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[GUIDE] T-Mobile US One S - How to ROOT and flash ROMs

So I know there's been some controversy and scares going around about the US version, since it JUST came out. I'm here to calm you guys down. I have now rooted mine, flashed an interim CWM touch version (not permanent) and have flashed a ROM......ALL successfully.
Here's what I did:
UNLOCKING:
Unlock your bootloader by registering at HTCdev.com and following the unlock instructions. Under device, choose "All other devices", as the One S is not yet listed. It'll walk you through getting your unlock token and flashing it.
ROOTING
Follow Paul O Brien's instructions on rooting your phone. I flashed the r3 superboot file he had. The first time it didnt take and just booted the phone back up. Second time it took, and seems to have stuck, at least for apps. Please note that my phone says *TAMPERED* along with the *UNLOCKED* notification. I have no idea what that means exactly, but everything works great for me.
This means if you dont want to leave Sense but want to get the tons of useless and annoying T-Mobile and other bloatware apps out, you can. T-Mo are dicks and make almost 100% of the apps on it by default SYSTEM apps, therefore unremovable. So you'll need root and Titanium Backup to freeze or delete them. I'd recommend freezing the non-TMo one's just in case.
FLASHING ROMS
1. Flash Paul O Brien's intermin CWM touch version. You MUST use this interim CWM version for the moment, as the others do not work properly. Some things like USB mount dont work in this interim version, but the important functions like wipe and flash, backup and restore, and restart do work. The CWM recovery seems permanent, based on my initial trials, so no worries about reflashing it each restart.
2. Flash your ROM of choice from Clockworkmod Recovery. I'm using Black Dragon right now, but there are others out there as well. I'm personally looking forward to CM9, but its a little ways away, usability-wise.
So there you have it, all you US guys. Don't be afraid to mod your phone. Remember all the warranty void disclaimers as always. I'm not responsible for you bricking your phone. This is just my experience in just under 24hrs of use. Things are looking good for the One S.

bump... i see US users still asking.
Mods, can we perhaps sticky this post of mine? I don't want to take credit for the actual methods of rooting, since Paul O Brien and others deserve that credit, but I think it'd be helpful for US users, since many don't know whether or not the international method works.
That, or perhaps editing the Intl guides to make it clear that the US version accepts the same methods and ROMs.

Worked great for me
Sent from my HTC VLE_U using xda premium

So if we root and flash a custom ROM is there any way to get the phone back to factory state, and get rid of the *TAMPERED* and *UNLOCKED* notification??

Did anyone else get a bit of a sad chuckle out of the first step in the instructions being "remove and reinsert battery"?

cyberchuck9000 said:
Did anyone else get a bit of a sad chuckle out of the first step in the instructions being "remove and reinsert battery"?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great, now my blisters on my fingers will heal.
But still.... I cannot imagine not needing a batt pull.

nickmv said:
Mods, can we perhaps sticky this post of mine? I don't want to take credit for the actual methods of rooting, since Paul O Brien and others deserve that credit, but I think it'd be helpful for US users, since many don't know whether or not the international method works.
That, or perhaps editing the Intl guides to make it clear that the US version accepts the same methods and ROMs.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1

androidcues said:
Great, now my blisters on my fingers will heal.
But still.... I cannot imagine not needing a batt pull.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you need to perform a hard reset on the One S, you hold down the power button for about 7-10 secs.

First of all, thanks for this thread...I used the HTC One S All in one tool kit to unlock my phone, unfortunately I miss understood one of the directions(#5) and stopped using the tool kit and followed another thread, much to my surprise, my bootloader is unlocked, hooray My question is, how do I get back to the original state if that is possible? The reason I ask, is I would like to go back and do it correctly...I used better terminal emulator to see if I had root, but all I got was the $ sign instead of the # sign So I would like to start over...
Thanks in advance for the help

I'm honestly not sure what the procedure is for relocking an HTC bootloader. Perhaps do some Google research on some of the latest models, and I bet you'll find something.
That being said, once you unlock the bootloader a single time, the best you can do is go to **RELOCKED** state. You'll never get back **LOCKED**. Once it's gone it's gone. I'm curious about the **TAMPERED** message though. That's an ugly word.

not sure what exactly went wrong.
somehow flashed CWM and now thats the only thing my phone will boot to, even after re-flashing the stock recovery.
can't get the phone to turn on, only CWM every single time.

suhailtheboss said:
not sure what exactly went wrong.
somehow flashed CWM and now thats the only thing my phone will boot to, even after re-flashing the stock recovery.
can't get the phone to turn on, only CWM every single time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Uh oh that doesn't sound good
Sent from my HTC VLE_U using xda premium

yeah, tried reflashing both CWM & stock recovery. phone still boots to CWM everytime.
Luckily i can still access the phone via ADB, (while in recovery) so i'm sure i'll be able to sort it out. just need to take a fresh crack at it tomorrow. gonna switch back to my galaxy nexus tonight. (oh wait, i dont have any other phones that use microsim)
haha.

