Database Develop

Help, partially bricked phone

I’m hoping someone can help me out with my phone. I have been searching the forums but it’s all getting a little much and i just need some advice please.
The background
I flashed my UK sgs (i9000 i think) with a darky modded ROM which has worked fine for about 6 months my phone has become more and more unstable. Seeing as i can work Odin i thought i would flash it again and fix my issues. Then my phone crashed and wouldn’t boot up, it was stuck on the Samsung Galaxy screen, before the flashing S. I then downloaded the official 2.3.3 ROM’s from the link of official Samsung ROM’s from the thread in the General forum and flashed it. This all went fine until i rebooted my phone, it went into recovery mode fine, although i got some error messages about being unable to mount the SD cards (i can add the proper error message tomorrow for you) i cleared user data and cache, rebooted and my phone came up with a new Gingerbread ROM. This was fine until i realised it had not mounted either my Internal or External SD cards. The operating system worked fine but i could not format or mount my SD cards. I then decided to reimage the phone using the same image i had downloaded in case something had gone wrong but i got the same error messages and now i couldn’t boot into the OS. Since this has happened i have downloaded a 2.2.x ROM and flashed that but i still have the same problem. I have also downloaded and flashed the Darky Resurrection ROM but that doesn’t seem to have helped. I have asked Odin to repartition, i have used PIT 512 and a couple of others, 1 and 3 file ROM’s and if i am honest, i have got nowhere apart from a headache.
I think i have some how corrupted the internal SD card and need to reimage all the right folders and stuff but with the huge amount of official ROM’s, custom ROM’s, recovery tools and tips and tricks, my head is just swimming. Can someone please just point me in the right directions and hopefully i can have a working phone in the morning.
Many thanks in advance,
Simon

do you have any lagfix before you flash to the official 2.3.3 ROM’s ?

I'm having a similar issue w/ mine. The external sd wouldn't mount and i had kind of already started the process to update the rom. It was a dumb mistake. i knew the sd wasn't mounting so i used a different phone to mount put the updates on. Nevertheless i can't use my phone, other than to get on clockwork.

I think i may have had a lag fix on it but as i was unable to get my phone to start there was no chance of removing it before i reflashed the phone. Now i just need to get the damn internal SD working again so i can have a working phone, can you help?
Also, sorry if my main post is a little rambling, i wrote it when i got home from the pub drowning my sorrorws and may have been a little drunk...

Ok, now i've had a coffee and my headache is dying down i can add a little more info which will hopefully help.
I just downloaded GT_I9000_XWJS7_XXJPY_XEEJS1 from Darky rom user guides page on restoring a SGS to a stock ROM and followed all of the instructions. the flash in Odin goes just fine, no errors or anything, my phone the reboots, gets to the Samsung Galaxy screen and i get into the recovery mode with the following messages :
Update media. please wait
E:Can't mount /dev/block/mmcblk0p1
(no such file or directory)
E:copy_dbdata_media: Can't mount SDCARD
Your storage not prepared yet, please use UI menu for format and reboot actions
copy default media content failed.
This is where i then get stuck, my phone will just get stuck in a boot loop and there seems to be no way to get into the phone. This is starting to drive me to dispair now as everything i have tried has failed badly! Does anyone have any idea how i go about recovering from this?

ok so,
-flash froyo firmware (2.2.1 might be better) then flash speedmod kernel
-get into recovery mode and check your phone's file system in lagfix option
-if it is rfs change it to ext4
-if it is ext4 change it to rfs
im not sure about this method but i ever had this preblem after i converted system to rfs (ext4 before)
hope it helps you and tell me that it works or not,thanks.
edit:wrong word

FLash darky's resurrection Rom ...that error caused by you forget disable lagfix before...
or try Flashing a full rom (3files) with .pit to repartitioning your phone... thick repartition...and thats not "Brick" if you can go download mode...
Come on lets see

I once had the same problem. Same error.message. I searched a lot in xda n finally read something which says to flash Rom with 812 pit and eclair (2.1) with 3 files. After flashing the error message came again so I relished using only pda file. Next time it rebooted normally into home screen. Hope it helps
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

OK, we're getting somewhere now but not there yet. Flashing the speedmod kernel lets me boot the phone which is further than i have got for a day so thats good, but it still won't recognisse any internal or external SD cards, if you look in the settings section it just shows options to format the sd cards.
I tried changing the filesystem to ex4 as recommended but once it reboots when it says it will go to the recovery menu to debug it just presents me with the option to convert it again as it says the filesystem for /data is RFS still.
Any ideas why it would be doing this and why it won't recognise any of the memory cards? I have also noticed that when i connect the phone to my PC now and tell it to go into Mass storage mode, it shows the drives but says there is no media there! I'm very confused by the whole thing now but at least i do have a phone again of sorts!

