In the Backog issue above @piero suggested
a mix of both (not yet engaged) is to insert TWRP renamed recovery.img into a Samsung firmware (HOME_CSC version) to gain the possibility of a full access to the /data partition (not sure it will works because of possible OEM protection → .MD5 extension may missing when repacking the AP firmware part).
If it work, from this state (SamsungOS+TWRP) we may be able to reinstall /e/, without wiping or format /data.
Edit but we see below
I would suggest, @sam_uk if you were to attempt this, the first step would be to see how easy it is the extract / untar / unzip a copy of HOME_CSCxxx.tar.md5. Edit, or AP, now. I won’t try to guess the command, but I saw some suggestions in an online search, as Piero suggests first try to just drop the .md5 extension., YMMV.
- https://stackoverflow.com/questions/39173256/how-to-handle-tar-md5-files
- https://xdaforums.com/t/script-tool-how-to-create-a-tar-md5-file-from-img-for-odin.2446269/ is for Windows, but may be worth reading on for Linux.