Backup & Restore EFS on Samsung Galaxy S5 All Variants [How To – Guide]

Samsung has just rolled out it’s latest flagship Samsung Galaxy S5 to over 125 countries few days back. The device, in all it’s glory, is available on the shelves now and offers some really nice and cool features that are enough to empty your pockets. Well, if you’re planning to buy one, you probably will not just keep it in the pockets for calls, messaging and other simple stuff, owning a device like Galaxy S5 will definitely urge you to go beyond the boundaries and check that how many hiccups your device can actually bear.

The tweaks you can make to your device probably include flashing custom ROMs, mods, modifying your device the way you want. The only thing you need to keep in mind while making these changes or going beyond the boundaries is, Samsung’s Galaxy devices come with a worst issue that is Encrypting File System (EFS). It is highly vulnerable in Samsung’s Galaxy series, and flashing an invalid firmware, any invalid mod or any invalid custom recovery can cause this effect on your phone’s modem. You probably are not aware of the result if you’re coming across this for the first time, EFS issue will cause your phone’s IMEI to go null or it will or it will be completely messed up, the impact is, you won’t be able to use any SIM cards on your device and it won’t catch any signals from your carrier, that means your device is of no use, it’s just like a tablet without a SIM card.

There is no need to worry about it, but only when you have backed up EFS. It’s of a lot use actually, if your phone’s IMEI code gets messed up, you can immediately flash the backed up EFS and fix your phone. Galaxy S5 is set to occupy space in pockets of millions of users, so we’re going to have a look on the EFS backup method in the following post and you should give it sometime as soon as you get your device and back up EFS data immediately before making any tweaks.

XDA member Mr.W0lf has come up with a tool that backs up and restores EFS on all variants of the Samsung Galaxy S5, we’re going to have a look on the method how this tool works, but let’s first have a look on the variants of Galaxy S5 that are available around.

• SM-G900F – International LTE
• SM-G900H – International/Exynos
• SM-G900T – T-Mobile
• SM-G900P – Sprint
• SM-G900R4 – US Cellular
• SM-G900T1 – MetroPCS
• SM-G900W8 – Canadian
• SM-G900M – Vodafone
• SM-G900A – At&t

How to Backup & Restore EFS on All Variants of Samsung Galaxy S5:

1. Your Galaxy S5 must be rooted, if you haven’t rooted it yet, Root it from HERE.
2. Download EFS Backup & Restore Tool and extract it on your desktop to get the EFS.bat file.
3. On your Galaxy S5 now, enable USB debugging mode, to do so, go to Settings > General/More > About Device > Tap Build Number for 7 times to get the developer options enabled.
4. Now get back to the General / More tab in settings and open Developer Options > Enable USB Debugging.
5. After enabling USB debugging mode, connect your device to your PC using original data cable.
6. Now open the EFS.bat file that you got after extracted the downloaded tool’s zip file.
7. Now once the bat file opens up the tool, you will find 4 options as follows:
   • <1> [All LTE Variant] EFS Partition Backup
   • <2> [All LTE Variant] EFS Partition Restore
   • <3> [SM-G900H] EFS Partition Backup
   • <4> [SM-G900H] EFS Partition Backup
   • <5> Exit
8. Having your device connected with enabled USB debugging mode, enter the numeric key according to your choice.
9. You will press 1 or 2 for all the LTE variants, it may be kept in mind that except for the Exynos variant SM-G900H, all other variants are LTE. You will only make 3rd or 4th selection if your device’s model is SM-G900H, for rest you will use 1 or 2.
10. Once you enter the key, it will quickly perform the action, keep an eye on your phone as it might prompt for the USB debugging permissions or root permissions.
11. Once backed up, you can similarly restore it as well. The backup will be stored on your device’s storage or on your PC.
12. That’s all with this tool!

There is another method to backup and restore EFS on some variants of Samsung Galaxy S5 by using an Android app, that landed on the XDA developers forum by ricky310711, but as mentioned, the app works with only 3 variants of the device, however it is quite useful if you own Samsung Galaxy S5 SM-G900A/F/H or T.

Backup & Restore EFS on Samsung Galaxy S5 SM-G900A/F/H/T with Samsung Tool App:

1. Your Galaxy S5 must be rooted, if you haven’t rooted it yet, Root it from HERE.
2. Download Samsung Tool App.
3. Copy the app’s APK file to your phone.
4. Locate the copied APK and install it.
5. Once installed access it from the app drawer and open it and give it the root permissions.
6. Now select whether you want to backup or restore EFS.
7. Select the storage and it will do the job.
8. That’s All!

That’s it. We hope that you find this guide easy to use and helpful. In case you got any queries or you face any difficulties regarding this post, feel free to stop by the comment box below and let us know about it. We will get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks All