Database Develop

[GUIDE] / [ FIX ] - Accessing downloader & recovery w/ locked hardware access

LET ME MAKE THIS VERY CLEAR - MOST OF YOU ALREADY KNOW HOW TO ACCESS DOWNLOAD MODE OR RECOVERY VIA HARDWARE BUTTONS....
BUT NEWER PHONES SEEM TO HAVE HARDWARE ACCESS DISABLED.. THIS IS A WORKAROUND FOR THESE LOCKED OUT PHONES...
THERE IS NOW A ODIN FLASHABLE FIX FOR H/W LOCKED PHONES
SEE THIS THREAD - THANK YOU untermensch
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=804305
METHOD 1: ACCESSING DOWNLOADER/RECOVERY:
(if the following directions do not work... then your phone may be locked out from using hardware buttons to access downloader/recovery)
Download Mode:
With the phone powered off
Plug in the USB cable.
Turn the phone on it's side and use both thumbs to hold (left thumb) Vol Up and (right thumb) Vol Down
Press and hold the power button with your right index finger til you see "Virbant" release the power button and it should say Downloading.
Recovery Mode:
With the phone powered off
UnPlug the USB cable.
Turn the phone on it's side and use both thumbs to hold (left thumb) Vol Up and (right thumb) Vol Down
Press and hold the power button with your right index finger til you see "Virbant" release the power button and it should be on the recovery screen.
METHOD 2: STUCK AT VIBRANT SCREEN:
(and are not able to use vol+ vol- methods to access downloader/recovery)
You will need the samsung ADB drivers installed for your phone as well as ADB...
ACCESS DOWNLOAD MODE
1) remove back cover and take our sim card and sd-card.
2) take out the battery
3) hold ALL 3 buttons down at the same time. (Vol +, Vol -, Power)
4) while holding down those 3 buttons put the battery back in
5) continue holding all 3 buttons until the vibrant disappears and reappears... once it reappears, release all 3 buttons
6) Setup ODIN and get it all setup and ready... (if you are flashing your phone via odin)
6) now connect your phone to your pc via USB cable
7) open a cmd prompt and navigate to the folder with ADB and type ADB REBOOT DOWNLOAD
8) Your phone will reboot into the download screen... go back to ODIN - A com port should now appear for your phone...
9) Click start and wait for your phone to do its thing
ACCESS STOCK RECOVERY
1) remove back cover and take our sim card and sd-card.
2) take out the battery
3) hold ALL 3 buttons down at the same time. (Vol +, Vol -, Power)
4) while holding down those 3 buttons put the battery back in
5) continue holding all 3 buttons until the vibrant disappears and reappears... once it reappears, release all 3 buttons
6) now connect your phone to your pc via USB cable
7) open a cmd prompt and navigate to the folder with ADB and type ADB REBOOT RECOVERY
8) Your phone will reboot into the stock recovery and flash whatever update.zip you need
METHOD 3: STUCK AT PHONE ! COMPUTER:
Plug in the USB cable.
Turn the phone on it's side and use both thumbs to hold Vol Up and Vol Down
Press and hold the power button with your right index finger.
The screen will go black, continue holding.
The screen will come back on, you'll see the same Phone to Computer icon
Continue holding, the screen will go black
The screen will come back on, you should see "Vibrant" release the power button and you it should go into Downloading
METHOD 4: STUCK AT PHONE ! COMPUTER:
(and are not able to use vol+ vol- methods to access downloader/recovery)
CALL TMOBILE AND BEG FOR THEM TO REPLACE UR PHONE..
METHOD 5: ODIN ERROR - ODIN HANGTHANKS EUGENE363)
When you can't get into Download MOde....
assuming you just got a Hang in ODIN Flasher...
1. Un-plug usb from Phone ( But still plugged into the Computer )
2. Pull Battery
3. Let the Phone sit for 15 to 30 seconds
4. Plug in USB to Both Phone & PC if not already
5. Hold Both Volume Buttons
6. Put Battery in while still holding Volume Buttons.
My Phone is HW Locked as well, with a v1 board.
every-time I get odin hang, doing the above always results in letting me re-flash.

Interesting! I'll give it a try.

