Alright so I'm still fairly new to the Android scene. I have an S4 from ATT with MF3. Last week I was looking to root the device, I ended up finding a program called Kingo. Well later I find out that the program is in question, so I decided to unroot my phone and restore. While I was rooted I removed Bloatware and unneeded programs to lighten the phone (Yellow pages/like apps and keyboards that I did not use). I did make a backup with Titanium on to the SD card.
Now for my problem(s). When I removed the programs it removed them from the recovery as well (I did not think it worked that way). So when I recovered from factory I was missing my keyboard and could not use the phone until I sent a text and copied/pasted to get in to the play store. After getting the phone functional I looked for my backup on the SD card, and it was not there (I did remove the SD card from the phone during the reset and did not format it). So now I am without a proper resetting phone. I hoped that by installing 4.3 that it would reinstall the missing programs (mainly the keyboard), it fails however when it tries to apply the update (I've tried 3 times with the same result around 20%).
After all of this happened I started to look into ways to recover the phone. One thing I came across on the XDA forums....
TAR files to flash MF3 via ODIN
TAR files to flash MF3 via ODIN - xda-developers
I have never used ODIN, but after reading I have a good idea on how it works. My main concern is that my S4 is my only phone, I cant afford to brick it. I just want to make sure that using the method listed will work properly if no user error is in the equation.
If anyone could give me tips, assurance, recommendations, or help me to understand what went wrong I'd be grateful. I'm good with computers but when it comes to phones its all new to me (other than messing with my Nexus 7 a bit last year with the fool proof Nexus Root Toolkit).
Thanks for your time!
Now for my problem(s). When I removed the programs it removed them from the recovery as well (I did not think it worked that way). So when I recovered from factory I was missing my keyboard and could not use the phone until I sent a text and copied/pasted to get in to the play store. After getting the phone functional I looked for my backup on the SD card, and it was not there (I did remove the SD card from the phone during the reset and did not format it). So now I am without a proper resetting phone. I hoped that by installing 4.3 that it would reinstall the missing programs (mainly the keyboard), it fails however when it tries to apply the update (I've tried 3 times with the same result around 20%).
After all of this happened I started to look into ways to recover the phone. One thing I came across on the XDA forums....
TAR files to flash MF3 via ODIN
TAR files to flash MF3 via ODIN - xda-developers
I have never used ODIN, but after reading I have a good idea on how it works. My main concern is that my S4 is my only phone, I cant afford to brick it. I just want to make sure that using the method listed will work properly if no user error is in the equation.
If anyone could give me tips, assurance, recommendations, or help me to understand what went wrong I'd be grateful. I'm good with computers but when it comes to phones its all new to me (other than messing with my Nexus 7 a bit last year with the fool proof Nexus Root Toolkit).
Thanks for your time!
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram