Howdy all.
Just got a new AT&T Galaxy Tab and for the love Christ these telco's are making it really difficult to do anything with our phones (or, tablets in this case).
For the first time ever, my near-universal, grandfathered AT&T unlimited data SIM was rejected by a device. I've been clinging to this SIM for over 3 years, because it worked in everything.
(I'm familiar with changing the APN, just providing an example of how aggressive the telco's are in preventing us from modding our own property, as there's no contract for the GTab, and even though we're paying full price for it, we still can't use it universally.)
I've spent the greater part of this weekend poring through the forum and it's becoming increasingly difficult to find anything useful in these forums. Many threads are outdated, or just plain wrong, and considering the prices of these devices, I'm reluctant to just plug in and start running hacks on the GTab w/o first understanding the dev history behind what I'm about to do. I've always been somewhat self-proficient with applying hacks and installing ROMs, as I've been doing it for years, but simply finding the requisite information is becoming quite a challenge lately.
With that in mind, I'm looking for the AT&T STOCK ROM to have saved and ready just in case something goes sideways. However, even the stickied thread here includes dead links. The target page is in Korean, but I've seen the HTTP 404 error enough times to recognize it in any language.
Is anyone familiar with any 3rd party repositories with that host the stock ROMs? Perhaps someone has compiled a dump?
TIA...
Stock AT&T firmware: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=847609
You might want to check this thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=933400 will save you time searching around forums.
Finally Stock firmwares site: Samfirmware.com
Thanks for the reply, very helpful info.
I've been reading quite a bit on the forums, and I've noticed folks are having serious issues with ROMs from samfirmware.com, due to the different ROM versions Samsung is distributing with the GTab.
I'm trying to determine the cause of those issues? Are they related to flashing the wrong hardware rev with the wrong ROM, or are they primarily due to locked bootloaders?
I haven't tried anything with my GTab yet, as finding conclusive information is difficult, and to put it bluntly, I'm scared sh*tless that I'll brick it like so many others have?
I'm figuring AT&T is probably going to be the hardest to flash, considering how militant AT&T has been "protecting" our GTab's.
Toe_Cutter said:
Thanks for the reply, very helpful info.
I've been reading quite a bit on the forums, and I've noticed folks are having serious issues with ROMs from samfirmware.com, due to the different ROM versions Samsung is distributing with the GTab.
I'm trying to determine the cause of those issues? Are they related to flashing the wrong hardware rev with the wrong ROM, or are they primarily due to locked bootloaders?
I haven't tried anything with my GTab yet, as finding conclusive information is difficult, and to put it bluntly, I'm scared sh*tless that I'll brick it like so many others have?
I'm figuring AT&T is probably going to be the hardest to flash, considering how militant AT&T has been "protecting" our GTab's.
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Click to collapse
Well Flashing wrong firmware on tab is one of the reasons for problems. Also samfirmware's ROMs have protected bootloader which prevent downgrading or installing custom ROMs.
As for AT&T its always recommended to do backup before flashing any other firmware on an AT&T (or any TAB for that matter). Many ways to do backup. through CWM (clockworkmod) or ROTO backup.
Related
I've had my phone for just over a month and I've only gone as far as rooting and flashing through Kies. I was one of the unlucky ones to have my 3BR disabled, and I managed to get that back through editing the registry of Kies. This is all I've managed to do with my phone, as I'm too scared to do anything else.
I'd like to use this thread as a guide of what we, as Bell Galaxy users, can do with our phones when it comes to flashing firmwares. Obviously we have to be selective of which ones we use.
My first question would be... Has any Bell Galaxy users flashed other firmwares besides GJ9 and JH2 with good results? When I say good results, I mean no further tweaking of the phone to get it to work the way it should. If you have flashed other firmwares, what did you find was the most stable?
EDIT: Holy crap guys... I'm so sorry. There's already a thread that's damn near identical to this one and I didn't spot it. Thank goodness I double-checked. Mods have my permission to delete this one if they'd like. I'm going to post a link to the other thread, which may help seeing how I think this thread title is a little more fitting.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=781349
Hello guys.
I'm sure the majority of you get sick of seeing people with no clue on how to do stuff on their Android phones, and I apologize in advance, but I used to be an iPhone user before swapping over and becoming a Droid, however, O2 in the UK are awful, and they don't update the handsets, I'm still on 2.2 Froyo, instead of 2.2.1 or even 2.3 Gingerbread.
