S-Off .... We have it!!

[buckifvr]

This is how I finally achieved success for S-Off

1. Download the appropriate ControlBearRelease zip file to your PC (I used version 0.2.1)
2. Extract the zip file and put ControlBear.exe, jb_boot.img, and jb_hboot.zip files in the same folder as adb and fastboot.
3. Remove the battery from your Rezound and place a formated microSD card that you are not using in your phone. Set the original data filled microSD card aside for safe keeping. During the S-Off procedure the microSD card will get wiped. Replace the battery, but do not put the battery cover on.
4. Connect your phone to your pc with the USB cable. And boot into bootloader. You will end up in fastboot-usb
5. Go to folder with ControlBear.exe file. Right click and Run as Administrator
6. ControlBear will run. At one point it will say you have 5 seconds to enter Ctrl-C (whenever I hit Ctrl-C it would just close the ControlBear window and do nothing). I would just do nothing. After 5 seconds the program will continue to run.
7. After a short while the program will prompt you to do the wire trick. I tried several different types of wire, but a large paper clip worked the best.
8. The program will resume running and tell you if you succeeded in having S-Off.
9. If S-Off failed, just try again.

4.

 

[MrSmith317]

Getting S-Off, really wasn't really that bad. It took me 3 evenings to finally get it to work, but never once did my phone fail to work. Alot of that time was wasted because I did not realize there was something wrong with my old microSD card. Once I reformatted it I was able to make progress. Then the wire trick, was tricky. I tried different types of wire, but ultimately a large paper clip worked perfect, and I did not even insulate it. I have no problems with internal or external SD cards.

Trust me its not that scary or risky. But the process has a learning curve.

I think a lot of us look at it as a risk vs reward issue. I'm fine with the current ROM flashing method and understand the risks of using leaked firmware. So I'm ok without S-Off.

 

[Wanda]

I think I may until the folks at Unrevoked come up with something...the idea of shorting out my phone kind of weirds me out.

I didn't know they were working on it or even had made any progress. Last message I saw from them was from back in December.

EDIT: from what I read, Unrevoked has collaberated on the Revolutionary tool that this J-bear/wire trick takes the place of. To me that means they were unsuccessful in implementing any other way of getting it done, leaving us with the process we have now.

I'm giving the process another thought. Seems like most of the dev's have gone through the process which means they'll be setting up their ROM's for S-Off. It sure would make flashing/restoring a lot easier.

 

[Wanda]

Well after considering for a couple days I decided to go for it. I'm happy to report I'm S-Off with no problems. It took me longer to remember my password to run it as an Administrator than it took for the program to run and for the wire trick.

I'm running RezROM's latest Sense 3.6 ROM and had no issues at all. Using the latest J-Bear version .4 my internal SD was NOT wiped, don't know about the external cause I popped in a spare blank card.

Program ran, did the wire trick with a piece of stripped coax about 5-6 times (probably because I was so friggan nervous), program completed and I installed the custom bootloader. Powered down, put my usual SD card back in, rebooted back to my ROM and it was like nothing had ever happened...except that my bootloader now says S-Off.

 

[MrSmith317]

Well after considering for a couple days I decided to go for it. I'm happy to report I'm S-Off with no problems. It took me longer to remember my password to run it as an Administrator than it took for the program to run and for the wire trick.

I'm running RezROM's latest Sense 3.6 ROM and had no issues at all. Using the latest J-Bear version .4 my internal SD was NOT wiped, don't know about the external cause I popped in a spare blank card.

Program ran, did the wire trick with a piece of stripped coax about 5-6 times (probably because I was so friggan nervous), program completed and I installed the custom bootloader. Powered down, put my usual SD card back in, rebooted back to my ROM and it was like nothing had ever happened...except that my bootloader now says S-Off.

Here's the question...was it worth it? Did it change the way you handle "business"? Believe me, I understand the rewards of S-Off. I actually kind of miss it sometimes when I'm theme'ing.

