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[Q] Nexus S - Canadian

I just got a new Nexus S purchased from a Rogers store here in Canada.
I am eager to start flashing some new ROM's and such but I have learned some things in the past with my SGS and I really want to make sure I have my stock radio available in case I need to flash it back.
i9020AUCKB2 is my stock modem. I have some newer modems ready to flash but I am worried that it will cripple my 3G connection to Canadian carriers.
I have looked and can't find this modem anywhere. Also I don't know how to back it up myself. I have already done a CWM backup but I have read that this doesn't backup the radio firmware.
Does anyone know how I can easily backup my own radio or where I can download it from?

+1 I've been searching for the last few days info about the exact same thing. I just sold my i9000m and was hoping to flash some new roms with this phone too but not gonna try until I either have a stock odin version of this rom or at the very least the CKB2 modem.

+1 same boat, want to know this too

Just bought Nexus S yesterday Telus baseband I9020AUCKB2.
Rooted and installed CWM 3.0.2.4 and flashed CM7 (Great ROM) baseband remained the same
from what I've been reading in Nexus S dev, Odin is something we should try to avoid if possible. I came from Fascinate T959D and I thought about it but that's probably one of the easiest ways to brick if you don't know EXACTLY what you're flashing and WHAT you're flashing it on.
Odin = last resort

lucidcoin20 glad to hear that flashing CM7 didn't change the baseband, I didn't have the courage to try it. I wouldn't flash just anything with odin but if you can find the right files it will get you out of a mess pretty quick. I agree its not for noobies with no clue what's going on but if Samfirmware comes out with the 9020a rom I'll make sure to have it on my pc for an emergency.
But from my phone wich is a Koodo version (went with them cause they were so cheap outright so I could go just cancel and go back to bell) we all have the At&t version so all Canada is the same. Hope it all works that way so I can go on CM7.
But would still like to learn how to backup the radio file in case I ever need it in the future.

Well I went ahead and flashed KB3. My speeds are less than impressive but I still have 3g with Rogers. Still looking for KB2 though to do some more testing.

Have you tryied KB1 radio, works good for me, i believe it is a US radio.

pterry30 said:
Have you tryied KB1 radio, works good for me, i believe it is a US radio.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Flashed KB1 and KB3 and tested using speedtest.com app, three separate times over wifi and cellular network - the KB1 was roughly 10-15% slower than the KB3 for me..
KB3 labelled my radio as "ATT" btw

CraneGuy said:
But from my phone wich is a Koodo version (went with them cause they were so cheap outright so I could go just cancel and go back to bell)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LMAO did the same thing but for rogers saved $75.

If you look in Q & A forum, there is a post for a clockwork flash, K2B radio, just posted in that forum today. I have flashed the radio, work great fore me.

You can get the KB2 radio file on my thread in the General forum at http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=13077026

Thanks a lot, I was unaware that the Canadian carriers used KB2. Currently I am using KB3 and I noticed that sometimes the call breaks up, however I am not sure if its the firmware to blame. Does anyone have similar experiences with KB3?

I have tested KB2 and KB3 and my tests are not constant. Sometimes I get only 1MB or less down and up, sometimes I get 5MB down and 3up.
I'm not sure why the tests are so different. I can do the tests one after another in the same place and get completely different results.
I am with Rogers and I am using the Speedtest app. I noticed at one point the speedtest app was connecting to a server in Quebec which made no sense since I am near Toronto. The test results I mentioned above do not take the Quebec tests into consideration.

Help, can't flash 'fixed' sbf files except for one. Telstra Au MB525.