I'm looking to the possibility of getting a capable Gingerbread ROM onto my phone, but I have absolutely no clue how to do it, don't get me wrong, I look on the XDA forums on quite a regular basis, and I'm aware of Darky's ROM, and the rest, however, I look at the HOW TO posts explaining how to get it onto your phone, and some of them are unbelievably basic, and for a start off user using an Android phone wanting to get the best out of it, but not knowing how to do the majority of things such as Rooting, and Flashing, it's impossible to understand the majority of the posts on this forum.
I used to jailbreak all the time, but that was easy compared to this, some may say Droid's are easier to do, but I disagree, if anybody has any tips, or step-by-step up to date guides on how to get a ROM/kernel etc onto my phone, or make it quicker, or quite frankly anything, as my phone is unbelievably laggy, it would be MUCH appreciated.
Many Thanks in advance.
The first and biggest problem for you is to choose what rom you want becouse there is alot of custom roms out there and noone can help you with that.
As for how to flash there is often lots of different ways of doing it depending on what rom you are on and this is probably whats confusing you.
Becouse your on a stock rom without any moddified recoverys you need to flash with a computer program and your phone connected to usb.
Best guide is probably the one from EZbase and this is a good rom to start of from anyway becouse it will give you root and a good moddified recovery.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=991792
Just read post number 4 to the letter and you can't go wrong!
I'm curious. I have a Motorola Xoom that is rooted using ADB. My Thunderbolt, which is now retired, was rooted with Revolutionary. I got my Bionic on Thursday, and I'm nearly ready to root it.
So I've been reading the forums, and the different root methods. I still have a few questions, like how come the different system versions are such a huge issue. They were an issue on the Thunderbolt to a point, but only like with MR1 and MR2.
What's the best and easiest root method that has an equally easy unroot. Directions are good. This'll be the fourth device rooted by me, so I'm getting very comfortable with it, but this is a new device. Plus, I always want to make sure I know my back door route extremely well, before walking in the front door.
Last, and this one I haven't done a lot of research on yet. How much has been done towards rom's and kernels. I know in some of the older posts, people were talking about the locked bootloader. Surely that's been gotten around?
Thanks. Ohh, and yes I did search. Found plenty of similar threads. All in other phone models.
The Bionic is my first smartphone and so I am very new to rooting. I tried a couple of rooting options (PetesMotorolaRootTools_v1.07 and R3l3AS3DRoot, which is specific to the Bionic). Both worked, but I had issues with v1.06 of Pete's and so I tried the R3Root and it worked. I like how it has an option to factory restore the phone, since I did screw up with something and I had to restore, due to my inexperience. It's also a much quicker process, doesn't need to reboot a bunch of times. You can find them both here on XDA. I can give you direct links once I find them.
Thanks. I'll look for them.
Was wondering if anyone could explain the different version, like the .901, I think it is.
I plan on rooting tomorrow or Tuesday. Is there any particular ROM or radio that'll help with the data drop issues, or are those Verizon issues in general on 4G. Never had a problem on my Thunderbolt. My wife has started having data drop issues on her's, and the Bionic has them several times a day. Read somewhere that it might be tied in with battery management, which makes sense.
Moderator, you can lock this. Nobody replied, and I'm now rooted.
For anyone who happens across this thread, I highly recommend this method. Super simple and the guide is easy to follow.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1455888
Despite going through several threads here and somewhat failing on easy rooting, found a one-click via YouTube, MotoFail_Windows something or other I believe it was. Seems simple enough.
However, in looking through Android Development here for this device, there doesn't appear to be many ROMs, am I missing something? Had no idea so much effort would be spent making this phone work for GSM folks. Any and all help for a newbie D4 owner who has every intention on rooting/flashing/tethering in the very near future is MUCH appreciated.
DNak206 said:
Despite going through several threads here and somewhat failing on easy rooting, found a one-click via YouTube, MotoFail_Windows something or other I believe it was. Seems simple enough.
However, in looking through Android Development here for this device, there doesn't appear to be many ROMs, am I missing something? Had no idea so much effort would be spent making this phone work for GSM folks. Any and all help for a newbie D4 owner who has every intention on rooting/flashing/tethering in the very near future is MUCH appreciated.
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Click to collapse
Rooting is pretty easy. I would recommend using jsnweitzel's Droid 4 Utility. Super easy to use.
