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Message for Verizon: http://i.imgur.com/2Cmoq.jpg
IMPORTANT
This can be considered somewhat dangerous. Flashing bootloaders is scary stuff and if something goes wrong during a bootloader/chain flash, you're probably going to end up bricked.
If you get to a point where you don't want to go any further, or things don't work, you can always flash the stock rom using Odin in your bootloader mode.
Get that here: Download (unzip first)
This method is known to work on all versions of the Verizon SGS3 up to VRBMB1. It probably works on newer versions than that too.
I do, however, recommend that you downgrade to VRBLK3 before proceeding. That should hopefully prevent problems that can arise on newer ROM versions. Download VRBLK3
INTRO
I want to give a quick intro into what we are going to do here. Hopefully it will help out with questions that people have while attempting this process.
As we all know, Verizon thought it to be a good idea to have Samsung lock the bootloader on this device. (see my message for Verizon at the top of this post)
What the locked bootloader prevents us from doing is flashing, via odin, a custom recovery or kernel. What we can do however, is revert to an older (semi-insecure) bootchain which we have acquired, flash our custom recovery, and then continue on from our freshly flashed custom recovery by flashing the fully unlocked bootloader and anything else we want.
DOWNLOADS
(I know it looks like a lot of files, but they are relatively small. Just don't rename any of them)
==============================================================================================================
IMPORTANT
This can be considered somewhat dangerous. Flashing bootloaders is scary stuff and if something goes wrong during a bootloader/chain flash, you're probably going to end up bricked.
If you get to a point where you don't want to go any further, or things don't work, you can always flash the stock rom using Odin in your bootloader mode.
Get that here: Download (unzip first)
This method is known to work on all versions of the Verizon SGS3 up to VRBMB1. It probably works on newer versions than that too.
I do, however, recommend that you downgrade to VRBLK3 before proceeding. That should hopefully prevent problems that can arise on newer ROM versions. Download VRBLK3
INTRO
I want to give a quick intro into what we are going to do here. Hopefully it will help out with questions that people have while attempting this process.
As we all know, Verizon thought it to be a good idea to have Samsung lock the bootloader on this device. (see my message for Verizon at the top of this post)
What the locked bootloader prevents us from doing is flashing, via odin, a custom recovery or kernel. What we can do however, is revert to an older (semi-insecure) bootchain which we have acquired, flash our custom recovery, and then continue on from our freshly flashed custom recovery by flashing the fully unlocked bootloader and anything else we want.
DOWNLOADS
(I know it looks like a lot of files, but they are relatively small. Just don't rename any of them)
ROOT AND RECOVERY
WHAT TO DO NOW?1. Copy Root.zip and VRALE6.bootloader.zip to your sdcard, for use later. (downloads 1, 6)
2. Install the Samsung drivers (download 2)
3. Boot into Odin mode on your device. (Power off the device, hold Vol- Home and Power until you get the warning message, then press Vol+)
4. Flash VRALEC.bootloader.tar.md5 (download 4) via odin (download 3) in the PDA slot. Your phone will reboot.
5. Boot back into Odin mode and flash a custom recovery (download 5) (also in the PDA slot) such as cwm touch or twrp:
6. Boot into your new recovery mode by turning off your device and holding Vol+, Home and Power
7. Flash root.zip and VRALE6.bootloader.zip from step 1 in recovery mode
8. Profit!
BACK TO STOCKBack up your IMEI: http://forum.xda-dev...d.php?t=1852255
^That may save your ass later, trust me ^
Reset your flash counter (optional):
See here: http://forum.xda-dev...d.php?t=1494114
What is the flash counter you ask? Its a little number that gets incremented each time you flash (via odin ONLY, recovery WILL NOT increment this) a non official image. The idea is that Samsung would be able to tell if the device had been running custom software at one point in time. The app linked above will reset this to 0, but you must still be rooted in order to use it.
Flash away!