I just tried to flash the Telstra (Australia) SBF. No info comes up in file properties and it gives an instant 'failed flash' message.
I am a bit stuck- i can only flash the China Froyo and the GB Froyo, the only 'Fixed' SBF I can ever flash is the 2.2GB_NoCG_31_39.sbf -(Higgsy fix). The China rom is the first and only Froyo rom I flashed with the above fix.
1a. :I want to know why I cannot flash 'fixed SBF's' that come with JBoogie, ADXLmod, barebones etc roms.
1b :Why do I still have to use the 'Higgsy fix' 2.2GB_NoCG_31_39.sbf? It appears that I am somehow locked to it.
1c :Is it because of the Telstra rom I am on- with all rom flashing instructions, it is mentioned eg 'if you are on 2,21 or 2.34 fw etc- no reference is ever made to the 2.26 fw.
2: I want to know how flashing a rom without the corresponding SBF actually affects the operating of the rom- eg: I get random reboots, black screens, freezups=- is this likely an issue with the rom or because I cannot flash the fixed SBF.
3. Will restoring a Telstra nanodroid on top of the China Froyo SBF that I am running, then applying the fixed Telstra SBF that racca graciously provided make my Defy exactly like stock- or will there still be remnants of the China Froyo etc rattling around under the hood and potentially affecting stability and continuing to affect my ability to flash fixed SBF's as per Q 1 & 2.
4. Does anyone have a FullTelstra SBF that works unlike the one already posted on XDA.
I have tried renamimg and moving sbf to root folder as per a suggestion for 64 bit windows, though i am only on 32bit, it didn't work for me- 'start' is still greyed out in RSDLite..
I have also tried different rsdlite versions.
I welcome any other suggestions or questions.. At least I would like to know what is going on and how it affects my phone as I have spent hours and hours searching these and other forums and am none the wiser..
Cheers
Gavin

Accidental 2nd post-ignore.

what exactly are you trying to do?
i can't make much out of your long and pointless statements.
be specific about what you need, then maybe we can help.
all i can understand is that you might want the fixed sbf, so here it is.
http://mir.cr/6MJBVDCN

Thanks for that, pointless is a bit harsh though, long maybe- i was trying to give some background to prevent 'have you tried that, just do this- when it is clearly not applicable to my situation.
I will try to put it in point form.
I hope that is a bit clearer, but it is a complicated situation- there are alot of threads dancing around similar themes, but I cannot find specific answers to these questions- i can't see how I could provide less information without having 5 pages of people directing me to posts that I have already looked at but aren't applicable, so yes it is a bit long, but by doing this much misdirected effort is saved by myself and those helping.
Thanks again

Looking at my original post again, it was hard to see what I was asking, thanks racca.

I just restored the Telstra factory reset nanodroid- the start button was greyed out with the Telstra SBF , so i can't use it. Had to use the 'Higgsy fix' to get it to boot. Weird, i just don't understand it.
To be honest, with all the eventual issues with any rom i use, i would prefer to go back to stock (i will have to put up with the grey status bar, short battery life and no flash). I am tired of getting crashes at the most inopportune times.
Can't wait until the bootloader is fully cracked- I have put Gingervillain (CM7 base) on her Desire, which is much more stable than any rom when i was using it.
Update- it just won't boot now, have to reflash the China Froyo SBF, looks like I am stuck with daily @ 3x daily reboots, bluetooth that works 60% of the time, dropped calls etc....

Change SBF file name
Hey there,
I kinda have the same issues as you do, I think...
The RDS lite gave me an instant ROM-flash error when trying various SBF's. I simply renamed the file name to an SBF file name that was working, yes it got a little confusing... first I renamed the original working SBF to *.old.
Suddenly the flash process was working, I've renamed SBF-files on 4 different occasions in order to get it to work.
I'm not quite sure whether you have this issue or you have something different going on, but feel free to try it.
//Dave

Sounds like a plan, I will give it a go. Thanks.

Thanks Dave69 and Racca, i just renamed the TElstra fixed sbf to the higgsy fix; restored the stock nanodroid and flashed it and it worked. It at least gives me the confidence to flash others now, but will sit on this for a bit- don't have time for more tinkering this weekend.

Titanium wouldn't work with the Telstra rom- said it had restored apps, but wouldn't restore evn one.
Thankfully I got Barebones running, SBF and all. Looks great. Thanks guys.
I would still like to know what's going on though, I haven't tried the TElstra full SBF with the rename yet- it had a different issue than others- just failed. May try again later.

Sounds like you have the same problem as me, was on the telstra on. Not being careful enough I flashed a non downgradable 3.4.2_155-002 sbf. So now I can't downgrade back to the stock Telstra one. I have tried both nandroid backups and flashing the stock telstra sbf and neither work. so am stuck on this rom running JBoogie GingerBlur
Not compaining, for a blur rom it is quite fast, only thing is I can't downgrade back to telstra if the phone needs to be returned for anything.
Hope this helps.
Cheers.

