Folks,
I thought i would share my experience at successfully branding my S5 to an EE firmware to take advantage of the wifi calling since i have very poor reception where i live.
I spent about 6 hours solid in trying to achieve this and in the end it turned out to be very simple! I carry 2 phones and both are S5. One i bought brand new from CarPhone Warehouse and the other I bought just recently as an old second hand from ebay that came cheap with which i did my experimentation to brand to EE. Now both my phones are succesfully branded. Both my phones are SM-G900F. The one I experimented with (from ebay) had G900FXXU1BOH4 firmware and my other phone had G900FXXU1BOI3. I used Odin v3.10.6 to change the firmware.
There is a lot of advice out there about how to use Odin to change firmware and i will therefore not repeat it here.
My research told me that the latest firmware for the EE brand was G900FXXU1POD1. I therefore downloaded this big 1.4 Gb file. My initial attempts of feeding this file into Odin resulted in failure at the last hurdle:
<ID:0/004> Odin engine v(ID:3.1005)..
<ID:0/004> File analysis..
<ID:0/004> SetupConnection..
<ID:0/004> Initialzation..
<ID:0/004> Get PIT for mapping..
<ID:0/004> Firmware update start..
<ID:0/004> SingleDownload.
<ID:0/004> aboot.mbn
<ID:0/004> NAND Write Start!!
<ID:0/004> sbl1.mbn
<ID:0/004> rpm.mbn
<ID:0/004> tz.mbn
<ID:0/004> sdi.mbn
<ID:0/004> NON-HLOS.bin
<ID:0/004> boot.img
<ID:0/004> recovery.img
<ID:0/004> system.img.ext4
<ID:0/004> modem.bin
<ID:0/004> cache.img.ext4
<ID:0/004> hidden.img.ext4
<ID:0/004> FAIL! (Ext4)
<ID:0/004>
<ID:0/004> Complete(Write) operation failed.
<OSM> All threads completed. (succeed 0 / failed 1)
The message i got on the phone itself was:
Volume Size is too big 20480 < 102400
ODIN : Invalid ext4 image
I then had to download the original firmware (G900FXXU1BOH4 ) and ran it in Odin and was successfully able to bring life back into my phone. I then decided to examine the PIT file itself. After extensive searching through Google i came across a site that had some various PIT files for the G900F. I downloaded these and examined them through PIT Magic and compared my original PIT file. Sure enough, at Entry Memory Address: 0xC7C, for Partition Name: HIDDEN and Flash FileName: hidden.img.ext4, The Block Count read 20,480. I looked at the other PIT files and came across one with the name of KLTE_EUR_OPEN_HIDDEN50M.PIT which for the same memory address and partition name, the Block Count read 102,400. I then recalled that the message i got on the phone when the firmware failed said "Volume Size is too big 20480 < 102400". I noted that my current partition size according to my current PIT file was 20480 and the EE brand firmware wanted a size of 102400. I took a gamble and despite all the advice against messing around with PIT files in Odin, I went for it. I put in the PIT file (KLTE_EUR_OPEN_HIDDEN50M.PIT) in Odin. It automatically checked the re-partition checkbox in Odin. I put in the EE brand firmware (G900FXXU1POD1) under AP, kept my fingers crossed, and 3:40 minutes later I had success!
Armed with this knowledge, i was able to rebrand my other phone to EE with very little hassle! This is what i did with my second phone (which was in an encrypted state):
1)Backup using Kies3
2) Remove activation lock (Settings ->Security ->uncheck Reactivation lock)
3)Decrypt my device (I am not sure whether this was necessary but i did it anyway, just in case) (Settings ->Security -> Decrypt device)
4)Put device in developer mode (Settings -> About Device -> Build number tapped 7 times)
5) Power off
6) Restart in developer mode (Volume down + power button + Home button simultaneously followed by Volume up button)
7) Start Odin
8) Connect phone via a good USB cable and getting the acknowledgement from Odin that it had detected the device
9) Put in the PIT file
10) Put in the EE firmware under AP
11) Start the process and getting a "PASS" after about 3:40 minutes
12) Waiting patiently whilst the phone rebooted and seeming to take an absolute age (about 6 minutes) with the Samsung logo. If it freezes here then i do not think that this is a major issue. Restart the phone and perform a factory data reset (Volume UP+ power button + Home button simultaneously).
13) Go through all the screens for setting up a new phone.
14) Restore all the data using Kies3.
In conclusion, get the latest EE branded firmware. Do a google search on "KLTE_EUR_OPEN_HIDDEN50M" and get the PIT file which is only a few Kb. Run Odin.
Hope this is of help to the community!
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram