Bricked Samsung Omnia i910... (UPDATED 3/14/2010)

[Guest 2 Bunny]

Please read this new note before proceeding to read the rest of the post, as the situation has changed, and I would hate for someone to have to read through the whole topic just to get the story:

So, basically, I tried flashing the firmware from a desktop computer, usb 2, using UMDL. It failed, as did every other attempt I made from that same computer, weather in Windows xp or 7 (which was REALLY strange), even with a special driver that someone pointed out in the posts had no effect. Basically, at that point it wasn't "bricked" yet, seeing as it would still accept firmware, but it would fail part of the way through at flashing. I was going to visit someone else the next day (possibly) who had a computer that I know had USB 2 plugs on the front, so I would just load up the driver, plug in the machine, and be all set. Only, this was not how it went. My curiosity got the best of me, and I saw an old hp pavilion zt1250 laptop sitting in the corner, and I said "well hey, maybe the computer's usb plugs are messed up, maybe if I tried a different computer..." (out loud). But that was about to become a HUGE mistake. I loaded up the driver on the laptop, and put UMDL and the stock i910 cf03 rom on a USB drive, and proceeded to connect the unit. Hit power, the system recognized it, found the drivers I had installed, and started flashing. It went at a slow, but steady pace, and on its first try went all the way to the end. The little blue highlight in UMDL indicated that it was done and safe to unplug the player, so I reset it and unplugged it and... here we are - bricked. How could a successful flash brick a music player just like that? My explanation is that it had something to do with the fact I was using USB 1 instead of USB 2. If I had waited just that extra day, I would have most likely not been in this situation. Later, I did read that there were some people who had trouble flashing with usb 1 also, and after looking up the symptoms (now unofficially known as the Omni Red light of Death, I have discovered that the only means of repair now to fix a damaged bootloader is by finding a JTAG adapter, or a motherboard from another i910 Omnia. For more details on my findings in JTAG and such, please go to the third page of this topic, at the top. That is our current situation.

Below is my original post from before all this, here for archival purposes:

Hello everyone here on the forum, this is 2 Bunny.

I thought I might finally "give in" (LOL!) and register here because there seem to be a lot of handy download tools and because I have a very important question for the community: Why am I having such difficulty "unbricking" my Samsung Omnia i910 (Verizon Branded)?

Obviously, I will share some background first: So, I bought the machine used with nothing but a battery. No stylus, no charger, no headphones. So, up until today (coincidentally, my birthday) the thing was completely useless. I knew long before that that it would be a significant advantage to upgrade the firmware to one of the famous "hacked" versions. Well, I flashed the wrong one, and it got stuck a little bit through the upgrade. So, I popped the battery off, and back on again, and plugged it back in once again to see the little "recharging" icon. If you turn it on not plugged in, the Samsung omnia logo and progress bar appear, and the progress bar moves twice, and then freezes until the battery pack is removed and reinserted again. The good news is that it will still take a firmware upgrade, but it does the same stupid thing, every single time: Freezes part of the way through. And the interesting thing is, no matter if you try to flash the same rom, or a different one, it freezes at a completely random interval, but almost always at less than forty percent. I'm using the UMDL for Omnia version 2.3, and have got the stock image file for the cf03 update that I am currently working on so that I can get that, and then go from there. It always freezes at a random interval during the "writing image" stage. I even downloaded a different cf03 stock update from this thread at samsung-omnia.org just to see if it was the rom I was using, but still the same results, despite a slightly different file size.

So, what do I have to flash to get it to start completely over? Surely I could put something on it to make it run seeing as it will always get through part of its firmware flashes all right!

Thanks in advance already!

- 2 Bunny

Edited March 16, 2010 by 2 Bunny

[Guest lioryte]

"Well, I flashed the wrong one"

Was it an i900 ROM? If so you might have killed it :)

[Guest 2 Bunny]

I don't believe so. It was an adrenalyne variety that I flashed the first time. It was the old, non cf03 variety. I don't think it was that that bricked it. Like I said, it still takes firmware upgrades, but just fails at random points during the upgrade.

As an update to yesterday's status, I've been trying again to get it to work this morning. This time, I took out the MicroSD Card and used Windows 7 instead of xp. It does the same thing, but it seems to get a bit farther than before. It still freezes randomly, but I got it up to nearly sixty percent! So close, yet so far away.

Thanks!

- 2 Bunny

[Guest kdkinc]

of course you have updated to cfo3 ???

:) B)

[Guest ...angel...]