Try following the renaming method-though i had titanium issues, it os enough to get me through a warranty claim- i did it before with the same nanodroid backup from xda. Btw, i just flashed the 3.42 out of frustration and it let me go back with the renamed fixed sbf.
I am very impressed with barebones, even the xda app is quicker...

superfastmonkey said:
Try following the renaming method-though i had titanium issues, it os enough to get me through a warranty claim- i did it before with the same nanodroid backup from xda. Btw, i just flashed the 3.42 out of frustration and it let me go back with the renamed fixed sbf.
I am very impressed with barebones, even the xda app is quicker...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ok, now where do i begin. i'll just say what i can think of instead of answering every single question.
sbf's contains various code groups as you may noticed while flashing it slipts into smaller pieces.
out of those, cg31&39 are non-downgradable and the pair of them must match. all other partitions on the phone are either not flashed by the sbf (e.g. bootloader/mbmloader, pds), useless (cdrom) or downgradable (kernel, recovery, lbl, devtree).
there are no hardware incompatibilities except the chinese ones, but if you don't update cg31(cdt) to match your /system(cg39) you might have some minor issues (i singles these out because they are not downgradable, of course you'll have issues if you don't match all other things).
you might have a chance fooling tel$tra by flashing the sbf i provided (stock 2.26.0) and restore the nandroid. it should be almost identical except you'll get busted when they try to do flash their service sbf.
the bottom line is,
1. if you flashed any sbf larger than 50MB it must have cg39 in it, and you can't downgrade.
2. you must use matching kernel/devtree with the system: the chinese ones will not be compatible with any other roms, you can't mix match froyo with eclair.

Thanks racca, it makes things a bit clearer. I didn't think I had flashed the GB rom, but I must have-it was 3 or 4 mths ago- it explains why I used the Higgsy fix...i think the China one came out very shortly after..
I should probably try flashing a 2.1 rom b4 restoring the telstra nano if I want stock-( with Telstra, we will have to wait until 3 mths + after the rest of the world gets Froyo for them to fill it to the brim with bloat ware..)..
It looks like the Higgsy fix didn't work for our devices anyway-i suspect my phone believes it is a 3.42 fw now.
In any case, I am relieved to have a way to flash the fixed sbf's now.. Barebones is very impressive, no hint of an issue, but need to run it for a week to really see.
Thanks.

I have a Telstra phone too and after a week of owning it back in January, I had already installed a 2.2 De-blurred ROM. I did have radio issues at first and also remember a non-stop reboot issue. I think it was the USB debugging somehow but I could be wrong.
Now I install new ROMs with ease when the need strikes me.

Are you able to flash the fixed sbfs for roms you install?

I've just put the CM7 rom on mine, best rom I've used. Also flashed a fixed rom with it.
Next thing i tried was restoring a nandroid backup of the default telstra rom, then flashed a fixed stock telstra sbf, this worked and was able to at least make the phone look like it was stock. Whether or not that would be enough if i had to send the phone in for repairs. Can only try if it needs to go in.
CM7 is by far the fastest rom I've tried. Only used for a day so far and no problems yet. Highly recommend this one.
Cheers
Sent from my MB525 using XDA App

I flashed the fixed sbf by renaming after restoring the telstra nano and it worked, but didn't run properly, I did it a couple of months ago with just the nano after having jboogies blurless ginger and it passed for warranty. Haven't tried renaming the full telstra sbf yet. I might over the long weekend.
Sent from my MB525 using XDA Premium App

That's what I was hoping, but for now I'm staying with cm7.
Will go back to the telstra one only if it needs warranty work.
Sent from my MB525 using XDA App

samorgs said:
That's what I was hoping, but for now I'm staying with cm7.
Will go back to the telstra one only if it needs warranty work.
Sent from my MB525 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You'll be fine.
On a side note, it's ridiculous that Optus have official froyo already, Telstra due in July.
Sent from my MB525 using XDA Premium App

Solution if you are stuck on 2G!!