Hmm, interesting. Did you flash the interim recovery that Paul O Brien posted, and not another version? Just wanna make sure. I've heard of this happening in my past experience with the Nexus S, but I can't recall what the deal was. Regardless, I don't think you're in trouble. As with your GNex, it's very hard to completely brick the device unless you flash perhaps a bad hboot file, however I'm not really familiar with HTC devices.
This is my first HTC so I'm still trying to learn how the hboot and other processes work together. Sry to hear you had bad luck.
UPDATE: You should try the root install script. It tells the phone to boot after install. That might get you booted atleast.
Some thoughts:
1. Flash the stock recovery back and reflash CWM
2. Clear cache and dalvik within CWM, and make sure to use the 'Reboot System' option if you aren't already.
From what I can tell, your "boot-to-recovery" flag is set on the phone, and isn't getting cleared.

nickmv said:
So I know there's been some controversy and scares going around about the US version, since it JUST came out. I'm here to calm you guys down. I have now rooted mine, flashed an interim CWM touch version (not permanent) and have flashed a ROM......ALL successfully.
Here's what I did:
UNLOCKING:
Unlock your bootloader by registering at HTCdev.com and following the unlock instructions. Under device, choose "All other devices", as the One S is not yet listed. It'll walk you through getting your unlock token and flashing it.
ROOTING
Follow Paul O Brien's instructions on rooting your phone. I flashed the r3 superboot file he had. The first time it didnt take and just booted the phone back up. Second time it took, and seems to have stuck, at least for apps. Please note that my phone says *TAMPERED* along with the *UNLOCKED* notification. I have no idea what that means exactly, but everything works great for me.
This means if you dont want to leave Sense but want to get the tons of useless and annoying T-Mobile and other bloatware apps out, you can. T-Mo are dicks and make almost 100% of the apps on it by default SYSTEM apps, therefore unremovable. So you'll need root and Titanium Backup to freeze or delete them. I'd recommend freezing the non-TMo one's just in case.
FLASHING ROMS
1. Flash Paul O Brien's intermin CWM touch version. Some things like USB mount dont work, but the important functions like wipe and flash and restart do. The CWM recovery seems permanent, based on my initial trials, so no worries about reflashing it each restart. I cant speak for the non-interim solutions, but from what I can gather, they are problematic, so avoid them for now.
2. Flash your ROM of choice from Clockworkmod Recovery. I'm using Black Dragon right now, but there are others out there as well. I'm personally looking forward to CM9, but its a little ways away, usability-wise.
So there you have it, all you US guys. Don't be afraid to mod your phone. Remember all the warranty void disclaimers as always. I'm not responsible for you bricking your phone. This is just my experience in just under 24hrs of use. Things are looking good for the One S.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is this part a must? Would you mind PM'ing me with how to do this part if it's a must? I have Unlocked and rooted my phone, just waiting for a good ROM to come by.

Thongvilay said:
Is this part a must? Would you mind PM'ing me with how to do this part if it's a must? I have Unlocked and rooted my phone, just waiting for a good ROM to come by.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That step is only if you want to flash ROMs, or need to wipe cache, dalvik, etc. CWM is used for flashing and recovery/backup purposes. If you're not using ROMs yet, then you have no need for it.

