New owner, newbie questions

[Guest precious_pony]

Hi,

I have just bought a second hand Galaxy S, which, unfortunately, is locked to Orange (I'm on a 3 contract) and currently has Android 2.2 installed.

I have some very beginner questions, apologies if the answers to these questions are detailed elsewhere, I could not find simple answers to these questions:

• If I unlock the phone, is the unlock persisted across ROM flashes (must I re-unlock every time I flash a new ROM)? Do certain ROMs automatically re-lock?
• I understand that to flash a new ROM, I require ODIN, and a number of files. I'm pretty tech savvy, but I don't know what (in the Odin UI), the following acronyms mean : (PIT, PDA, PHONE, CSC, BOOTLOADER). Which one of these represents the recover partition (aka clockworkmod)?
• My understanding regarding bootloaders is that they are read-only, to prevent corruption. Is it possible to brick the Galaxy S?

Thanks,

PP.

[Guest richardj]

Hi,

I have just bought a second hand Galaxy S, which, unfortunately, is locked to Orange (I'm on a 3 contract) and currently has Android 2.2 installed.

I have some very beginner questions, apologies if the answers to these questions are detailed elsewhere, I could not find simple answers to these questions:

• If I unlock the phone, is the unlock persisted across ROM flashes (must I re-unlock every time I flash a new ROM)? Do certain ROMs automatically re-lock?
• I understand that to flash a new ROM, I require ODIN, and a number of files. I'm pretty tech savvy, but I don't know what (in the Odin UI), the following acronyms mean : (PIT, PDA, PHONE, CSC, BOOTLOADER). Which one of these represents the recover partition (aka clockworkmod)?
• My understanding regarding bootloaders is that they are read-only, to prevent corruption. Is it possible to brick the Galaxy S?

Thanks,

PP.

Hi there,

Once the phone is unlocked, it's unlocked for good, even if you flash a custom rom.

Odin is the flashing tool to use.

When you have downloaded the correct firmware for your device and region, you will then extract the contents using winrar.

When extracted you will have either one file that will contain, PDA,PHONE and CSC, this file will then go into the PDA section in odin.

If you have four files, .PIT, CODE, MODEM and CSC, they go into odin like this:

PIT = .PIT

PDA = CODE

PHONE = MODEM

CSC = CSC

If using a .PIT, Re-Partition needs to ticked.

To get CWM you will need to flash a kernel that has CWM included in it, this kernel is put into PDA in odin.

It is very difficult to completely brick these phones, but if something does go wrong you can normally get it sorted out by either a re-flash or by doing a wipe data/factory reset from recovery mode.