Hello everyone here on the forum, this is 2 Bunny.

I thought I might finally "give in" (LOL!) and register here because there seem to be a lot of handy download tools and because I have a very important question for the community: Why am I having such difficulty "unbricking" my Samsung Omnia i910 (Verizon Branded)?

Obviously, I will share some background first: So, I bought the machine used with nothing but a battery. No stylus, no charger, no headphones. So, up until today (coincidentally, my birthday) the thing was completely useless. I knew long before that that it would be a significant advantage to upgrade the firmware to one of the famous "hacked" versions. Well, I flashed the wrong one, and it got stuck a little bit through the upgrade. So, I popped the battery off, and back on again, and plugged it back in once again to see the little "recharging" icon. If you turn it on not plugged in, the Samsung omnia logo and progress bar appear, and the progress bar moves twice, and then freezes until the battery pack is removed and reinserted again. The good news is that it will still take a firmware upgrade, but it does the same stupid thing, every single time: Freezes part of the way through. And the interesting thing is, no matter if you try to flash the same rom, or a different one, it freezes at a completely random interval, but almost always at less than forty percent. I'm using the UMDL for Omnia version 2.3, and have got the stock image file for the cf03 update that I am currently working on so that I can get that, and then go from there. It always freezes at a random interval during the "writing image" stage. I even downloaded a different cf03 stock update from this thread at samsung-omnia.org just to see if it was the rom I was using, but still the same results, despite a slightly different file size.

So, what do I have to flash to get it to start completely over? Surely I could put something on it to make it run seeing as it will always get through part of its firmware flashes all right!

Thanks in advance already!

- 2 Bunny

Are you using an original usb cable? If not, then you have to replace it with an original one..

[Guest 2 Bunny]

of course you have updated to cfo3 ???

:) B)

I had cf03 prior to my series of failed flashes, and I cannot install it now with the samsung installer because it needs activesync and crap.

Are you using an original usb cable? If not, then you have to replace it with an original one..

Are you sure? I am using a USB cable I bought from eBay. It seems to work fine. It charges, it flashes firmware. I can't imagine that the cable would just "go bad" part of the way through. But I am less knowledgeable on firmware flashing, so I don't know. Can it be flashed from a card, maybe do like with custom firmware on the PlayStation Portable and "magic memorystick"? I guess in this case it would be more like "Magic MicroSD", but, anyway, yeah.

Thanks again for all your prompt replies!

- 2 Bunny

[Guest kdkinc]

wrong submit...sorry

Edited January 24, 2010 by kdkinc

[Guest 2 Bunny]

wrong submit...sorry

Oh. All right. Thanks for your help anyway.

- 2 Bunny

[Guest Bern612]

? what operating system are you using and also you said you didn't have a charger . is the battery fully charged.

[Guest kdkinc]

This was what I was looking for ....try this..

People are worried about flashing because there is a possibility of their phone getting bricked.

I don't know if someone else already found the process I use when my phone gets "bricked".

I tested it by flashing and purposely disconnecting my phone during the process.

I have only tested this on my i910, not any other, but there isn't doubt why it shouldn't work. (confirmed by the Rob Storm that it does)

What I do is:

1. After a failed flash, remove the battery or hit the soft reset button on the top.

2. When it barely shows the OMNIA boot-up screen, hold the "call" and "end" button until it asks if you want to format.

3. Hit the call button to confirm format

4. Connect phone and hit "detect" on the UMDL

5. Remove and insert the battery or hit the reset button on top of the phone to restart the flash process

6. Hope it successfully completes

Again, most probably someone else found this out already but i see no solution on ROM topics.

This rid any fear of flashing, let alone failed flashes.

this will probably save you money from getting a new phone (unless you want a new one)

:) B)

[Guest cac2us]

Yea, what kdkinc said should do the trick.

If not, what I did when I was having trouble with a 2 part download ROM.

The flash seemed to go good, however it stuck on the Omnia screen.

I flashed again with the SD card removed, and the setting for "Format Large Disk" selected in the UMDL.

Just for good measure I thought I would use Adrynalyne's Flash_CF03_6_1.bin, to get closer to stock.

All went well...

Then I followed up with a flash of the factory SCH-i910 User upgrade tool v1.0.5.3.exe.

I haven't had any trouble since.

I run XPsp3 and use the factory cable.

I got my i910 new, you might look into a OEM cable.

I have stuck with FlashLioryte_28205 ROM for the stability and that I can run the FM Radio.cab as well as run IE without MSHTML.

That would be great if someday we could flash from SD card.

Hope you get things worked out.

[Guest 2 Bunny]

? what operating system are you using and also you said you didn't have a charger . is the battery fully charged.

Started Out Using xp, but I found that it was very flaky with UMDL, so I rebooted to Windows 7. Windows 7 actually tells you if flashing has failed. The battery wasn't really fully charged. Before I broke it it was half, and with the amount of time it has spent plugged into the usb rebooted after a failed flash (so that it would be able to charge), I would estimate about sixty percent right now. I'll try charging to full, maybe it needs more voltage to overwrite the firmware or something.

This was what I was looking for ....try this..

:) B)

Which was handy. The first time I tried it, it worked, but I was too anxious to fix it, and tried flashing in xp, which failed, so then I tried flashing stock in Windows 7, got up to almost SEVENTY percent complete, then failed, and now the holding the buttons trick no longer has any effect. Still lets me flash partially though! But still, no further than before as of now. I also have tried the button that is mentioned here:

Yea, what kdkinc said should do the trick.

If not, what I did when I was having trouble with a 2 part download ROM.

The flash seemed to go good, however it stuck on the Omnia screen.

I flashed again with the SD card removed, and the setting for "Format Large Disk" selected in the UMDL.

Just for good measure I thought I would use Adrynalyne's Flash_CF03_6_1.bin, to get closer to stock.

All went well...

Then I followed up with a flash of the factory SCH-i910 User upgrade tool v1.0.5.3.exe.

I haven't had any trouble since.

I run XPsp3 and use the factory cable.

I got my i910 new, you might look into a OEM cable.

I have stuck with FlashLioryte_28205 ROM for the stability and that I can run the FM Radio.cab as well as run IE without MSHTML.

That would be great if someday we could flash from SD card.

Hope you get things worked out.

But no effect.

Thanks so far everyone for your suggestions!

- 2 Bunny

[Guest kdkinc]

Ok next guess??? :) B)

Try a new rom file . Maybe yours is corupt??

:D B)

[Guest TheEndGame7]

I'll Buy it... What Cosmetic condition is it in? Sorry about the loss though and this is the as of last resort...

[Guest 2 Bunny]

Ok next guess??? :) B)

Try a new rom file . Maybe yours is corupt??

B) ;)

Unfortunately, the stock cf03 rom I have been trying was already a different one. Even the non stock ones I try to flash (clicking on just the pda button in umdl) fail during the process. Remember, it always fails at completely random points during the writing process. Sometimes fails at twenty percent, someteimes at fifty, sometimes inbetween. I only flash in Windows 7 now (as of about a couple hours ago) because xp doesn't actually tell you if it has failed, it just hangs on the writing screen for a long time.

Don't worry, I'm sure we'll figure this one out! :D

- 2 Bunny

[Guest kdkinc]

And your flashing from a "bin" file and not a zip type file with UMDL

Just asking the obvious

:) B)

[Guest 2 Bunny]

And your flashing from a "bin" file and not a zip type file with UMDL

Just asking the obvious

:) B)

Yeah, I mean, it would make sense that you would want to just make sure. But yeah, it is the img file. Or, in the case of the individual item, a bin file. I'm going to try to charge it up a bit more, and then try again afterwards.

Seeing as USB is obviously flaky, and the firmware won't look on a MicroSD card, is there any other way to flash the firmware? I just can't imagine that this is the only way. I mean, I can, but it is just a real bummer.

I'm sure we'll figure it out though! I'll get lucky one of these times. Maybe get an 80 percent, then a few tries later one hundred.

- 2 Bunny

[Guest rpmm70]

Are you using USB 2.0? I know there have been some issues flashing with 1.1

[Guest 2 Bunny]

Are you using USB 2.0? I know there have been some issues flashing with 1.1

Yep, I heard of those woes. It is USB 2, not USB 1. Or at least the little flap on the front of the computer where it plugs in says so anyway. The USB plugs inside were never modified, so unless they were mistaken or lied, they should indeed be USB 2.

Keep those suggestions coming everyone! :)

Its so interesting that you're all such an active community. LOL! I get replies to my posts in as little as a half hour sometimes. Thanks for all your support.

- 2 Bunny

[Guest rpmm70]

Yep, I heard of those woes. It is USB 2, not USB 1. Or at least the little flap on the front of the computer where it plugs in says so anyway. The USB plugs inside were never modified, so unless they were mistaken or lied, they should indeed be USB 2.

