white text in upper left corner.
Then do full restore. When it's done, if you don't see "Backup Succesfull!" message, you'll need to restore flexrom from the advanced restore menu. This is because it failed trying to restore .android_secure.img and caused cwm to restart before flextrom was restored.
Alternatively, you can delete the .android_secure.img file from your backup set before doing the full restore.
Good luck.
Sent from my A500 using Tapatalk
Thanks guys for all of your feedback.
However, when I hold down the buttons you mentioned I do get those text items you mention. The problem is that unlike my android phone it does not pop up the recovery menu. It goes straight into the Acer Recovery procedure (The android with turning gears).
Could it have been that upgrading to a specific ROM the recovery procedure is shortcircuited????
What I am trying to figure out is how to get the recovery menu.
Same deal!
I have the exact same issue. The Update.zip will not take and the Android Gears screen gets to 1/3 before the yellow triangle. Any further help would yield loud THANKS!
your update.zip should preferably be those 3.1 full. cos I believe it does not check anything for it to fail.
Thanks Kenny that does help and explain a few things.

[Q] Custom ROM, stuck at boot animation...

I wanted to run a custom ROM on my A500 (first attempt at installing custom ROM), but i'm now stuck at the boot animation.
I downgraded my A500 to 3.0.1, rooted, installed clockwork mod, upgraded cwm to 1.5. So far so good.
Then i downloaded thor rom v12, copied it to the external sd card (by putting it on USB thumb drive, transfer to tablet, copy to external SD using file explorer - something tells me I'm going to need to pick up an sd card reader for my computer)
Rebooted into recovery, wiped everything (had nothing of value installed yet), and then chose to install zip file, chose thor_rom_v12.zip on external SD card, it started installing - looked like it succeeded.
Reboot tablet, and i've been staring at the boot animation (electric blue pulsating android with spinning gears on it) for about 45 minutes.
How should I proceed from here? Any idea what I did wrong?
Thanks
Hold the power button down and see if you can force it to shut down. I dont think itll turn off but its worth a try. You could also try the hard reset button (pin hole on the side of the tab) if the reset works than you should be able to boot back into recovery. If not than youll just have to wait till the battery dies.
Once you eventually get it turned off than try booting into recovery and do a full wipe and reflash the rom. I have a feeling the file you downloaded is corrupted though. if this is so than your tab probally wont boot up again.
At this point id redownload the thor or another rom and than try flashing that. You'd have to get an sd reader since you won't be able to transfer the files through your iconia again. If you can manage to get a clean download on your micro sd somehow than i'd skip straight to this step and start redownloading the rom right now.
BTW these are just the things i would try from knowing what I do about android. I haven't had any issues with my tab yet so I havent looked for solutions for this it, but ive dealt with other boot looped and soft bricked devices.
I'm sure if you do a search you'll find something.

[Q] Very,very bricked LG G2

OK guys I really need some help with this, I have an LGG2 that is rooted and was running on Cynogenmod 11. I also have TWRP recovery installed. Now as the device was rooted I was playing with some stuff to get Sky Go working as it wont work with root. I came across a thread which stated I should try editing the boot.prop file in /system. There is a line in this file about 5 to 10 lines down from the top which reads "test-keys". The advice in the thread was to change this to "release-keys". Now, to do this I used es-file explorer to locate the file. First I simply tried to edit it but it would not save the edit so then I tried to make a copy in the same directory. Es-file explorer stated it had made a copy but no icon appeared for the new file so then I copied the file to a new directory. This time the new file was created as expected so I re-named it to a .txt file made the change I wanted and saved it. I then moved this file back into the original /system directory it had come from and re-named the original file to a .txt then named the new file I had just changed to .prop on the understanding that the os would now use this new file. On re-starting my phone I got the LG logo an then nothing, when the power key was pressed the phone just vibrated twice.
No matter what I do I cannot get the phone to boot into TWRP or any other recovery mode. I have managed to boot into a firmware update mode and using the LG support mobile tool have re-flashed the stock rom. Now when the phone boots it goes past the LG logo screen and to the 3 mobile logo (they are my service provider) but then it just re-boots, gets to the 3 mobile screen and re boots again. Still I cannot get into TWRP or any other recovery mode so I am completely stuck as to what to do next. I can get the phone into the firmware update mode no problem but then phone is not appearing in My Computer. All I really want to do is get into the phone and delete the .prop file I created and restore the original, I presume if I do that the phone will boot properly and I can re-flash Cynogen but without the phone appearing in my computer I cannot do that and without TWRP I cannot re-flash Cynogenmod.
Does anyone have any other ideas I could try please.
Thanks
Ben