UPDATE: I have successfully reflashed my vibrant... now I will reinsert the SD card and SIM card... and back in business!!!
I am 100% positive my phone was a newer "locked" model... I was unable to access the downloader OR the stock recovery and out of frustration.. I figured out how to access ADB and reboot my phone into downloader or stock recovery!
Hope this works for everyone!
For those of you that just want to test this method out... it does not seem to work for me now that my phone boots past the vibrant screen.... this method only seems to work if you are STUCK at the vibrant screen...

renocivik said:
UPDATE: I have successfully reflashed my vibrant... now I will reinsert the SD card and SIM card... and back in business!!!
I am 100% positive my phone was a newer "locked" model... I was unable to access the downloader OR the stock recovery and out of frustration.. I figured out how to access ADB and reboot my phone into downloader or stock recovery!
Hope this works for everyone!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I wonder if this will work for people that are stuck at the computer ! screen... I am unable to get to download mode or recovery with the vol. buttons. tried all the methods that i can find in the forum.

That sucks... give my method a try play around with it... follow the guide.... see if the computer ! screen flashes... if it flashes.. release all three buttons when the computer ! screen reappears and see if it shows up when you connect the USB cable and type adb devices

reserved ....
(removed what I previously typed)

renocivik said:
That sucks... give my method a try play around with it... follow the guide.... see if the computer ! screen flashes... if it flashes.. release all three buttons when the computer ! screen reappears and see if it shows up when you connect the USB cable and type adb devices
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh, I don't have the problem. I'm just thinking if this will work for it. This is the main reason why i'm not messing with different roms/firmware until i can figure out a sure way to get into download if anything would to go wrong. As of right now, i'm just rooted and running Vibrant6. Will not go any further until i figure out the download mode on these newer batch.

renocivik said:
ACCESS DOWNLOAD MODE
1) remove back cover and take our sim card and sd-card.
2) take out the battery
3) hold ALL 3 buttons down at the same time. (Vol +, Vol -, Power)
4) while holding down those 3 buttons put the battery back in
5) continue holding all 3 buttons until the vibrant disappears and reappears... once it reappears, release all 3 buttons
6) Setup ODIN and get it all setup and ready... (if you are flashing your phone via odin)
6) now connect your phone to your pc via USB cable
7) open a cmd prompt and navigate to the folder with ADB and type ADB REBOOT DOWNLOAD
8) Your phone will reboot into the download screen... go back to ODIN - A com port should now appear for your phone...
9) Click start and wait for your phone to do its thing
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This actually does not work for me. I have to 1) Pull the battery to make sure the phone is off, 2) Put it back in, 3) plug into USB, and immediately press and hold vol up/down.
Or ADB Reboot Download, but only sometimes.

monnietron said:
This actually does not work for me. I have to 1) Pull the battery to make sure the phone is off, 2) Put it back in, 3) plug into USB, and immediately press and hold vol up/down.
Or ADB Reboot Download, but only sometimes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you are about to immediately press and hold up/down you are clearly not using a locked phone... and believe me.. this method works.... i tested it out about 10 different times trying to make the how to as easy as possible... if you are STUCK at the vibrant screen... how were you accessing ADB?
LIKE I SAID... This seems to only work for phones that wont boot past the VIBRANT screen.. My phone is locked out of hardware access to downloading mode and recovery... If you arent locked out of hardware access... then this would be a pretty irrelevant GUIDE..
Here is what makes me believe I am locked out of hardware access... when I follow any of the tutorials on how to access download mode... my phone just flashes and goes back to the vibrant screen... or back to the battery.... it NEVER does anything else...
can anyone confirm that that is what happens with "locked" phones?
I have seen a few posts... in this thread as well as the general Q & A thread .. regarding people having this exact same problem... and having to take their phone back to t-mo to swap it out..

Heh seems like a lot of work. Here's what I normally do and always get into the desired mode.
Download Mode:
With the phone powered off
Plug in the USB cable.
Turn the phone on it's side and use both thumbs to hold (left thumb) Vol Up and (right thumb) Vol Down
Press and hold the power button with your right index finger til you see "Virbant" release the power button and it should say Downloading.
Recovery Mode:
With the phone powered off
UnPlug the USB cable.
Turn the phone on it's side and use both thumbs to hold (left thumb) Vol Up and (right thumb) Vol Down
Press and hold the power button with your right index finger til you see "Virbant" release the power button and it should be on the recovery screen.
Get to Download mode while displaying the Phone to Computer Icon"
Plug in the USB cable.
Turn the phone on it's side and use both thumbs to hold Vol Up and Vol Down
Press and hold the power button with your right index finger.
The screen will go black, continue holding.
The screen will come back on, you'll see the same Phone to Computer icon
Continue holding, the screen will go black
The screen will come back on, you should see "Vibrant" release the power button and you it should go into Downloading

Yes... my method seems difficult... BUT IT IS ALSO FOR NEWER VIBRANT PHONES THAT CANNOT ACCESS DOWNLOAD OR RECOVERY VIA YOUR METHOD OR ANYONE ELSES METHOD... because t-moble disabled hardware access...

