[Q] i897 Internal SD card unmountable and flashing ineffective - Captivate Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I've never used a forum before, but I'm having a very tough time with my i897 captivate. Its previous owner left it in a box while software updates passed it by. When I came in possession of it, I used rooting, custom ROMs, and flashing to update it to more useful firmwares. I mainly stuck to CM 7, 9, and 10. Eventually I fell victim to that "ICS Encryption Unsuccessful" error and clicked reset, triggering a period of bootloop. I've since fixed the bootloop issue but I still can't get my phone to boot to any firmware. Over the past year, I've been trying all sorts of things to get my phone to work again and I don't know if I've made the problem worse or not. I can get my phone to boot the At&t screen, download mode, and whatever recovery kernel I'm on at the time, but nothing more. I don't even think I have a ROM installed anymore.
What I've tried:
several Odin One-clicks
Heimdall One-click unbrick
Partitioning my external sd card to act as an internal one
ADB sideload
ADB push and install zip from sd card
The errors I run into the most are the "can't mount sd card" ones when I'm trying to flash a custom ROM in recovery. I guess my internal sd is corrupted somehow? Is there a way for me to fix this mess?

asertap said:
I've never used a forum before, but I'm having a very tough time with my i897 captivate. Its previous owner left it in a box while software updates passed it by. When I came in possession of it, I used rooting, custom ROMs, and flashing to update it to more useful firmwares. I mainly stuck to CM 7, 9, and 10. Eventually I fell victim to that "ICS Encryption Unsuccessful" error and clicked reset, triggering a period of bootloop. I've since fixed the bootloop issue but I still can't get my phone to boot to any firmware. Over the past year, I've been trying all sorts of things to get my phone to work again and I don't know if I've made the problem worse or not. I can get my phone to boot the At&t screen, download mode, and whatever recovery kernel I'm on at the time, but nothing more. I don't even think I have a ROM installed anymore.
What I've tried:
several Odin One-clicks
Heimdall One-click unbrick
Partitioning my external sd card to act as an internal one
ADB sideload
ADB push and install zip from sd card
The errors I run into the most are the "can't mount sd card" ones when I'm trying to flash a custom ROM in recovery. I guess my internal sd is corrupted somehow? Is there a way for me to fix this mess?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
sd card issues are usually due to kernel, have you tried flashing a custom one to boot in recovery?
If your internal is dying, partitioning an external sd should work but since it's still not fully booting, I feel like that's not the issue. I had that happen to mine, tried many Odin and Heimdall, when finally one Heimdall worked (after like 10-15 different attempts). Shortly after my internal died though.
So I would start by flashing a kernel with Odin 1.7, see if you can boot in recovery (always took me a few attempts to get it). From there you can flash a custom ROM (I always suggest GamerzROM for the cappy but really it's personal preference). Otherwise, your 2nd option is bashing your head on Odin/Heimdall one-clicks lol
PS.: Just came across this if all else fails: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=61479845&postcount=58

I have this exact same issue... Thank god I'm not alone! I wondered what that stupid "encryption failed' message was all about.
So I've done just about everything the above has done, except the problem is I continue to get a boot loop. The ODIN one-clicks all boot loop. Ive been able to install a custom kernel and CWM, and surprisingly my internal storage is still accessible, but when I try to install the CM9 that's on there it freezes at "opening update package".
So, stuck between a rock and a hard place. I can't put any other ROM's on the internal storage because I have no way of accessing it. Therefore I have to rely on a ODIN one-click. All of which boot loop or just fail outright. Is there a way to access the internal storage without fully booting android?

Related

[Q] Interesting boot loop problem.

