eMMC firmware bug bricking Samsung phones on Android 4.0.x

RainMotorsports

Partition Master
I have been in the action taking idiotic risks and after seeing someone comment on a thread I had posted and XDA putting up a front page post. Started to figure it was worth bringing the discussion here.

While most of us are living the danger on leaks of ICS update candidates for the Epic 4G Touch and other S2 variants this is a very real problem that has been pushed OTA to the Galaxy Note. You can't point fingers and laugh because people did something wrong.

The Problem
What if we told you performing a factory reset in untouched stock recovery was like playing Russian roulette with your phone? Owners of the Galaxy Note GT-N7000 currently live with this very reality. Changes in how eMMC wipes are handled in ICS from GB may have triggered a nasty bug in some eMMC firmwares causing irreperable damage. At this point JTAG services can do nothing for you but Samsung, possibly any company with the proprietary documentation/knowledge of eMMC can most likely fix it.

The Epic 4G Touch community has been getting leaks that range from daily to a week a part and not to far in the kernel developers started telling us not to flash any roms. It became very clear something was wrong between flashing roms and doing a factory reset. Even on stock recovery and unlocked stock recovery, someone recently took one for the team to confirm.

The problem is known to Samsung and Google with Samsung having posted a possible work around for firmware 0x25 and Google's Ken Sumrall checking in. The problem appears to only affect Exynos based phones even though the affected chips running other firmwares exist in other variants. I have the 0x19 firmware and have very foolishly flashed roms several times from CWM.

Screenshot_2012-05-19-03-00-56.png

The trick for us Epic 4G Touch owners since our recovery is packed into the kernel is to flash back to a Gingerbread CWM kernel to do flashing or just plain old ODIN for the stock leaks.

I myself am enjoying the recently released CyanogenMod9 Alpha 4 build for our phone which is a partial port based on modified stock kernel. It has reached a point of having most of the features now implemented and we should be in a good starting place once source for the phone comes out. Sbrissen has been working on his own from source kernel which looks very promising considering. My phone has been much faster and I can not complain about the stand by life:
Screenshot_2012-05-19-01-25-08.png




XDA Post - http://www.xda-developers.com/android/hard-brick-bug-on-galaxy-s-ii-and-note-leaked-ics-kernels/
E4GT Thread on the issue - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1644364
 
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