That is exactly what happens with my phone. Either reboots or goes to the battery screen.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

Well hopefully between your method and mine.... nobody should have a problem accessing the downloader.... I have tried your method about 15 times with zero success accessing downloader or recovery... and I am pretty savvy... not sure what the differences are between our phones...

renocivik said:
Yes... my method seems difficult... BUT IT IS ALSO FOR NEWER VIBRANT PHONES THAT CANNOT ACCESS DOWNLOAD OR RECOVERY VIA YOUR METHOD OR ANYONE ELSES METHOD... because t-moble disabled hardware access...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just got new Vibrant and everything works fine. No need for any of that.....just have to hold volume buttons and release power button at the exact specific time with usb pluged in, phone goes straght to download mode.

RIP vibrant
just tried this method, and it didn't work for me. My Vibrant has the phone-!-computer error and it's the newer phone that doesn't load to recovery/dl mode via hard keys. I so happened to be loading a rom using odin and unplugged it because the process didn't show a status bar, it basically sat there doing nothing. Once i unplugged the phone it showed nothing but that error message on power up, hardreboot, charging ect. Thanks, tmo for locking hardkey recovery mode =(

xavyi said:
just tried this method, and it didn't work for me. My Vibrant has the phone-!-computer error and it's the newer phone that doesn't load to recovery/dl mode via hard keys. I so happened to be loading a rom using odin and unplugged it because the process didn't show a status bar, it basically sat there doing nothing. Once i unplugged the phone it showed nothing but that error message on power up, hardreboot, charging ect. Thanks, tmo for locking hardkey recovery mode =(
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
had this happen twice and those steps worked for me both times:
"have your usb in, press down both the volume up/down toggle and the power button.... hold them until the screen goes black and as soon as it does, let go only the power button and it should appear there again
however, i found out that you need to take out the battery and get into download mode freshly again...."

Essien said:
Heh seems like a lot of work. Here's what I normally do and always get into the desired mode.
Download Mode:
With the phone powered off
Plug in the USB cable.
Turn the phone on it's side and use both thumbs to hold (left thumb) Vol Up and (right thumb) Vol Down
Press and hold the power button with your right index finger til you see "Virbant" release the power button and it should say Downloading.
Recovery Mode:
With the phone powered off
UnPlug the USB cable.
Turn the phone on it's side and use both thumbs to hold (left thumb) Vol Up and (right thumb) Vol Down
Press and hold the power button with your right index finger til you see "Virbant" release the power button and it should be on the recovery screen.
Get to Download mode while displaying the Phone to Computer Icon"
Plug in the USB cable.
Turn the phone on it's side and use both thumbs to hold Vol Up and Vol Down
Press and hold the power button with your right index finger.
The screen will go black, continue holding.
The screen will come back on, you'll see the same Phone to Computer icon
Continue holding, the screen will go black
The screen will come back on, you should see "Vibrant" release the power button and you it should go into Downloading
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is exactly what I do on my phone. Actually had to do all three of this last weekend when I made a bonehead move and damn near bricked my phone. ODIN and Titanium backup saved my bacon.
I still do not fully understand this whole disabled recovery access thing. Has Samsung acknowledged it as a bug or a new permanent change? I heard they were going to fix it in the Froyo release?

I am unsure of what phones are locked and which ones arent... its kind of weird that some phones are locked out... my question for Eugene or JAC...
Is it possible to take an unlocked phone... and flash everything over to a locked phone... "unlocking it" so that the hardware buttons work?
and by unlocked I mean... able to access downloader/recovery via hardware buttons...
Those of you that ended up on the Phone ! Computer screen... if your phone is hardware locked... you are screwed... the method I originally posted only works if your phone will at least boot to the Vibrant screen (and have a hardware locked phone)
If your phone is not hardware locked... you can follow the millions of posts telling you how they access download mode... no need to follow my guide

Recently, I bricked my phone due to the hardware recovery/download feature being disabled.
Sitting here waiting (for 3 days) for the prepaid UPS return sticker from TMo I had a thought...
What if TMo/Samsung did not actually lock some of these phones down.
Follow along...
In the past, every single phone that I have ever owned would power up via USB connection (from the wall) even if the battery was not installed.
Tonight I noticed that my Vibrant will not power up unless the battery is installed.
USB (from PC) - Battery = No Power
USB (from wall) - Battery = No Power
Battery +/- USB (any) = Phone--!--PC icon
If someone who has a fully functional Vibrant (hardware recovery/download feature works) could try this out?
I'm curious to see if this is a possible pattern...

