Odin3 is the official firmware flashing tool for Samsung Android smartphones and tablet devices. As per my personal experience, Samsung devices get a number of errors just like firmware upgrade encountered an error, not registered on network, camera failed error, and there are a number of other occasions where you’ve used Odin3 instead of Kies or SideSync in order to manually flash firmware, custom recovery (clockworkmod or twrp), and kernels by chainfire xda when rooting your Android.
I found on many popular android forums, such as xda developers, android forums, and android central, that mostly Android beginner users are getting issues or don’t have the essential skills to use odin3. So I thought I would write a detailed step-by-step guide on how to properly use Odin3 to manually flash firmware on your Samsung device without bricking your phone or tablet. So without further wasting your time, let’s move on and learn how to properly use Odin3.
What is Odin3?
Odin is a firmware flashing tool for Samsung Android devices. You can use it to manually flash stock firmware. Samsung Android updates are released through OTA updates but still you can download firmware files from Sammobile and other similar websites.
Odin3 can also be used to flash a custom recovery such as TWRP and custom roms.
Requirements:
Please carefully read the guidelines before using Odin, otherwise you’ll get fail errors in odin.
- Odin3 is only compatible with Windows OS only. There are similar tools for Linux which is Jodin3 and mobile apps as well.
- Make sure you’ve good enough battery charge on your phone, at least 50% is required.
- Download and install the Samsung USB drivers on your PC.
- Enable USB debugging from Settings > Developer Options.
- Enable OEM unlock if you’re planning to install a custom recovery.
Flash Stock Firmware Using Odin
Follow the instructions given below on how you can easily flash firmware on your Samsung Android device:
- First head over to this download odin to download the latest version of Odin3.
- Now go to http://www.sammobile.com/firmwares and download stock firmware for your specific model.
- Extract the Odin3 and stock firmware files to a new folder on your desktop. (Just like I have done for Samsung Galaxy S3 in the image given below)
For newer models you’ll get 6 files, AP, BL, CP, CSC, HOME_CSC, USERDATA. AP is the most important file, which is the main firmware file, rest are not that important.
If you’re just trying to update your phone then use AP + Home_CSC files and ignore the rest, otherwise flash BL+AP+CP+HOME_CSC - Next, right click on Odin3 .exe file and run it as Administrator.
- Turn off your phone and boot it into download mode using Volume + Bixby + Power or Volume down + Power.
- Connect your phone or tablet to PC via the USB cable.
- Make sure that Odin detects and recognize your mobile otherwise make sure you’ve installed Samsung USB drivers on your PC.
- Click on the AP (older odin versions have PDA) button and select the tar.md5 firmware file.
- Wait for Odin3 to check and verify the tar.md5 files.
- You can now click the START button to flash the stock firmware on your Samsung device.
- Usually Odin3 takes 5 minutes to complete the flashing process depending on the file size and your device model.
- Once firmware is flushed successfully, your device will reboot and Odin3 will show a PASS green signaled message.
Flash TWRP Recovery Using Odin
Samsung phones comes with the stock recovery which comes with limited options, TWRP recovery is a more advance version of stock recovery, where you can easily take full backup of your phone also called Nandroid, flash root files like Magisk and other moded files that might be used for changing phone IMEI or repairing an NG IMEI status.
The steps are same as flashing a stock firmware. With TWRP recovery you only get a tar.img file from twrp official website.
Here is how to flash TWRP using odin3:
Step 1: First you need to download the twrp recovery file from the official website.
Step 2: Power off your phone and connect in download mode.
Step 3: Make sure you’ve already enabled OEM unlock from Settings > Developer options. Otherwise you’ll get fail errors.
Step 4: In Odin3, click on options tab and uncheck the Auto Reboot option.
Step 4: Click on AP and select the tar.img file and click on Start button to flash it.
Step 5: For flashing twrp img it only takes 5 to 10 seconds. Once completed, it will show pass message.
Step 6: Now using Volume up + Bixby + Power or Volume up + Power buttons to boot your phone into TWRP recovery mode. If your phone does not restart then hold down the Volume Down + Power to exit the download mode and as soon as restarts leave the volume down and press the Volume up.
That’s how you can easily flash TWRP using odin.
Bypass FRP Using Odin3
Many beginners think that flashing a stock rom on FRP locked phone will remove or bypass the Google account. Well, techincally it might seem ok but it does not work and you’ll endup wasting your time.
However, there are some combination files for some models that you need to manually look for on Google or Android forums to download and then flash it using odin.
That’s it guys, hopefully by the end of this tutorial you should now be able to use Odin3 to manually update, root or flash custom recoveries on your device. Do let us know, if you do need further assistance or confused at any step, we shall try our best to respond asap to your queries. Have a great day.