nickmv said:
Hmm, interesting. Did you flash the interim recovery that Paul O Brien posted, and not another version? Just wanna make sure. I've heard of this happening in my past experience with the Nexus S, but I can't recall what the deal was. Regardless, I don't think you're in trouble. As with your GNex, it's very hard to completely brick the device unless you flash perhaps a bad hboot file, however I'm not really familiar with HTC devices.
This is my first HTC so I'm still trying to learn how the hboot and other processes work together. Sry to hear you had bad luck.
UPDATE: You should try the root install script. It tells the phone to boot after install. That might get you booted atleast.
Some thoughts:
1. Flash the stock recovery back and reflash CWM
2. Clear cache and dalvik within CWM, and make sure to use the 'Reboot System' option if you aren't already.
From what I can tell, your "boot-to-recovery" flag is set on the phone, and isn't getting cleared.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks for the tips, i had tried clearing cache/dalvik within CWM and it still would not work. and yes i did flas the interim CWM from paulobrien
luckily the phone would work via ADB while in CWM. So i pushed three different ROMS to the phone, at first each oen would lock up and reboot within 20 seconds of doing anything. I then went back into recovery & wiped data/cache/dalvik maybe 10 times out of sheer frustration. Then re-flashed a fresh copy of black_dragon_v4.0, didnt do anything after boot. just let it sit there till this morning.
now the phone seems to be working perfectly...
so hopefully if anyone encounters this problem my last couple posts will help them out!

suhailtheboss said:
thanks for the tips, i had tried clearing cache/dalvik within CWM and it still would not work. and yes i did flas the interim CWM from paulobrien
luckily the phone would work via ADB while in CWM. So i pushed three different ROMS to the phone, at first each oen would lock up and reboot within 20 seconds of doing anything. I then went back into recovery & wiped data/cache/dalvik maybe 10 times out of sheer frustration. Then re-flashed a fresh copy of black_dragon_v4.0, didnt do anything after boot. just let it sit there till this morning.
now the phone seems to be working perfectly...
so hopefully if anyone encounters this problem my last couple posts will help them out!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wow, I have no idea dude. That sounds kinda crazy. Hopefully all will be well in the future and you won't come across it again.

the only variable i can think of is that i did have the phone about a week before launch. HTC mailed it to me directly.
I thought maybe that had somethign to do with it, but as far as i can tell the phone was the final shipping version.

I sent you a PM, trying to find a solution.

[Q] HTC One S(ville) black screen, thats it... just a black screen, what can i do???

I was working fine, enjoying my new HTC One S with CM9 rom installed. Well the battery life wasnt the best on it, and i didnt install the custom kernel. So I looked for the custom kernel download(on my phone, not on my computer) and i found a .zip file. Well I thought that you could just download the kernel straight to my phone and open it up with "Rom Manager" which i did, it than said i needed to reboot the phone in recovery to continue the installation, so I did... it took me to recovery "to continue the installation" well than I looked away, looked backed down and it was black.... and i have tried powering up, booting into boot loader, booting into recover, and nothing... its just BLACK! nothing works, its literally useless ATM. I really messed up, is there anyway to fix this? Thanks in advanced!
----EDIT----
I think I accidentally flashed the kernel like i would normally flash a rom.... cause i downloaded the .zip file(directly to my phone, not using a computer), than i tapped the download and it asked me if i wanted to open it up with rom manager, so i did. and i think rom manager thought i was flashing a rom, when i wasnt, it was a kernel.... am i screwed? or is there anyway out of this?

Do you know the exact kernel you flashed--where did it come from
Some you need to extract and push
Assume you just tried to boot into bootloader thru phone buttons
Does your pc recognize your phone when plugged in, if so can you open a command window and try to access phone as in adb devices then adb reboot bootloader
assuming you are familiar with sdk adb/fastboot comands
otherwise i don't know what else to say--may be bad--sorry

Came from an XDA thread
Here is where it came from: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1708676 from "sun90" (half way down the page "CM9 KERNEL remix edition.zip - [Click for QR Code] (5.53 MB, 9 views) ")
i downloaded that straight to my phone and opened it up with Rom Manager, which i think the app took it as a rom, and installed it like a rom even though it was not a rom. I just tried to access it through adb, it comes up with no devices my PC does recognize it when i plug it in though...
Ive tried to get into bootloader tons of times, it just stays black... :'(
Thanks for your answer!

You flashed a galaxy s2 kernel on your one s? why would you ever think that was a smart thing to do?
Looking at the updater script in that zip it seems it wipes some partitions, the partitions on a SGS2 and the ONE S are different, so if that script accidentally wiped say the hboot partition, or some other critical-for-boot partition, you have a fully bricked phone.
For any devs that may know what partitions are what on the One S, the script wiped
mmcblk0p7, and wrote a zimage to mmcblk0p5
---EDIT---
Normally this is a cwm flashable zip on the Samsung Galaxy S II, which is why rom manager flashed it, as it met all the requirements, the only issue is, it was not made for the ONE S and probably overwrote some important things.

I tried for hours and hours to fix the same issue on a friend's One S (same symptoms, not same cause) to no avail. I tried QPST and telnet and a ridiculous amount of things. Had to bring it to the store and get a new one.
Good luck, but I don't believe there's anything you can do to fix it.

Just answered your question in the help thread, Didnt see this thread too !
Im afraid its not looking good, I think your best bet would be to call your provider and blame it on an OTA update.
And hope for the best

Alright, thanks for the help!
Well it looks like i bricked my phone than.... I thought that CM9 was only on the One S, so I just looked for the CM9 kernel, which obviously was for the sg2, i feel like such a dumb ass now! haha well thanks for all the help guys! ill be heading to the t-mobile store today to blame it on a OTA:]

yeah, others wont agree with what your about to do but........
just act like a complete noob, dont mention anything about software / firmware / ROMs / bootloader etc ect
just say your phone made a noise, you selected update and it died lol

good luck--I know it is heartbreaking
not sure of your situation with carrier, but you could go thru Retention if needed

Hi peeps.
i'm very new to all this but sort of know the basics
i'm running on Axiom now but tried to flash cm10 but after install i got a black screen so had to do a restore.
Today i just flashed venom and after the instal process is done, i hear the start up music but nothing on the screen.
I have had 3 other roms on my phone and never had a problem!
these are the steps i do
download rom - place on sd
put phone in recovery
reset factory
reset cache
install from sd
when it finish's reboot
blank screen.
Am i missing something?
Any help would be great and i can't post on the thread because i'm a noob with less than 10 and dont want to spam my way to the 10 :silly:

you are missing a lot, like reading the OP page and following install instructions
you missed separate flash of boot image and wiping system plus data and caches
i wipe system 3x to be safe

rugmankc said:
you are missing a lot, like reading the OP page and following install instructions
you missed separate flash of boot image and wiping system plus data and caches
i wipe system 3x to be safe
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks but i think that is now the least of my problems!
I used Goomanager and installed CM10, When I did it i installed teamwin recovery. It started to do a lot of strange things, when it finally rebooted i got a load of errors "phone is not working" nearly every 10 seconds?
it will not connect via usb, i discovered the the SD was not mounted.
I tried to mount the SD but it doesnt work, so i rebooted to recovery and tried to mount there but its coming up with - error unable to mount? ive tried everything but no joy
please please help
Thanks:crying:

see if this is your situation
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1630459
can you connect phone to pc and use fastboot commands

rugmankc said:
see if this is your situation
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1630459
can you connect phone to pc and use fastboot commands
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've got a mac
not sure what fastboot is.
I'll check out the link, and thank you very much for trying to help:good:
sorry i do know what fastboot is, yes can get in to it. but ive gone from CWM to teamwin recovery if i go in to the recovery section but that wont let me do anything because the mount. cant even load the phone up

I don't know Mac commands
My idea is to install htc drivers and set up fastboot/adb on pc--the info can be found in dev section on rooting
then open a command window and and boot into fastboot and flash a new recovery, maybe stock per the link, clear storage and try to get mounted
how did you unlock bootloader--
you will need to do alot of reading on adb/fastboot and flashing roms--first step is to have backups of rom and sdcard
since i don't the Mac commands to do fastboot, someone else will chime in at some point
you can alos go to the noob section in Q&A and resubmit your issue
someone will work you thru this, but in meantime study up on android sdk/fastboot/adb. a necessity to get out of these problems
you are not bricked, just need the info and right steps to get back on track

rugmankc said:
I don't know Mac commands
My idea is to install htc drivers and set up fastboot/adb on pc--the info can be found in dev section on rooting
then open a command window and and boot into fastboot and flash a new recovery, maybe stock per the link, clear storage and try to get mounted
how did you unlock bootloader--
you will need to do alot of reading on adb/fastboot and flashing roms--first step is to have backups of rom and sdcard
since i don't the Mac commands to do fastboot, someone else will chime in at some point
you can alos go to the noob section in Q&A and resubmit your issue
someone will work you thru this, but in meantime study up on android sdk/fastboot/adb. a necessity to get out of these problems
you are not bricked, just need the info and right steps to get back on track
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
im going to use someone elses alp top with windows. i'll ytry the all in one thing because thats how i rooted it in the first place. thanks for helping it means alot

good luck on it

[Q] Nexus S 4G bootlooping

Hello XDA. First post here. I need the pros.
I may have seriously messed up my Nexus S 4G. The "Google" logo appears when I turn it on but there is no lock on the bottom (there was before) and after that, boot animation of the X keeps restarting. Pull the battery. Hold up and power on. Go into Recovery and I end up with the white triangle and yellow exclamation point inside it.
Did I just brick my phone? Any way to get out of this? I have an upgrade available, but I'd rather check out the Nexus4 before buying the Galaxy Nexus. (Nonreplaceable battery in the Nexus4 might be a killer for me.)
I searched around but no other situations were like mine. Sorry if I missed something. Help me XDA. You're my only hope.

