Flashing custom ROMS to your Android device is risky. A small and simple mistake can harm the phone. Any ROM that you install will have a disclaimer from the author stating all the potential dangers that can be caused and that flashing is at your own risk. If you don’t follow all the instructions properly, you may brick your device. Bricking your device means that it is unusable. There are different types of bricks, but we are going to talk about ‘Soft Brick’.

A soft brick is when your device can turn on but doesn’t boot itself to the actual phone. Your device is soft bricked if:

• Stuck on a bootloop
• Stuck on the custom recovery
• Stuck on boot animation

If you find yourself in one of these situations, you have soft bricked your device. There are many ways to recover from a soft brick but the way we are showing you is one of the best methods to recover from a soft brick.

1. Download the official firmware for you device:

Now that your phone is in a soft brick, the files on your phone are corrupted and we need to download the stock firmware for your phone. Visit http://www.sammobile.com to download your latest stock firmware depending on the model number and location of your phone. Download the file for your phone and now you are ready to move on.

2. Download ODIN:

Now the next step is to download ODIN. ODIN is the software that will be opened on your Windows PC. This software will allow us to flash the stock firmware onto our phone. Visit http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s3/themes-apps/27-08-2013-odin-3-09-odin-1-85-versions-t2189539 to download ODIN 1.85.

3. Put your Samsung smart phone to download mode:

Take the battery out of your phone and wait for 1 minute. Then insert the battery back in and press and hold VOLUME DOWN + POWER BUTTON + HOME BUTTON. You should be presented with a page saying press VOLUME UP to continue, so press VOLUME UP and you should now be in download mode.

4. Start ODIN and begin the flashing procedure

Once your phone is in download mode, start ODIN on your Windows PC and then plug the USB cable to your phone and the other end to the computer. A light will come on in ODIN recognizing a connection. Then press PDA in ODIN and locate your .md5 stock firmware file. Once you have done that begin the flashing procedure by pressing start. The flashing procedure may take a while.

5. Done

After the flashing procedure is successfully completed there will be a box saying PASS in big letters towards the top left of the application. You can now disconnect your USB cable and the phone will now be factory reset. You have now recovered from a soft brick.