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Root [Virgin Mobile] [OUTDATED][GUIDE][MD7][MG2] Rooting & Recovery for Galaxy S3(VM)

punkmaxx said:
I'm really close... I just managed to nail down all of the partition mount points for our phones.... now i'm ready for action.... Very close to an ODIN "Complete Stock TAR"
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I can't wait brah. Thank you for your hard work and for helping out the community!
 
XAL2 said:
I can't wait brah. Thank you for your hard work and for helping out the community!
Click to expand...

Bulldogz1097 said:
thanks in advance!!!
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No Problem... Uploading Now... (Its Huge 2.37GB! Couldnt Get my /cache any smaller)
With all the research I did there is no way this should run into flashing errors... And just a note; this includes ALL the partitions, even the many sub boot partitions that the sprint firmware had in its TAR....
 
punkmaxx said:
No Problem... Uploading Now... (Its Huge! Couldnt Get my /cache any smaller)
With all the research I did there is no way this should run into flashing errors... And just a note; this includes ALL the partitions, even the many sub boot partitions that the sprint firmware had in its TAR....
Click to expand...

Fantastic. So everything is included along with the kernel and modem?
 
XAL2 said:
Fantastic. So everything is included along with the kernel and modem?
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There is not one thing that i can find that is different from the official samsung firmware that is made for flashing in ODIN. I used a few guides and ended up with a .tar.md5 flashable file.

This TAR Includes:

Modem
Kernel
Recovery
Bootloader
3 Sub Layer Bootloader Partitions
2 Unidentified Sub Layer Partitions
/system
/cache
/persist

EDIT: This is gonna be a LOOOOOONG upload (2.37GB).... So please be patient... I may fall asleep and post at 6am when i leave for work

EDIT: Just another note... This is gonna be kind of a dangerous thing to flash until it is tested, it will be re-writing all of your most important infrastructure partitions....
 
I'm just as guilty as anyone here but I'm beginning to think it may be more helpful and organized if we take further discussion of a flashable stock modem here: http://androidforums.com/virgin-mob...849-updated-op-vm-sgs3-stock-radio-fixed.html

And further discussion of the Odin flashable stock rom here: http://androidforums.com/virgin-mob...ngs-root/733962-stock-odin-flashable-tar.html

That is until punkmaxx finished his upload of the stock TAR and creates his own thread as I expect he will and then we can discuss his stock TAR on his thread appropriately. I just feel it will limit any confusion for those coming to this thread to discuss rooting and recovery and keep the All Things Root forum a bit more organized :)
 
Pardon my ignorance.

Is the RUU exclusive to HTC? Having only owned HTC android phones, things like s-off and RUU make sense to me. I've already learned that s-off doesn't apply. Is there a Samsung utility that will restore our phones back to a stock state?

I also recall reading that the recovery doesn't flash radios or something like that earlier in this thread (did I read that wrong?). Couldn't we flash radios on an HTC phone with s-off?
 
TheBritton said:
Okay guys I managed to get CWM on the device without booting into the OS even once so I am taking a backup with CWM and I will have a 100% stock CWM backup for download if anyone needs it.

Someone has probably already beat me to this and I just missed it. If so, oh well.. it doesn't hurt to have a few stock backups floating around ;)
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Are you saying that you made a backup before you even activated the phone? So there would be NO PERSONAL information at all...in other words...100% bare-bone pure stock?

That's sweet...I may grab that for the archives...but I'd also like to do this myself to my own phone...as it is with my stuff on it before rooting. From what I can tell, the first step is to put CWM on the phone...which Odin does right? After that, we flash SU with the recovery and that's all she wrote?

So if I wanted to emulate what you've done...aside from having installed software and activated...would I pause before flashing SU and create a backup?

Also, thinking ahead...when I tell the recovery to format all partitions, what will that mean for this phone? Will the internal SD card get formatted, or is that considered "external" memory? Will I have the option to format either SD card, or both SD cards in recovery? Where are apps installed on this phone? Are they on the internal SD, or somewhere else? If I am not mistaken, formatting SYSTEM or DATA takes care of all apps right? So even if I format SYSTEM/DATA but choose not to format the internal SD...if the apps are on the internal SD, that portion will be deleted right?


EDIT:

I too would prefer SuperSU. Is there anything unique about TeamEpic root from recovery? Would any superuser app that is a flashable zip be considered a "root from recovery" formatted file? If you've already rooted with SuperSU and it's as simple as substituting one zip file for another in the overall procedure, can you link me to that file?
 
System apps are located in /system, and user apps are stored in /data

Both are on the internal storage. Its really confusing because things are sim linked all over.

With custom recoveries, they have been coded in such a way that wiping data does not wipe /data/media, which is where all of your stuff (pictures, files, ect) stored on the internal SD card is.

If you prefer to use one SU app over another, that can be swapped out at any time after root is achieved, so I wouldn't worry about which one gets installed during the root process.
 
when rooting on linux just open the motochopper and choose the run.sh i had problems using the commands up there so I tried this and it works
 
I got my Virgin Mobile Galaxy S3 yesterday, it's now rooted with a custom recovery thanks to this guide!

Is TWRP recovery available for this phone? Is it possible to just use the TWRP for the Sprint variant?
 
Palmetto Fellow said:
That's kinda freaky if you think about it. You're saying that you can flash a recovery which will overwrite the existing recovery...using the current recovery? :D
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This is very common and done in many phones... You should be able to write almost any partition on the phone from recovery.... I can write just a bootloader or kernel partition from recovery or I can install a whole system... One of the many things that allows our Androids to be so versatile (when compared to IPhones for example).
 
Palmetto Fellow said:
Pardon my ignorance.

Is the RUU exclusive to HTC? Having only owned HTC android phones, things like s-off and RUU make sense to me. I've already learned that s-off doesn't apply. Is there a Samsung utility that will restore our phones back to a stock state?

I also recall reading that the recovery doesn't flash radios or something like that earlier in this thread (did I read that wrong?). Couldn't we flash radios on an HTC phone with s-off?
Click to expand...
Good questions, I was wondering some of the same.
 
Droidula said:
Good questions, I was wondering some of the same.
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is there a samsung app to restore are phones to stock...yes and no
there exist Samsung keis which could restore a GSM or international GS3 to stock and even update it. however the VMU edition will not work. I was told by Samsung that virgin will not allow them to restore there devices. in short VMU SG3 do not have an RUU app. you can restore a TWRP or CWM Backup at la The Britton's thread but no such app to fix a soft bricked phone you need to be able to run recovery to fix it.
 
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