mjnouri said:
Hello XDA. First post here. I need the pros.
I may have seriously messed up my Nexus S 4G. The "Google" logo appears when I turn it on but there is no lock on the bottom (there was before) and after that, boot animation of the X keeps restarting. Pull the battery. Hold up and power on. Go into Recovery and I end up with the white triangle and yellow exclamation point inside it.
Did I just brick my phone? Any way to get out of this? I have an upgrade available, but I'd rather check out the Nexus4 before buying the Galaxy Nexus. (Nonreplaceable battery in the Nexus4 might be a killer for me.)
I searched around but no other situations were like mine. Sorry if I missed something. Help me XDA. You're my only hope.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What have you done before this happened?
You have relocked your bootloader?
Fix is easy, you'll lose your data doing so.
Unlock the bootloader using fastboot
Install a custom recovery such as Clockworkmod
From within recovery wipe data
Try to boot like this. If it doesn't boot, go back to recovery, wipe everything and re-install your ROM/stock ROM depending on which you have. You can transfer the flashable zip from within Clockworkmod recovery by mounting your USB storage when connected to your computer.

polobunny said:
What have you done before this happened?
You have relocked your bootloader?
Fix is easy, you'll lose your data doing so.
Unlock the bootloader using fastboot
Install a custom recovery such as Clockworkmod
From within recovery wipe data
Try to boot like this. If it doesn't boot, go back to recovery, wipe everything and re-install your ROM/stock ROM depending on which you have. You can transfer the flashable zip from within Clockworkmod recovery by mounting your USB storage when connected to your computer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First of all, thank you polo for helping me out!!!
At first, I was flashing nandroid backups between AOKP, CM10 M2, and CM7. Then it got stuck in a boot loop of a different sort (don't remember the details) and before I remembered to come over to XDA, I formatted some partitions under Mounts and Storage in CWM like an idiot. However I did wipe data/factory reset, wipe cache, wipe dalvik cache and still nothing.
I just googled some directions on unlocking from fastboot, flashing CWM, and from there let's see how it goes. Wish I brought a cable with me to work, but it'll have to wait a few hours. Thanks polo!

mjnouri said:
First of all, thank you polo for helping me out!!!
At first, I was flashing nandroid backups between AOKP, CM10 M2, and CM7. Then it got stuck in a boot loop of a different sort (don't remember the details) and before I remembered to come over to XDA, I formatted some partitions under Mounts and Storage in CWM like an idiot. However I did wipe data/factory reset, wipe cache, wipe dalvik cache and still nothing.
I just googled some directions on unlocking from fastboot, flashing CWM, and from there let's see how it goes. Wish I brought a cable with me to work, but it'll have to wait a few hours. Thanks polo!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well if you formatted system and the like, you pretty much wiped your ROM. If you installed a stock ROM, it's possible your recovery was replaced by the stock recovery, otherwise there should be no reason for your recovery to get wiped.
Rooting again with the whole unlocking process and re-installing a ROM will get you back online in no time.

Welp, it looks like I need a little more help if you don't mind polo. For someone who was rooted, I guess I didn't know much, but learned a lot from this so far.
I flashed CWM from my desktop via fastboot and can now get into CWM. I then mounted the phone as a USB drive and loaded CM7.2 and then installed it. "Install from sdcard complete." after that. Rebooted and now it's looping at the boot animation for CM7.2. Wiped data/factory reset and same thing happens.
What am I missing here?
After I'm in CM, I plan on going back to stock + root.

Make sure you also wipe cache and dalvik cache. If this doesn't seem to work, in mounts and storage format cache, data, sdcard and system then reinstall your rom. Be sure you have the correct rom for your phone and not the crespo4g version or vice versa.

I just followed those exact instructions and it still loops at the boot animation. Damn.
The world needs more people like you polo. Thanks for trying to help me through this!! I have a genuine gratitude for you my friend.