Bricked MF3 4.2.2 rooted

Basically my phone fails to boot or do anything, power button is broken, it turns on when conneted to a charger. When its connected it vibrates and thats it, screen doesn't turn on nothing happens.
So basically the following happened I accidentally deleted "system/usr" but i had a copy and tried to copy back but was unable to do so. So i rebooted the phone, seemed to boot up normally however on the att boot up screen the phone froze.
I removed the battery and booted up the phone but it would freeze in the same att screen (I repeated this about 3 times)
After no results I booted my phone up in Safestrap recover which worked perfectly, in recovery I used the file manager to supposedly copy "usr" to "system" which supposedly did go through So i reboted the phone using reboot system option .
(Repeated this process about 3 times) still got stuck at last boot screen on the att logo.
So after this I repeated the process of copying "usr" to "system". But this time i rebooted to recovery thinking it would boot back to Safestrap,however it booted to stock android recovery.
In stock recovery I was able to navigate but I couldnt select anything (due to broken power button) so I removed the battery. This is when it all went bad the phone now wont boot. Only vibrates when connected to charger but the screen remains black.
EDIT: the phone boots back up to safestrap, however it still wont boot up. Still gets stuck on att boot screen (im suspecting because of the removed "usr" file) is there a way i can use The command terminal in safestrap to copy back the "usr" file.
DaFrenchTaco said:
Basically my phone fails to boot or do anything, power button is broken, it turns on when conneted to a charger. When its connected it vibrates and thats it, screen doesn't turn on nothing happens.
So basically the following happened I accidentally deleted "system/usr" but i had a copy and tried to copy back but was unable to do so. So i rebooted the phone, seemed to boot up normally however on the att boot up screen the phone froze.
I removed the battery and booted up the phone but it would freeze in the same att screen (I repeated this about 3 times)
After no results I booted my phone up in Safestrap recover which worked perfectly, in recovery I used the file manager to supposedly copy "usr" to "system" which supposedly did go through So i reboted the phone using reboot system option .
(Repeated this process about 3 times) still got stuck at last boot screen on the att logo.
So after this I repeated the process of copying "usr" to "system". But this time i rebooted to recovery thinking it would boot back to Safestrap,however it booted to stock android recovery.
In stock recovery I was able to navigate but I couldnt select anything (due to broken power button) so I removed the battery. This is when it all went bad the phone now wont boot. Only vibrates when connected to charger but the screen remains black.
EDIT: the phone boots back up to safestrap, however it still wont boot up. Still gets stuck on att boot screen (im suspecting because of the removed "usr" file) is there a way i can use The command terminal in safestrap to copy back the "usr" file.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe, and just maybe, you could use ADB.
Otherwise you might have to somehow try and get download mode booting and re-flash stock rom.
DaFrenchTaco said:
Basically my phone fails to boot or do anything, power button is broken, it turns on when conneted to a charger. When its connected it vibrates and thats it, screen doesn't turn on nothing happens.
So basically the following happened I accidentally deleted "system/usr" but i had a copy and tried to copy back but was unable to do so. So i rebooted the phone, seemed to boot up normally however on the att boot up screen the phone froze.
I removed the battery and booted up the phone but it would freeze in the same att screen (I repeated this about 3 times)
After no results I booted my phone up in Safestrap recover which worked perfectly, in recovery I used the file manager to supposedly copy "usr" to "system" which supposedly did go through So i reboted the phone using reboot system option .
(Repeated this process about 3 times) still got stuck at last boot screen on the att logo.
So after this I repeated the process of copying "usr" to "system". But this time i rebooted to recovery thinking it would boot back to Safestrap,however it booted to stock android recovery.
In stock recovery I was able to navigate but I couldnt select anything (due to broken power button) so I removed the battery. This is when it all went bad the phone now wont boot. Only vibrates when connected to charger but the screen remains black.
EDIT: the phone boots back up to safestrap, however it still wont boot up. Still gets stuck on att boot screen (im suspecting because of the removed "usr" file) is there a way i can use The command terminal in safestrap to copy back the "usr" file.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just reflash the rom you are on without wiping. That should fix it.
Is the phone an i337? If it is, you're in the wrong s4 forum.
GDReaper said:
Maybe, and just maybe, you could use ADB.
Otherwise you might have to somehow try and get download mode booting and re-flash stock rom.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay and suppose i could get adb working how would i copy the "usr" file back to the "/system"
audit13 said:
Is the phone an i337? If it is, you're in the wrong s4 forum.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yea it is the i337 my bad i didnt noticed can it be moved?
Contact a moderator and ask him or her to move your thread.
Lennyz1988 said:
Just reflash the rom you are on without wiping. That should fix it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you this seemed to work, however my sd card wont mount.
Nor does my wifi turno on.
DaFrenchTaco said:
Thank you this seemed to work, however my sd card wont mount.
Nor does my wifi turno on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In cases like this it's best to backup everything you want and then perform a full wipe.
ps if you are still on 4.2.2. that means you don't have an locked bootloader right? Then why are you using safestrap? I thought that's only for when you have a locked bootloader.
Lennyz1988 said:
In cases like this it's best to backup everything you want and then perform a full wipe.
ps if you are still on 4.2.2. that means you don't have an locked bootloader right? Then why are you using safestrap? I thought that's only for when you have a locked bootloader.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think AT&T and Verizon phones always had locked bootloaders, just that the earlier versions were easier to hack.
if its hard bricked, try jtag
thnx to everyone in this thread you were all of help my phone is now working even better then it did before much appreciated

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