How to Unroot the Samsung Galaxy S III (All Versions)(Video)


Need to return your Samsung Galaxy S III back to stock to send it in for warranty? Or maybe you just want to start over because you ended up modifying the phone a tad too much?Either way, you can easily use Odin, Samsung’s software flashing program, to flash a stock firmware pretty easily and unroot your Galaxy S III. Here’s how.

I. Download Odin and Drivers

1. Download the Samsung USB Drivers and then double click the exe file to install them.

2. Download Odin and unzip it to your desktop by right clicking the .zip file and selecting extract.

II. Return Samsung Galaxy S III Back to Stock

1. Download the Stock Odin firmware for your specific version of the Galaxy S III.

Verizon

AT&T

T-Mobile

Other Versions (Head to this site and find your version from the drop down list on the top left of the site and download the latest version for your device).

2. If the firmware is in a .zip file, right click it and select extract.

3. Open Odin

4. Turn off your Galaxy S III.

5. Turn it back on by holding down Volume Down, Home, and Power until you see the warning come up.

6. Push Volume Up to continue.

7. Plug in your Galaxy S III via USB cable.

8. In Odin, click on PDA on the right side and then select the .md5 file that you extracted or downloaded earlier.

9. Click Start and wait for it to finish flashing.

10. Once it’s done, the device will reboot and you’ll be back to stock.

III. (Optional) Factory Reset / Wipe Data

If you’re device crashes after flashing the stock ROM you might need to wipe data (as some of the stock ROMs leave this data intact in order for you to keep all the apps that you had etc. but, in doing so, can cause some issues). Here’s how to fix it and erase the device.

1. Pull the battery out of the device, wait 10 seconds, then put it back in.

2. Turn on the phone by holding down Volume Up, Home, and Power until the phone vibrates, then let go of the power button only and continue to hold the Volume Up and Home buttons until the recovery screen appears.

3. Using the volume buttons scroll to wipe data and select it using the power button.

4. Scroll to yes and select it to confirm.

5. Once it is done flashing, scroll to reboot system now and select it.

6. Once the device reboots, you should be all wiped and at the device’s initial setup screen.

64 thoughts on “How to Unroot the Samsung Galaxy S III (All Versions)(Video)”

  1. Added!!

    Enter CS for MD5..

    Check MD5.. Do not unplug the cable..

    Please wait..

    MD5 hash value is invalid

    COMBINATION_I535VRBLK3_I535VZWBLK3_381038_REV09_user_low_ship_NOWIPE_FIXED.tar (1).md5 is invalid.

    End…

    1. Mahesh Makvana

      Seems like your download was not successful as it shows Invalid MD5. Just re-download the file and then do the procedure, it should work fine.

      Thanks!

  2. Gustavo Camacaro

    Hello. I need some help please, I did what the steps said, but after that I cannot get past the samsung logo. PLEASE HELP.

    1. Gustavo Camacaro

      UPDATE: I might have done something very naive, but after I saw this, I pressed the power button for about 2 secs and it came back to life… I was scared… LOL

  3. i am needing to send my phone back for warranty puposes, it is a Samsung Galaxy SIII GT-9300t, how am i suppose to find out these details?

    1. Download the Stock Odin firmware for your specific version of the Galaxy S III.

  4. It took a couple of tries, but it eventually worked. My main goal was to get rid of the “Custom” logo at the bottom of the Samsung boot up screen, and this appears to have done so. Thanks!

  5. Hi there, am having a bit of trouble.. Might be a pretty basic problem, but am a bit confused anyway. I have downloaded the stock rom, but its just a zip file with a bunch of other files inside and a .img file. No .tar.MD5 Is there a way of converting to the correct format? Whats the deal?

    1. Can you please give us the list of all the files you have inside that archive? It’ll help us assist you better.

      Thanks,

  6. Hey man !!
    I did everything you mentioned in the video..but i cant get pas the Samsung galaxy s3 with the black background sign. apparently there is no software installed.
    can you help me please!! thank you

  7. When you are done with everything then the Samsung Logo wont remove from your screen. But if you just hold down the power button in 3 sec. and then click it, everything will work 🙂

  8. Thanks!! Was really a pretty simple process and easy to follow along with your video. Phone did exactly what you said and everything is back to normal.