Unfortunately you're not missing something in regard to ROM development. It's really fallen off here recently. Best thing to do currently is probably update your D4 to the most current Moto ICS leak. The CM9 and AOKP builds for the leaks are fairly stable. If you don't want to go that route I would recommend myfishbear's Eclipse port for GB.
The good news is it sounds like hashcode (main D4 dev) is getting closer to getting us up and running with the kexec kernel exploit that will allow custom kernels. Hopefully, once that gets going, ROM development will pick back up.
DNak206 said:
Had no idea so much effort would be spent making this phone work for GSM folks.
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There really are no good GSM QWERTY phones out there right now. There's a couple of Blackberry-style ones which are awful and the Sony Xperia Mini which is also awful. Both have tiny keyboards. Most GSM QWERTY people seem to be hanging onto their old HTC Desire Z (which you will know as the T-Mobile G2) or coming here and getting a Droid 4. There really aren't any other options.
For US folk wanting custom ROMs. The process is actually the same as getting GSM support, root, flash the latest ICS leak, install safestrap, install either AOKP or CM9. You can follow my guide for getting GSM to work since it's actually the same process.
I've added to the OP instructions for putting AOKP or CM9 on there, both of them are the same low level stuff, produced by Hashcode, with the ROM-specific framework grafted on top.
Awesome input, thanks guys (and gal). Unfortunately the kid trying to sell it apparently was unaware the phone was active in his "brothers" name. This is of course after calling Verizon to make sure the phone was clean. $280 in the box, my instincts should've kicked in but the kid actually seemed sincere. Ah well, still keeping my eyes peeled and will eventually get one so this is helpful info. Thanks again.
I am new to this whole experience, and to this forum, so it may take me a bit extra to understand things at first. That being said, I do have experience rooting and installing custom ROMs on android devices, and understand what needs to be done in general terms in order to actually be successful.
A friend of mine posted about wanting to install a custom ROM on my S3 mini to this forum recently, but not much was accomplished other then the realization that I likely have a locked boot loader, and therefore have limited to no options. Although, I am aware of the ability to actually unlock the boot loader, but am unsure of how to do it, or if I even can on my model. So I pose the question, how do I unlock my boot loader so I can install a custom recovery, and then a custom ROM? I have been searching around for a while without much success and need the help of more experienced group of people.
I am fully aware of the dangers that arise when attempting to flash an unlocked boot loader, but if I come across a relatively safe method I want to try it.
Thanks in advance for any time you spend responding to me, I am very grateful for all your help.
--nav
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Sorry forgot to say the model of the phone, it is SM-G730W8.
nav13eh said:
I am new to this whole experience, and to this forum, so it may take me a bit extra to understand things at first. That being said, I do have experience rooting and installing custom ROMs on android devices, and understand what needs to be done in general terms in order to actually be successful.
A friend of mine posted about wanting to install a custom ROM on my S3 mini to this forum recently, but not much was accomplished other then the realization that I likely have a locked boot loader, and therefore have limited to no options. Although, I am aware of the ability to actually unlock the boot loader, but am unsure of how to do it, or if I even can on my model. So I pose the question, how do I unlock my boot loader so I can install a custom recovery, and then a custom ROM? I have been searching around for a while without much success and need the help of more experienced group of people.
I am fully aware of the dangers that arise when attempting to flash an unlocked boot loader, but if I come across a relatively safe method I want to try it.
Thanks in advance for any time you spend responding to me, I am very grateful for all your help.
--nav
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Sorry forgot to say the model of the phone, it is SM-G730W8.
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Click to collapse
Let me clear up some stuff for you, and hopefully for all the others that come across this thread; there are 2 official versions of the "S3 mini" as far as I'm concerned. The GT-I8190 which includes its variants GT-I8190L and GT-I8190N, and your version the SM-G730W8. They have absolutely nothing in common, other then their names. They have a similar appearance, but they use different hardware, because of this anything created for the GT-I8190 will not be compatible with your phone and will screw up your phone (maybe even to the point of hard-bricking it where it will no longer work and beyond recovery, unless you send to Samsung or a service shop that can JTAG it back to life). As far as I know since your phone's bootloader is locked, you cannot install anything to it. I know that there might be a build of CWM Recovery floating around for your phone, you won't be able to install it until the bootloader gets unlocked, and so far no one has managed to unlock the bootloader.
