How to Unroot Galaxy A8/A8+ 2018 [Restore to factory state]

Samsung updated its Galaxy A lineup in December 2017. The new stars in the Galaxy A lineup are the Galaxy A8 2018 and the Galaxy A8 Plus 2018. Both the phones are amazingly beautiful. Galaxy A8 and A8 Plus introduce a new display for Samsung’s mid-rangers. Samsung has successfully set new standards for the budget-smartphone market now.

Flashback at Galaxy A8 and Galaxy A8 Plus 2018

Galaxy A8 and A8 Plus 2018 come with a 5.7-inch and 6.0-inch display respectively. This is the infinity display that we saw on the Galaxy S8 earlier. The display has a resolution of 1080 x 2220 pixels. Although it’s not that edge-to-edge display, the 18:9 aspect ratio makes it flawlessly beautiful. These phones are protected by IP68 certification making them water and dust resistant. Samsung’s in-house Exynos 7885 CPU is powering up these phones. The RAM on the A8  is 4GB and on the A8 Plus is 4GB or 6GB. The Galaxy A8 and A8 Plus have a dual-selfie shooter with one camera of 16MP and the other of 8MP. At the back, these phones have a single 16MP shooter with a fingerprint scanner beneath. Since the headphone jack has now become a feature, these phones do have this feature as well. There’s a USB Type-C to charge the phone and connect it to the computer. Galaxy A8 2018 has 3000 mAh battery and the A8 Plus 2018 has 3500 mAh battery. These phones run on Android 7.1.1 Nougat out of the box. Samsung will definitely update these phones to Android 8.0 Oreo within this year.

Scenarios to restore your Galaxy A8 or A8 Plus 2018 to factory settings

A TWRP recovery and a method to root the phones was released very recently. This development is a blessing in a disguise for the Galaxy A8/A8+ owners. If you own this phone, you may consider flashing TWRP custom recovery and rooting the phone. If you do so, there are good chances that you would want to revert your phone back to the factory settings later on. In another case, things can go wrong while rooting the phone and even then you are gonna need a guide to restore your phone to factory state. To get out of any such trouble, you simply have to flash a stock ROM on your new A8 or A8 Plus and Phew!

Rooting the phone voids the warranty of the phone. Samsung protects its phones using Knox. There’s a Knox counter in the phones that appears in the bootloader mode when you boot your phone into the download mode. Upon rooting the phone, this counter turns from 0x0 to 0x1 or more. The number 1 means you tripped the Knox counter once. The more you trip the counter, the higher the number will get. For example, upon rooting the phone twice, this counter will become 0x2. While we are talking about unrooting the phone here, you will be able to reset the phone to factory state, but you will not be able to reset this Knox counter to 0x0 again. The Knox counter can never be reset if tripped once.

Assuming that you have a clear idea about unrooting the phone, we can move towards our guide now. I have written a step-by-step guide to unroot Galaxy A8/A8+ 2018. This guide will work for all the variants of the Galaxy A8 and Galaxy A8 Plus 2018. Let’s go through the unrooting process now.

How to Unroot Galaxy A8/A8+ 2018 [Restore to factory state]

A few things to keep in mind before proceeding

1. This method is applicable only to Galaxy A8/A8+ 2018. Do not try this on any other device. You can apply this to any variant of the Galaxy A8/A8+ 2018 as long as you have downloaded the correct firmware.
2. Charge your phone up to 50% to avoid power mishap during the flashing process.
3. Backup your important contacts, SMS messages, call logs. Copy your media content to your computer. If you have WhatsApp installed on your phone, copy the entire WhatsApp folder to your computer.
4. Use your OEM data cable to connect your phone to your PC.
5. Disable Samsung Kies using Odin.
6. Enable OEM unlocking on the phone.
7. Enable USB debugging mode as well.
8. Your phone must be rooted in order to unroot it.

Required downloads

1. Samsung USB drivers.
2. Download Odin3 3.12.5 and extract it on your computer’s desktop.
3. Download the firmware for your phone through this page.

Get the firmware carefully according to your region/country. Do not download a carrier-branded firmware for a non-branded device. If you are unable to find the firmware for your region, you can download the firmware of the closest possible region and flash that instead.

Unroot Galaxy A8/A8+ 2018

1. Extract the downloaded firmware folder to get the firmware.tar and other files.
2. Open Odin3.exe now. In Odin, click on the AP tab and select the firmware.tar file. The file takes a few minutes to load. Let Odin load it completely.
3. Now in Odin, click on the BL tab and load the BL file that you got from the extracted folder.
4. Similarly, click on the CP tab and load the CP file.
5. Click on the CSC tab and load the Home_CSC file in it.
6. It’s time to connect your S8 in the download mode. Power down your S8 completely. Press and Volume Up + Volume Down + Power Key to boot into download mode. As soon as the screen comes up with a warning, press Volume Up key to continue.
7. Now connect your phone to your PC while Odin is open. Odin will show “Added” message in the log box. It will also turn the ID:COM box blue upon successful connection.
8. Click on the Options button in Odin. The only option checked should be F.Reset.Time. No other option should be checked here.
9. Now click on the Start button in Odin and let it flash the firmware.
10. Once the firmware flashing ends, disconnect your phone and turn it on.
11. It will be all new as it takes you to the menu. Set it up from scratch and enjoy since it’s unrooted now.

Note: Unrooting the phone will not bring its warranty back. The Knox counter cannot be reset once tripped.

Conclusion

That’s how we unrooted the Galaxy A8/A8+ 2018. This method basically flashes a new stock firmware on your phone and replaces the old firmware. This method also resets your device to factory settings. You can root the phone again if you want to. In case you are facing any kind of issues, do not hesitate to contact us through the comments box below.