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Root [Boost] Recently acquired S4

That zip file above I mentioned, I unzipped it and there is only a boot.img file and 2 folders.
Am I supposed to unzip it and flash it thru Odin via download mode?
Or, not unzip it at all and put it on my sdcard and flash the zip as it is thru recovery?
 
lol, actually, I just did it, it flashed with no problem, but now the phone is stuck at the orange 4G LTE screen, and it wont go past it. I dont know whats wrong. It's been sitting for ten minutes+, wont boot past that screen.
 
i tried reflashing it, same thing. Just stays at that Orange 4G LTE screen, and wont boot past it.
 
I've been reading so much my head is about to explode. I just want to get the lollipop stock.
I'm lost.
 
ok, I am currently downloading yours. But I still think something else is wrong. Let me start from the beggining. My nephew has the same phone, I had mine apart and was about to do his for him, when I was not there he took my phone thinking it was his, and I guess took it upon himself to try his own things.

He told me he wiped out everything. I mean everything. Now what I just tried was this:
I had a backup of my TWRP folder from when I did a backup, from earlier in this post.

I just put my copy of my TWRP folder back on my sdcard, but here is the problem. When I click on restore, there is nothing there to choose from.
 
Do I have to mount some kind of partition? Am I missing something? Or is this phone completely wiped out.
 
I thought by just putting my own twrp folder back on my sdcard and trying to restore that was essentially doing what you suggested with yours, i guess something is missing. I will try your way and post back.
 
I thought by just putting my own twrp folder back on my sdcard and trying to restore that was essentially doing what you suggested with yours, i guess something is missing. I will try your way and post back.
If it's the exact same phone and the file structure is the same it should show... But, if you changed anything at all, then it won't show

Twrp looks in extsdcard/twrp/backups/<serial number>/<backup files>
If they aren't there, it can't see them

Edit - there should be an option at the top to switch between internal/external. Try toggling that?
 
Yeah, that was the issue. I didnt realize it was looking on internal. I tapped the top and switched it to external, and flashed yours. It started to boot up, but the same problem, it is stuck at the 4G LTE boot screen.
 
Since yours did not work, I went and put my own copy of my twrp backup back on my sdcard.
I wiped everything and restored mine, and it worked. All is good again.

Maybe I just did not let it sit long enough after installing yours, but after I restored mine, it only sat for 20 seconds before fully booting up. Yours sat for 7 minutes until I pulled the battery out. I guess it needed my files.

Sorry for my own confusion.
But I'm all good and restored, up and running again.

Thanks.
 
lol, spoke to soon as usual.
I dont think my gps is working right. I got a constant "searching for gps" in my top message bar. I never had that issue before.

Also, don't know if you or anyone else knows about this, but I am not on stock. I have been restored back to the Boost lollipop backup I originally had. One of the preinstalled apps is a voicemail-to-text type app. This seems to be interfering with my regular voicemail.

If someone leaves me a voicemail, I dont get an alert. Instead, it shows I have a voicemail inside this app, which I dont use. I dont know how to remedy this.

Unless I wipe all this and flash your stock maybe?
 
The app I was talking about above is called visual voicemail.
I've never found a way to disable it. It's baked into the rom. It's a stock feature

Also, my backup is just /system & /boot so you probably needed to do a factory reset after the restore
 
ok got it. Thanks for the help once again, I feel like a fool. I apologize for kind of wasting your time on this one, I realized my problem all along was due to me not realizing I had to tap the top of the screen in twrp to change it to the external sd card, as it was looking at internal, and that is why nothing was showing up.

If I would have known that from the beginning I would have probably wound up restoring it myself before posting all of this. lol, sorry, and thanks man.
 
Haha, don't be sorry :) That's what we're all here for man. Sometimes you just need a little reassurance or a nudge in the right direction... and sometimes you overlook the simplest thing. Glad you got it sorted :)
 
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Hello.
I see you guys successful root your phone so I would like to ask you some questions.

I have galaxy s4 gt-i9505 with stock firmware which i want to root. Looking on forums I see the most common way to root this phone is by flashing CF-Auto-Root file. This file seems to flash whole /boot and /recovery partition. Am I right? What bother me is "If you have locked bootloaders, flashing one of these will probably brick your device" -- from autoroot.chainfire.eu. I have no idea whether i have locked bootloader or not . In odin mode I can see something like "write protection : enabled". I want to use your way to gain root access and custom recovery so I have to flash TWRP and then from recovery install supersu file. I noticed it's small file, what exactly it does? Does it only change part of the kernel? I thought it's only root manager and it doesn't give root access. Is it safer method than cf-auto-root?
 
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I'd follow this guide here and flash Philz custom recovery and root using that.
http://androidforums.com/threads/international-philz-cwm-recovery-dummies-guide.733389/
From what I can see, there are several different versions of your model, and each one has a different recovery. This guide should walk you right through the process. If you have any questions/concerns feel free to post in this thread, or the one for that guide.


Edit, upon further reading, this is the guide you need
http://androidforums.com/threads/international-rooting-galaxy-s4-dummies-guide.732797/

And cf auto root appears to be the way to go :)

I would also recommend reading THIS GUIDE to be sure which guides apply to your model
 
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