 

[Wanda]

Here's the question...was it worth it? Did it change the way you handle "business"? Believe me, I understand the rewards of S-Off. I actually kind of miss it sometimes when I'm theme'ing.

Nope, hasn't changed the way I handle my bidness, yet, but I believe it will in the future. I think the dev's will be setting their ROMs up to be able to take advantage of it going forward and for me, it's worth it to be able to take advantage of that.

Worst case scenario if it went bad was I have to buy a new phone, obviously not ideal and I'm not a Rockafeller but since I had backed up my internal storage and I was using a blank SD card it really didn't seem that big of a deal. I had way more issues upgrading to the ICS firmware (bad RUU download).

I'm not suggesting this method is for everyone but I weighed the consequences, took the risk, and made it though. Will it be worth it, only time will tell but it will sure be nice to Nandroid back to whatever I want regardless of the ROM's base on the fly. For a serial flasher it's gonna make life much easier.

 

[MrSmith317]

Nope, hasn't changed the way I handle my bidness, yet, but I believe it will in the future. I think the dev's will be setting their ROMs up to be able to take advantage of it going forward and for me, it's worth it to be able to take advantage of that.

Worst case scenario if it went bad was I have to buy a new phone, obviously not ideal and I'm not a Rockafeller but since I had backed up my internal storage and I was using a blank SD card it really didn't seem that big of a deal. I had way more issues upgrading to the ICS firmware (bad RUU download).

I'm not suggesting this method is for everyone but I weighed the consequences, took the risk, and made it though. Will it be worth it, only time will tell but it will sure be nice to Nandroid back to whatever I want regardless of the ROM's base on the fly. For a serial flasher it's gonna make life much easier.

I know you know how this all works. And just you posting that hopefully helps someone thinking about going through the current S-Off method.

 

[anon(94115)]

Being a serial flasher on my other phones, I know I am going to end up going this route.

One thing of note, somewhere (and I cannot look it up now) I read that one (or one team) of the ROMs is going to be doing packages for both s-on and s-off users.

Obviously the s-off users will have more control, but s-on users will still be able to get some custom goodness.

 

[MrSmith317]

Being a serial flasher on my other phones, I know I am going to end up going this route.

One thing of note, somewhere (and I cannot look it up now) I read that one (or one team) of the ROMs is going to be doing packages for both s-on and s-off users.

Obviously the s-off users will have more control, but s-on users will still be able to get some custom goodness.

All of the ROM devs should package only for S-Off. The S-On crowd will need to go the extra step of extracting boot.img and manually flashing, or stuffing it into PH98IMG.zip.

 

[anon(94115)]

All of the ROM devs should package only for S-Off. The S-On crowd will need to go the extra step of extracting boot.img and manually flashing, or stuffing it into PH98IMG.zip.

not really my call, but I sorta agree with you. I am just repeating what I had seen over on the other site somewhere (pretty sure it was jonez, but that could change now that he has teamed up with |||bored||| and the rest of that gang.

I just finished doing the s-off. Took longer than I anticipated, but that was ALL me. Once I got the right wire and the timing down, it worked flawlessly.

Changed the splash screen already, but that's it, now I just have to see if I can hold out for ICS before tinkering with the ROM.

knowing me, the over/under on how long it will take me to flash my first rom is under 5 days, but I am gonna try to hold out....S4 is calling though

 

[tmettler5]

My post was borne more out of hopeful ignorance than anything else!

I didn't know they were working on it or even had made any progress. Last message I saw from them was from back in December.

EDIT: from what I read, Unrevoked has collaberated on the Revolutionary tool that this J-bear/wire trick takes the place of. To me that means they were unsuccessful in implementing any other way of getting it done, leaving us with the process we have now.

I'm giving the process another thought. Seems like most of the dev's have gone through the process which means they'll be setting up their ROM's for S-Off. It sure would make flashing/restoring a lot easier.