Monday, July 30, 2012

How to restore Samsung Galaxy Note I717 AT&T to stock rom

The following is a step by step process of restoring the Samsung Galaxy Note (AT&T I717) to stock ROM. Sometimes a factory reset does not fix the issue with the phone. You will then need to perform a restore to stock ROM to fully recover it. Or if your phone is bricked during flashing, restoring to stock ROM may also fix the issue. I have personally tried the below steps and it worked for me. 

  • Make sure Samsung USB driver is installed on your PC
  • Download and unzip odin 1.85 on your desktop
  • Download and unzip the file  and extract it on your desktop
  • Start Odin 1.85
  • Put the phone in download mode (Hold down volume keys and then connect to PC with USB cable)
  • Odin will should detect the phone in several seconds and show a yellow bar with com port number
  • Check auto-reboot and uncheck all others in odin
  • Press start and it shall progress and then reboot the phone. Once it's done, odin will show a green bar with "passed" and the phone will reboot
  • Congratuations, now you just flashed the phone to stock ROM  

Leave a comment if it works for you!

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

How to unlock Samsung Galaxy S T959 T-Mobile with Z3X box

The following is a guide to unlock the Samsung Galaxy S T959 with Z3X box. I have verified the steps below on Android 2.2 (not rooted) and it worked for me. It's not easy to get it right because of lack of information available elsewhere. 

  1. Connect AT&T Samsung Galaxy S T959 computer with USB cable
  2. Select T959 in the Samsung Tool 12.1 drop down
  3. Select the USB modem port, check Read Code(Root) and click unlock
  4. Now you will see the NCK key (Unlock code) in the console after it's done
  5. Reboot the phone with non-tmobile sim card. Enter the unlock code when prompted
  6. Congratulations, now you have just unlocked your AT&T Samsung Galaxy S T959 !

Does it work for you? Please leave a comment if this helped you unlock your phone.

Monday, July 16, 2012

How to unlock Samsung Galaxy Note I717 with Z3X box

The following is a guide to unlock the Samsung Galaxy Note LTE with Z3X box. I have verified the steps below on Android 2.3.6 (not rooted) and it worked for me. It's not easy to get it right because of lack of information available elsewhere. 

  1. Connect AT&T Samsung Galaxy S Note LTE to Z3X box with the RJ45 C3300K cable
  2. Dial *#7284# on the phone and select modem for USB
  3. Dial *#9090# and select USB (1)
  4. Reboot the phone
  5. Select I727 in the Samsung Tool 12.1 drop down as i717 is not available
  6. There may be more than one diagnostic ports show up in Samsung Tool 12.1. So try them one by one. One of them will be able to readinfo and unlock. 
  7. Congratulations, now you have just unlocked your AT&T Samsung Galaxy Note !

To verify whether it's unlocked or not, just pop in a sim card from another carrier (for example, t-mobile), and reboot the phone. If the phone is not unlocked, it will prompt you for unlock code upon startup. 

Note:

  • It does not require the phone to be rooted
  • It works on 2.3.6 Android. I also tried 4.0.3 and it did not work.
  • It works on Samsung Tool 12.1. Samsung tool 12.2, 12.3, 12.5 may have issues showing its unlocked but in fact it's not.
  • If *#9090# code does not work then try the following: 1) power off the phone 2) connect microuart cable and power on the phone 3) now try *#9090# code again it must work 4) select USB diag and reboot the phone

 

Does it work for you? Please leave a comment if this helped you unlock your phone.

Friday, July 6, 2012

How to check the sim lock status of HTC phone

For GSM phone (AT&T, T-Mobile etc):

  • Insert a sim card from a different carrier
  • Turn on the HTC phone. If the phone is locked, it will prompt you with "Network is locked, please input unlock code"

For CDMA phone (Verizon, Sprint etc):

  • Turn off the phone
  • Hold down the Volume Down + Power keys. It will show the flash screen
  • It should say "SPL-0.57 Cmonex" if the phone is unlocked