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Help S3 stuck on Samsung Logo & shows dead robot with red triangle "!" in recovery mode

M

MexTex

Lurker
My Samsung Galaxy S3 was working perfectly ever since yesterday evening when I arrived home from work. I looked at the phone and noticed it was asking to do a wifi update to the newest version. I accepted the update and monitored the download. Upon completion, it said it would need to restart and I agreed. After the restart, the phone booted up to the point where the Samsung logo displayed and was stuck. I waited for about 20 minutes and the logo stayed, illuminated. I tried a soft reset, but it came to the same point and froze again. I read online to go to the recovery mode and do a hard reset and wipe the system back to factory default, so I did this a well. I rebooted the phone and I was back to the Samsung logo again and stuck. I ended up taking the phone to the AT&T service center to find out if I was still within the 1 year warranty period and wouldn't you know it, my one year warranty expired last month. Kinda makes me think Samsung is behind this. Anyways, the people at the store were nice enough to hook the phone up to their system and reset everything and install the new update. After the update was complete and the phone was restored, the tech said that she had never seen this before....Apparently the phone did not accept the reset and she called the phone a "brick" - whatever that is. She said that the phone has an internal data problem and that the phone is unfixable even if I sent it to Samsung for repair. WTH! The phone was working perfect and now an update renders it useless? That can't be. Is there something I can do to get Samsung to repair this? Is there a way to fix this phone on my own?

Phone Information: Samsung Galaxy S3 Model: SGH-I747 16GB

Recovery Mode Information:

Image: Dead Robot with Red Triangle (!)

E:failed to mount / system (no such file or directory
can't mount ' /system(no such file or directory)
E:failed to mount /data (No such file or directory)
can't mount '/data' (No such file or directory)
" " /system "
" " /cache "
" " mount/cache/recovery/log
" ' open/cache/recovery/log
And on and on and on.....



I appreciate your help. Let me know if you need any additional info. There isn't much I can't get off the phone at this point. I don't care if I loose the data, I just want my phone to work.

Thanks again :)
 
Sorry, I'm new to this and don't really know what that is. Could you direct me to some instructions. Thanks.
 
Hey max. Have a good read through this http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1671969
Especially the part about flashing firmware then come back and ask any questions you have and let us guide you to the right firmware to flash. Dont worry, its easier than it looks :)
EDIT sorry i scanned past the end of your post. Defo try reflashing it yourself though incase the tech made a mistake.
Its pretty crap you only get 1yr warranty. In Europe its 2yrs :(
 
Here's a link to the 4.1.1 factory image for you device. This should take you back to where you were before the update: Samsung Updates - Firmware Download Page

You'll also need the Odin tool which is Windows only: http://samsung-updates.com/Odin307.zip

You need to connect your GS3 to the computer while in Odin mode. I can't remember which button combo it is for the GS3. Vol up + home + power or Vol down + home + power. One gets you recovery mode that you have already tried to use, the other odin mode.

Unzip the second link I gave you, and open the Odin client. I see that the first link is also a zip file. It is quite large and will take quite a bit of time to download. Once you do, extract it and tell me the file type. If it's a .tar then we're in business.
 
^this. Its volume down for odin mode :thumbup:
Only extract the firmware zip once so its a single .tar file. Im stupid with computers so the 1st time i did it i extracted twice :)
 
jhawkkw,

Ran the Odin, but after the reboot I am getting the same issues. I hope I ran the Odin flash correctly. I downloaded and extracted the files that you specified. I opened Odin on both the phone and computer. I clicked on the PDA tab and located the .tar file that I downloaded. Then I pressed start and after it finished loading, it rebooted the phone. Dead Robot.
 
Dead Android with red exclaimation point triangle means bad bootloader or corrupt ROM. yellow means the same as a BSoD in Windows and often fixes itself next reboot. think of it as the Android version of a 'Sad Mac' sans hexidecimals



Normally you won't see the dead android screen except in Gingerbread or below. in ICS and up, normally this crash screen which forces you to factory reset the phone is what you'll see in the event of data corruption:



I am not sure why it claims anything about 'Encryption' as this screen is a generic /data inaccessible warning and can show even if you never encrypted you data.
 
whenever i used ODIN stuff the .tar file is part of the stuff that makes the phone bootloader/drivers work (best that i can tell). often there are more than one, such as phone.tar, pda.tar, etc

ROMs often end in *.ZIP
 
Question, after you extracted it from the zip, did you flash it in it's current .md5 form or did you shorten/change the file extension to .tar?

I also downloaded it and see that it's not a complete factory image, so I've answered my own question.
 
I'm having the same problem with my phone right now. I'm not rooted and I don't know how to. I've started having freezing problems out of the blue this past Saturday morning after playing a recently updated version of the "Galaxy Empire" game. I built a particular new building introduced in the update and shortly after, my phone went black. I thought it had turned itself off, but I guess it just froze. I wouldn't even charge until rebooted. It rebooted fine, but from Saturday morning until about an hour ago it kept periodically freezing over and over again for about 14 times. This very last time that it froze, I rebooted it and it immediately froze again before it could load to android. When I turned it on again, it wouldn't boot passed the "Samsung Galaxy S III" screen, which ironically is the EXACTLY what happened when my HTC G2 stopped functioning. Except I had the G2 for 23 months and I've only had the GS3 for 12.

I can get to recovery mode, but wiping the cache didn't work, nor did a reluctant factory reset. Now I'm sitting here staring at the unflinching screen. I'm out of manual options and I have school in the morning...
 
If it can run Odin and has USB then yeah mate. It isnt a huge file youre downloading to flash :thumbup:
 
jhawkkw said:
You just want to make sure that you're using a usb 2.0 port and not a 1.0 or 3.0 port.
Click to expand...

I don't know the difference. In any case, I called T-Mobile tech support and they didn't offer me any solutions that I hadn't already done, so they just offered a replacement for $5. Should be in tomorrow. Quick, easy, and hassle free. I feel like I would mess something up and thereby void the warranty.
 
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