i found the solution for those stuck on 2g speeds here in the US after flashing an RUU....your phone is probably on ICS 4.03 or 4.04 after you installed the official tmobile RUU...you have to keep checking for software updates on your phone until you get the official JB update installled from tmobile (it was officially posted at the end of April and available as a manual download through the "check software updates" option on your phone). i had to check for updates and install them about 5 times because the RUU i used restored my phone to ICS 4.03...i kept updating until i got to JB (it's going to be very large file, over 600mb).
IMPORTANT!!! --> after the update, your phone will still be stuck on 2g speeds....you them have to do a FACTORY RESET...yes, you have to wipe everything from your phone so make sure you backup to your laptop or something like that and then do a factory reset....once your phone reboots, it should now get 4g speeds (hspa+)...i read through alot of threads since my phone was stuck on 2g after i restored to the official tmobile RUU and finally got it to work after incrementally updating through the "check for software updates" option til the official JB update was installed.....good luck and hope this works for most of those that were stuck on 2g after the previous update!

I tried the above and it did not work. The following did, however, and I GOT 4G BACK on my HTC One S!!
I did not ever have S-OFF, I tried pretty much everything I could think of in terms of factory resets, flashing tons of different ROMs, bootloaders, even going completely stock again with RUU. I'm pretty sure it's a lost cause and a waste of time.
Solution: I relocked my bootloader and sent it in to HTC because I was still on warranty. They had it back to me in a week's time, and 4G now works fine. I'm going to try to find out what they did, whether it was hardware or not. Note: I did get it back with the bootloader being "locked", not "relocked".

skaters05 said:
I tried the above and it did not work. The following did, however, and I GOT 4G BACK on my HTC One S!!
I did not ever have S-OFF, I tried pretty much everything I could think of in terms of factory resets, flashing tons of different ROMs, bootloaders, even going completely stock again with RUU. I'm pretty sure it's a lost cause and a waste of time.
Solution: I relocked my bootloader and sent it in to HTC because I was still on warranty. They had it back to me in a week's time, and 4G now works fine. I'm going to try to find out what they did, whether it was hardware or not. Note: I did get it back with the bootloader being "locked", not "relocked".
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi,
Did you find out what changed on your new HTC ONE S that fixed the Stuck on 2g issue?

skaters05 said:
I tried the above and it did not work. The following did, however, and I GOT 4G BACK on my HTC One S!!
I did not ever have S-OFF, I tried pretty much everything I could think of in terms of factory resets, flashing tons of different ROMs, bootloaders, even going completely stock again with RUU. I'm pretty sure it's a lost cause and a waste of time.
Solution: I relocked my bootloader and sent it in to HTC because I was still on warranty. They had it back to me in a week's time, and 4G now works fine. I'm going to try to find out what they did, whether it was hardware or not. Note: I did get it back with the bootloader being "locked", not "relocked".
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
4G? You mean 3G? HOS doesn't support 4G. Anyway, glad you fixed it! Considering the bootloader is locked again, I'm guessing they swapped a few parts?

I'm going to try this. I've been stuck on 2G ever since I updated my HBOOT to use 3.4 Kernel ROMs. I will get back to you to see if this method works for me.
how would you go about doing this method if you are coming from a custom ROM?
I'm on UnKnown v1.8 with S-Off on HBOOT 2.15 if that helps.

Yes, I suppose in the interest of accuracy I got H+ back, which shows as "4G" on the Sense UI. I'm really not sure what they did or how I would find out. According to the timeline they gave me it looks like they only had it in repairs for half a day or so, so it was either a simple hardware issue or some kind of deep software reset I wasn't able to access.

doesn't work. tried it the same exact way you said and it didn't work.still on 2G