2 nights ago I thought I would have a go at installing ULTIMATE ROM 3.0. I have flashed many Roms on my Galaxy S before and not had a problem yet. I have ClockworkMod Recovery 2.5.1.0 installed.
However, this time- something went wrong. I don't think the installation completed properly. When I tried to reboot the system (to go back into my previous ROM) I wasn't able to. The Samsung logo appeared before the phone booted back into Recovery mode.
I tried to re-flash my previous working update.zip but had problems. I wasn't able to properly re-flash as the Installation would abort for various reasons. After doing cache clearing and data/factory reset I still had no luck. I resorted to reformatting the sdcard. Still didn't solve the flashing problem.
Throughout the whole time I was able to adb into the phone, browse the file system and I could push files on to it and take files off. But Kies wouldn't recognise the phone and Odin isn't able to complete a transfer to the phone (not sure why).
Today, I am able to successfully flash update.zip files (at least, that's what it looks like) but the phone ALWAYS boots into ClockwordMod recovery.
I am fast running out of ideas. Does anyone have any suggestion?
How can I tell if my ROMs are really 'there' but I can't access them because ClockworkMod is preventing them from booting?
hmmm... me too.. stuck in a loop, that keeps going back to the CWM recovery menu, and no matter what i do, keeps going back to it... cant even get to the download screen to flash (again).... here i was thinking no matter what happens when installing custom roms, i can always flash to my stable secure rom, but not this time... need some software that can perform surgical operations, any suggestions?
bradels said:
2 nights ago I thought I would have a go at installing ULTIMATE ROM 3.0. I have flashed many Roms on my Galaxy S before and not had a problem yet. I have ClockworkMod Recovery 2.5.1.0 installed.
However, this time- something went wrong. I don't think the installation completed properly. When I tried to reboot the system (to go back into my previous ROM) I wasn't able to. The Samsung logo appeared before the phone booted back into Recovery mode.
I tried to re-flash my previous working update.zip but had problems. I wasn't able to properly re-flash as the Installation would abort for various reasons. After doing cache clearing and data/factory reset I still had no luck. I resorted to reformatting the sdcard. Still didn't solve the flashing problem.
Throughout the whole time I was able to adb into the phone, browse the file system and I could push files on to it and take files off. But Kies wouldn't recognise the phone and Odin isn't able to complete a transfer to the phone (not sure why).
Today, I am able to successfully flash update.zip files (at least, that's what it looks like) but the phone ALWAYS boots into ClockwordMod recovery.
I am fast running out of ideas. Does anyone have any suggestion?
How can I tell if my ROMs are really 'there' but I can't access them because ClockworkMod is preventing them from booting?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
myrobelle said:
hmmm... me too.. stuck in a loop, that keeps going back to the CWM recovery menu, and no matter what i do, keeps going back to it... cant even get to the download screen to flash (again).... here i was thinking no matter what happens when installing custom roms, i can always flash to my stable secure rom, but not this time... need some software that can perform surgical operations, any suggestions?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thats too bad guys,and i m sorry to hear that news.I would like to havean answer but i dont...
The fact is that since most people in this forum use some custom roms,and all of us think the same,that we can always go back,so it would be great if you give some more details about what happened to you,and mybe why it went wrong,and it would be even better if one of the BIG guys would give some explanation about this...
I already thinking of not updating my rom anymore,dot want to end up in looping too,so lets see if someone will find something.Good luck guys..
By the way,i didnt get it right,CWM recovery cannot load your backup????
I just got an idea,but not sure if or how it would work or not.
Since you can push file with ADB,if soeone made a clean backup with his CWM (o e mail,contacts,setting saved) and send it to you,so that you log in with CWM recovery and flash that ???
Just an idea..maybe stupid dont know...
Its not very clear if youve tried this already but cant you just boot into recovery through adb? or does that not work either?

[Q] Need some Help, possible file system issue

I have a Verizon Galaxy tablet 7 inch the original one. I have had many custom roms on it in the past. Recently I had AOKP on it...I am not sure what build. For some reason my kids were playing with it and it would not boot up. I went into recovery and tried flashing AOKP and it would stay locked up on the boot screen. I eventually tried flashing all ICS roms with no success. I eventually ended up trying to go back to stock. I can get into download mode with and communicate with Heimdall and/or Odin. The problem is that every thing I flash goes into a boot loop. when I go into recovery I get an unable to mount error like E: unable to mount cache and one for kernel and about 6 more. I figure that there is something wrong with the file system so I have used a pit file when I flashed with no success. I am not sure if there is an issue with the file system being the wrong type or if I have to many partitions now. I know that the mount error in recovery is where the problem has to be. If someone could please point me in the right direction. I have been all over these forums.
Thanks,
Leroy
In order to determine if it is file related. Try to do a full wipe right after the Odin.
That is all 3 Wipes (Cache,Dalvik,Data)
Also check all the boxes on the right side of the Odin screen to flash the stock rom.
Well I got a little further now it boots up after 5 minutes and states encryption unsuccessful and asks to reset tablet. There is some threads on this so I will get to trying to resolve this. In fact I just realized this is how everything started off I didn't read the message and powered it down. So it must have started on its own or from the kids playing on the tablet.
Is there any way to determine if your internal memory is shot. It seems like there is a problem mounting my internal memory > emmc?

Keep phone on long enough to transfer files?

I have had a ATT captivate for almost 2 years now. It falls in the IMEI range specified by ATT. But it wasn't really a problem until very recently.
It got much worse about 3 weeks ago when the phone kept constantly rebooting. It would load the OS, begin media scanning, once that concluded, it would immediately reboot (almost every 20 seconds). Only way to stop the reboot cycle is to take out the battery. No new apps were installed, no system changes were made when this happened.
I am able to get the phone's menu which allows me to wipe and I am able to get the phone into download mode.
I have read (4) of this article regarding sleepdeath and all corresponding articles referenced.
This is what I did...
1) Performed hard reset, cleared storage. This eliminated all third party apps, returned the phone to stock (I think), but the phone is still rebooting.
2) Attempted to install a brand new rom (CM) via CWM = Problem got much worse. Still rebooting but this time, after the ATT logo appears, the screen changes to static (noise) and reboots. Followed instructions and diles from here.
3) Since the phone became useless, I hunted around to return it to stock again and used this. The phone now boots up into the OS, but now it's back to rebooting.
I repeated steps 2 and 3 just to make sure I didn't miss a step, but same problem.
I have 2 goals:
1) Get the phone working, if at all possible!
2) If that's not possible, recover the 300 pictures that are on the device.
My challenge is that since the phone keeps rebooting every 20 seconds, by the time it connects to my PC via USB as external storage, it reboots! This ofcourse is also preventing me from loading a ROM directly on to the SD card.
So if anyone can help me to do the following:
1) Point me in the right direction to how I can keep the phone in a certain mode or setting (download mode doesn't work) where I can transfer files, recover my pics, and perhaps load a custom ROM?
2) Next steps?? Am I even on the right track? Since the stock rom keeps the phone rebooting, will a custom ROM solve the problem (have not been able to get a conclusive answer on this on the threads referring to sleep death (which this is an exaggerated version of) or is the phone a lost cause?
I know I can call ATT and try to haggle a replacement (since the phone is out of warranty), the only benefit being they don't renew my contract, and I don't have to upgrade.
Any help or guidance is much appreciated.
Wow, bummer
Well i don't know if you can mount the sd card in stock recovery (never used it) but if you can't then you could flash one of the stock one click roms with cwm recovery from this thread.... http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1300843
In cwm recovery there is an option to mount sd while connected to pc so you can backup your stuff.
For the reboots, could it be your power button? Mine is acting up, and often seems to cause reboots. There are threads about fixing that. Idk just a thought.
Hope that helped a bit
Sent from phone with app
Like the previous post says, maybe try a custom recovery, go to mounts and storage, and mount USB storage. While you're at it, try flashing a compatible ROM through that recovery i.e. GB rom if its a GB kernel with CWM recovery or ICS rom if its an ICS recovery.
Did you try to do a dump of SD card data with adb?
Sent from my GT-I9000 using xda premium
The static issue is because you flashed a gingerbread kernel but you don't have gingerbread bootloaders. You can fix this by flashing an AT&T stock one click with bootloaders.
Once there, you can flash corn kernel and use recovery to mount the sd card.
Or I guess you could flash a froyo kernel.. there's a number of ways to do this.
Sent from a jelly bean