OK, run a log cat with Adb. First night I had mine had serious issues, nothing worked same problem.
If you don't know how to do log cat
Is
Adb logcat > log.txt
Same as if fastboot. Upload that and we can find your prob instantly.
Sent from my A100 using Tapatalk 2

das_webos_transformer, I just PMed you the dropbox link since I can't post links here, but I don't see it in my sent. Did you get it?

I would try the factory images from Google. Make sure the phone is working as per usual and then take it from there.
There are guides on how to do so on the forums. It is very easy.

albundy2010 said:
I would try the factory images from Google. Make sure the phone is working as per usual and then take it from there.
There are guides on how to do so on the forums. It is very easy.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey Al. Thanks for replying. My problem is I'm seeing too many guides. I know it's a mortal sin to ask, but can you link me to one that you think is done correctly? Unfortunately I need a little more hand holding if that ok with you guys.
UPDATE - SOMEhow, I got CM10 installed and gapps. Just flashed it it worked. I did nothing differently than before. I installed a bunch of apps and that went well. I had a feeling I wasn't in the clear and now I can't restore a nandroid backup, a fancy widgets transparent background goes missing but the text remains, and Swype won't install. It's just weird. I'm more than willing to go back to stock now. If you can provide a link for how to flash the stock images, I'll definitely give it a shot. Thank you!!!

You're all over place so here are some general FYI.
Depending on which recovery was used to make the nandroid you may not be able to restore it with a different recovery.
When you say you can't restore a nandroid and a widget or swype won't restore I am lost. What are trying to restore it from and with what.
Anyways. Stock images are here https://developers.google.com/android/nexus/images
Make sure you download the ones for your device. The sprint d720.
Once the download is finished extract the file. You should have a few .img files and a update zip in there. Take those files and move them to the directory you have fastboot in.
With the phone in the bootloader enter the commands.
Fastboot flash bootloader bootloader file name.IMG
Fastboot reboot bootloader
Fastboot flash radio radio image name.IMG
Fastboot reboot boot loader
Fastboot -w update image name.zip
You can most likely skip the reboot 2nd and third reboot bootlaoders . People seem to do it for some reason. If your device already has versions of the bootloader and radio installed you can skip those flashes as well.
Make sure you change the commands to the actual file names you're going to flash. Can manually type/ paste the names or just hit tab after you typed the first letter. Example. Fastboot flash radio r tab. It should auto fill it in. Check anyways.
If you're not comfortable with this dont do it. Read some more or find a video on YouTube if you're unsure. I am not responsible if you screw something up . End result will give you factory up to date bootloader radio and rom. It also wipes the phone but not the internal storage. The bootloader will still be unlocked so you can relfash a custom recovery later and do what you want.
Guides are all over. Just make sure you're flashing the correct files for your device. The commands and procedure is the same for all nexus devices.
And last if the factory images give you issues then there most likely is something actually wrong with the device. Or you managed to screw up flashing.

Thanks Al! I did all that and am pretty comfortable with this stuff, but when time came to flash the image...
C:\Users\Nouri\Desktop\Fastboot>fastboot -w update image image-sojus-jro03r.zip
error: failed to load 'image'
Same issue without the -w. I'm starting to think something is wrong with the phone. But how can it. It's functioning. is it possible that a hardware problem can cause these inconsistent issues?
Issues
- When I had CM10 installed, it ran choppy. It ran fine when I flashed it a few days ago. I didn't do much and flashed another ROM, but I know the S 4G is capable of running CM10 smoothly. Swipes between homescreens were choppy and so was bringing up the app drawer.
-I couldn't take a screenshot. "Screenshot not saved" or something to that effect
-Swype would get to 100% download and then halt for a few minutes. I'd hit Install and it would just stay there for a few minutes and nothing would happen.
-I couldn't restore from a CWM nandroid that I just made.
Internal sdcard faulty maybe?
THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP!!!!!

Nevermind! Back to stock! Thank you so much Al!!!! Holy crap you have made me a happy man before I sleep tonight dude!
The last step was actually fastboot -w update image.zip, but it's all good!!!!! Thank you ALL!!! XDA is a pretty special place where you guys help someone to the best of your knowledge. I'm going to pass this forward.
Polo, das, Al, I can't thank you guys enough. Know that you guys helped someone out big time here. Hopefully this makes your day better too!

