Root [Virgin Mobile/Sprint] F3 'resurrected'

daffyducknj · Jan 22, 2015

After watching SVU on TV last night I decided to pull out my F3 after several months of no use. (This is the same one that I thought was a goner after a bad spell of overheating.) I managed to boot cwmt. Also managed to wipe it fully. Pulled a 32gb MicroSD card from my Kyocera Event and reformatted it in Ubuntu with two partitions (fat32-ext4). Downloaded the stock V8 zip and installed it onto the phone from MicroSD...
...
...will it boot!?!?
...
...
...
...
It did, yay!!! Too tired to do any screenshots now, maybe later today...

Mostly installed titanium, link2sd, gl2sd etc. ATM recharging f3 in offline mode with my old V adapter so phone doesn't overheat. Not sure if I'll use it again as the daily driver. Spoiled with the speed of the LG Tribute, fast lte etc. I think there is something about removing lg spyware that'll speed up the f3. Need to look into that. If things hold up after a few days, I might get a 64gb card for the phone. Tossed out the old one as that turned into a read only piece of toast after f3 overheated badly.

Should snooze now, later folks!

daffyducknj · Jan 22, 2015

Ah s*(t... coming across too many issues with /data being corrupted. I can't get the download mode to work for this phone. Was considering pushing a KDZ file onto the F3. Guess mine really is f'd. All the other internal parts of memory seem to be ok, but /data just comes up as a corrupted mess.

roadkill42 · Jan 23, 2015

daffyducknj said:
Ah s*(t... coming across too many issues with /data being corrupted. I can't get the download mode to work for this phone. Was considering pushing a KDZ file onto the F3. Guess mine really is f'd. All the other internal parts of memory seem to be ok, but /data just comes up as a corrupted mess.

Did u try format data in twrp? I had a simuliar issue I did format data three times and worked worth a try

daffyducknj · Jan 23, 2015

roadkill42 said:
Did u try format data in twrp? I had a simuliar issue I did format data three times and worked worth a try

I reformatted /data a few times when I pulled the phone out from storage on Wednesday. I don't have twrp as recovery. Is that any better than using cwmt? I doubt it would help my F3, as my phone was nearly too hot to handle when it mysteriously overheated last October.

roadkill42 · Jan 23, 2015

Yes its better allows u to format data in revovery

daffyducknj · Jan 23, 2015

roadkill42 said:
Yes its better allows u to format data in revovery

Just tried twrp. Still coming up with /data error messages. I'm now certain that this part of internal memory is shot.

I'm done with my F3.

I hope someone comes up with a root exploit for the LG Tribute.

roadkill42 · Jan 23, 2015

Have u tried the f3 brick kit

daffyducknj · Jan 23, 2015

roadkill42 said:
Have u tried the f3 brick kit

If that's the one that requires the F3 to be in download mode, then no, I haven't. I can't get my phone to run in download mode. I already mentioned this in my 2nd reply within this post!

roadkill42 · Jan 23, 2015

U can do it another way go back and read those brick kit some one explains another way that worked

daffyducknj · Jan 24, 2015

I've pored through enough posts in the last 2 hours, and tried more than a few things... not interested in pulling my short hairs out!

Thanks for the encouragement, roadkill42 but as it stands, download mode still doesn't work (I've tried every possible button combo), and my old F3's had it with the /data partition. I can't spend anymore time on this. At least I still have my super old tank of an Optimus V on mrg666's GB, and my Kyocera Event, which I'll have to completely factory reset/reroot via poot+ministro2 as relinking thru Link2SD there didn't work (briefly used the SD card from that one on the F3), but at least that should be OK. Plus my newly rooted Samsung Galaxy Tab 4... LUV THAT ONE!

roadkill42 · Jan 24, 2015

daffyducknj said:
I've pored through enough posts in the last 2 hours, and tried more than a few things... not interested in pulling my short hairs out!

Thanks for the encouragement, roadkill42 but as it stands, download mode still doesn't work (I've tried every possible button combo), and my old F3's had it with the /data partition. I can't spend anymore time on this. At least I still have my super old tank of an Optimus V on mrg666's GB, and my Kyocera Event, which I'll have to completely factory reset/reroot via poot+ministro2 as relinking thru Link2SD there didn't work (briefly used the SD card from that one on the F3), but at least that should be OK. Plus my newly rooted Samsung Galaxy Tab 4... LUV THAT ONE!

OK might have to get the lg burn tool keep checking back here I herd another dev is coming to help out on this phone he got cm12 to work on my zte awe of coarse he had other deves to I'm no dev I tried

xclusive36 · Jan 25, 2015

One last thing if I may, Have you tried to flash the Metro PCS, or T-Mobile kdz using their unbrick method? I got twrp working for them. If it does work, you can flash twrp, and then reflash our stock roms & recoveries.

You'll wont be able to use our unbrick guide again but that's ok. I learned that myself flashing the T-Mobile kdz to get access to their system folder so I could make a stock rom for them.

daffyducknj · Jan 26, 2015

S@%T... never mind! Got Download mode to work by holding volume up and then hooking it up to a USB cable! Had to look that up thru directions for flashing F3 for t-mobile. Will use LG Flash Tool and try to flash V7 BIN from OUDHS. This better work! If it does and I re-root, what's the best recovery to use? I was considering trying Philz, but I think it's still twrp...? BTW twrp is the recovery that's used for rooted Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 tablets.

daffyducknj · Jan 26, 2015

oh ya... silly Q but should I update to v8 first before re-rooting? thanks again for all the help, guys!

roadkill42 · Jan 26, 2015

daffyducknj said:
oh ya... silly Q but should I update to v8 first before re-rooting? thanks again for all the help, guys!

glad u got it as to the v8 part I'm not sure

daffyducknj · Jan 26, 2015

Got the flashing to work. Phone is on stock v7. Just to be sure, I wiped /cache and /data from stock recovery. I didn't see any error messages, so I suppose/data must be fully restored now. Kind of wish I'd done this first back in October after the phone cooled off completely, but it's probably good that I have the Tribute (+ the other phones as backup) anyway. Not sure how much longer my F3 will last after the overheating, but at least it appears to be working. Will try to look for a class 10 32 or 64 GB card tomorrow... snooze time!

roadkill42 · Jan 26, 2015

daffyducknj said:
Got the flashing to work. Phone is on stock v7. Just to be sure, I wiped /cache and /data from stock recovery. I didn't see any error messages, so I suppose/data must be fully restored now. Kind of wish I'd done this first back in October after the phone cooled off completely, but it's probably good that I have the Tribute (+ the other phones as backup) anyway. Not sure how much longer my F3 will last after the overheating, but at least it appears to be working. Will try to look for a class 10 32 or 64 GB card tomorrow... snooze time!

stay tuned there most likely another dev coming to help on the f3s

xclusive36 · Jan 26, 2015

I would upgrade before rooting.

daffyducknj · Jan 26, 2015

xclusive36 said:
I would upgrade before rooting.

OK. I remember a while ago that gherkaul mentioned flashing V8 from a BIN file. I have your V8 odex zip, which can be used after rooting I suppose. Is there any place I can get the V8 BIN file online? If not, then I'll upgrade via OTA. The f3 isn't activated for now; I'm using my Tribute as the main phone.

xclusive36 · Jan 26, 2015

There isn't one posted for the zv8 update. I'd upgrade via the Ota

Root [Virgin Mobile/Sprint] F3 'resurrected'

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