Restore Samsung Galaxy Note 5, S6 Edge Plus To Stock Firmware

November 21, 2015

In this guide you will find a comprehensive method to restore your Samsung Galaxy Note 5 and Galaxy S6 Edge plus to stock firmware. We will be showing you the step-by-step method to flash stock firmware on your Galaxy Note 5 and Galaxy S6 Edge Plus using Samsung’s flashtool Odin3. Before we jump up to the procedure, we will go through some reasons that might prompt you to flash a new stock firmware on your Galaxy Note 5 and Galaxy S6 Edge Plus.

Flashing a stock firmware can be the only solution to fix your device in quite many situations. Flashing a stock firmware also reverts back any custom changes that you made to your device’s system by means of any tweaks, MODs or custom ROMs. In case you’ve flashed an invalid file on your Galaxy Note 5 or Galaxy S6 Edge Plus and now your device is caught up in a bootloop, the only solution to fix your device might be restoring it to the stock firmware. The second situation that may prompt you to flash stock firmware is the root access. In case you’ve rooted your device and now you need to unroot it, you won’t be able to unroot it directly, thus you will need to flash a stock ROM to restore your Galaxy Note 5 and S6 Edge to its original unrooted state. Also, if you need to flash a latest version of Android manually, you will need to flash the ROM using Odin3 on your device. Flashing a stock firmware can become handy in some other situations as well. I hope that this was enough to clear up the purpose of the succeeding guide. Let’s get back to the work now.

Time to go through some pre-installation instructions. After pre-installation instructions we will head towards the guide to flash stock firmware on your Note 5 / S6 Edge Plus.

Early Preparations

1. This guide is only for Samsung Galaxy Note 5 and S6 Edge Plus (All Variants)

Make sure that your device is exactly as mentioned above. To check out what device you have, go to Settings > More/General > About Device or Settings > About Device and match the model number. Be careful about the device model number, flashing a file on a device not listed here might result in bricking it up. In that case, we may not be held responsible.

2. Battery should be charged at least 60%!

Your device’s battery should not be weak. In case your device goes dead during the flashing process, your device may get soft bricked and you might be in need of flashing stock firmware and that will ultimately result in wiping up your data as well. So, make sure that you charge your device before you start the flashing process.

3. Use the OEM data cable to establish connection!

Always use the original data cable to establish connection between your Android device and your computer / laptop. Using ordinary data cables might interrupt the flashing process, so to avoid any mishap, you need to meet this requirement as well.

4. Backup everything!

Just to be on the safe side, you may consider backing up each and everything from your Android device. This is highly recommended so that in case anything goes wrong, you still have the access to all of your data and you can restore it immediately. Also, clean install is always recommended, that means you will probably have to wipe your device to install the new firmware. So, you may backup everything as listed below.

Backup SMS Messages
Backup Call Logs
Backup Contacts
Backup Media – Copy your files manually to your PC or Laptop.
Backup EFS – If rooted, otherwise skip this step.

5. Install Samsung USB drivers

In order to be able to establish connection between your PC and your Galaxy Note 5/S6 Edge Plus, you need to have the Samsung USB drivers installed on your PC. You can find all Android USB drivers here on our site.

6. Turn off Samsung Kies and other softwares while using Odin3!

Make sure that you turn off Samsung Kies while using Odin3 flashtool. Samsung Kies will interrupt Odin3 and will result in causing errors and may not let you flash your desired firwmrae. Also, make sure that you turn off any antivirus software you’ve installed and also disable firewall to avoid any connection and flashing issues.

Required Downloads & Installations

Download and extract Odin3 v3.10.6.
Download and extract firmware file (carefully for your variant) to get the .tar.md5 file.

Restore Samsung Galaxy Note 5, S6 Edge Plus To Stock Firmware

Make sure that you read the instructions listed above carefully and you’re all set to go ahead now.
Wipe your device complete in order to attain a neat installation. You may boot into the recovery mode and perform a factory data reset.
Open Odin3.exe.
Put your Galaxy Note 5 or S6 Edge Plus in download mode. To do so, turn it off and wait for 10 seconds. Turn it on by pressing and holding Volume Down + Home Button + Power Key simultaneously, You should see a warning, press Volume Up to continue. In case this method doesn’t work for you, try one from this guide.
Connect your device to your PC.
As soon as Odin detects your phone, the ID:COM box should turn blue. Make sure that you’ve installed Samsung USB drivers before connecting.
For Odin 3.09 or 3.10.6 hit the AP tab. Select the firmware.tar.md5 or firmware.tar, that you downloaded and extracted above.
If you’re using Odin 3.07, you will select “PDA” tab instead of the AP tab, rest of the options remain untouched.
Make sure that the options selected in your Odin are exactly as shown in the pic.
Hit start and wait till the firmware flashing is complete, The flashing process box will turn green upon successful flashing.
Once the flashing process has been completed successfully, disconnect your device and reboot it manually. You can reboot your device by long pressing Volume Up + Volume Down + Power Key.
Once the device boots up, checkout the new firmware now.
Your device will be running on stock Android firmware.
Once updated to stock, do not try to downgrade, or else you will result in messing up EFS partition of your device.
That’s all!