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Help Unrooting

gregg1100

gregg1100

Android Enthusiast
Just picked up a second hand Galaxy S3 Lite. It seems that it has been rooted before, but not properly.
Rootchecker tells me this.
How do I find out what was used to root it- where do I look on the phone, please ??
I thought it was better to try to unroot than go on and root on top--probably kill it dead, lol.
Thanks
 
It's not a given that you can tell what was used to root it. I guess if someone's used one of these rooting apps and left it on the phone you might, but if they just unlocked the bootloader, flashed a custom recovery and then flashed a suitable (or maybe unsuitable?) superuser package then there's nothing to see except the unlocked bootloader and the custom recovery.

(I don't know what rooting tools or procedures are for this phone, so just taking some generic examples).
 
Thanks Hadron. I guess I may have naffed up. I had it from a friends son,- he gave the appearance of not knowing anything about rooting, but looks can be deceiving. I will ask him about it when I see him.
I thought I had better ask and not go ahead and pile more misery on the phone.
 
Yeah, I'm with you: try to find out the device's history before doing anything.

Of course it depends what you want to do. If you just want to add root access to the stock ROM then you care what state that is in. If your plan is to install a custom ROM that will overwrite the stock one anyway, so all you need is a custom recovery.

You can probably restore it to stock software first it you want to play safe, but you'll need someone who knows Samsung better than me to explain how to do that.
 
Oops. Just done a factory reset on this S3 Gti9305 (Lite) and all I am getting now is the blue notification light on and the Samsung logo just going light and dark blue. Is this what you call a brick? Or just in a bootloop mode ??
I tried to then do a recovery, with all the buttons held down, it starts with a green warning;

A custom OS can cause critical problems in phone and installed applications. ( Yeah, just found out)
If you want to download a custom OS, press vol up key, if not, vol down and restart. ( which it doesn't).

Any ideas how to sort this out please.??
 
Last edited:
By Security manager in the phone. Just remembered that I turned that off and got rid of Supersu. Probably thats what cocked it all up
 
I have to pull battery to turn off the thing. Until I get it going, it is useless. Or have I bricked it ? Just been on over at xda site to see what was there. Kies will not recognise it, and pc says usb device is naff. So can't use Odin or download recovery software from Samsung.
Got to start it to sort it.
 
Volume up, power and HOME for recovery on a Samsung.
Might as well try that and tell us what the recovery screen says.
Maybe you have a custom recovery then it will be an easy fix
 
Thanks for replies.
When I did the vol up, home and power thingy, all I got was above ( RED text in previous post).
A bit of tiny writing at top left of screen which seems to say knox has tripped ( no warranty worries).
Just downloading to pc, a Samsung firmware file- got to wait cos Sky is a snail compared with Virgin.
What worries me is that a blue notification light just dims and brightens for ever, and pc says usb device is naff, when the phone is connected with a good lead.
I think that whoever did a root on this phone didn't do a backup. Then when I got rid of Supersu, then factory reset, the phone said " sod this, I am not playing anymore".
Will the phone be able to take a firmware download flash, if I can't get it to speak to the pc- wouldn't have thought so.

I will have a go at previous owner to see if he has a recovery on the SD card that he kept, but not feeling optimistic.
Thanks
 
A chap from xda forums gave me a lead about this.
He said go to samsung updates.com about this and download new rom, (below) Odin 3.09, and sammy drivers
.
I downloaded the correct one ( EE Uk GTi9305 ) C:\Users\Greg\Downloads\EVR-I9305XXUFOC1-20150424114622.zip. 1 gb file size

If I go into recovery, it says do I want to install/flash a rom ??
If I click YES this time, open Odin, and insert above file where it should go, will it flash the stock software ok??
Software is stock KK 4.4.4. Knox tripped, but phone is out of warranty----nothing on phone so no backup needed till possibly when rom is installed. No SD card fitted--does it need to have one to do this ??
Will this work, or is the phone still brown bread ??
Thanks
 
Just popping in here and asking about "recovery" as you are stating @gregg1100
Recovery is different than download mode...I think you are referring to download mode as seen in this pic correct?
Samsung-Galaxy-S3-Download-Mode.png
 
Thanks for replies.
He has had the phone back- gave me my money back, so ok there.
But for someone who said that he never rooted his phone, didn't understand anything about rooting- the phone has Supersu on it, plus when I checked with rootchecker, it said phone had been rooted, but not successfully. Plus Knox had been tripped.
@ Mikestony--I pushed DOWN button cos at the time I didn't have a rom to go on phone, or so I thought.
By pushing UP button, would that have started the phone up properly ???? Which is what he said he had done to get it going again. So much for saying that he did not understand a thing about phones.
.
 
Pushing power home and UP would have taken you to a custom recovery (if he had fully rooted the phone) and from there you could have easily put a rom on the SD card and flashed it from there but hey, not your problem now and lesson learned :thumbsupdroid:
 
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