The Samsung Galaxy S3 still holds a trend in the market with its amazing hardware of Super AMOLED 4.8 inches Gorilla Glass display, Exynos 4412 Quad-core 1.4 GHz Cortex-A9 processor, Mali-400MP4 GPU, 8 MP HD camera and much more to note down. With all these the device has ruled the market in its time and still hasn’t left behind. We’ve written a bunch of Samsung Galaxy S3 tutorials, which you must check out. By following the steps in our tutorial, you can easily restore the Galaxy S3 to stock firmware.
Our blog covers an expanded list of content, of which guides hold great importance, especially for those who are new. Every day, smartphone users from over the world browse down to our guides helping them to root their device, perform a few tips & tricks and much more. All this helps you to go Custom, but most of this tends to break your device’s warranty. Suppose you’re willing to get your smartphone serviced at the Customer station, you need it clean, clean enough for them to know that the warranty was ever broken. Today we’re here on guiding you to Reset Binary Counter and Restore Galaxy S3 to stock firmware. So either if you’re have decided to visit the service center or you’ve been bored (a rare case) by your Custom ROM, you will need this guide to go completely stock on your Galaxy S3.
About the procedure, we’re first going to Reset the Binary Counter, then Install Stock Recovery, followed by flashing the stock firmware on the Galaxy S3.
Disclaimer
DroidViews or its community members shall not be held liable for any damage to your device. Perform every action on your own risk. This guide is meant only and only for the Galaxy S3 and its respective variants. Do not try this on any other device, or you might end up in a complete brick.
Prerequisites
- Install Android SDK Platform-tools on your computer.
- Download and install Samsung USB drivers.
- Enable USB Debugging on your Galaxy S3.
- Backup your device completely. This includes storage, SMS, contacts, etc.
- Charge your S3 to at least 60% battery level to avoid any sudden shutdowns during the process.
- Download and extract the Odin flashing tool: Odin3 v3.09.zip
Reset Binary Counter on Galaxy S3
The binary counter in a Samsung-built device is a flip counter which turns up or increments a number after a non-official ROM is Installed. It could be easily spotted by the men at the service center, hence risking your warranty. The most prominent solution yet has been provided by TriangleAway, which is a well-known app by the leading developer Chainfire.
- Power off/switch off your Galaxy S3 completely.
- Press the Volume Down + Home + Power buttons altogether.
- You will be prompted with a Warning message, accept it by pressing the Volume Up key.
- The device will now reboot into Download Mode.
- Have a look at the text on top-left of the screen.
- Note down the CUSTOM BINARY DOWNLOAD count, it should be a digit more than 0.
- Reboot your Galaxy S3.
- Click the app download box below this procedure to download and Install the TriangleAway app.
- Run the App and follow the on-screen instructions to proceed.
- Current Status will show the exact count as noted earlier.
- Tap on Reset flash counter.
- In case it fails or shows an error, try again.
Install Recovery on Galaxy S3
- Download the Odin flash-able package of stock recovery for your corresponding model:
- International: International-GT-i9300-StockRecovery.tar
- Canadian/ATT: ATT-SGH-I747-StockRecovery.tar
- Verizon: Verizon-SCH-I535-StockRecovery.tar
- T-Mobile: T-Mobile-SGH-T999-Stock-Recovery.tar
- Sprint: Sprint-SPH-L710-StockRecovery.tar
- Run the Odin program by double-clicking Odin3_3.09.exe.
- Make sure F.Reset Time and Auto-Reboot are checked and everything else is unchecked.
- Power off the device and put it into download mode using step 1,2 & 3 of the binary counter procedure.
- Connect the device to the PC via USB cable when it is in Download Mode.
- The ID:COM port on the top-left window will light up and show the corresponding port.
- If not, reinstall the drivers because they have not been installed correctly and make sure to reboot your device after that.
- Click on the PDA tab and select the stock recovery tar file corresponding to your variant.
