Galaxy Stuck in Download Mode - Will Not Flash with Odin

[Cobra]

I apologize if this isn't the best place for this post, I put it where I thought was closest to where it fit. I understand T-Mo is GSM, and this is a CDMA phone.

I have a day old Samsung Galaxy S Showcase (SCH-S950C(GP)) and I cannot flash any rom I have found to it whatsoever either with multiple versions of Odin or the Heimdall Suite. Heimdall will let me upload a recovery.bin and zImage, but the phone ends up end an endless reboot loop. I'm getting an error message about re-partitioning, and when I was able to get into recovery mode it would throw a checksum error upon trying to flash through an SD card package. I have tried uploading in Odin with both the SD card in and removed, and i have toggled whether or not to repartition and it always fails. Perhaps there is a stock rom out there that will work, and I have just been unable to find it? An ICS rom would be nice, but I would like a working phone again.

The phone doesn't seem to be bricked because I can get to download mode, but perhaps there could even be a problem with the internal flash memory? I'm just throwing the possibility out there as I'm getting nowhere even on multiple PCs. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

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[UltraDroid]

Hello Cobra - welcome to the forum.

Your phone comes with Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) pre-installed, are you trying to install roms that are intended for your phone or just roms which look interesting. The reason I ask is that we have had a number of people on this forum who have the AT&T version of the Samsung Galaxy S II try to upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) with roms written for the International version of the Galaxy S II ... with disastrous results. We are talking hard brick, turn your phone into a paperweight or a doorstop disasters. If you're trying to install anything other than a rom written for your specific phone model, you're courting that very disaster.

OK, here's what I need you to do. I'm not a technician (I'm a moderator) and I'm not equipped to give a diagnosis of why you're running into problems, but we have a group of guys who are quite skilled in those areas known as the Rescue Squad and if you can be patient, one of them will swing by and give you hand. So I need you to hang in there for awhile until one of them gets here.

[ronnie8890]

OK your phone is a little tricky since its on straight talk. Let's start with what you were trying to flash and how you were trying to flash it.

[Cobra]

Ronnie,

I have tried several things, but the last thing I tried was Cyanogen (cm-7.2.0-showcaswemtd). I was able to flash the kernel and recovery.bin from Heimdall, but I was getting reboot loop. It appears that it was trying to mount the SD card and recover something from it because it appeared to be in CWR, but I was unable to read it as it was going by so fast. I tried renaming the zip file to update.zip and putting it on the SD card and no luck...i'm not sure what it was trying to recover from. Thanks!

[Cobra]

I have also tried one name "GT_I9000_XWJSD_XXJPY_OXXJS6_Sbl" and "I9000XXJVU_I9000OXAJVU_OXA". I don't believe these roms are designed for this model, but they were the closest I could find. Odin always fails after a few seconds after verifying the md5 files.

[ronnie8890]

Let me dig for a showcase tar file real quick

[ronnie8890]

OK this link Link removed has return to stock instruction s with the pit file for the cellular south version of the showcase. This should get your phone up and running again. As for still working on straight talk I'm not sure. It may or may not over write anything straight talk needs for your phone to function. If it does need some sort of flashing after we can look into that.

Edit it would seem that it will overwrite the data base for straight talk and no longer work with them anymore so let me so some more digging

[Cobra]

Ronnie,

Thank you for your reply. I found that page yesterday, and all the links point to megaupload which appears to be seized by the FBI.

[ronnie8890]

I'm confident in the fact I can find a showcase tar file and pit file but I'm not entirely sure your phone would work with straight talk anymore. If that's something your willing to try I can keep looking for you if you'd like

[Cobra]

I'm probably going to take it to the store tonight and see what they'll do given it's 2 days old. It's probably worth a shot, but I haven't had much luck finding a tar myself. Would it be possible to root the phone if we can't find a tar? I don't want to resolve the issue by going back to stock, but then have the same problem again...perhaps its best to stick with a stock rom?