[HOWTO] Rooting the Samsung Galaxy S III Mini (GT-i8200)

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The_Unbeliever

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NOTE : There are TWO different models of the S3 Mini in circulation, the GT-i8200 and the GT-i8190

THEY ARE NOT THE SAME

If you attempt to use the incorrect root method, you WILL brick your phone.

You have been warned

Now that the warning is out of the way, it would seem that the i8200 is not a common phone as you struggle to get the correct ROM's, rootkits and tutorials for it.

Sadly, documentation for rooting this phone is sorely lacking in detail... :(

During my journeys I have picked up malware, three sites which all leads to the same download site which asks you for your cellphone number in order to "load" your account with one of those R7 a day bloodsuckers, and others.

But now I have sorted things out, and proudly presents you with the tutorial :

Steps will follow in the next post :
 
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How to root the Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini ~ GT-i8200 ~​

1. Make sure your phone is charged to more than 80%.

2. Enable Developer mode.
  • System Settings
  • More
  • About Device
  • Scroll down to Build Number
  • Tap Build Number a couple of times to enable Developer Settings
3. Enable USB Debugging
  • Open Developer Options
  • Scroll down to USB Debugging and enable (tick mark)
4. Download the Kingo root application : https://www.dropbox.com/sh/vvsox4tdj4ntdnv/AADdTNsAOqyMimnJH1ikKc4Za?dl=0
You will see that there are two apps, one is for Windows, the other is for running on the Android device itself. For some reason I was not successful using the Android app, the Windows app worked for me.​

5. Once the phone is rooted with the Kingo app, you can check root status by downloading and running SuperSU on the device. If it is rooted, you can proceed.

NOTE : The phone MUST be rooted, otherwise the following steps will NOT work!

6. Once root access has been obtained, download and install Odin3 v3.10 on your PC.

7. Download, extract Philz recovery, and copy/move the extracted file to your Odin install directory.

8.Using Odin to flash Philz Recovery :
  • Open Odin v3.09
  • Reboot phone in Download Mode (press and hold Home + Power + Volume Down buttons)
  • Connect phone and wait until you get a blue sign in Odin
  • Add the recovery file mda file to AP / PDA
  • Make sure re-partition is NOT ticked
  • Click the start button, sit back and wait a few minutes

9. Once Philz recovery has been flashed, disconnect your phone from the PC and test by switching your phone off, then press Volume UP, Home and Power together. If Philz recovery starts up instead of the standard Samsung recovery, then you're good to go.
RECOMMENDATION : You can do a Nandroid backup of your stock ROM now if you want to. I did not since I got allsorts of junk pushed on my phone from the vRoot and iRoot applications...​

10. Use Philz Recovery to perform a Wipe Data/Factory Reset. You'll note that under that option there's two more options - a standard Wipe Data/Factory Reset and a Clean to Install a new ROM. You can do both, although I ran the Clean to Install a new ROM option.

11. Use Philz Recovery to wipe your Cache partition.

12. Use Philz Recovery to Clear the Dalvik Cache (go to Advanced - Wipe Dalvik Cache).

13. Here is where documentation fails on the Internet, and I decided to start the phone up as normal, and skip all the settings for gmail/dropbox etc.

14. Connect the phone to your PC, and copy the AOSP ROM over to your /downloads folder on your phone. I did not copy it previously as the phone got wiped. You can also copy the AOSP ROM to a SD Card and insert that into your phone.

15. Another way is to reboot into recovery, connect phone to PC and mount USB storage, by doing the following :
  • Mounts and Storage
  • Scroll right down to the bottom and select mount USB storage
  • Select it
  • Then copy the AOSP ROM to the downloads folder.

16. Once either 14 or 15 is done, reboot into recovery mode (press and hold Home + Power + Volume UP buttons), select the Install ZIP option, then select Choose ZIP from sdcard (or External sdcard if you have it on an SD card). Browse to the folder containing the AOSP Rom (in Zip format) and execute it. This will take a while, during which time you can go and make a cuppa coffee or tea.

17. Once the ROM has been installed, you can now reboot the phone.

18. It will start up in German. Simply use the pull-down list to select English (South Africa) and all is plain sailing from here onwards.
 
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If anybody happens to find other working ROMS for the i8200, post the links here for our enjoyment (and experimentation)!
 
 
so you cant do a standard flash on this phone?

in other words, you cant skip the odin and just copy the rom onto the folder and let the phone load that via the recovery menu?

explains a lot then, maybe I need to get a better phone then:p
 
eg2505 said:
so you cant do a standard flash on this phone?

in other words, you cant skip the odin and just copy the rom onto the folder and let the phone load that via the recovery menu?

explains a lot then, maybe I need to get a better phone then:p
Click to expand...

Nope, you need to have root access.

I honestly agree with you on the "getting a better phone" part. I'm done with Samsung.
 
then you need a google nexus phone! shame they not easy to find in SA

but wrt to the innjoo fire, what do you think?

easy/hard from your experience? lots of Nigerians using this phone so should be easy to flash/root/upgrade
 
Nothing is easy to root on the current Lollipop version :/
Only way to get root on Lollipop 5.1 is a pre-rooted rom.
 
yeah just give it time, thats what Im trying to figure out,

do the gurus work a lot on this phone? or what phones do they focus on mainly these days?

I hope not samsung as I planning to move to this innjoo and want the best rooting experience possible.
 
eg2505 said:
do the gurus work a lot on this phone? or what phones do they focus on mainly these days?
Click to expand...

Flagships. Though it's always been like that, just there was less saturation on the lower end before so there was a pretty even spread of support. Now however it's luck of the draw which of the lower end phones will see the same sort of dev love.
 
The_Librarian said:
Give it a bit more time... the gurus out there will figure things out.

Sucks that you can't root things that easily anymore... :(
Click to expand...

There isn't time / They're outa time. Focus is about to shift to Marshmellow which hopefully isn't even harder to root.
 
NOTE : The phone MUST be rooted, otherwise the following steps will NOT work!
Click to expand...
You sure about that? In my opinion everything above this line is not necessary (except enabling developer options)
 
eg2505 said:
so you cant do a standard flash on this phone?

in other words, you cant skip the odin and just copy the rom onto the folder and let the phone load that via the recovery menu?

explains a lot then, maybe I need to get a better phone then:p
Click to expand...

As far as I know you can, but then you can only flash a stock Samsung ROM, just like most other Samsung phones. What Libs did here is loaded a custom ROM which will always require root
 
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