Consider everything below this line legacy, the above method is much easier to achieve root and unlocked bootloaderReset flash counter first using Triangle Away: http://forum.xda-dev...d.php?t=1494114
Flash the stock bootchain VRBLK3 via PDA in Odin: Download - Mirror
(The bootchain flash is to ensure that it will flash the entire stock tar.md5, the unlocked one might not work to do this)
Flash the stock rom via PDA in Odin: Unzip first!
==============================================================================================================
First off, you'll need some files. This basically flashes a custom system.img.ext4 which has your su binary. You then boot up and flash cwm or twrp
1. USB Drivers: http://tinyw.in/Fdoz
2. Odin: http://samsung-updates.com/Odin307.zip
3. One Rooted system.img tarball:
- Root66: A more proper rooted image than what I had originally had available to work with: http://forum.xda-dev...d.php?t=1762204
OR
- Stripped down (unzip first), more details here on what this one is: http://rootzwiki.com...tripped-rooted/
- http://goo.im/devs/i...img.tar.md5.zip
- torrent (please seed!): http://goo.im/devs/i...rom.zip.torrent
OR4. One recovery image:
- Full Stock, rooted:
- http://goo.im/devs/i....system.img.tar (this is big ~1.5gb, I'll work on slimming it down)
- torrent (please seed!): http://goo.im/devs/i...img.tar.torrent
- mirror: http://tinyurl.com/tytillithz thanks tillithz!!
Ok, lets get started....
- CWM recovery.img: http://goo.im/devs/i...35/recovery.img (this was ripped out of CWM-Recovery-LTE-SGS3-Sprint-v4.zip from the e4gt team)
OR- TWRP image (courtesy of birdman): http://goo.im/devs/birdman/twrp8.img
1. Boot into Odin mode on the phone. Do this by powering off and then holding vol down, home and power to power on. Then press vol up to accept the disclaimer. Plug into your computer.
2. Fire up Odin (Heimdeil may work in linux, haven't tested) choose the PDA section and browse to wherever you downloaded rooted.system.img.tar then click flash. This takes awhile, be patient. Took me around 8 minutes to flash this.
3. It will auto reboot. It should boot up and thing should act mostly normal except that you'll be able to adb in and use su to take root
If you don't want a custom recovery, you may stop here. You are rooted.
Continuing on to get a custom recovery on your device...
4. You'll need adb installed and working for this. If you don't know how, this isn't the thread for that. Open a command prompt and follow these commands:
(if you downloaded twrp8.img, use that instead of recovery.img in the commands)
5. ProfitCode:adb push recovery.img /sdcard/<br /> adb shell<br /> su<br /> dd if=/sdcard/recovery.img of=/dev/block/mmcblk0p18<br /> reboot recovery
EXTRA CREDIT: Hate the VZW boot logo and audio as much as I do? Flash this in CWM: http://www.mediafire...m6urrypvx2c156p
Its a stock Samsung Boot animation (pulled from Blazer ROM)
enjoy
Thanks to many people...
Epic 4g Touch Team
Samsung-Updates.com
rizdroid for this: http://forum.xda-dev...304&postcount=1 which i loosely followed to build our rooted system.img
Many others for bits an pieces for this whole thing
FAQ:
Q: It's not working!!! Keeps failing!!!
A: Try again. Turn the phone off (battery pull) and boot into download mode again
Q: Odin doesn't seem to be doing anything!
A: Be patient, it can take awhile sometimes. I've also noticed if you try to flash something, and leave the phone plugged in and try to flash something else it won't work. Unplug, then replug, then try flashing again
Q: Does this trip the flash counter?
A: No
Q: Can we flash custom kernels?
A: Not properly at this time. If we flash to our boot partition, we'll end up with this: http://i.imgur.com/Ci0gY.png We can still recover from this by booting into odin mode and flashing the stock boot.img, found here: http://goo.im/devs/i...tock.kernel.tar