• Hardware

  • Rooting Samsung S2 - bricked phone

He flashed a ROM from another region. According to Sam Mobile, your baseband version indicates that your ROM is from Poland. Only Polish phones on the PLUS network have been upgraded to Jellybean, thus making another different ROM entirely for that carrier.

First tip: Don't EVER take your phone to any shop no matter how bad it looks. One shop wanted to charge a family friend $50 for a process that took me only 15 minutes to do and it involved flashing only.

Second tip: When on XDA, read EVERYTHING. If you don't understand what you're reading, read again and again until you understand. YouTube videos of the flashing processes help a lot. Flashing is not for the faint-hearted, and you don't want to know how it feels like to soft brick a phone that has a locked bootloader >.>

Anyway I found a very helpful link that teaches you to flash the UAE/Middle East ROM, so PM me and I'll send it to you. I hope this helped.
Aveline wroteHe flashed a ROM from another region. According to Sam Mobile, your baseband version indicates that your ROM is from Poland. Only Polish phones on the PLUS network have been upgraded to Jellybean, thus making another different ROM entirely for that carrier.
Region doesn't matter. What matters is the model number to be the EXACT same thing. I'm currently using a UK firmware at the moment and it's running fine. UAE firmware can be really old builds which will be buggy and slow.
Aveline wroteHe flashed a ROM from another region. According to Sam Mobile, your baseband version indicates that your ROM is from Poland. Only Polish phones on the PLUS network have been upgraded to Jellybean, thus making another different ROM entirely for that carrier.
When I was on stock Rom I got an update to download Jelly Bean 4.1.2 (XWLS8 I think) from Alfa many months ago so it's not only for Polish phones (not sure what you meant by that comment).
Aveline wrote First tip: Don't EVER take your phone to any shop no matter how bad it looks. One shop wanted to charge a family friend $50 for a process that took me only 15 minutes to do and it involved flashing only.
Yes, but being the first time for me, I just panicked. But you are right, I think they didn't change any IC (they just said that to charge me some money) and they used that excuse to buy themselves some time (see next reason to know why I think that).
Aveline wrote Second tip: When on XDA, read EVERYTHING. If you don't understand what you're reading, read again and again until you understand. YouTube videos of the flashing processes help a lot. Flashing is not for the faint-hearted, and you don't want to know how it feels like to soft brick a phone that has a locked bootloader >.>
I think that's why they did to my phone at the shop. I remember the guy there checked all 4 options in Odin (Bootloader, PDA, Phone and CSC) so I'm guessing they had to JTAG it and they tried to buy some time to do that.
Aveline wrote Anyway I found a very helpful link that teaches you to flash the UAE/Middle East ROM, so PM me and I'll send it to you. I hope this helped.
Ok, thanks.
AvoK95 wrote
Aveline wroteHe flashed a ROM from another region. According to Sam Mobile, your baseband version indicates that your ROM is from Poland. Only Polish phones on the PLUS network have been upgraded to Jellybean, thus making another different ROM entirely for that carrier.
Region doesn't matter. What matters is the model number to be the EXACT same thing. I'm currently using a UK firmware at the moment and it's running fine. UAE firmware can be really old builds which will be buggy and slow.
I am well aware that it doesn't matter, and I wouldn't have recommended the UAE firmware if I wasn't sure it was the Jellybean build, so don't worry. The only difference is the option to display the entire UI in Arabic. All ROMs after ICS have the capability to read all characters, including Arabic. The only thing that can make a firmware slow and buggy is the large amount of bloatware that comes with the phone when you buy it.
I am thinking of installing "I9100XWLSW_I9100XEULS5_XEU" JB 4.1.2 released May 16 2013.
I read about that particular build. There's a reason why there are different regions for the same ROM. This is a UK ROM, and the UK has both GSM and CDMA networks, so there is that to consider. I recommend installing the Middle East ROM so you won't have to put up with applications and settings exclusive to other regions.

EDIT: There shouldn't be an issue whichever ROM you install, as long as it's not exclusive to a carrier.
What about a custom Rom like Cyanogen. Will it work on the GSM network ?
That is the Spanish firmware. Go to XDA and into the SII forum and check the Stock firmwares thread. All the information is there.

Yes, Cyanogenmod will work with all networks.
A few other questions as I am learning about the "mobile world".
Are phones in Lebanon simlocked ? What does it exactly mean and does it cause a problem for Rom flashing and/or rooting ?
I understand CFRoot is not compatible with JB. What do you use to root a phone running JB ?

What about the EFS Data / IMEI data ? Should I back up that ?
You don't have to worry about SIM lock, because the SII sold here was the international version. SIM locked phones are phones exclusive to carriers and require a special SIM card to work on the phone, for instance T-Mobile, AT&T, Verizon, and so on.

As for affecting the rooting process, carriers have a habit of customizing the phone hardware in addition to adding their own software, and it would have different internals and sometimes different sizes. The AT&T Galaxy SII is a good example. While the international SII model number is i9100, the AT&T SII model number is i777. The rooting process is then different.

You'll find a guide for rooting the JB SII in one of the links I sent you.

APN settings is the information you put in for setting up mobile data, in your case the 3G. All information about the MTC and Alfa APN settings is available on their websites.

By hard reset the author means factory reset. I doubt this will make any difference since you are flashing a stock ROM from scratch, so ignore that.

According to my experience if you're careful with how you install a custom ROM or kernel you won't have to worry about backing up the EFS and IMEI data. Be responsible and flash only from experienced and trusted developers, one of which is Cyanogenmod. I'm not sure if flashing stock firmware with Odin will automatically restore the EFS and IMEI.
Thanks again for the informative replies.

The reason I also asked about EFS Data / IMEI data is because I read the phone would become unusable is those are erased/modified.

I noticed something about my mobile after I brought it back from the shop (who claims to have only replaced an IC, not the entire motherboard). I noticed the wireless Mac address displayed by my Thomson router under "Home Network" -> "Interfaces" is not the same one that I had before taking the phone for repairs. Could that be the case if the motherboard was still the same ?
I'm not proficient in hardware, but what I do know is that the processor is one chip that includes the WiFi, radio chip (in some models the LTE chip as well), and the core processors along with the GPU. I'm not sure about the terminology, but it may be what you call the IC. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. If that is correct then it is normal to have a different mac address since the WiFi chip was also replaced.