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Help Softbricked my SM-G903F

T

tufda

Lurker
So I accidentally bricked my Samsung Galaxy S5 Neo through Odin, while I was trying to root the system, and I am now trying to unbrick it, although it doesn't seem to work so far. I have tried to download stock ROM's for my phone, even though it has been difficult, since the variant of the phone that I have is quite unpopular.

I managed to find a Swedish ROM on Sammobile however, and using the free 15 kb/s connection to download the 2GB file, I then loaded the binary onto Odin. This is the difficult part however, because when I go into Odin, Odin fails when trying to upload the hidden.img part.
After doing some quick google searching, I found a video telling me to extract the .md5 file into a folder, remove the hidden.img file inside that folder, archive the folder to a .tar file, and change the archive's filetype to .tar.md5. I then tried uploading it to the phone, but this time it simply said "MD5 hash is invalid".

I've tried google searching everywhere to find out how to fix it, but I've only found guides for standard S5 devices, which I don't want to follow, since it might end up hard bricking my phone.

When I tried to root my phone I used:

SuperSU BETA v.2.44
Odin 3 v.3.12.3
openrecovery-twrp-2.8.4.0-klte

Things I've used to try and unbrick it:

5 different versions of Odin 3, including the latest one
A Swedish stock ROM which you can download by clicking this line

If anyone knows how to fix this please reply, thanks :)!
 
Oh, and here are some screen caps from my rooting adventures:

File analysis crash
File%20analysis%20crash.png

Invalid MD5 hash
MD5%20binary%20invalid.png
 
I've never heard of this technique before, but I can tell you what's wrong. You can't just change a file to md5. An md5 is a checksum to verify a files authenticity. If the binary of the file doesn't match that of the md5 it is rejected.
 
Bg260 said:
I've never heard of this technique before, but I can tell you what's wrong. You can't just change a file to md5. An md5 is a checksum to verify a files authenticity. If the binary of the file doesn't match that of the md5 it is rejected.
Click to expand...
Yes, I know, the guide on how to unbrick the device just told me to. I thought it sounded weird, too.
So I tried renaming the file to a .tar, but I didn't then I got a File analysis crash. It seems to be on Odin's part though.

Thanks for helping! :)
 
Bg260 said:
I have to ask this. Did you bother to unlock the bootloader before attempting to root and install TWRP?



Odin will only flash signed packages.
Click to expand...
Bootloader as in the options in the OEM options and USB debugging Developer Options menu? Because then yes, but if you're talking about anything that has to do with my PC then, no I'm afraid.

Thanks
 
There is something wrong here that I am trying to work out. AFAIK the setting in the DEV options doesn't actually unlock the bootloader, it just gives the ability to do so. The thread however makes no mention of that. After reading through the thread a little bit, it appears others are having the same issue. If you would help and start reading through the comments, maybe we can find an answer.


Is this the firmware that you tried?
https://samsung-firmware.org/download/Galaxy-S5-neo/f908/NEE/G903FXXU1AOI7/G903FNEE1AOI1/
 
Last edited:
Bg260 said:
There is something wrong here that I am trying to work out. AFAIK the setting in the DEV options doesn't actually unlock the bootloader, it just gives the ability to do so. The thread however makes no mention of that. After reading through the thread a little bit it appears others are having the same issue. If you would help and start reading through the comments on that thread maybe we can find an answer.


Is this the firmware that you tried?
https://samsung-firmware.org/download/Galaxy-S5-neo/f908/NEE/G903FXXU1AOI7/G903FNEE1AOI1/
Click to expand...
Nope, it's not the same firmware, but I will try and download it, and see if it works out :)
And yes, I totally borked my system :/
 
I would just restore the whole system with smart switch and start from scratch. Just click emergency recovery and software initialization and have the model and serial number ready.
 
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