So i flashed Darky's resurrection ROM and this is now booting up much as the phone was with the speedmod kernel flashed but i still have the same issue where it won't recognise either the external or internal SD cards so i have no storage space at all. Is it possible i have broken them? I assume at least a bit of the internal card is working or the OS wouldn't be there but why can it not see the other half of the card?

Right, after messing about for far too long i have bitten the bulit and sending it in for repairs, i've read through a couple of posts that seem to say it's the only way to fix it so will see how good the Samsung techicians are!
Thanks for all the help though, you've got me a working phone again, even if i can't save anything on it!

[Q] part of internal sdcard gone

Hi all,
I have some trouble figuring out what's happening with my Galaxy S internal sdcard.
first, I lost part of my phone during a call. phone fell in a rebooting loop. since then ; HELL !
I followed each and every post of about 200 threads to get my phone back like (not limited too) :
- flashed 2.1 (2.2) original firmware with Odin
- flashed all existing ROMS (or almost) with .pit, pda via Odin
- all mount unmount things (now grayed in menu with no available message)
- messing around with adb fdisk, mount, format, etc
- did all possible combination of reset, hard reset, wipe, format from phone or recovery
- tried repartitioning card (with gparted once)
- formating via usb from window 7
well, you got the picture !
now the strange things are :
- phone boot ok with any ROM, now with Darky resurection 10.1
- call, gps, messaging are all ok
- no sdcard visible from within the phone or from windows, so no camera or music or any apps that needs to write to sdcard is possible
- a 2go partition exists on the 16go internal sdcard
- if external sdcard is removed, phone never boot pass logo, although I can go in recovery mode and manage to see all files on internal sdcard with adb shell
- mmcblk0p1 and mmcblk0p2 are only visible when external sdcard is in the phone so I guess the 14go partition failed once to load and system recorded external sdcard as the internal sdcard.
I need a way to put sdcards in the right place as I'm pretty sure the internal one is not fried but only lost a partition probably due to lagfix or a corrupt filesystem.
I'm no expert at all with linux OS or partitioning but I'm sure that's the way to go and I know there's a great bunch of devoted developers in here
PR
ps. I'm willing to pay if anyone can get me out of there FAST

I suspect this could be down to bootloaders, 10.1 requires ficeto JVH base right ? and that requires GB bootloaders, im not 100% sure, ive not used his roms for quite some time.
but im sure your problem lies there somewhere.

azzledazzle said:
I suspect this could be down to bootloaders, 10.1 requires ficeto JVH base right ? and that requires GB bootloaders, im not 100% sure, ive not used his roms for quite some time.
but im sure your problem lies there somewhere.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
phone boot ok with all ROMs with any XXX base I tried so I installed 10.1
whatever the ROM, issues are all the same as mentioned above
this won't b easy

well flash back to froyo or eclair, use a 3 file firmware with pit and re-partition
then when that is successful flash this : http://sourceforge.net/projects/teamhacksung/files/galaxys/GT-I9000_FROYO_FULL_PDA.tar/download
then report back please
you dont have the I9000 M<< do you ??

azzledazzle said:
well flash back to froyo or eclair, use a 3 file firmware with pit and re-partition
then when that is successful flash this :
then report back please
you dont have the I9000 M<< do you ??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ok done flashing
manage to reboot phone WITHOUT external sdcard.
still don't have access to the 14go internal sdcard partition, although ROM is installed on it (maybe on the 2go partition).
external card is recognized but only with unmount option as size is indicating 00 (of 16go) so cannot use it to store anything from phone (camera, music, etc) will try a empty 8go
any idea about internal sdcard ?
few more white hairs

you didnt state whether you had the M version of the SGS, this is known for its internal sd failures.
also boot into recovery, is there any error messages ?