People keep saying to hold power in some way or another to get to download mode... You dont need to ever touch the power button!
Turn phone off, plug usb into computer, hold both volume buttons in and plug usb into phone. It will instantly go into download mode.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

[Q] HELP failed 2.2 update, phone not coming on

Hi
I have just tried to update to 2.2, i updated Kies first, connected my phone, it came back saying update available, fully charged battery, all seemed to go ok, phone rebooted, but when coming back up I get the logo, and the start up music, then it vibrates a bit the keys on bottom left and right are lit up, screen black and doesn't seem to do anything.
I have removed battery, have tried 3 button restore (no effect) it just keeps vibrating every min or so.
holding the power button restarts it, thats about all i can get it to do.
Have I ruined the phone?? please help.

boycey66 said:
Hi
I have just tried to update to 2.2, i updated Kies first, connected my phone, it came back saying update available, fully charged battery, all seemed to go ok, phone rebooted, but when coming back up I get the logo, and the start up music, then it vibrates a bit the keys on bottom left and right are lit up, screen black and doesn't seem to do anything.
I have removed battery, have tried 3 button restore (no effect) it just keeps vibrating every min or so.
holding the power button restarts it, thats about all i can get it to do.
Have I ruined the phone?? please help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First question... Did you have a lagfix on the phone before you tried to update it?
Second question... If you answered yes to question one... Did you remove / disable the lagfix before you flashed through Kies?

i had lag fix and was rooted, i plugged it in to laptop and it was recognised and said update 2.2 available, so i thought that was ok.
Now it is as i describe as above, i get battery logo if i plug into laptop, bottom left and right keys are lit but don't do anything, screen is black and vibrates every couple of minutes, if i hold power button get the GT galaxy s screen then the music, then the S galaxys screen which goes black with the two keys lit, if i press power button again it goes off and to the battery logo again.
Cannot get odin or kies to recognise phone plugged in, or get it into recovery or download mode

boycey66 said:
i had lag fix and was rooted, i plugged it in to laptop and it was recognised and said update 2.2 available, so i thought that was ok.
Now it is as i describe as above, i get battery logo if i plug into laptop, bottom left and right keys are lit but don't do anything, screen is black and vibrates every couple of minutes, if i hold power button get the GT galaxy s screen then the music, then the S galaxys screen which goes black with the two keys lit, if i press power button again it goes off and to the battery logo again.
Cannot get odin or kies to recognise phone plugged in, or get it into recovery or download mode
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you didn't answer the question but I will assume that you were using a lagfix but did not disable it before you tried to update you phone.
try removing the battery for a few minutes and try going to download mode (hold vol down + home + power)

Go into recovery mode (vol up + home + power 'till screen switches on) and select the delete data/cache (?) option with the volume keys, using the middle button to confirm. Your phone will work, but unfortunately, you'll loose all your app/settings =/
Should have un-lagfixed before updating :-s

let us know if Rawat's way worked for you.
I had disabled my lagfix too when updating to doc jk3 using cwm and same thing happened to me.
Only way i fixed it was to flash my phone's stock rom, jh2 2.1 using odin3 v1.3 and the firmware from samfirmware. (pda only, no pit, no repartition)
then i upgraded to froyo again and it worked.

[Q] Galaxy Verizon refuses to turn on

I have Galaxy Tab from Verizon and I tried to upgraded to Gingerbread but it didn't work and I couldn't get into the recovery mode to downgrade it back... I took it to some guy who said he can fix it but he couldn't, instead it now never turn on and only shows that its alive when I plug it to wall charger (it shows the mobile-triangle-PC image) it doesn't do that when I connect it to PC or without being plugged to anything!!! Power + Volume down does nothing, same for Power + Volume up!!!
Any suggestions?

have you held the power button till it turns off while plugged in? If you can force it to power off, you may be able to get it into download mode and go back to stock firmware that way.