Hey all. I just wanted to send a quick update your way. I successfully went back to 100% stock thanks to Al's awesome directions. Still couldn't install swype and there were some files on the internal storage that had all sorts of strange symbols and were .01 to 5 GB in size! Clearly there is something wrong here. I rebooted and that all went away actually. This morning I rebooted and I see a notification saying "Damaged USB storage - USB storage is damaged. Try reformating" I tapped it and successfully formatted the storage, but that's my issue all along. Wish I left the notification up there, but I'll get it back and take it to Sprint. Hopefully get a replacement.
You guys freakin rule. You helped me until we all, especially I, were blue in the face. Thanks again!!!

If you're going to take it sprint you should probably re lock the bootloader. They may not check or care but eh
Fastboot oem lock.
That doesn't wipe anything
Fastboot oem unlock does and that would be needed if you wanted to root and flash your device again .

Thanks and yup! I got pretty good at this whole thing now. I feel very good now learning fastboot. I flashed completely stock like you said. It worked. Problems arose. Locked the bootloader and tucked the phone away. If it wasn't for Google Voice, my life would suck right now! Hopefully my trip to Sprint turns out well. A few short hours.

[Q] Mishandled ROM Upgrade

I am relatively new at ROMs and I installed CyanogenMod 10 on my AT&T HTC One X (US) a couple of months ago. Recently, I tried upgrading to the M2 release of CM10.1 using the evita package which I understand is the US version of the ROM. I followed the same instructions I used to install 10.0 for 10.1. However, the installation froze and did nothing for a few minutes and gave me the message "no MD5 file found". I shut the phone down and restarted, but the phone would no longer start. I did a "system wipe" to get ride of the OS so I could re-install it, but now, my computer won't recognize my phone when I connect them and I can't move the CM10.1 zip file from my desktop to my phone. I have nothing already on the phone I can flash besides Team Win Recovery Project which is what I use for Recovery. I have no recovery files.
Did I just paperweight my phone, or is there a way to salvage this situation.

sliceroo said:
I am relatively new at ROMs and I installed CyanogenMod 10 on my AT&T HTC One X (US) a couple of months ago. Recently, I tried upgrading to the M2 release of CM10.1 using the evita package which I understand is the US version of the ROM. I followed the same instructions I used to install 10.0 for 10.1. However, the installation froze and did nothing for a few minutes and gave me the message "no MD5 file found". I shut the phone down and restarted, but the phone would no longer start. I did a "system wipe" to get ride of the OS so I could re-install it, but now, my computer won't recognize my phone when I connect them and I can't move the CM10.1 zip file from my desktop to my phone. I have nothing already on the phone I can flash besides Team Win Recovery Project which is what I use for Recovery. I have no recovery files.
Did I just paperweight my phone, or is there a way to salvage this situation.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you able to get into recovery?

joelrwise said:
Are you able to get into recovery?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes. I can get into recovery and the screen that tells you the root status of the phone.

sliceroo said:
Yes. I can get into recovery and the screen that tells you the root status of the phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you can get into recovery then you aren't bricked just yet! If you have an sd card reader on your computer or know somebody who does thats one way you could get a new rom on your phone to flash. Most recoveries have a way to let you connect your phone to your computer for file transfer while in recovery. I believe in TWRP the option is in the Mount are. I could be wrong though. You just need to figure out how to get a new Rom on your phone. If none of the above work, one trick that has always worked for me, would be to put your sd card into someone elses phone, and download a known working rom onto your sd card via theyre phone, and just put it back into your phone. Hope i helped. Let me know how it goes man. I've been here before haha

joelrwise said:
If you can get into recovery then you aren't bricked just yet! If you have an sd card reader on your computer or know somebody who does thats one way you could get a new rom on your phone to flash. Most recoveries have a way to let you connect your phone to your computer for file transfer while in recovery. I believe in TWRP the option is in the Mount are. I could be wrong though. You just need to figure out how to get a new Rom on your phone. If none of the above work, one trick that has always worked for me, would be to put your sd card into someone elses phone, and download a known working rom onto your sd card via theyre phone, and just put it back into your phone. Hope i helped. Let me know how it goes man. I've been here before haha
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I went into TWRP Mount and it allowed me to mount the phone. I went ahead and did that, but Windows told me that I had to format the disk. I agreed and Windows formatted it. Afterwards, I successfully copied over the CM10.1 Evita M2 zip file and the lates Gapps zip file. I then went to TWRP's install section and flashed both zips. TWRP told me both happened succesfully. However, while flashing over the CM10.1 file, it told me that no MD5 file was found and that it was just going to skip that. Then, it formatted some mke5 partition and then went ahead and finished. I wiped the Dalvik cache and the system Cache and restarted the phone. It is currently stuck at the "HTC Quietly Beautiful" intro screen and won't boot past that. Is there something I missed?