  9. Mohammad M. Mowla

    Hello, i just used your solution, it worked but the problem is i cannot get passed the samsung logo, if you can tell me a way how to get passed the logo, that will be very generous, since you have helped so many people, i guess you will get back to me soon. Thanks

  10. hey man! i wanted to unroot my blue sprint samsung galaxy s3 so i found your tutorial and decided to use it. i downloaded the neccessary files you said and followed the steps, but to no avail. after the flashing starts and goes for a few minutes, it fails. can you help me with this please? thanks!

      1. never mind man. thanks to help from my dad, turns out i picked the wrong model number, haha :p now im unrooted and now have kit kat thanks to this great tutorial. 🙂 will recommend in the future! 🙂

    1. ok i got the drivers on but it still fails. it says complete(write) operation failed. All threads complete . (succeed 0/ failed 1

        1. it failed then tried to turn on and now says firmware upgrade encountered an issue. Please use Software Repair Assistant and try again. i was rooted when i started

          1. I’d simply rt again. Other than that since I’m not watching you do the procedure there no way for me to know what exactly went wrong unfortunately.

  11. Question, my phone is unlocked to work with Rogers. Would it work to use the rogers firmware? Or would I have to stick with bell and in doing so loose my unlock? Thanks for your time! 🙂

    1. You should technically keep your unlock no n matter what you do with the firmware BUT I’m not positive on that so phrase google around and see if anyone else had has a similar situation and what happened to them.
      You should always flash the firmware for your actually device regardless of what carrier you are using it on. Google around though as I mentioned to see about the unlock first though.

      1. Thanks for the reply, David! The reason I was trying to do this was to get the 4.4 update, only to realize I could do it through Kies without loosing the root. Or maybe my phone didn’t have a legit root in the first place? Regardless, thanks for your time, great article!

  12. Hello when i try to download stuff from samsung updates and when it stars download it says i cannot download it pls help .I have samsung galaxy s3 lte

  13. Hi im having problems with my phone I believe I followed your instructions but somethings missing.
    Added!!

    Enter CS for MD5..

    Check MD5.. Do not unplug the cable..

    Please wait..

    I747UCDLK3_I747ATTDLK3_I747UCDLK3_HOME.tar.md5 is valid.

    Checking MD5 finished Sucessfully..

    Leave CS..

    Odin v.3 engine (ID:3)..

    File analysis..

    SetupConnection..

    Initialzation..

    Get PIT for mapping..

    Firmware update start..

    aboot.mbn

    NAND Write Start!!

    FAIL! (Auth)

    All threads completed. (succeed 0 / failed 1)

      1. sgh-i747 att at least that’s what the person that sold it to me said the carrier was I cant tell what it is it says network unknown

        1. And you did this before plugging it in?

          4. Turn off your Galaxy S III.

          5. Turn it back on by holding down Volume Down, Home, and Power until you see the warning come up.

          6. Push Volume Up to continue.

          1. Then I suggest using USBDeview as illustrated in this procedure to uninstall the drivers and reinstall them manually. As not found is definitely an driver issue. theunlockr.com/2009/10/06/how-to-set-up-adb-usb-drivers-for-android-devices/

      2. ive tried all my usb ports and my wifes laptop still no luck any other suggestions?
        also its running on android 4.4.4 I don’t know if this matters? thanks for the help

  14. I’m using CM11 with TWRP recovery. Will this process restore stock recovery, or will I need to flash that separately? Also, does it re-lock the bootloader? Thanks in advance!

      1. Can I just say how awesome it is that you’re responding within 6 minutes to a post on a two year old thread for an outdated phone? Thanks, man.

        Oh, one more question: any danger of this tripping the flash counter?

          1. Ok, I was wrong – I do have one (probably) last question…

            Counter is zero/official, bootloader is locked, back to stock firmware/unrooted. Underneath the counter in Odin mode, however, there’s a line that reads: “bootloader rp swrev 2”. Is this something to be concerned about re: warranty?

            If not, I’d be curious to know what it means anyway – not much info online. Thanks again 🙂

  15. Hmm, it looks like this has given me a bootloop – I’m stuck at the “Verizon 4GLTE” screen. I flashed the file in the link and got a “PASS” message from Odin – is there anything I might have missed?

  16. I am trying to unroot my S3 SGH-1747 (AT&T). When I go to download page for the stock firmware, I get 2 options, both want to be paid money for the firmware. Is this as good as it gets?

    1. You shouldn’t have to pay. Use the free option to download and avoid the ads on that page (I’m not a fan of how that site uses the hosting with so many ads but what can you do).

  17. hi, i am trying to download the stock firmware for my samsung s319300 but i am having difficulties downloading the file.

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