I tried doing so before, after 7 seconds of holding the power button, the (mobile-triangle-PC) image starts to flash (go and come back) on 1 second pattern until I leave the button, it then gets back to the stable (mobile-triangle-PC) screen

Screen won't turn on - Bricked?

I was in the middle of installing drivers for my device and was getting from ADB type errors using the supertool.
I didn't get far, and after getting the error i unplugged and turned off my screen and now it won't turn back on.
When i plug it into my computer it won't detect the device.
I had it for less than 30 minutes! Any advice here?
:sadly i've rooted and flashed many a phone, not sure what i did wrong here:

Hold vol down and power until it vibrates, then let go of power and hold vol down till fastboot. If you can't get to that, you're probably pretty bricked.

Note, there does not appear to be a vibrate motor in the Fire7. So no vibrate feedback.

Possible brick after updating twrp

Dear all,
I was on beyond 5.3 with twrp 3.3.1.7 and I wanted to update everything. Magisk, root etc was working fine.
I downloaded the patched twrp file from the beyond telegram chat and flashed it as image into the recovery partition.
The installation was finished in 2 seconds, but stupid me chose to power off instead of rebooting the recovery.
So I tried to enter recovery using the button combo but nothing happened and I was stuck with the samsung logo.
The current status is that my phone only shows the samsung logo.
Holding the power button for a minute doesn't do anything.
Pressing the button combo for recovery mode doesn't do anything.
Pressing the button combo for dl mode makes the phone reboot. It vibrates for a sec, then the samsung logo shows again.
If I keep pressing all 3 buttons the phone keeps on rebooting and vibrating each time, but dl mode never appears. If I let go of the power button the logo stays and again, nothing happens.
So basically I can't enter dl mode nor reboot.
Should I let it run dry and try again or just throw out of the window immediately? :crying:

I let the battery drain over night. Phone was finally off.
So when I plug it in, the Samsung Logo appears and doesn't change. It just stays like that forever until the battery drains.
Pressing the power button doesn't do anything, no matter how long. It doesn't reboot nor does the logo disappear.
Pressing vol+, bixby and power again does nothing.
Vol-, bixby and power makes the phone reboot. The screen turns black, the phone vibrates shortly, the logo reappears. If I keep pressing the buttons the phone reboots again, and again, and again, mever reaching download mode.
If I let go of the power button and keep pressing vol- and bixby the phone stays black and won't even show the logo. Nothing happens. If I let go of either of the two buttons the logo appears again.
It won't boot, won't go into recovery or go into dl mode.
I'm doing all this while it's plugged into the usb port of my pc, and it doesn't get recognized. Samsung 300k tool doesn't recognize it either.
Now I know the meaning of "bricked" lmao.
Does anyone know how to possibly fix this?

Pressing only the power button for a minute literally does nothing. Like hell, how is that even possible?

You can try this to go to download mode:
Vol down + bixby + usb cable connect to PC
It's advisable to charge battery first before flashing firmware.

XTrail02 said:
You can try this to go to download mode:
Vol down + bixby + usb cable connect to PC
It's advisable to charge battery first before flashing firmware.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried that for like a thousand times already but now it chose to magically work somehow.
I think I peed myself a little when that ugly turquoise screen appeared and I screamed from sheer happyness.
THANK you!!!

The problem that doesn't stop giving lmao.
Got into DL mode, got odin to start, but after like 10 seconds my phone dies and odin fails.
Now I cant get into DL mode, but rather only the "an error occurred while updating the device software. use the emergency recovery function in the smart switch pc software."
Could it be the battery that simply dies?

hoeni said:
The problem that doesn't stop giving lmao.
Got into DL mode, got odin to start, but after like 10 seconds my phone dies and odin fails.
Now I cant get into DL mode, but rather only the "an error occurred while updating the device software. use the emergency recovery function in the smart switch pc software."
Could it be the battery that simply dies?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes most probably a discharged battery. Hopefully you can go to DL mode again after charging your phone.

hello,
I've and S10e and because an important app to me I need to go back to android 9 where it works.
I've read a lot info about downgrade, but no one says ROOT/UNBRICK.
Can someone inform if there is a way of downgrade without ROOT (maintaining the warranty).
thanks in advance
P.S.: Maybe too naive question, sorry for that