Posted Monday, June 11, 2012 by Dave Thornton in Android Development

Samsung Galaxy Note & Galaxy S2 users at risk of hardbrick

Fans of Samsung devices will probably have heard of the problems with several of their top devices based on the Exynos 4210 processor. These include the Samsung Galaxy Note, Epic 4G Touch and the AT&T Samsung Galaxy S2. According to the XDA Developers forums, there was even an app designed by one of the Elite Recognised Developers which would tell you if your phone was at risk for hard brick. Samsung apparently are aware of the problem and are working hard towards finding a hardbrick fix.

While the company work to find the fix users of the affected phones may wish to be cautious about flashing their handset with any leaked kernels, particularly where MMC-CAP-ERASE is present in the kernels.
A developer at XDA said they had contacted Samsung and told them that when undertaking a mmc erase it could cause a bricked phone if it has a faulty emmc chip. Samsung have reported that progress has been made and along with releasing a fix courtesy of updated stock firmware they also intend to work with the community developers and provide info needed to fix the problem in their own releases. The developers will then begin to use the fixes as soon as possible.
It is commendable that the phone company is doing all they can to fix the issue quickly and work alongside the community to ensure a fix is found. The Samsung Galaxy Note, Galaxy S2 and Epic 4G Touch are without a doubt some of the top selling Samsung devices on the market right now.

As seen on a Google+ post by XDA Elite Recognized Developer codeworkx:
We’ve contacted Samsung about the problem where performing a mmc erase could hardbrick your phone (i9100, i9100g, n7000, m250 – MAG4FA, VYL00M, and KYL00M with firmware revision 0×19 // T989 and I727 with fw rev 0×12) if it’s having a faulty emmc chip.
Read this thread for more informations about it: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1644364
They’re working as hard as possible on a clean solution which will be ready soon.
Please be patient and try to not flash any leaked kernels or kernels based on sources where MMC_CAP_ERASE is present.

Via: XDA Dev

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Dave Thornton

Many yrs ago Dave was MSDN trained, a web designer and computer shop owner. Loves walking his dogs, Lab & Welsh border collie. Golden Retriever. Plenty of fields around where he lives in Dundee, Scotland and is 2 miles from the beach.