Root Question about bricking.

[ReignOfFire]

Sorry if this aint the right place. Ive been searching and found some things about going to stock for bricked phones. So does bricking not actually completly ruin the phone? You can always go back to stock? My Epic is still new, but if I messed it up id be screwed I think.
Im not worried about wiping and stuff, other then some pics and apps which I have backed up theres no data I cant lose. But I am getting real annoyed at pre.installed stuff and 2.2 browser.

 

[rounsy222]

If you can get to the bootloader then you are safe. Are you rooted? Also there are lots of different browsers in the market, im with you on the stock one.

 

[ReignOfFire]

I havent rooted yet, wanted to find out more before trying, if I did brick it and couldnt fix it, I probably wouldnt be able to take it back without havin to pay for a whole new one lol.


I settled with dolphin, I was hoping by rooting and using some other rom I could get the old browser back and be able to see gifs in it? Plus not have junk.

 

[pflol]

root and use midnight rom then, and flash whatever stocks apps you want. whats the big deal about seeing gifs? half of them work for me, depending on the website

 

[rounsy222]

root and use midnight rom then, and flash whatever stocks apps you want. whats the big deal about seeing gifs? half of them work for me, depending on the website

Agreed on rooting, rom and gifs.

 

[ReignOfFire]

Its not that big of a deal, I just have gifs given to me often and wanted to be able to see em play in the browser . I'll try it.

 

[Kelmar]

There are 2 kinds of bricks, a soft brick and a hard brick.

Most of the time people soft brick (which is fixable). Hard bricks typically only occur when you try putting a ROM on your phone that is made for another phone.

 

[ReignOfFire]

Thx, I thought it just happened from a corrupt dl or something just going wrong, so what happens with a hard brick lol.

 

[hayzooos]

A hard brick is when your phone literally does nothing. Doesn't turn on, NOTHING. A soft brick is when there's basically no working software installed. It will boot up into a loading type screen/application, so you'll still be able to get it back to stock.

I've only read one instance where someone literally hard bricked their Epic. It was their first time rooting and such and they saw a Gingerbread OS out there so they put it on their phone. Problem is, that OS was made for European GSM phones and seeing as ours are USA CDMA phones...that's a bad combo .

Many people panic and say, "OMG, I bricked my phone" only because it stalled while loading a ROM or it goes right into recovery. So long as you're able to turn your phone on, you should be able to use Odin to get it back to straight stock out of the box state.

 

[anticitizenone]

I have been told that its not possible to "brick" these phones (the Evo yes because it uses a different type of memory chip) because of the typf of chip used in them

the only real way to "brick" a phone from what I have been told by people who know is to flash a bad file system onto it - but the point is that these phones have some sorta different chip that allows for resetting it even in that case where as the Evo and some others dont so the only way to fix it would be to replace the actual chip

but has anyone reported that the 3 finger grip wouldnt work - or that the battery out odin thingie wouldnt fix it?

 

[hayzooos]

I have been told that its not possible to "brick" these phones (the Evo yes because it uses a different type of memory chip) because of the typf of chip used in them

the only real way to "brick" a phone from what I have been told by people who know is to flash a bad file system onto it - but the point is that these phones have some sorta different chip that allows for resetting it even in that case where as the Evo and some others dont so the only way to fix it would be to replace the actual chip

but has anyone reported that the 3 finger grip wouldnt work - or that the battery out odin thingie wouldnt fix it?

Outside of the immediate panic post...no. I've read a boatload through here and XDA, and I haven't seen one person who hasn't been able to get Odin working outside the one guy who put a GSM ROM on his CDMA phone.

I understand your fear of having a $500 paperweight, but in reality...if you put forth some time and effort to read and understand this stuff before jumping in, you won't have a problem. Not saying you haven't, but some people just see a "one click root" file and a ROM laying around so they go for it and jump into all sorts of problems because they don't understand the directions given. "I need to wipe with three fingers, I don't get it??!!" kind of things...

We all start somewhere, but I would suggest starting by educating yourself on the subject at hand.

 

[anticitizenone]

Outside of the immediate panic post...no. I've read a boatload through here and XDA, and I haven't seen one person who hasn't been able to get Odin working outside the one guy who put a GSM ROM on his CDMA phone.