I have Vibrant version from Bell, GT-I9000 from about phone menu
still cannot mount external sdcard
recovery report no error so far

the bell version of the i9000 is the one that suffers from internal sd card corruption.
there have been many reports of this, i feel you could be another on the ever growing list.
Have a read of this http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=905975
if that brings you no luck, i would suggest you ring bell / samsung for a repair / replacement

[Q] SD Card and Data and Datadata blocked for changes, no flash possible

Hello all,
I've got a GT-I9000, which have a ugly situation:
- on starting some apps generally break down with errormessage (Maps, Mail.web.de and others
- any change in the system are not persistent (passwords are lost, new Apps can not be installed, Apps can not deleted)
- Changes on internal SDCard are also completely not persistent (nor Deletion or copy files on the storrage, nor formatation)
- complete wipe are also not persistent, but after a new start the smartphone makes a initialisation-Setup (asking for settings Google account and so on), but other settings are still there (background pic and so on)
- Wipe did not work over settings and also not over the CWM recovery
- Flashing did not work for the system. Tryed one file versions, and three file versions with and without 512.pit and repart. But odin (1.85) told everything was fine while flashing
- Kernel and recovery-flashing works without a problem.
- used actual drivers, Kies not running in system (shutdown via taskmanager)
- Downloadmode, recovery works. Access via usb is possible in running system and over CWM, but changes are nor persistent (so it is not possible to flash via CWM, because I can not store data on the SDCard, and I ve actual no external SDCard..
So after searching a lot of forum enrys I can see, that there are some other guys which have the same prolem, but I found no working solution. I think that there are the following possebillities:
- the NAND is brocken in some areas
- the partitions/partition-tables are not working right
- maybe the MFT is brocken...
- motherboard defect
- negative energy from space or aliens lives in the phone
So I'm interested in you thougths, and your ideas. I ve no problem to use Linuxs or windows tools, and it would be absolutley great if someone can told me that there is a posebility to recover the phone (other way of check the ram, partitioning in other ways and so on)
What do you think,
Best regards
Solar Plexus
PS: sorryfor my mistakes and my english, but the used keyboard is poor, and my english is not good

SolarPlexus said:
So I'm interested in you thougths, and your ideas. I ve no problem to use Linuxs or windows tools, and it would be absolutley great if someone can told me that there is a posebility to recover the phone (other way of check the ram, partitioning in other ways and so on)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
IF its a hardware problem, you need to use a box or JTAG solution to identify the problem, so just try exhausting Software solution, till you are sure its a hardware issue.
visit My Android Collections downgrade your phone to the earliest version, Eclair ( but your combo keys will not work) so you need to flash the fix or try froyo or try the i9000 rescue kit with heimdall or recovery tools to flash
or.
get an 8 gig EXT SD card, partition it as a 2 gig and 6 gig in rfs /vfat format, try flashing the ROM with speedmod kernel for i9000

Thanks at first for your Informations!
xsenman said:
IF its a hardware problem, you need to use a box or JTAG solution to identify the problem, so just try exhausting Software solution, till you are sure its a hardware issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So I'll retry at first the Software-way. But nevertheless I'm thinking about to buy also a JIG, because it seems that I flash more and more, and then it will be a good idea to have a emergency-tool to reach the download-screen. I've read sometimes that this stickers clean also the counter and triangle stuff, but I'm ot sure if this will also work for my new S3? (sorry, is a little of topic)...
xsenman said:
visit My Android Collections downgrade your phone to the earliest version, Eclair ( but your combo keys will not work) so you need to flash the fix or try froyo or try the i9000 rescue kit with heimdall or recovery tools to flash
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK, I'll try the downgrade and also the rescue-kit at weekend. We will see...
xsenman said:
get an 8 gig EXT SD card, partition it as a 2 gig and 6 gig in rfs /vfat format, try flashing the ROM with speedmod kernel for i9000
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here I'm a little puzzled. If I understand it right I have to format the SD-Card with two partitions, and then I flash the Rom on it?? I've never heard that this is possible. If yes, Odin recognize this automatically? Or does this only mean, that the I9000 have then a external Storrage which may improve the flash-process for CWM?
Thanks, and Best regards,
SolarPlexus

SolarPlexus said:
Here I'm a little puzzled. If I understand it right I have to format the SD-Card with two partitions, and then I flash the Rom on it?? I've never heard that this is possible. If yes, Odin recognize this automatically? Or does this only mean, that the I9000 have then a external Storrage which may improve the flash-process for CWM?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope, what I am looking at is, its possible your problems could be due to internal SD card corruption ( hence trying to isolate it using your External SD card to perform as its internal SD card) , as such by using the external SD card, with speedmod kernel, which is capable of reading that as your Internal SD card. In other words its like switching the cards and flashing the ROM. Read this
BTW this will work when Internal SD card totally corrupted and I am not sure it will work in partial corruption ( as you indicate) but worth giving it a try.
also look at this
yup, usb jig will work for S3 too, and triangle away works only for s2 and up, and S does not have a flash counter.

