How to get the 3 button recovery mode working

[Goots]

EDIT - THE FILES I ORIGINALLY LINKED TO IN THIS TUTORIAL WERE HOSTED ON MULTIUPLOAD.COM - THE FBI HAVE NOW SHUT THAT SITE DOWN SO THE LINKS WON'T WORK ANYMORE. SORRY.


THIS TUTORIAL IS FOR i9000 HANDSETS ONLY. (That means 1st generation Galaxy S, NOT GALAXY S2, NOT GALAXY VIBRANT, NOT GALAXY ACE etc...)

Hey guys, a highly respected guy called Richthofen has written a how-to over at the XDA-Developers forum about getting the 3 button recovery mode working on handsets that have it disabled. We have been constantly directing people over there to read the guide, so I thought I'd write a similar one for this forum, using his guide as a base, but I want to make it clear that this whole thing is Richthofen's work.

As usual with firmware flashing, there is always a very slight risk of something going wrong, therefor I, nor anyone else on this forum can be held accountable if this routine screws your phone up. You do this entirely at your own risk. Having said that, I haven't heard of a single phone being bricked by doing this.

NOTE : This is currently untested on XXJPU firmware.

There are a couple of pre-requisites for this routine.

1) Your PC must be able to communicate with your phone (the drivers must already be installed). If you can browse your phone using your PC, or if Kies works with your phone then that's all you need.

2) Your battery should really be 75% or higher before flashing anything.

So, onto the tutorial. You will need to download a couple of files before we begin. These files have been compressed and will need to be uncompressed before you can use them, so first we're going to grab some software that can do that.

GRAB THE LATEST WINRAR FROM HERE.

Even if you already have winRAR installed, it's worth getting the latest one, because the chances are your version will not be able to extract these files properly. OK once you have downloaded winRAR, install it on your PC. Next, you need a program called ADB (Android Debug Bridge) which is a command-line based program which can communicate directly with your phone through the USB connection, without using Kies.

GRAB ADB FROM HERE.

Now when you have downloaded that file, double click it to unRAR it. This should invoke the winRAR that you have just installed. Click on the "Extract To" button, then select C: (your root drive) and click OK. This will unpack 3 small files directly onto your C: drive; adb.exe and a couple of support libraries. Next you need to download a program called Odin. We use this to actually flash the modified firmware (or any firmware) onto your phone.

GRAB ODIN FROM HERE.

Again, double click the downloaded file to unRAR it. You can unpack it anywhere you like, but for ease of use, you might as well put it the same place that you put the adb.exe earlier, so click on C: and then OK. Finally, you need to download the actual modified firmware which we are going to flash to the phone in order to get your 3 button recovery mode working.

GRAB THE MODDED BOOTLOADER HERE.

Once you have downloaded that file, again unRAR it somewhere. Note that after you have unpacked it, it should be called "Aries_P-SBL.tar", but depending on your windows settings, it might appear as "Aries_P-SBL.tar.md5". Either one is good

OK that's all the downloading done. Now unplug your phone from the USB if you haven't already, then from the home screen go to Menu > Settings > Applications > Development and make sure there is a tick where it says "USB debugging". Now on your PC, completely close down anything related to Kies. This means the Kies program itself and the tray agent daemon. This usually lives down by your clock, but you might need to expand the tray icon view to see it. If it's there, right-click on it and select "Exit".

Now you need to start up Odin. I always recommend using Odin in administrator mode, so use windows explorer to navigate to where ever you unRAR'ed Odin to, right-click on it and choose "Run as Administrator".

Now plug your phone into the USB cable.

Now we need to force your phone to boot into download mode, and this is where adb comes in. Use windows explorer to navigate to your C: drive, then hold down the shift key and right-click on it and select "Open command window here". This will open a scary-looking window with text on it (omg no icons )...

Now type dir a* and hit enter. You should see something like this...



...what we are looking for is that adb.exe at the top there. If that isn't there, then you need to go back and make sure you extracted the adb files directly to C: and not a subdirectory.

OK, assuming that file is there, type adb reboot download and hit enter. You should see something like this...



...and your phone should now reboot itself into download mode. You can tell you are in download mode because you will see a picture of the Android digging and the message "Downloading... Do not turn off Target!!!" on the screen of the phone.

Now, without closing the command window you have open, move over to the Odin program which is still running. You should see that Odin has found your phone and assigned it a communications port. This is highlighted in Yellow. It doesn't matter which port is is, as long as it's there.

Now we need to tell Odin exactly what we intend to do, so click on the PDA button, and navigate to the "Aries_P-SBL.tar" file that you unRAR'ed earlier. We don't want to put anything in PIT, PHONE, CSC or ETC boxes.

Now this bit is very important. Make sure there are ticks in the "PDA", "Phone Bootloader Update", "F. Reset Time" and "Auto ReBoot" boxes but nowhere else.

Your Odin screen should look something like this...



...don't worry if the com port is different, and don't worry if you have a slightly different message in the Message Box, but the important thing is that the ticks are in the same places, and you have the right file selected in the PDA box.

Now press "Start" button to launch the update process. It should only take a few seconds to complete. Then the phone should reboot.

Once it has rebooted completely, turn it off. Now you should be able to use the 3 button method to get into recovery mode.

Just to recap that method...

With the phone completely shut down, press and hold the VOLUME UP, HOME and POWER buttons until you see the White "I9000" logo appear. At this point, release the power button but keep the other two held in. As soon as you see some coloured text appear, release everything and the phone will be in recovery mode.