- Once selected, click on Start to begin the process.
Within a few seconds, the process will finish and the device will reboot itself. You now have your device running on the official recovery.
Restore Galaxy S3 to Stock firmware
- Download the desired stock firmware file corresponding to your device:
- International: GT-I9300
- Canadian/ATT: SGH-I747
- T-Mobile: SGH-T999
- Sprint: SPH-L710
- Run the Odin program, again.
- Make sure F.Reset Time and Auto-Reboot are checked and everything else is unchecked.
- Power off the device and put it into download mode using step 1,2, & 3 of the binary counter procedure.
- Connect the device to the PC using a USB data cable.
- Click on the PDA tab and select the firmware tar file.
- Click on Start to begin the procedure. Since it’s a firmware file, it will take a few minutes to complete.
- Once the procedure is complete the device will reboot itself into completely stock and official Samsung Galaxy S3.
That’s all! You now have Samsung Galaxy S3 completely restored to stock firmware with stock recovery and zero binary counter. Take it away to a Samsung Station or enjoy the stock experience, your choice. Tell us your views about this guide, was it helpful to you? Take some time out to comment, they are precious to us.
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You mention the firmware is ~700MB, but the .tar I have is ~1.1GB. Does that sounds right to anyone else? I grabbed the CDN/AT&T firmware.
The firmware sizes differ.
Thanks. I guess the 300-400MB difference surprised me. In the end I was able to use Kies to reload the stock OS.
I can’t find the PDA tab on step 6.. can anyone help me please??
Select AP then.
in my case it show its done and after again restarting the same binary: yes (1 count ) it showing wat am i suppose to do help me plz.
WHen trying to reset to stock firmware I had the stock .tar file selected and pressed Start, but only this showed up:
All threads completed. (succeed 0 / failed 0)
And my phone did not auto reboot, what did I do wrong?
EDIT: I accidentally downloaded the StockRecovery.tar…
So, you still need help?
Was your device detected by the Odin program successfully?
I managed to install the stock firmware but starting up takes ages, I had to go so I left it starting up.
Do consult with us if you have an issue.
I do actually need help. When I came back home my phone was still starting up. I could see it was not freezing, as the SAMSUNG text was glowing so..
i restored my phone and reset binary to zero but now my phone is stuck on samsung logo
its not starting up, and i also added PDA firmware file again but still stuck on samsung logo
what do i do??
First of all, reboot your S3 into stock recovery mode (I believe that you now have the stock recovery by following our guide). Power off the device, press and hold Volume Up, Home and Power buttons altogether until you see the Samsung logo. As soon as the logo appears, release the power button and keep pressing the other two. Your Samsung Galaxy S3 will now be in Stock Recovery mode.
Now, use the Volume keys to navigate to “wipe data/factory reset” and select it using the power button. The process will take a bit of time, then select “reboot system now”.
My counter is at zero/official and everything looks good, but in odin mode there’s a line of text that reads: “bootloader rp swrev: 2”. Is that something to be worried about as far as warranty is concerned?
I don’t think you need to worry about that as long as the flash counter shows “official”. It won’t affect the warranty. 🙂
Trying to reset an S3 and everytime i enter download mode to flash the stock recovery the counter is back to 1
I recently flashed the official kitkat update to my s3. I also rooted it with saferoot. The problem I am having is the power button has been messing up. I try to shut the screen off and it just pops back on and sometimes it brings up the power off/reset screen. I can probably live with that, the biggest issue is that I can’t get to download mode. When I try to boot into download I get to the download screen I press the volume up and the next screen pops up for a few seconds then the phone powers off. Maybe this is a problem of the power switch. Have you run across this issue.
You can use a reboot app from the Play Store to enter the download mode on Galaxy S3.
There doesn’t seem to be an option for booting into download mode.
Try “adb reboot bootloader” command in ADB.
https://www.droidviews.com/a-comprehensive-guide-to-adb-android-debug-bridge-and-commands/