OK, sounds as we have maybe a way... SDCard switch is something what comes not in my mind, so now I have a little hope
So as I can do that only later in the weekend, I'll post my tests later.
Thanks
SP

Hello,
the external SD-Card could do the trick. I've startet in that way, format the ext-sd-card in two partitions (one reiserfs and one Vfat) and flash the modified firmware which was found in your link. Now I can start the Smartphone. but I have no acces to the SD-Card, but I can see, that the problem seems to be the internal SD-Card.
So now I'll try to use a custom-rom (maybe slim 4.1.2) and try to modify it in that way which was described in your link. If I will succseed, I'll maybe upload the package, or try to store it in the slimrom-area or whatever
By the way:
with speedmod kernel, which is capable of reading that as your Internal SD card
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did not find a option in the speedmodkernel for switching the internal and external SD-Card (K17). But I've try to find that while I have no ext-SD-Card in the phone, so maybe the option was hidden...
Thanks up to now, and best regards,
SP

There is no switch in speedmod kernels but it is designed to read both rfs and ext2/4 formats and partitions as such it will automatically read the available partitions as its internal SD card. And its best to use ICS or Jbean custom ROMs, when Internal SD card is unavailable due to any reason.
good luck on trials and do upload whatever here or on a new thread that may help others solve such issues.

Need help mounting /system and /data from external SD. Internal SD is dead :/.

Hello,
I normally can get by pretty well, and I have done numerous searches before posting for help. This time I have really run into a brick wall, and I really need help here.
Basically, I did something really stupid where I did not know that the phone had been booting off a external SD (my mom gave it back to me like that). Actually, I suspected that it did because the phone would have not booted without the card, however, I could flash my phone even if I removed the external SD card (as if the internal SD were there, but it wasn't), but it had always required me to insert the card back in for it to reboot from a flash. So I thought maybe internal SD was fine.
Originally, I had a Samsung 8gb class 6, but I wanted to change it to a 32gb class 10 ( to help the OS run smoother IF it were running on external SD). This is where I made a great mistake; I formatted the 32gb card and made 3 partitions. The first one is in FAT32 of 24 gb, 2nd is in EXT4 4gb, 3rd is the rest in EXT 4 as well. The original setup that was working had about 5.5gb in FAT32 and about 1.88gb of EXT(not sure which). The mistake was that I also formatted the 8gb card as well. In chronological order, these were what has happened:
1. I did a Odin stock reset to 2.3.5 with CWM injected
2. Installed Corn Kernel
3. Formatted both external SDs and repartition as mentioned above
4. At this point, I didn't know there was an issue. CWM sees the external SD and I tried to install CM 10.3 since I read in one of the threads that JB has a weird file systems and it needed to be installed twice to fix sdcard0 and sdcard1
5. CM10.3 installed kernel, and failed afterward since there was no /system and /data. At this point, I have Neat Kernel installed and lost bootloader along with fastboot and cannot access download mode.
6. I have tried to change EXT4 to EXT3 or EXT2 to see if there would be any luck in file system recognition, but no luck
7. The only way I can connect to the phone was through ADB, and verified that my internal SD card was dead because mmcblk0 was not there when I removed external SD
8. I tried to mount mmcblk0p1 (4gb EXT4 partition) and mmcblk0p2 as /system and /data, but I had been getting an error
9. I tried to use USB mount in TWRP, but no additional drive showed up (confirmed dead internal SD)
9. I tried to look for vold.fstabs but /system does not exist. The only *.fstabs file founds were in /etc file (not /system/etc) and is, for example, aries.fstabs
I know for the fact that it can be done because the phone was working before, but I really don't have enough linux knowledge or the what the phone looks at in chronological order in order to figure out how to remedy this. I would really appreciate if someone can guide me to a right direction. Thank you.
Below are major references I have gone through (not including youtube videos, etc..):
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2057004
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1897918
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2057004
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2199215
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=30415128#post30415128
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=31017954&postcount=5335
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=911228
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1463756
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1241574
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=845708&page=2

I see it's been a couple weeks with no update but if you're still stuck this may help. I had similar issues trying to flash zips from recovery. I kept getting the "can't mount" error message and what I figured out is that the access to CWM recovery via the update method I'd used was pretty much loaded up in cache, thus I couldn't mount . Getting back to total stock first may help. This is the basic rundown I performed to get my cappy back up ... currently on JB. Granted, I didn't go about reformatting drives as you did.
1. Flash I897UCKK4 with Odin (no root) for gingerbread stock rom
2. Download and install KK4root. Run Kk4 root "run" exe in the kk4_root folder. Corn kernel is installed with modded recovery system
3. From Corn kernel recovery click "root extras" to get su and busy box installed
Everything is pretty much dependent on using them in Windows and still active in download links if you do some searching.
Hope it helps!

Aimless Rambler said:
I see it's been a couple weeks with no update but if you're still stuck this may help. I had similar issues trying to flash zips from recovery. I kept getting the "can't mount" error message and what I figured out is that the access to CWM recovery via the update method I'd used was pretty much loaded up in cache, thus I couldn't mount . Getting back to total stock first may help. This is the basic rundown I performed to get my cappy back up ... currently on JB. Granted, I didn't go about reformatting drives as you did.
1. Flash I897UCKK4 with Odin (no root) for gingerbread stock rom
2. Download and install KK4root. Run Kk4 root "run" exe in the kk4_root folder. Corn kernel is installed with modded recovery system
3. From Corn kernel recovery click "root extras" to get su and busy box installed
Everything is pretty much dependent on using them in Windows and still active in download links if you do some searching.
Hope it helps!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the reply; I constant checked this site for a week or so with no response, so I gave up. I would have been able to go with your method if my download mode worked. Basically, I cannot go into either download mode or fastboot. I tried to flash different kernels to try to enable it, but I kept running into error 0 even after I changed the binary. Any idea? Thanks.

[Q] Need help mounting /system and /data from external SD. Internal SD is dead :/

Hello,
I figure someone here might be able to help since most of where I found information regarding my issue came from this subforum. My phone is i897 (Captivate), but I think it should be similar; I posted there as well but no luck .
I normally can get by pretty well, and I have done numerous searches before posting for help. This time I have really run into a brick wall, and I really need help here.
Basically, I did something really stupid where I did not know that the phone had been booting off a external SD (my mom gave it back to me like that). Actually, I suspected that it did because the phone would have not booted without the card, however, I could flash my phone even if I removed the external SD card (as if the internal SD were there, but it wasn't), but it had always required me to insert the card back in for it to reboot from a flash. So I thought maybe internal SD was fine.
Originally, I had a Samsung 8gb class 6, but I wanted to change it to a 32gb class 10 ( to help the OS run smoother IF it were running on external SD). This is where I made a great mistake; I formatted the 32gb card and made 3 partitions. The first one is in FAT32 of 24 gb, 2nd is in EXT4 4gb, 3rd is the rest in EXT 4 as well. The original setup that was working had about 5.5gb in FAT32 and about 1.88gb of EXT(not sure which). The mistake was that I also formatted the 8gb card as well. In chronological order, these were what has happened:
1. I did a Odin stock reset to 2.3.5 with CWM injected
2. Installed Corn Kernel
3. Formatted both external SDs and repartition as mentioned above
4. At this point, I didn't know there was an issue. CWM sees the external SD and I tried to install CM 10.3 since I read in one of the threads that JB has a weird file systems and it needed to be installed twice to fix sdcard0 and sdcard1
5. CM10.3 installed kernel, and failed afterward since there was no /system and /data. At this point, I have Neat Kernel installed and lost bootloader along with fastboot and cannot access download mode.
6. I have tried to change EXT4 to EXT3 or EXT2 to see if there would be any luck in file system recognition, but no luck
7. The only way I can connect to the phone was through ADB, and verified that my internal SD card was dead because mmcblk0 was not there when I removed external SD
8. I tried to mount mmcblk0p1 (4gb EXT4 partition) and mmcblk0p2 as /system and /data, but I had been getting an error
9. I tried to use USB mount in TWRP, but no additional drive showed up (confirmed dead internal SD)
9. I tried to look for vold.fstabs but /system does not exist. The only *.fstabs file founds were in /etc file (not /system/etc) and is, for example, aries.fstabs
I know for the fact that it can be done because the phone was working before, but I really don't have enough linux knowledge or the what the phone looks at in chronological order in order to figure out how to remedy this. I would really appreciate if someone can guide me to a right direction. Thank you.
Below are major references I have gone through (not including youtube videos, etc..):
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2057004
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1897918
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2057004
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2199215
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=30415128#post30415128
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=31017954&postcount=5335
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=911228
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1463756
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1241574
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=845708&page=2