[Q] Flashing to stock - phone force closes process com.android.phone, help

Please bare with me since this is the first time having to post for an issue since I usually find an answer on your forums
So here's the situation.
I bought the photon q 4g lte from ebay and it came with the unlocked bootloader.
Needless to say it was with the stock ics and i tried to find a jellybean update because it wasn't taking the ota and ended up going with cyanogen since i had no problems before. However those phones i had before were with sim cards not cdma.
I found out i couldn't update prl or profile manually without having to do something on the pc.
So after searching left and right i found i could use rsl lite (I used 6.1.5) and eventually found the "stock" file from this post
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2095536&highlight=rsd+lite
I did the stock jellybean, got it to go through the process and it booted up with no errors.
However, when it boots into the os it pops up a force close on omadmclient_sprint_dataservice and eventually also on the process com.android.phone.
I tried putting it in airplane mode to see if the service error would go away but it didn't work for the process part crashing.
I tried re-flashing, deleting cache in recovery, doing a data/factory reset in recovery and the one time i was able to do a data factory reset within the settings menu.
I could not find anyone that said they had a rom that worked with sprint and updating prl within the rom, if anyone knows of one let me know and i will flash it through rsd.
Otherwise does anyone have an idea of what could be happening because googling the omadmclient part did not pull up anything specific and pulling up the process issue for other phones has not helped me either.

Was this a hacked GSM phone, or are you using it as CDMA?
I've never heard of people having FC issues after flashing a FXZ from RSD. Which one did you flash? Android 4.1.2 - Sprint US - 9.8.2Q-122_XT897_FFW-5 (No simlock) ?
If you are on stock, you should be able to update the PRL within the ROM.

I was trying to use it with cdma network through sprint. and yeah that was the file i downloaded, had to remove the getvar to get it working but flashed with no errors after doing that.
As for updating the prl i can barely navigate through the phone, there is no home page loading and the process pop comes up often enough that its hard to go through the settings

crispy6 said:
I was trying to use it with cdma network through sprint. and yeah that was the file i downloaded, had to remove the getvar to get it working but flashed with no errors after doing that.
As for updating the prl i can barely navigate through the phone, there is no home page loading and the process pop comes up often enough that its hard to go through the settings
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sounds like something went wrong mate. Are you already activated on Sprint? I don't know if that would matter, it might.
I would honestly redownload and redo the RSD process.

arrrghhh said:
Sounds like something went wrong mate. Are you already activated on Sprint? I don't know if that would matter, it might.
I would honestly redownload and redo the RSD process.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I originally tried to activate the phone through cyanogen and then when the rep said he couldnt do it because of the lack of prl to update within the rom we just setup the activation back on the old phone/ That phone is working on the network.
I re-downloaded the file just in case and re-flashed but same problem. The only thing i thought of was maybe updating the radio but since its a stock rom it should work out of the gate. whats also weird is i tried turning wifi on but it didnt work either.
Anychange you know of a rom that works with sprint. I dont care if its stock since i would probably root later again.

crispy6 said:
I originally tried to activate the phone through cyanogen and then when the rep said he couldnt do it because of the lack of prl to update within the rom we just setup the activation back on the old phone/ That phone is working on the network.
I re-downloaded the file just in case and re-flashed but same problem. The only thing i thought of was maybe updating the radio but since its a stock rom it should work out of the gate. whats also weird is i tried turning wifi on but it didnt work either.
Anychange you know of a rom that works with sprint. I dont care if its stock since i would probably root later again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Which one are you flashing?
Try another perhaps...? I honestly have never heard of this. It sounds like the phone might be damaged, or the RSD process just did not flash correctly.
I guess I should ask, was the phone modified at all for the GSM SIM slot mod? I wonder if having a non-Sprint SIM in is messing with it... That is just a shot in the dark.

arrrghhh said:
Which one are you flashing?
Try another perhaps...? I honestly have never heard of this. It sounds like the phone might be damaged, or the RSD process just did not flash correctly.
I guess I should ask, was the phone modified at all for the GSM SIM slot mod? I wonder if having a non-Sprint SIM in is messing with it... That is just a shot in the dark.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
so far the only rom i tried was 10.1 cyanogen and the stock rom for jellybean. However for the stock rom it doesnt let me downgrade to ics with rsd 6.1.5 do you think if i downloaded an old version i could downgrade to a lower stock rom?
Also I honestly had not looked for the cdma roms since most of what i saw was troubleshooting related for this phone but i just saw this rom -AOKP 4.2.2 (Android Open Kang Project) (CDMA&GSM) that you created - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2293892
I re-rooted and installed that one and it looks great, just wondered how you got sprint to activate the phone or if you had done it before changing the rom? Also how would the prl and profile be updated.
Lastly the wifi wasn't turning on this time either, it did work initially when i got the phone so that has me stumped.