By the way, most of the threads for your phone the SM-G730W8 and its variants SM-G730WA, etc seem to be in the Q&A section of the S3 Mini forums. The general forum discussion seems to be predominantly users with T599, T599V, T599N (like myself) who have similar hardware to the GT-I8190 to the point where we can use each other's sources with some modifications, but the ROMs/Recoveries/Kernels are not interchangeable.
I do know that root has been achieved (if I recall correctly) and beyond that, nothing else in terms of development can be done until the bootloader is unlocked. Search around the Q&A subforum, and you should see more threads pertaining to potential development.
I hope I explained this clear enough, I'm just worried that someone may come on here screw around with their phone and end up with a paperweight!
Exothermic said:
Let me clear up some stuff for you, and hopefully for all the others that come across this thread; there are 2 official versions of the "S3 mini" as far as I'm concerned. The GT-I8190 which includes its variants GT-I8190L and GT-I8190N, and your version the SM-G730W8. They have absolutely nothing in common, other then their names. They have a similar appearance, but they use different hardware, because of this anything created for the GT-I8190 will not be compatible with your phone and will screw up your phone (maybe even to the point of hard-bricking it where it will no longer work and beyond recovery, unless you send to Samsung or a service shop that can JTAG it back to life). As far as I know since your phone's bootloader is locked, you cannot install anything to it. I know that there might be a build of CWM Recovery floating around for your phone, you won't be able to install it until the bootloader gets unlocked, and so far no one has managed to unlock the bootloader.
By the way, most of the threads for your phone the SM-G730W8 and its variants SM-G730WA, etc seem to be in the Q&A section of the S3 Mini forums. The general forum discussion seems to be predominantly users with T599, T599V, T599N (like myself) who have similar hardware to the GT-I8190 to the point where we can use each other's sources with some modifications, but the ROMs/Recoveries/Kernels are not interchangeable.
I do know that root has been achieved (if I recall correctly) and beyond that, nothing else in terms of development can be done until the bootloader is unlocked. Search around the Q&A subforum, and you should see more threads pertaining to potential development.
I hope I explained this clear enough, I'm just worried that someone may come on here screw around with their phone and end up with a paperweight!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do thank you for making things a bit clearer for me to understand. I am very disappointed that they advertise these phones as being the "S3 Mini" when in fact they are a completely different version. I bought the phone with the understanding that is was a quick and modern little phone, and that I could install a custom ROM on it. It is a good piece of hardware, but I guess I should have researched deeper then I did into the whole situation. I assumed there would be a little bit ore consistency with the hardware.
I have achieve a root though, and with that there is a lot of things I can change that I wouldn't otherwise be able to. But unfortunately it's not the same as the true Vanilla Android I wanted to install. With some tweaking touchwiz is fine, but it has it's moments. I'll keep looking for something, but if I can't find anything, my time with this device may be limited. Within time, I may end up trading up to an S3 or something that is unlocked.
--nav
nav13eh said:
I do thank you for making things a bit clearer for me to understand. I am very disappointed that they advertise these phones as being the "S3 Mini" when in fact they are a completely different version. I bought the phone with the understanding that is was a quick and modern little phone, and that I could install a custom ROM on it. It is a good piece of hardware, but I guess I should have researched deeper then I did into the whole situation. I assumed there would be a little bit ore consistency with the hardware.
I have achieve a root though, and with that there is a lot of things I can change that I wouldn't otherwise be able to. But unfortunately it's not the same as the true Vanilla Android I wanted to install. With some tweaking touchwiz is fine, but it has it's moments. I'll keep looking for something, but if I can't find anything, my time with this device may be limited. Within time, I may end up trading up to an S3 or something that is unlocked.
--nav
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Click to collapse
Well for the time being, look into debloating your system through Titanium Backup, and slap on a 3rd party launcher (nova launcher,etc)!
Exothermic said:
Well for the time being, look into debloating your system through Titanium Backup, and slap on a 3rd party launcher (nova launcher,etc)!
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Click to collapse
I have Titanium installed, can you point me in the right direction for guides on what to remove?
nav13eh said:
I have Titanium installed, can you point me in the right direction for guides on what to remove?
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Click to collapse
Sadly there isn't one extremely particular to your phone, but be careful with this: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2322375
See if any of these apps matches up with your phone. I highly recommend freezing them, over removing them, as you can revert it if anything goes wrong. If you have Polaris office apps, then you can delete that for sure, but other that freeze these apps and it should feel snappier and more fluid. I also highly recommend a third-party launcher, TouchWiz is downright horrible.