[Q] Help! bricked + corrupt system?

I've been looking all over this site but I can't find anything. I suppose that it's partly because I'm not sure about the problem myself.
A couple of months back (maybe more) I upgraded to the ICS infinitum rom (blue version) with midnight kernel. It was great - the phone worked fine. Well I'm exaggerating, it ****ed up every once in a while. Programs would automatically shut down and it would get really slow after a while. But all in all it wasn't bad, and it was stable enough for me most of the time....
Then, last Thursday everything seemed to go apart, every program on the phone was shutting down. So I thought I'll just restart and it will be fine. When I did, the phone did not come back on. the kernel would load and then it was stuck on the start-up animation in infinite loops.
Now, to be frank, this isn't the first time this has happened. So I didn't panic. Last time I just used the CMW recovery to re-install the kernel and the rom (I keep the files on the sd card). But this time, I wanted to try to avoid the factory wipe for as long as I could, and try finding a different option, knowing that if all else fails, I have something to revert back to.
Then I did the mistake of deleting the init.d file without re-installing anything. I wanted to, but accidentally clicked on the 'reboot now' option. And then all went to ****. The kernel didn't load. I went to recovery and it couldn't mount the sd card so I couldn't re-install it.
I tried flashing a new kernel using odin, and it did get me a bit better: my CWM recovery can read the sd. However, I still can't mount the system. Even worse, when I get to the infinitum zip roms and re-installing it brings up the status 7 error (which, after searching, seems to come up for different reasons for each person)
Despite installing a new kernel, when I reboot the phone now it doesn't load the kernel anymore, it just stays stuck on the welcome screen. I tried using the recovery to re-install a different kernel, it worked, but the phone still won't start - it now automatically skips to the recovery mode. I don't know if I should try flashing a rom through odin, and I'm too afraid to try anything at all now...
Can anyone help me? Is there any way to restore the init.d file or maybe that has nothing to do with my problem?
uvii said:
I've been looking all over this site but I can't find anything. I suppose that it's partly because I'm not sure about the problem myself.
A couple of months back (maybe more) I upgraded to the ICS infinitum rom (blue version) with midnight kernel. It was great - the phone worked fine. Well I'm exaggerating, it ****ed up every once in a while. Programs would automatically shut down and it would get really slow after a while. But all in all it wasn't bad, and it was stable enough for me most of the time....
Then, last Thursday everything seemed to go apart, every program on the phone was shutting down. So I thought I'll just restart and it will be fine. When I did, the phone did not come back on. the kernel would load and then it was stuck on the start-up animation in infinite loops.
Now, to be frank, this isn't the first time this has happened. So I didn't panic. Last time I just used the CMW recovery to re-install the kernel and the rom (I keep the files on the sd card). But this time, I wanted to try to avoid the factory wipe for as long as I could, and try finding a different option, knowing that if all else fails, I have something to revert back to.
Then I did the mistake of deleting the init.d file without re-installing anything. I wanted to, but accidentally clicked on the 'reboot now' option. And then all went to ****. The kernel didn't load. I went to recovery and it couldn't mount the sd card so I couldn't re-install it.
I tried flashing a new kernel using odin, and it did get me a bit better: my CWM recovery can read the sd. However, I still can't mount the system. Even worse, when I get to the infinitum zip roms and re-installing it brings up the status 7 error (which, after searching, seems to come up for different reasons for each person)
Despite installing a new kernel, when I reboot the phone now it doesn't load the kernel anymore, it just stays stuck on the welcome screen. I tried using the recovery to re-install a different kernel, it worked, but the phone still won't start - it now automatically skips to the recovery mode. I don't know if I should try flashing a rom through odin, and I'm too afraid to try anything at all now...
Can anyone help me? Is there any way to restore the init.d file or maybe that has nothing to do with my problem?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I suggest flash 3-file GB rom via odin with ticked re-partirion and phone bootloaderupdate.
First of all init.d has nothing to do with the boot of kernel and ROM itself. It's just like autostart in Windows, so if it's missing it shouldn't cause problems.
My solution is to flash a complete stock Gingerbread ROM using Odin. You can get them at sammobile.com. Then afterwards flash a custom kernel and then whatever you like.
If you need help,feel free to ask me
Sent from my Gameboy Color
Yes! Thank you! That worked!!
It happened again! just 10 days later.
Is the Infinidtum rom ****ed up in any way?
it's stuck on the loading part of the rom

Botched custom ROM flash - help

I was in the process of recovering my Captivate - that I had upgraded to Gingerbread - from a corrupted OS. I was able to factory reset back and get the phone running again. While on this forum and getting help resolving that issue, I thought I would see how stable the new 4.2's were. I was walking through the steps of the update and I had just finished flashing CWM with Odin and then it all fell apart.
<<< Noob alert>>> When reading the posts and the walk-throughs, I always read SD Card as the mini-SD card that you add to the phone - the external card. Therefore I put the new custom rom on the external SD.
I wiped the data and went to apply the new rom from zip, and (of course) I couldn't find it. After several tries, I realized my problem. However, my Captivate will not mount my external SD. It is the same one that was in the phone and has been working. I formatted it and checked it for errors - none - but the phone will not mount it. I cannot get access back to the internal SD memory to put the ROMs there - when I turn on the phone is gets to a black screen that says "Galaxy S sgh-1897" and sits there - and my computer does not recognize the phone when I plug it in to the USB.
What can I do? Do you have any ideas?
ktvanhorne said:
I was in the process of recovering my Captivate - that I had upgraded to Gingerbread - from a corrupted OS. I was able to factory reset back and get the phone running again. While on this forum and getting help resolving that issue, I thought I would see how stable the new 4.2's were. I was walking through the steps of the update and I had just finished flashing CWM with Odin and then it all fell apart.
<<< Noob alert>>> When reading the posts and the walk-throughs, I always read SD Card as the mini-SD card that you add to the phone - the external card. Therefore I put the new custom rom on the external SD.
I wiped the data and went to apply the new rom from zip, and (of course) I couldn't find it. After several tries, I realized my problem. However, my Captivate will not mount my external SD. It is the same one that was in the phone and has been working. I formatted it and checked it for errors - none - but the phone will not mount it. I cannot get access back to the internal SD memory to put the ROMs there - when I turn on the phone is gets to a black screen that says "Galaxy S sgh-1897" and sits there - and my computer does not recognize the phone when I plug it in to the USB.
What can I do? Do you have any ideas?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here's a good start to get your pc to recognize your phone: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1953930
From there, flash Odin KK4 without bootloaders in download mode to get your phone back up. I believe to know the steps to flashing a custom ROM
GL!
got it going
Thanks, it's up and running, but I went back to speedmod and tried to update from SD - and it worked, but didn't like the ROM. I'm trying a different ROM to see what the issue is.
Thanks for the help.
ktvanhorne said:
Thanks, it's up and running, but I went back to speedmod and tried to update from SD - and it worked, but didn't like the ROM. I'm trying a different ROM to see what the issue is.
Thanks for the help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You'll have to flash the ROM twice to get past the partition on JB coming from GB.
Sent from my SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app

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