If that 10.1 already failed because of an MD5 problem, I wouldn't have tried to flash it again - the file probably has some problems in itself and either needs to be re-downloaded or just won't work.
Just flash the stock firmware or something - and use an MD5 checking program.

Pennycake said:
If that 10.1 already failed because of an MD5 problem, I wouldn't have tried to flash it again - the file probably has some problems in itself and either needs to be re-downloaded or just won't work.
Just flash the stock firmware or something - and use an MD5 checking program.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The thing is TWRP returned the status as successful despite missing the MD5 file. I'll try flashing over another package and if that doesn't work, I'll try flashing over CM10. If that still doesn't work, I'll just do stock firmware if I can find it somewhere, I guess.

In the future, making a backup is really awesome. Not saying that like "I told ya so" - but I've used them so many times myself, it's really great to say, "oops, I overlooked something" and then be able to just go back to a perfect snapshot of how things were before.
Also, how long did you let the phone sit at the boot screen ? It can hang for quite a while on the first boot.

Pennycake said:
In the future, making a backup is really awesome. Not saying that like "I told ya so" - but I've used them so many times myself, it's really great to say, "oops, I overlooked something" and then be able to just go back to a perfect snapshot of how things were before.
Also, how long did you let the phone sit at the boot screen ? It can hang for quite a while on the first boot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah I would just reflash a ROM that you've used before and that you know works. Chances are if the cm10.1 didn't work the first time its probably not going to the second time. And he has a point. First boot always takes forever. I've flashed a couple ROMs and thought I was bootlooped but I let it sit for a good 5-10 minutes and the setup screen finally came up.

joelrwise said:
Yeah I would just reflash a ROM that you've used before and that you know works. Chances are if the cm10.1 didn't work the first time its probably not going to the second time. And he has a point. First boot always takes forever. I've flashed a couple ROMs and thought I was bootlooped but I let it sit for a good 5-10 minutes and the setup screen finally came up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had no idea that it could take that long. I guess I'll just turn my phone on and see if it wants to start. I'll leave it going for a good five to ten minutes this time. Shutting the phone down while its still in the intro screen doesn't damage the OS, does it? Thanks for the advice so far guys, I really appreciate it.

Bootloop and no recovery...

So I feel like I am pretty experienced when it comes to the whole ROM/Root scene, I've had the OneXL, Galaxy S3, and Nexus 4.. but I've always had a difficult time with the One XL and ROMs... I always seem to run into major problems.. Right now I can only access the fastboot area of the phone, it will not go into recovery (i have even tried reflashing recovery but no luck) and no matter what, it bootloops constantly. I had ViperXL running fine on the device but I tried to install ElementalX kernel for the first time and now the phone is Kaput.. Any ideas??? Could this be a semi-brick?

did you specifically try to go into fastboot and fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
?
because this phone is pretty much either "it's reading qsb mode in device manager bricked" or "i don't know what i'm doing and cannot figure out what to do next NOT BRICKED" (i'm not rippin on you; if you pull up my history, it even happened to me once and i had to make a baww thread for someone to help me figure it out. turns out, don't click factory reset in bootloader.) there is one other way, but it involves acceptin the OTA with your CID having been changed

wdkingery said:
did you specifically try to go into fastboot and fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
?
because this phone is pretty much either "it's reading qsb mode in device manager bricked" or "i don't know what i'm doing and cannot figure out what to do next NOT BRICKED" (i'm not rippin on you; if you pull up my history, it even happened to me once and i had to make a baww thread for someone to help me figure it out. turns out, don't click factory reset in bootloader.) there is one other way, but it involves acceptin the OTA with your CID having been changed
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually, I was just about to post that I fixed it!! I relocked the bootloader, then unlocked again(i thought maybe it would wipe all my data for me, and it did!!) So I then reflashed the recovery and got into it, reformatted the USB mount in windows with FAT32 and then placed a new ROM onto the device. And it booted right on up!
By the way, this ind of thing happened to me too before... but I never had to do the bootloader thing.. Thanks for the input though!