crispy6 said:
so far the only rom i tried was 10.1 cyanogen and the stock rom for jellybean. However for the stock rom it doesnt let me downgrade to ics with rsd 6.1.5 do you think if i downloaded an old version i could downgrade to a lower stock rom?
Also I honestly had not looked for the cdma roms since most of what i saw was troubleshooting related for this phone but i just saw this rom -AOKP 4.2.2 (Android Open Kang Project) (CDMA&GSM) that you created - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2293892
I re-rooted and installed that one and it looks great, just wondered how you got sprint to activate the phone or if you had done it before changing the rom? Also how would the prl and profile be updated.
Lastly the wifi wasn't turning on this time either, it did work initially when i got the phone so that has me stumped.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To downgrade to ICS, you need to remove some additional lines. See this post for more information on that.
However, you should be able to update the PRL on either stock ROM.
I think I said this before, but I will say it again. You need to do PRL updates, activate the phone, and get EVERYTHING working on stock BEFORE you flash ANY custom ROM. This is just standard practice - you don't want to put the cart before the horse! Get the phone working, then play with custom ROM's.

Interesting 1st attempt

Hey guys, I'm new to the community and I just wanted to post my 1st experience with rooting etc and follow up with a few questions!
A bit of background on my device: I've had my NS for just over 3 years now and I just recently decided (when I bought my Xperia V) that I'd like to play around with it a bit. To my knowledge, my device was one of the 1st in the country and a test dummy, and I purchased it from a friend who was working and testing for Samsung at the time. It was not linked or affiliated to Vodacom (who, if I'm correct, was the only network provider to offer the NS in S. Africa) or any other carrier for that matter. So basically due to the lack of link to any carrier, I've never received any updates or notifications to update, and have been running my stock 2.3.5 for 3 years!
Anyway, my story from yesterday was a huge learning experience. I decided that I wanted to root my NS and possibly try out a new kernel before deciding whether or not I wanted to install a custom ROM. I followed this link and managed to root my NS, install CWM recovery and everything was working pretty well using UPDATE-SuperSU-v1.65.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2034264
However I think I flashed the wrong kernel (marmite_v9.1) or for some other reason messed up, keep in mind that I was still running my stock GB which the phone came with. Either way, I was stuck on the Google boot screen for more than an hour. I fired up into fastboot and then recovery, but couldn't boot from there (I just realized that I DIDN'T make an actual backup ). To top it off I wiped the device (another great idea) and the device wouldn't boot into fastboot, giving me a "fastboot mode no boot recovery img" message. Somehow through flashing the CWM I managed to get the device into the correct fastboot mode, and eventually after digging for a few hours I managed to find this (stock?) soju GB ROM download, and managed to flash the boot and system images using fastboot, for some reason " fastboot flash userdata data.img" refused to flash. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=478820
Anyway, I managed to get back to GB 2.3.5, but get this, after about half an hour on charge, I was given an update to ICS 4.0.4 which I obviously jumped at, and to top it off, I also have JB 4.1.1 available. My NS has finally seen the light of ICS and JB!!
I have a few questions for those who have used ICS and JB though. On the NS, does stock JB provide a notable difference in battery life and speed? With it's hardware, is it capable of handling ICS and JB effectively?
Also, which version of marmite would be compatible with ICS? From what I've picked up, marmite 9.1 is compatible with JB, but is it compatible with ICS too, and if not, can someone please point me in the right direction for kernel(s) which work with ICS (not just marmite).
Second, are the Oxygen and Rasbeanjelly ROMs still up to date? When searching for Oxygen for NS on the forum, the most recent version I find is this which was posted over a year ago: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1605273
And this for Rasbeanjelly (among others): http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2028718
When checking out fitsnugly.euroskank, I don't see anything for the NS. . But maybe I'll consider a shot at the PA and CM ROMs and try them both in a few days
Finally, and this 1 is way over my head, but how does CWM work? If I do a wipe before flashing a ROM/kernel, won't that wipe my backups? Do I need to partition my sd before wiping, or does CWM do that for me, and if it not, does wiping not touch the backups?
Anyway, thanks in advance, and I hope I haven't asked too many questions which have been answered before. If I have, please bare with me and point me to the correct discussion(s) and I'll go bug some other people.

