• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Help Semi Brick Samsung sm-G900 A

xploPR

Android Expert
Mar 12, 2012
823
167
Richmond, VA.
Hello, i got an S5 that i bought, and the phone came rooted with safetrap & Custom rom, so i tried to bring it back to stock rom so i went and downloaded a firmware and did the odin installed, after it finish installing the stock rom, it booted but got stuck on the samsung logo.

I went and to the stock recovery and deleted data factory reset and cache deleted, so i rebooted the phone again, and i still get stuck on the samsung logo.

What can i do to fix the problem? The phone still shows an unlock lock icon when it's going to reboot.

The stock firmware that i installed via odin3 was SM-G900A4.4.2


IMG_20150324_140157.jpg
IMG_20150324_140207.jpg
 
Forgive me xploPR as I do not have the G900A, AT&T, phone but I'm guessing that the original owner had perhaps upgraded to either NG3 or OA1, in which case you probably will not be able to go back to NCE firmware, if that is indeed, what you used. See video at about 1 min. in...

How to Unroot AT&T Galaxy S5 with SafeStrap Recovery Backup!

You could try downloading and flashing one of the later firmwares, if you can find one, and see if that helps.
 
  • Like
Reactions: xploPR
Upvote 0
Forgive me xploPR as I do not have the G900A, AT&T, phone but I'm guessing that the original owner had perhaps upgraded to either NG3 or OA1, in which case you probably will not be able to go back to NCE firmware, if that is indeed, what you used. See video at about 1 min. in...

How to Unroot AT&T Galaxy S5 with SafeStrap Recovery Backup!

You could try downloading and flashing one of the later firmwares, if you can find one, and see if that helps.
I was watching the video, but they said i need to have atleast safetrap recovery, and i lost the safetrap recovery when i installed the stock firmware with odin. the only recovery i have right now is the stock android system recovery.

can i intall another recovery like twrp?
 
Upvote 0
Finally i got it fix, after hours of searching i finally found the firmware i needed to get out of the semi-brick. i will explain how i did it, just in case someone runs with same issues.

my phone had NG3, so i found a thread on xda that said "Should the NG3 ota update fail consider returning to stock NCE by flashing the G900A_Downgrade_to_NCE.tar using Odin's PDA slot(AP in Odin v3.09+)" so that's what i did i downloaded the G900A_Downgrade_to_NCE.tar, intalled it via odin, and my phone booted with no problem on a new stock rom.

Here is the link for G900A_Downgrade_to_NCE.tar
 
Upvote 0

BEST TECH IN 2023

We've been tracking upcoming products and ranking the best tech since 2007. Thanks for trusting our opinion: we get rewarded through affiliate links that earn us a commission and we invite you to learn more about us.

Smartphones