SprintS5guy
Member
Did you hardbrick your S3 by running the EZ-unlock apk on a 4.3 or later OS? All is not lost, mine came back to life by following the steps below. It might seem a little tricky, but its honestly not that bad of a process at all.
This is for when you cant get into Odin mode, it wont respond to a charger cable, cant get to recovery... In other words, hard bricked. No guarantees that itll work, but it worked for me.
Not my work, just compiled this from a few XDA threads and posted it in one fairly simple to follow guide
Debrick your bricked Galaxy s3!
What you will need:
-A hardbricked verizon galaxy s3
-A microSD Card
-Windows or Linux computer
-Debrick file
Windows
1) Download win32diskimager
2) Download the debrick file for your OS version
3) Unzip the debrick.zip and extract debrick.bin
4) Run win32diskimager
5) Connect your SD to your computer
6) In win32diskimager, browse for the extracted debrick file
7) Select your microSD in the dropdown box
8) Write!
Last instructions,
1) Remove the microSD card from computer
2) Remove the battery from your device
3) Insert your debrick microSD into your phone
4) Insert battery into phone
5) Turn on device, if you're lucky, it'll boot all the way.
*It may take a few burns to your SD for it to work. Keep trying!
6) ???
7) Profit!
Then do this,
Restoring stock bootloader
1) You were able to boot into the ROM
2) Plug your phone into a computer and use MTP mode
3) Move the debrick file onto your internal sdcard (/sdcard/debrick.bin)
4) Disconnect your phone
5) Open up a Terminal Emulator on your phone and input this code
Code:
su
dd if=/sdcard/debrick.bin of=/dev/block/mmcblk0
6) Reboot
you now no longer need the sd card with the bootloader image in the phone, the process outlined above restored it to the internal storage
4.4.2 debrick image d/l location
SCH-I535_d2vzw_4.4.2_debrick - Download - 4shared - Omar Gonzalez
this process will wipe everything on the sd card, so buyer beware
None of this was my work, im just reposting from XDA and cleaned up a little
[GUIDE] Debrick your bricked SCH-I535! [BOOT… | Verizon Galaxy S3 | XDA Forums
just to clear this process up, whats happening is that your bootloader is likely borked. In the event that the phone cannot use the BL on internal memory, it looks for it elsewhere, in this case the external SD. The critical part of the SD card requirements is that it matches the size of the internal memory (eg, if you have a 16 gig internal, use a 16 gig card, 32 gig card for 32 gig model phone). The debrick image is essentially the bootloader itself. And which bootloader image you use depends on what android os you were running at the time you bricked it. Once you do the terminal commands, which move the fixed bootloader image to the internal memory, you no longer need the image mounted to the sd card and the phone will boot like nothing ever happened. Anyways, lemme know if you have any other questions, and ill try to be diligent about watching this thread to help where i can
This is for when you cant get into Odin mode, it wont respond to a charger cable, cant get to recovery... In other words, hard bricked. No guarantees that itll work, but it worked for me.
Not my work, just compiled this from a few XDA threads and posted it in one fairly simple to follow guide
Debrick your bricked Galaxy s3!
What you will need:
-A hardbricked verizon galaxy s3
-A microSD Card
-Windows or Linux computer
-Debrick file
Windows
1) Download win32diskimager
2) Download the debrick file for your OS version
3) Unzip the debrick.zip and extract debrick.bin
4) Run win32diskimager
5) Connect your SD to your computer
6) In win32diskimager, browse for the extracted debrick file
7) Select your microSD in the dropdown box
8) Write!
Last instructions,
1) Remove the microSD card from computer
2) Remove the battery from your device
3) Insert your debrick microSD into your phone
4) Insert battery into phone
5) Turn on device, if you're lucky, it'll boot all the way.
*It may take a few burns to your SD for it to work. Keep trying!
6) ???
7) Profit!
Then do this,
Restoring stock bootloader
1) You were able to boot into the ROM
2) Plug your phone into a computer and use MTP mode
3) Move the debrick file onto your internal sdcard (/sdcard/debrick.bin)
4) Disconnect your phone
5) Open up a Terminal Emulator on your phone and input this code
Code:
su
dd if=/sdcard/debrick.bin of=/dev/block/mmcblk0
6) Reboot
you now no longer need the sd card with the bootloader image in the phone, the process outlined above restored it to the internal storage
4.4.2 debrick image d/l location
SCH-I535_d2vzw_4.4.2_debrick - Download - 4shared - Omar Gonzalez
this process will wipe everything on the sd card, so buyer beware
None of this was my work, im just reposting from XDA and cleaned up a little
[GUIDE] Debrick your bricked SCH-I535! [BOOT… | Verizon Galaxy S3 | XDA Forums
just to clear this process up, whats happening is that your bootloader is likely borked. In the event that the phone cannot use the BL on internal memory, it looks for it elsewhere, in this case the external SD. The critical part of the SD card requirements is that it matches the size of the internal memory (eg, if you have a 16 gig internal, use a 16 gig card, 32 gig card for 32 gig model phone). The debrick image is essentially the bootloader itself. And which bootloader image you use depends on what android os you were running at the time you bricked it. Once you do the terminal commands, which move the fixed bootloader image to the internal memory, you no longer need the image mounted to the sd card and the phone will boot like nothing ever happened. Anyways, lemme know if you have any other questions, and ill try to be diligent about watching this thread to help where i can