uwais27 said:
Hey guys, I'm new to the community and I just wanted to post my 1st experience with rooting etc and follow up with a few questions!
A bit of background on my device: I've had my NS for just over 3 years now and I just recently decided (when I bought my Xperia V) that I'd like to play around with it a bit. To my knowledge, my device was one of the 1st in the country and a test dummy, and I purchased it from a friend who was working and testing for Samsung at the time. It was not linked or affiliated to Vodacom (who, if I'm correct, was the only network provider to offer the NS in S. Africa) or any other carrier for that matter. So basically due to the lack of link to any carrier, I've never received any updates or notifications to update, and have been running my stock 2.3.5 for 3 years!
Anyway, my story from yesterday was a huge learning experience. I decided that I wanted to root my NS and possibly try out a new kernel before deciding whether or not I wanted to install a custom ROM. I followed this link and managed to root my NS, install CWM recovery and everything was working pretty well using UPDATE-SuperSU-v1.65.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2034264
However I think I flashed the wrong kernel (marmite_v9.1) or for some other reason messed up, keep in mind that I was still running my stock GB which the phone came with. Either way, I was stuck on the Google boot screen for more than an hour. I fired up into fastboot and then recovery, but couldn't boot from there (I just realized that I DIDN'T make an actual backup ). To top it off I wiped the device (another great idea) and the device wouldn't boot into fastboot, giving me a "fastboot mode no boot recovery img" message. Somehow through flashing the CWM I managed to get the device into the correct fastboot mode, and eventually after digging for a few hours I managed to find this (stock?) soju GB ROM download, and managed to flash the boot and system images using fastboot, for some reason " fastboot flash userdata data.img" refused to flash. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=478820
Anyway, I managed to get back to GB 2.3.5, but get this, after about half an hour on charge, I was given an update to ICS 4.0.4 which I obviously jumped at, and to top it off, I also have JB 4.1.1 available. My NS has finally seen the light of ICS and JB!!
I have a few questions for those who have used ICS and JB though. On the NS, does stock JB provide a notable difference in battery life and speed? With it's hardware, is it capable of handling ICS and JB effectively?
Also, which version of marmite would be compatible with ICS? From what I've picked up, marmite 9.1 is compatible with JB, but is it compatible with ICS too, and if not, can someone please point me in the right direction for kernel(s) which work with ICS (not just marmite).
Second, are the Oxygen and Rasbeanjelly ROMs still up to date? When searching for Oxygen for NS on the forum, the most recent version I find is this which was posted over a year ago: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1605273
And this for Rasbeanjelly (among others): http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2028718
When checking out fitsnugly.euroskank, I don't see anything for the NS. . But maybe I'll consider a shot at the PA and CM ROMs and try them both in a few days
Finally, and this 1 is way over my head, but how does CWM work? If I do a wipe before flashing a ROM/kernel, won't that wipe my backups? Do I need to partition my sd before wiping, or does CWM do that for me, and if it not, does wiping not touch the backups?
Anyway, thanks in advance, and I hope I haven't asked too many questions which have been answered before. If I have, please bare with me and point me to the correct discussion(s) and I'll go bug some other people.
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Follow the link in my signature for a ROM review... I've heard debates over the best versions for battery life, but JB in my opinion is far superior to ICS... Oxygen is a great ROM, but it won't get more updates and kernels/mods ect.. Are harder to obtain.. It may be a bit challenging to do, but I'd use 4.1.2 JB (follow my chart) or skip to 4.3 JB (Mokee or Slimbean)
Sent from my Nexus S using xda premium

good flashing

uwais27 said:
On the NS, does stock JB provide a notable difference in battery life and speed?
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Speed yes. Battery life no.
uwais27 said:
With it's hardware, is it capable of handling ICS and JB effectively?
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There are stutters here and there. You need to overclock to obtain "optimal" ICS and JB performance. JB is smoother than ICS.
uwais27 said:
Second, are the Oxygen and Rasbeanjelly ROMs still up to date?
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No.
uwais27 said:
If I do a wipe before flashing a ROM/kernel, won't that wipe my backups?
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No.
uwais27 said:
Do I need to partition my sd before wiping,
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No.
uwais27 said:
....does wiping not touch the backups?
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Normally it does not. Unless you select "wipe external sd card"