PMrjn83 said:
Hello,
I figure someone here might be able to help since most of where I found information regarding my issue came from this subforum. My phone is i897 (Captivate), but I think it should be similar; I posted there as well but no luck .
I normally can get by pretty well, and I have done numerous searches before posting for help. This time I have really run into a brick wall, and I really need help here.
Basically, I did something really stupid where I did not know that the phone had been booting off a external SD (my mom gave it back to me like that). Actually, I suspected that it did because the phone would have not booted without the card, however, I could flash my phone even if I removed the external SD card (as if the internal SD were there, but it wasn't), but it had always required me to insert the card back in for it to reboot from a flash. So I thought maybe internal SD was fine.
Originally, I had a Samsung 8gb class 6, but I wanted to change it to a 32gb class 10 ( to help the OS run smoother IF it were running on external SD). This is where I made a great mistake; I formatted the 32gb card and made 3 partitions. The first one is in FAT32 of 24 gb, 2nd is in EXT4 4gb, 3rd is the rest in EXT 4 as well. The original setup that was working had about 5.5gb in FAT32 and about 1.88gb of EXT(not sure which). The mistake was that I also formatted the 8gb card as well. In chronological order, these were what has happened:
1. I did a Odin stock reset to 2.3.5 with CWM injected
2. Installed Corn Kernel
3. Formatted both external SDs and repartition as mentioned above
4. At this point, I didn't know there was an issue. CWM sees the external SD and I tried to install CM 10.3 since I read in one of the threads that JB has a weird file systems and it needed to be installed twice to fix sdcard0 and sdcard1
5. CM10.3 installed kernel, and failed afterward since there was no /system and /data. At this point, I have Neat Kernel installed and lost bootloader along with fastboot and cannot access download mode.
6. I have tried to change EXT4 to EXT3 or EXT2 to see if there would be any luck in file system recognition, but no luck
7. The only way I can connect to the phone was through ADB, and verified that my internal SD card was dead because mmcblk0 was not there when I removed external SD
8. I tried to mount mmcblk0p1 (4gb EXT4 partition) and mmcblk0p2 as /system and /data, but I had been getting an error
9. I tried to use USB mount in TWRP, but no additional drive showed up (confirmed dead internal SD)
9. I tried to look for vold.fstabs but /system does not exist. The only *.fstabs file founds were in /etc file (not /system/etc) and is, for example, aries.fstabs
I know for the fact that it can be done because the phone was working before, but I really don't have enough linux knowledge or the what the phone looks at in chronological order in order to figure out how to remedy this. I would really appreciate if someone can guide me to a right direction. Thank you.
Below are major references I have gone through (not including youtube videos, etc..):
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2057004
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1897918
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2057004
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2199215
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=30415128#post30415128
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=31017954&postcount=5335
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=911228
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1463756
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1241574
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=845708&page=2
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Have you looked over this guide ? or this ?

Höhenheim said:
Have you looked over this guide ? or this ?
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Thanks. I'll try when I get home to my desktop. For some reason, my laptop does not recognize the phone through adb. It shows "SGH-i897" in device manager with an exclamation mark. And yes, I have tried quite a few drivers, etc... :/
I might need to try this...
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1761968

Höhenheim said:
Have you looked over this guide ? or this ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just had a chance to look at it more thoroughly. The biggest problem for me is that my phone does not have an OS, and it's on semaphore kernel where I cannot access download mode nor fastboot. I have tried to install gingerbread kernel to try to recover download mode/fastboot (speedmods), but I kept running into error 0. I have also tried to modify the su.binary, but that didn't work :/. Any idea how to start? Thanks.

PMrjn83 said:
I just had a chance to look at it more thoroughly. The biggest problem for me is that my phone does not have an OS, and it's on semaphore kernel where I cannot access download mode nor fastboot. I have tried to install gingerbread kernel to try to recover download mode/fastboot (speedmods), but I kept running into error 0. I have also tried to modify the su.binary, but that didn't work :/. Any idea how to start? Thanks.
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Based on your earlier comments on the partitions failing to mount, you should format: system, data, datadata, cache.

gsstudios said:
Based on your earlier comments on the partitions failing to mount, you should format: system, data, datadata, cache.
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Well, I tried. If it doesn't mount at all, how can you format?