From here you can use the volume up/down button to move the highlight, and the home button to make the selection.

[johnagall]

I want to do this for my T-Mobile branded phone. Will it invalidate my warranty at all? Can it be restored to it's original state (like jailbreaking iPhone) should anything go wrong?

[Goots]

You won't be able to go back to not having the 3-button fix working after doing this, but on the other hand it won't affect your existing firmware either, so just by looking at the phone or using it generally, you wouldn't be able to tell this fix had ever been done.

It's not like a lag-fix or rooting the phone or anything like that, it is simply modifying the secondary bootloader part of the firmware, which you never see from the phone's user interface anyway.

I doubt very much if Tmob would know if the recovery mode was enabled or not on your phone to begin with anyway.

One thing I would ask though, is why you are intending to do this mod if you are so concerned about your warranty? The main purpose of doing this is to give yourself a safety net should things go wrong during a firmware upgrade. If you are planning to stay above board and "legal" by sticking to the official route anyway, then your warranty will cover you if things went wrong during a Kies flash.

[johnagall]

Hi

Thanks for your response. When I posted I think it was out of naivety as I hadn’t really done much reading. The reading that I had done said that the three button’s not working could mean that you have a defunct phone and could be returned to t-mobile.

Having read tens of pages of info today on the subject and many references to the XDA developers forums I see that the recovery mode is available on some t-mobile branded phones and disabled on others on t-mobile. Essentially the phone is not broken.

I also see what you mean with regards to flashing new firmware and the three button fix being an essential step in ensuring the phone can be restored if anything goes wrong when flashing.

I am starting to get sick of waiting for the t-mobile Froyo update and am seriously considering re-flashing with Samsung stock firmware so I can get the Froyo update now.

However

The warranty issue is still stopping me from going right ahead and re-flashing - The problem that I have is that I bought my Samsung from a friend who got the phone as a free upgrade but wanted to keep his iPhone.

Am I right in thinking if anything (apart from re-flashing which invalidates the warranty) goes wrong with the phone, it would have to be my friend who returns the phone under warranty?

[Goots]

Yeah I think that assumption is correct.

There are generally two kinds of warranty; the first one is the manufacturers warranty which covers hardware problems such as screen failure etc, for this you would take the handset back to the retail point of purchase, but they would then pass it onto a Samsung service centre to be fixed. This warranty is generally for people who have bought the handset outright (ie not on a contract). Even though there might be a hardware fault, if Samsung found non-official software (or firmware) on there, I guess they could be within their rights to refuse to fix the handset, claiming that non-standard software could have contributed to the failure.

The second kind of warranty is that which is provided by the network provider, and generally covers handsets which are on a contract. These handsets usually remain the property of the provider until the contract date is up, so yes it would have to be your friend that returned the phone to Tmob if something went wrong with it because technically it's not his to sell or give away yet Depending on the nature of the fault and the amount of time he is into his contract, they might just offer a replacement handset then and there rather than giving him (you) a courtesy one while he waits for his to be repaired.

The assumption should be that all warranties are void once you manually flash a firmware. If you have to claim and are successful, then that's a bonus

There is a slight twist here though, in that if your phone is unbranded and not locked to a network, the firmware you are flashing to using one of the tutorials on this forum is exactly the same as what you end up on if you had taken the official route and gone through Kies. There is no way of knowing (by looking at the phone) that you haven't used Kies for the upgrade But in your case, I'd imagine the phone is indeed branded to Tmob

[johnagall]

That's right mate, it is t-mobile branded.

I think I will actually wait as it's only a few days hopefully until they have Froyo sorted.

Do you think there is any benefit in me getting the three button fix done in anticipation for perhaps going ahead with a re-flash if the update doesn't arrive soon?

Can you think of any other circumstances where having download and restore mode working would be beneficial. I do feel (rightly or wrongly) cheated that T-mobile have presumably locked this function from the handset despite it being a valid process for Android systems.

Thanks for your support by the way

[Goots]

It's actually Samsung's fault that the 3 button recovery mode doesn't work. On handsets manufactured between early September and mid October there were a batch released with it not working. All handsets made before and after that period are fine. It was Samsung that released the patch file that I have linked to in the tutorial, although they intended it to be applied via Kies

If you intend to stay on the official path there is no real reason to do the 3 button fix. If you had any issues then you could claim under the warranty. It would however mean that you would be without your phone for a while. Having said that, if the Kies update fails, Kies itself instructs you to enter recovery mode, which obviously you are unable to do at the moment.

It's purely your call. The only problem I can foresee is if the actual flash to get the 3 button fix working failed, and your phone wouldn't boot. It might be tricky explaining to Tmob what you were trying to do. Unless you just told them that "the phone wouldn't boot up this morning....."

[johnagall]

Ok thanks again for the info and clarification that it is not T-Mobile's fault.

I do feel uneasy about having a phone that doesn't have that basic feature.

If I do make the modification to get the 3 button fix and it works; this is unlikely to be able to be spotted by TM of Samsung?

[Goots]

Well Tmob wouldn't have a clue even if you printed out a hard copy of the bootloader code and beat them around the head with it.

I would imagine Samsung could cross-reference the IMEI or serial number of the phone against a database of handsets and find out that the phone didn't originally ship with recovery mode enabled, but what are the chances of that happening? (Did I sound like Harry Hill just then?)

[johnagall]

Thanks mate.