Bricking and Debricking Samsung Galaxy S3 SCH-I535
I want Lollipop!
I was given a used Samsung by a friend a year or so ago.
I recently transferred my Tracfone number and minutes to it through their Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) program--that story is a laugh and half, but not for this set of notes.
The operating system is 4.4.2 (KitKat).
It may be vulnerable to the Stagefright exploit.
I would love to move up to Lollipop or Marshmallow, but Samsung has abandoned the S3.
They have not provided a patch for Stagefright.
They have not and will not make Lollipop or Marshmallow available.
"No problem," I thought. "I'll just load a new system in by hand. I've been using computers for over 30 years. I can handle this."
Now for the three hardest words for a man to say: "I was wrong."
I got Knoxed!
As a preliminary step, I wanted to make a Nandroid backup of my system that I could use in case anything went wrong.
I downloaded TWRP from the play store.
I verified that the installation folder was correct by installing Android Studio so that I could open an Android Debug Bridge window and navigate to the putatively correct folder.
When I was confident that I had found where TWRP needed to go, I confirmed the folder and set the installation of the latest package in motion.
After installation, I tried booting into TWRP in order to complete the Nandroid backup.