Keep those suggestions coming everyone! :)

Its so interesting that you're all such an active community. LOL! I get replies to my posts in as little as a half hour sometimes. Thanks for all your support.

- 2 Bunny

When you say you tried the Samsung installer, you mean the one put out by Verizon and Samsung to update to CF03?

[Guest 2 Bunny]

When you say you tried the Samsung installer, you mean the one put out by Verizon and Samsung to update to CF03?

Yes. This does not work, because it wants ActiveSync, and it wants the player to be connected to activesync something or another that requires it to be running already. I tried extracting the firmware from the installer with UniExtract, but I don't get anything. The computer that I would be active syncing it with is usb 1, so I gave in and installed it on that anyway in hopes that it could fix it, but it wants it to be connected somehow in a way that requires the firmware be loaded up already.

They say there is some kind of utility on the verizon cd that comes with it with something to do with "emergency mode" that can somehow fix the firmware. I would really like to find a different flashing application that is perhaps more stable. Especially in Windows xp, so that I don't have to reboot to Windows 7 so often.

We're getting closer. :)

- 2 Bunny

[Guest rpmm70]

Yes. This does not work, because it wants ActiveSync, and it wants the player to be connected to activesync something or another that requires it to be running already. I tried extracting the firmware from the installer with UniExtract, but I don't get anything. The computer that I would be active syncing it with is usb 1, so I gave in and installed it on that anyway in hopes that it could fix it, but it wants it to be connected somehow in a way that requires the firmware be loaded up already.

They say there is some kind of utility on the verizon cd that comes with it with something to do with "emergency mode" that can somehow fix the firmware. I would really like to find a different flashing application that is perhaps more stable. Especially in Windows xp, so that I don't have to reboot to Windows 7 so often.

We're getting closer. :)

- 2 Bunny

I have been doing some searching and I found information about a "Emergency Download Mode". But I can't find out how to get into that mode.

[Guest 2 Bunny]

Well, I finally made some headway. It isn't yet fixed, but I got it to flash something successfully. Flash-WoZ-23506.bin flashed successfully, still nothing on startup though. It flashes very slowly, and like anything I try to flash to it, the flashing goes rather quickly for the first 10-20 percent, and then the progress bar on the omnia screen stops, but the bar on the computer advances slowly.

This is a tricky one!

- 2 Bunny

[Guest rfarrah]

Well, I finally made some headway. It isn't yet fixed, but I got it to flash something successfully. Flash-WoZ-23506.bin flashed successfully, still nothing on startup though. It flashes very slowly, and like anything I try to flash to it, the flashing goes rather quickly for the first 10-20 percent, and then the progress bar on the omnia screen stops, but the bar on the computer advances slowly.

This is a tricky one!

- 2 Bunny

I admire your perserverance! :)

[Guest 2 Bunny]

I admire your perserverance! B)

It has practically become an obsession. I have wasted even in these two or so days more hours than I care to have counted.

Anyway, just to recap progress so that someone doesn't have to go through the entire thread...

Samsung Omnia i910 (verizon branded), for some reason fails randomly in the middle of any firmware I attempt to flash to it. It will still accept new firmwares, but never wants to finish, except for once, and even then, after rebooting, the omnia logo comes up, and the progress bar will move once or twice very slowly, and then stopped. The only way to shut it off from here is with either the reset button on top, or taking the battery out (which actually turns it off instead of resetting it). The USB cable itself is fine, and is in fact brand new, but it is not an OEM samsung cable (I don't think so anyway. Got it from eBay for a dollar or something, waited weeks for it to arrive while I looked up new morsels about firmware flashing, and came to where I am now.

Basically, at this point in time, my questions are:

1: Is the problem curable? If so, what do I need?

2: Is there any "back door" fix, like on custom firmwares in PSP, where it will flash the firmware from a card, since it isn't usb, I would think this would be much more reliable.

3: What are these morsels about "emergency mode" I have heard about? Does this help in the current situation? Instructions?

3: Is the problem not curable? What kind of money would be offered for someone who would like the player in its broken state? Remember, this is just a last resort. I am really hoping to fix it, especially with all the time I've dumped into this so far, it has really wasted my life, to put it bluntly.

Thanks for all your help and prompt replies so far. A very lively community here. Kind of ironic that this is the only thread I post in, but I 'm sure I'll grow to be more participant as time goes on.

Good Luck! (for me too :) )

- 2 Bunny