Samsung Galaxy S2 – ADB Device Driver
July 19, 2011
I’ve just found a solution to a problem that I’ve spent the best part of three evenings working on – Getng the ADB (Android Debug Bridge) working for my shiny new Samsung Galaxy S2 (i9100).
Heres what I to finally get this working:
- Disconnected my phone from USB
- Using USBDeview, I deinstalled all previously installed drivers relating to the phone (Careful here!)
- Installed Samsung Kies, and loaded it
- From Samsung Kies, I selected Tools > Install Driver (This step took a while, and it seemed like it had stalled – Be patient!)
- Connected my phone to USB
- The devices installed – Windows then gave me an error regarding missing drivers, however, when I checked device manager, I could see ‘Samsung Android Phone’ under which was ‘Samsung Android ADB Device’
- I then ran ‘adb.exe devices’ (From a command prompt – adb.exe lives in the android-sdk folder) – This listed my device! Hoorah!
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Whats this all about then?
Well, in the main, its about Android app development. Whilst it is possible to develop apps using an emulator, you can also develop and debug using a hardware device (i.e. a Real phone). In order to do this, ADB (Android Debug Bridge) needs to be able to see the device. It seems alot of people have problems getting this working, so hopefully this will be helpful. If so, please drop me a comment!
Natural Progression 
Wonderful !
It works perfectly, thanks a lot, I’ve spent a couple of hours myself on this.
Thank you 🙂
Hi François, glad to hear it helped!
Cant get to work missing driver for samsung android adb interface can’t find reason
Did you follow the steps in my post?
Yay, it worked!
After a whole nigth of frustration… You’re my hero, really 😉
Just to confirm: it works great on my win7 32b.
According to your post you just saved me two evenings 😉 Thanks for that !
Brilliant. I’d been struggling for a couple of hours trying to find the right driver from Samsung’s website with no luck at all and this worked perfectly. Thanks.
tnx alot naturalprogression !
its worked like a magic
i already tried for couple of hours with no luck.. such a common device should have a better official support!
anyway, tnx again naturalprogression
Your welcome – Took me a while to figure it out…Glad it helped!
Cheers!! Been looking all over for a solution to this and I’ve finally found one!!!!
Can’t get it to work for me. Kies Tools does not provide an option to install driver.
Jamie – Are you running the latest version of Kies?
Actually – I’ve just seen Laurent C’s comment – Re 2.0.3 no longer having Tools > Install drivers – So you may have to source an earlier version?
I couldn’t get adb to detect my device with this tip (and it seems Kies 2.0.3 no longer has the Tools > Install Drivers menu).
What worked for me was to restart the server:
adb kill-server
adb start-server
Hope this helps:-)
Yes – the ‘kill’ commands were the final ticket. Thanks all for so much help. I only had to pull my hair out for a few hours, until i googled on the right words to find this gem.
Thanks a lot, this works for me at home, i hope it will work also at office!!
OH MY GOODNESS THANK YOU VERY MUCH!! My kies also didnt have the install drivers in the menu, was giving up, hours working on this.. and you finally gave a 2 line solution. THANK YOU VERY MUCH, YOU ARE TOTALLY AWESOME!
Good to hear its working for you – Although how did you get the drivers installed without the ‘install drivers’ menu – Did you get an earlier version?
Nothing listed here works for me. The list of devices is empty while my galaxy s2 is connected via USB. 😦
Thanks it worked for me.
Important to note that the device is not connected to the PC throughout the installation.
Only after everything was done, I connected the device and it worked. New Kies does not have this option to manually install, but for me it installed the ADB driver automatically for Galaxy S2.
champion it worked!
Works great for my Samsung Galaxy S2!! Thanks a ton!!
Hmm my samsung kies on desktop doesnt seem to show Tools > Install Driver
Kies as of October 2011 does not have menu command “Tools > Install Driver” available. Though, it is possible to use “Tools > Troubleshoot connection error” to force drivers reinstall. Following procedure worked for me (WinXP Prof SP3 32-bit):
1) I disconnected the phone.
2) I removed all drivers related to phone with use of USBDeview
3) I installed Kies
4) I loaded Kies
5) I selected “Tools > Troubleshoot connection error” and waited, operation took several minutes
6) I connected phone in MTP mode (USB Debug mode was off). Some drivers installed automatically.
7) I disconnected phone and reconnected it with USB Debug mode on. More drivers installed automatically (including Samsung Android ADB Interface)
8) I restarted the computer.
It seems it is vital not to plug the phone in until Kies installation is finished.
Thanks for posting this reply – I’m sure it will be useful to others! 🙂
Thanks for your help dude!
No prob! Glad it helped!
Thanks for your tutorial and also all the useful comments down there! i finally got it working too 🙂
THANKS LOADS!!
I’d been struggling with that for quite sometime now.
10x a lot for your help :). You saved me a lot of time
BR
Warren
Didn’t work for Windows 7 64 bit, but I found a complete guide that worked perfectly for me!
http://www.jamesfaeldon.com/2012/01/24/problem-solved-samsung-galaxy-sii-driver-problem-on-windows-7-64bit/
It worked fine on my PC which runs Windows 7 64-bit. Thanks heaps!
Don’t forget to make sure your device has USB Debugging enabled [oops…] (Settings->Applications->Development->USB Debugging). Then connect USB. Then do the kill-server, start-server bit as above. Works fine for me.
Thanks for the effort in putting this online. Nice to see it helped so many people.
The ‘kies’-thing didn’t really work for me, seemed I also had no tools option.
Is it allowed to post the link that did help me? If so, here goes, …
http://www.mkyong.com/android/android-debugging-on-real-device/
Great, worked (after some trials) for me! I think the difference is that Kies now installs the drivers automatically at the beginning. I also had to do the server-kill server-start trick, though…
thank you so much. this solved my adb problem. a tip for those who are struggling with it. when uninstalling the drivers sort it by date and uninstall all of the drivers for that day, considering you didn’t install any other hardware
I have a Galaxy s2 with some pictures on it that i really need to get off it. The screen and digitizer are broken. Does anyone know of any way to turn usb debugging mode on or access the files without using the phones screen? Like mirroring or using an alternate video and input source to navigate the phone.
Hi, well outside the topic of this post…however, maybe try removing the Micro SD card – Hopefully they are stored on there, rather than the phones memory?
Thank YOU!!!!!!
Thank you! Fixed it for me! Samsung Galaxy 2 (SAMSUNG-SGH-I727) Android V 2.3.6
You Rock!
Another winner! Hoo rah! 🙂
This does not work for me. Kies installs the drivers or appears to, but adb still does not recognize that a device is attached. VERY FRUSTRATING! Do not see anything about an adb driver under device manager.
Michael – Have you read Benjamin Swalens post, this is what fixed it for him:
http://www.mkyong.com/android/android-debugging-on-real-device/
Also – Maybe JBartos post:
Hope this helps.