I am not sure how lots of of you checking out this page are familiar with the presence and value of the EFS thing that we are going to talk about today! Actually, I typically hear people requesting to offer a option of a problem that makes them unable to make a call, send a message, access the Internet or any connectivity related thing. think of a mobile phone without a network connection in any way and you’ll then realize how horrible it is!
If EFS is so crucial a thing, it need to be preserved so that you might be able to use all connectivity features of your device. This thing is found in all mobile devices which have an IMEI (International Mobile equipment Identity) number assigned to it but the location and directory where it is stored might differ. On Samsung Galaxy devices, the IMEI and other connectivity data are stored in this particular folder that I have been pointed out several times so far.
What is EFS?
Having read about the role of EFS on your Samsung Galaxy phone or tablet device, you need to be a little a lot more curious to know something a lot more about it. EFS is a system directory that contains device certain vital information such as its IMEI, wireless device MAC address, baseband version, product code, system ID and NV data.
In case the EFS directory is corrupted or lost, your phone or tablet is sure to lose its IMEI number and wireless and network connectivity. You might ask how and why does the EFS data on your device might be lost or get corrupted? The answer is pretty basic and the reason might be a daring activity on your part. often flashing a custom-made Kernel (as reported by some users) and in a lot of cases installing a custom-made ROM is responsible for the EFS data loss.
In this way, the EFS or IMEI loss is deeply related with what you do after rooting your Samsung Galaxy device. keeping this thing in mind a lot of of our ROM developers insert a script that automatically creates a backup of the EFS data on the external SD Card so that you might restore it back in case of loss or corruption. but it is certainly not wise to rely blindly on the wisdom of others. That is why, whenever we write installation tutorials for custom-made ROMs for Galaxy device, we alert users to backup EFS before indulging in any custom-made development activity.
Sadly, a lot of people come to know about the thing called “EFS” only when it is too late. once lost without being backed up, recovering it becomes very much like a wild goose chase. You might have heard or faced personally the issue when your device shows the inability to mount EFS:
E: failed to mount / efs (invalid argument)
If you get this message on your phone’s screen, believe me, you have got into a severe problem. Of course, there are ways to restore EFS data, but they are either not available for all devices online or they do not work at all.
It has been well said that “prevention is better than cure” and this saying holds quite true in this case too. Therefore, the first thing that one need to do just after rooting and installing a custom-made recovery one’s device is to back up the EFS and the stock rooted firmware. For a lot more enlightening tips, do not forget to read the following article:
Things to Do before and After Installing a custom-made ROM
Reasons for EFS data Loss or Corruption:
Manually upgrading and downgrading firmware. Some users reported that they lost their IMEI during official OTA update.
Installing a custom-made ROM or mod might mishandle system configuration, resulting in corrupt EFS.
Any kind of bad flashing, the clash between new and old kernel systems can also cause the EFS data corruption and IMEI loss.
Tools and methods to Backup and restore EFS
EFS Professional:
As the very title of this post says, we are going to tell about a very easy option to back up the EFS on your Samsung Galaxy device. It is a basic but terrific tool developed by XDA member LiquidPerfection that makes this job a plaything that can be done by anybody. The tool is called EFS professional and it supports a lot of Galaxy range of Android devices from Samsung.
The most current version of the software also supports Samsung Galaxy S4 international (GT-I9500), Galaxy S4 LTE (GT-I9505), AT&T S4 (SGH-I747), Verizon Galaxy S4 (SCH-I545) and others. I have also checked it on Galaxy S3, S2, note 2 and note 10.1. Besides, EFS professional works with other Galaxy phones and tablets too.
Features of EFS Professional:
Backup and restore partition images to and from in .tar.gz format
Detects backup archives automatically on the device and PC for easy restoring
Device filter support to allow displaying crucial partitions for various devices
Extract and read device’s PIT file to make sure efficient and accurate backup and restore operations
Check MD5 hash to verify the integrity of data written
Format EFS to wipe all data and recreate the partition
Samsung’s Qualcomm dnullnull