I understand your fear of having a $500 paperweight, but in reality...if you put forth some time and effort to read and understand this stuff before jumping in, you won't have a problem. Not saying you haven't, but some people just see a "one click root" file and a ROM laying around so they go for it and jump into all sorts of problems because they don't understand the directions given. "I need to wipe with three fingers, I don't get it??!!" kind of things...

We all start somewhere, but I would suggest starting by educating yourself on the subject at hand.

its not my fear I was answering the question of someone else - I am well educated in all things hacking, it wasnt until after Sept 11th that me and others at work were forced to remove "hacker" from our business cards under job title section and replace it with "reverse engineering specialist" - but we still do the same thing and many of us have been doing so since we were very young before working where we do, and a small group got in trouble and were "forced" to work or spend time in a cell

but all the education about a certain subject is nothing for actually doing it, and its important for people to know if something can be "bricked" and never gotten working again - I think that there should be a guide put together that shows how to recover from a problem so when someone inevitability does it they know how to fix it

 

[Kelmar]

Such a guide is being worked on.

If someone wants to jump in and assist, I would be grateful!

 

[rounsy222]

Such a guide is being worked on.

If someone wants to jump in and assist, I would be grateful!

I'd be happy to help out just pm me and let me know whats still needed and such.

 

[hayzooos]

its not my fear I was answering the question of someone else - I am well educated in all things hacking, it wasnt until after Sept 11th that me and others at work were forced to remove "hacker" from our business cards under job title section and replace it with "reverse engineering specialist" - but we still do the same thing and many of us have been doing so since we were very young before working where we do, and a small group got in trouble and were "forced" to work or spend time in a cell

but all the education about a certain subject is nothing for actually doing it, and its important for people to know if something can be "bricked" and never gotten working again - I think that there should be a guide put together that shows how to recover from a problem so when someone inevitability does it they know how to fix it

So you're an ex-hacker who got pinched and is now being "forced" to work for the government...got it. And in all seriousness, there is no sarcasm in that post either.

I've always thought that would be a good and extrememly interesting job...reverse engineering as you call it. I saw a posting once for something like "criminal PC..."something or another and that's basically what it was. Sounded interesting to me, but I don't have the experience for something like that.

And I agree 100% that you can really only prepare so much until you just have to "do it" and you ALWAYS learn so much more by actually doing things than just reading about them. That's why most people learn more their first 6 months after college than they do the 4-5 years while they're at college.

And if I ever have a need to do something that could push or stretch a legal line, I'll shoot you a PM .

 

[Kelmar]

I'd be happy to help out just pm me and let me know whats still needed and such.

Expect a PM tonight!

 

[anticitizenone]

So you're an ex-hacker who got pinched and is now being "forced" to work for the government...got it. And in all seriousness, there is no sarcasm in that post either.

I've always thought that would be a good and extrememly interesting job...reverse engineering as you call it. I saw a posting once for something like "criminal PC..."something or another and that's basically what it was. Sounded interesting to me, but I don't have the experience for something like that.

And I agree 100% that you can really only prepare so much until you just have to "do it" and you ALWAYS learn so much more by actually doing things than just reading about them. That's why most people learn more their first 6 months after college than they do the 4-5 years while they're at college.

And if I ever have a need to do something that could push or stretch a legal line, I'll shoot you a PM .

yea preparing is nothing for actually doing it - just ask any former virgin, lol

I actually didnt get forced to work, but there are a couple of people that thats the rumor around work but no one knows for sure, its just strange to have people that young wanting to do this job - also they have someone following them around everywhere watching everything they do

its not not a fun job, that is to say its not un-fun but its rarely "fun" we are doing things thats for someone else and every "hacker" at heart wants to work for them self so working for "the man" was never the idea thats just how it turned out

 

[anticitizenone]

this was more to the point of what I was talking about - its from "Necrosan" over at XDA

its this that I was told "can" prevent a bricking - but actually not sure about that anymore because it will still be bricked if unplugged while ODIN'ng and maybe no one other then samsung can fix it

Epic uses samsung proprietary OneNAND driver that is closed source and handles leveling appropriately.
You can technically use any filesystem on the epic and it will be "safe" as the leveling is handled above the filesytem.

On the Evo its' NAND accessed through mtd system with no features like samsungs, hence the need for a nand safe filesystem - YAFFS2.

If you put a non NAND-safe filesystem on your evo (ext4) you run the risk of ruining your NAND early.

Good luck!