Custom Rom While On Stock KitKat 4.4.2 ?

[Joszane]

I Used To Own A Tmobile S3 Which I Enjoyed Using Custom Roms Like Cm 12, LiquidSmooth 4.1 And Pac Rom Just To Name A Few And The Lcd Broke . So One Of My Friend Is Selling Me A Used At&t S3 On Stock 4.4.2 For Quite Cheap. But My Problem Is ( Correct Me If Im Wrong) I Think I Read An Article Stating That You Cannot Use Custom Roms On S3s On Stock 4.4.2 Or It Will Brick It . Is This Correct ? An S3 Serves No Purpose To Me On Stock TOUCHWIZ . So Is It Possible To Root And Flash Custom Roms On S3s On OFFICIAL STOCK 4.4.2 TOUCHWIZ ?

 

[LeoRex]

The problem is that somewhere along the way, I think it was one of the Jelly Bean updates, maybe 4.3.1... Samsung locked the bootloader down HARD and attempts to flash something non-stock bricked the phone. This might have changed in the past couple of years, but I do know that at the time... Dec of 2013 I think.... the custom ROM community was warning people not to take any new OTAs for their stock S3's.

I think they've since figured out a way to work around it, by flashing an older version of the Touchwiz firmware PRIOR to the lockdown, then unlocking the bootloader and flashing the custom stuff. Go check the S3 forums, they may have more up to date info.

 

[Joszane]

On My Tmobile S3 They Added In The Knox Bootloader On The 4.3 Updates. But I Still Managed To Get It Rooted And Using Custom Roms. But I Heard Similar To What You Said On The 4.4.2 Kitkat Update They Lock The Bootloader Down Even Harder Causing Any Non Stock Firmware To Brick The Phone.

 

[Joszane]

The problem is that somewhere along the way, I think it was one of the Jelly Bean updates, maybe 4.3.1... Samsung locked the bootloader down HARD and attempts to flash something non-stock bricked the phone. This might have changed in the past couple of years, but I do know that at the time... Dec of 2013 I think.... the custom ROM community was warning people not to take any new OTAs for their stock S3's.

I think they've since figured out a way to work around it, by flashing an older version of the Touchwiz firmware PRIOR to the lockdown, then unlocking the bootloader and flashing the custom stuff. Go check the S3 forums, they may have more up to date info.

On My Tmobile S3 They Added In The Knox Bootloader On The 4.3 Updates. But I Still Managed To Get It Rooted And Using Custom Roms. But I Heard Similar To What You Said On The 4.4.2 Kitkat Update They Lock The Bootloader Down Even Harder Causing Any Non Stock Firmware To Brick The Phone.