This Guide assumes that you have S-off and are rooted. It gives the most basic instructions for a first time flasher, it'll also take you through a Nandroid back up using ClockworkMod v4.0.0.4.
Select a rom.
Choose from here or, click the LBC link in my sigi and download the excellent rom and put it in the root of your SD card.
Turn your phone off and just this once pull and refit the battery, just to be sure your not going to run into any problems getting into Hboot from a power on state.
Press and hold the volume down button and press the power/on button. Your now turning your phone on and entering Hboot (bootloader). You'll soon get a white screen with skateboarding types at the bottom. (Oh dear! Notice the one on the far right looks as if he is about to fall off his skateboard! This isn't important).
Wait for the green writing to flash on the screen and go away, any errors that you notice are completely NORMAL!
Press the volume down button once more to highlight RECOVERY.
Press the power button to select.
Your phone will Vibrate (or at least mine does), and after loading you'll get a black screen with purple writing.
Congratulations are in order! You've reached RECOVERY. At this point it might be useful to go outside and bark at the moon if the excitement overcomes you. It did me.
Better? Right lets get to work. This is the business end of flashing and what can't be done here can't be done at all. Well, OK actually there is Android Flasher, Fastboot Commander and lets not forget your Command Line Editor but we'll gloss over those until you've earn't your stripes.
Using the Vol button navigate to BACK UP AND RESTORE and Select using the Power button.
Select BACK UP.
Your now backing up your existing rom and creating your first Nandroid back up. Your Nandroid back up lives on your SD card and can be moved to another file for safe keeping, renamed, corrupted or deleted. If you value your information, keep it safe.
Once finished, you'll get the message "Backup complete!" All we've done to this point is back up the rom that you've been using, at this point you could hit the power button and continue using your old rom, or wipe your phone and falsh a fresh one.
Its important to remember here that if you are going to wipe your phone, your actually deleting HTC's stock rom off the phone and a factory reset will not undo this. After you have wiped, the only way to get your phone back to a factory condition is to flash (load) a stock rom back on, (RUU). You MUST wipe your phone before installing a new rom, there is no way around this.
Wiping and flashing a fresh rom is far more exciting than HTC's offering and that's why you S-offed and rooted anyway isn't it?! Here's how we do that.
Using the Vol button, highlight WIPE DATA/FACTORY RESET.
Once done, highlight WIPE CACHE PARTITION.
Normally this is enough for a normal reflash but if your recovering from a problem or an issue and want a really really good clean up, perform these optional steps:
Select MOUNTS AND STORAGE
Using your vol and power button:
format /cache
format /data
format /system
Select +++++Go Back+++++
Select Advanced
Wipe Dalvik Cache
Reboot Recovery. This step is quite important and your phone will as it says reboot, so don't worry, just let it do its thing.
Wipe Data/Factory Reset once more.
There that's all the wiping done. It's worth noting now that at this stage your phone now has no operating software installed on it! A little scary isn't it? Apart from a bootloader and a radio there's very little else on your pride and joy right now!!! YOU WIPED IT! OK, enough, lets get your new rom installed.
Select install zip from SD card.
choose zip from SD card.
Select your rom
In about 4 to 5 minutes the phone will tell you its done. (DO NOT INTERUPT THIS PROCESS), make sure you have at least 75% battery before you begin!
Are we done?
Now is the time to flash any non optional extras that your rom may need. For instance CyanogenMOD does not come with the Market or Google Apps in Update so flash them now. Refer to your rom developers page for further information on this.
Any kernels, keyboards or mods from the kitchen also get flashed here. These are a little more advanced so lets not go there right now.
Reboot system.
This is your roms intital install and always takes a while to complete. However if your waiting mor than 10 minutes at this stage consult your specific rom developers page.
Press the thanks button.
Done.
this is a very very great guide for the newbies! Thanks man
I have a question for ya... what's nandroid backup? does it backup my stock ROM as well? so if I want back my old stock rom, I just flash back the backup? Need more understanding. Thanks.!
nodeffect said:
this is a very very great guide for the newbies! Thanks man
I have a question for ya... what's nandroid backup? does it backup my stock ROM as well? so if I want back my old stock rom, I just flash back the backup? Need more understanding. Thanks.!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A Nandroid back up is the back up you make while in RECOVERY mode. It is an almost complete image of the phone, system, data, and caches are saved. It is important to note that when you wipe you are WIPING HTC's ROM FROM THE PHONE! After a wipe a factory reset will not take your phone back to the state where it left the shop. You'll need an RUU for that.
I appreciate the feed back.
Thanks for the step by step guide, I flashed the Virtuous Unity ROM and it is working perfectly.
Exactly what I've been looking for, thanks
Impressive guide
Sent from my HTC Desire S using XDA App
InfernalByte said:
make sure you have at least 30% battery before you begin!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good guide man. But you really, really want to have the phone plugged in and charged. Pref at least 75% battery if on battery power alone. Just for those unforseens ...
Peace
Great guide, thanks very much. I have a question about radios when installing a custom rom.
I see that some of the custom roms do not have a radio. How do I know which radio to use to go with that rom? Many rom threads don't seem to specify. Do I leave my stock one, or do I need a different one?
Also, if I do decide to install a custom kernal at a later time, does that mean re-installing the custom rom again first?
Thanks very much for any help for a noob to android!
ems328i said:
Great guide, thanks very much. I have a question about radios when installing a custom rom.
I see that some of the custom roms do not have a radio. How do I know which radio to use to go with that rom? Many rom threads don't seem to specify. Do I leave my stock one, or do I need a different one?
Also, if I do decide to install a custom kernal at a later time, does that mean re-installing the custom rom again first?
Thanks very much for any help for a noob to android!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't flash a radio unless you really need to, its not necessary, if your phone works perfectly well with the radio you have my advice is; leave well alone and use the stock radio.
Any add ons such as kernels can be flashed any time after a rom flash and there is no no to reflash a rom just for a fresh kernel etc. Just go back into recovery and flash the exta's, don't wipe.
What I would advise though is when installing any new rom is not to flash any extras until the rom has been running as a stand alone for about 30 minutes. Any, shall we say "toys," Themes and a lot of Kitchen baked stuff should be flashed after the rom has run alone a while and settled, this makes it far easier to understand any issues your fresh rom may have as its easier to identify what's causing it.
This is a bit of a minefield though because some roms need add ons for the first flash, such as CyanogenMod needs the Market and Gmail. Stuff like A2SD scripts also need to be flashed prior to the first boot or they wont work. Your rom Developer should be specific about these.
InfernalByte said:
Don't flash a radio unless you really need to, its not necessary, if your phone works perfectly well with the radio you have my advice is; leave well alone and use the stock radio.
Any add ons such as kernels can be flashed any time after a rom flash and there is no no to reflash a rom just for a fresh kernel etc. Just go back into recovery and flash the exta's, don't wipe.
What I would advise though is when installing any new rom is not to flash any extras until the rom has been running as a stand alone for about 30 minutes. Any, shall we say "toys," Themes and a lot of Kitchen baked stuff should be flashed after the rom has run alone a while and settled, this makes it far easier to understand any issues your fresh rom may have as its easier to identify what's causing it.
This is a bit of a minefield though because some roms need add ons for the first flash, such as CyanogenMod needs the Market and Gmail. Stuff like A2SD scripts also need to be flashed prior to the first boot or they wont work. Your rom Developer should be specific about these.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Superb, thanks very much that's good info! I've just now got S-off with AlphaRevX, and I'm now running the SAGA LBC Mod, just need to learn my way around the new features! Is it possible to now remove some apps like Facebook from this rom?
ems328i said:
Is it possible to now remove some apps like Facebook from this rom?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I use Titanium Back Up to freeze the apps before deleting. That way if I get too naughty and freeze something that's needed it can be restored.
InfernalByte said:
I use Titanium Back Up to freeze the apps before deleting. That way if I get too naughty and freeze something that's needed it can be restored.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great tip, thanks again, much appreciated!
How to backup the personal data and apps at one ROM in order to restore them at new ROM? Thank you for the answer in advance.
Thanks for the guide.
Many thanks
Thank you for this great guide! I am a total noob and I flashed the LBC mod according to your guide. I already got root, as I had done this by other guide. I would like to add some advice for other noobs out there like me. The only setback I got, was that after installing new ROM, it froze, and the problem seems to be my Google account, which wants to sync all apps at once right after you have typed in your password and checked the "sync with my account" checkbox. the best would be to somehow uninstall all your apps from old rom after backing them up with Titanium. The problem was, that while trying to download all the apps again, it froze so hard, that it still showed me the charging LED, and the screen was unresponsive even after I had pulled the charger over 15mins ago. Even the power button did nothing. So I went back to recovery, trying to do the whole wiping/formatting drill with Dalvik Cache and i received errors in the recovery, even while navigating between menus that mounting recovery failed. I got very desperate and taught it would be best to just take a break. It was good idea. when I came back the phone had cooled down and I received no more errors while wiping/formatting/installing. I then just forbid the google account to back up my data online and that did the trick. No more freezes and LBC mod looks, feels and behaves just perfect. I got a whole new PDA now, with whole new capabilities. And also, many of the ROM-s does not include the Sim ToolKit, the STK. This is quite neccesary for people in Estonia and soon for most people in the world, as its neccesary for Mobile-ID. Most of us vote for president for instance by digitally signing our vote with mobile-ID which is an even greater extenson of ID-card. And as a businessman I need to give at least couple of signatures each day. I would be quite unhappy, when I would need to drive 200km to another city just to sign a document, or messing with my ID-card, card reader and stupid drivers, to sign something manually or even worse, use a pen to sign something haha So its a very vital component of all phones that use SIM-card and it soon going to be a must have in most countries in the world. So every Estonian here, if you are in need, get the neccesary STK (download the version for android 2.3.4, the 2.3.3 version won't work for LBC 0.5.3) from the Estonian Hinnavaatlus forum here: http://foorum.hinnavaatlus.ee/viewtopic.php?p=6564414#6564414
Again, thanks for the guide, its a dream come true.
Your Welcome.
ems328i said:
Superb, thanks very much that's good info! I've just now got S-off with AlphaRevX, and I'm now running the SAGA LBC Mod, just need to learn my way around the new features! Is it possible to now remove some apps like Facebook from this rom?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yup you can delete facebook etc, if you want to just clean it up, but your not going to make any extra room, unless you learn how to install apk apps into your system partition, rather than market apps into your data partition..
nodeffect said:
this is a very very great guide for the newbies! Thanks man
I have a question for ya... what's nandroid backup? does it backup my stock ROM as well? so if I want back my old stock rom, I just flash back the backup? Need more understanding. Thanks.!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I dont think this question was answered clearly enough Can you restore your phone back exactly the way it was before with the nandroid back up you made? If not what is the point of the back up?
Also, it it best to do a nandroid back up the way you described or would it be just as good to let the ROM manager App do it for you?
pumpernickel77 said:
I dont think this question was answered clearly enough Can you restore your phone back exactly the way it was before with the nandroid back up you made? If not what is the point of the back up?
Also, it it best to do a nandroid back up the way you described or would it be just as good to let the ROM manager App do it for you?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nandroid Backup (to be honest - a tiny piece of Googling would give you the answer to this) but, in answer to your question, yes, a Nandroid backup takes the phone state back to effectively when the backup was was taken....I use it often when testing ROMS and then returning to my daily use ROM.
The only thing that isn't backed up by the backup and therefore isn't restored is your Radio so if you change version you need to flash the older version (which I'm sure that you'll be advised not to!) to return to the same state you were in.
ROM Manager nandroid and manual recovery nandroid are the same, it's just a matter of choice and personal preference. Some people like command line other like GUI. However, using recovery based backup it means that you'll hopefully have a slightly greater understaing of what is actually happening and the options that are avialiable to you, which means should there ever come a time when only recovery is accessible - you won't [email protected] your pants!
good
simple and easy thanks dude
For those that are testing roms,how do you back up your installed apps/data to load to the new rom and get up and running quickly? I have 80+ apps that I really hate to have to reinstall or have progress reset every time I try a new rom. I have TB but have seen mixed reviews here on its results. Any suggestions or advice would be appreciated. I have already read the threads how to backup existing setup in case something goes wrong.
ed20910 said:
For those that are testing roms,how do you back up your installed apps/data to load to the new rom and get up and running quickly? I have 80+ apps that I really hate to have to reinstall or have progress reset every time I try a new rom. I have TB but have seen mixed reviews here on its results. Any suggestions or advice would be appreciated. I have already read the threads how to backup existing setup in case something goes wrong.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Make a CWM backup. Install new ROM, then go to Backup and Restore, go to advanced restore, then select the backup you made, and select restore data. That will bring back all of your apps/setting and such.
farshad525hou said:
Make a CWM backup. Install new ROM, then go to Backup and Restore, go to advanced restore, then select the backup you made, and select restore data. That will bring back all of your apps/setting and such.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exactly how I do it!
Sent from my MB865 using Tapatalk 2 Beta-2
Thank you. I thought cwm was only to put back to the way I started like a windows image file.
ed20910 said:
Thank you. I thought cwm was only to put back to the way I started like a windows image file.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I apologize, I misunderstood your question......
I used CWM when I went from stock rooted 2.3.5 to stock rooted 2.3.6 to restore all my apps. I'd imagine there could be some issues if you used CWM in the same manner when going from stock rom to say RebelROM so for that I'd use MyBackup. I prefer it over TB any day. So use MB to make your backup of your apps (apk's and data) before flashing the new rom, flash the new rom and then once you get MB on your phone again use it to restore the apps, apk's first then data after all the apk's have been restored.
Sorry for the confusion
I use Rom Toolbox...it works quite well
Sent from my Atrix 2 using Telepathy
ed20910 said:
For those that are testing roms,how do you back up your installed apps/data to load to the new rom and get up and running quickly? I have 80+ apps that I really hate to have to reinstall or have progress reset every time I try a new rom. I have TB but have seen mixed reviews here on its results. Any suggestions or advice would be appreciated. I have already read the threads how to backup existing setup in case something goes wrong.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just tested a theory i had and it worked flawlessly. I just flash supercharged v5 and before i did i just wiped cache and dalvix and formatted system, i did not do a factory data reset. I then flashed the rom and everything went flawlessly. I still have all my apps and data from before the flash.
Sent from my Atrix 2 using XDA Premium App. . Hit thanks if I surprisingly help you.
In TB, do I select restore all system data or missing apps + all system data?
Will restoring all system data screw with anything?
if you have made a cwm backup you can just restore after whatever it is that you have done that you dont like.
CollegeProfesor said:
In TB, do I select restore all system data or missing apps + all system data?
Will restoring all system data screw with anything?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
here's something i learned over the last 2 years:
if you want to be safe, DONT EVER RESTORE SYSTEM ANYTHING....
simple really. just restore missing apps+data and move on. set your system settings manually.
Pirateghost said:
here's something i learned over the last 2 years:
if you want to be safe, DONT EVER RESTORE SYSTEM ANYTHING....
simple really. just restore missing apps+data and move on. set your system settings manually.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This. Absolutely this.
eldedo said:
if you have made a cwm backup you can just restore after whatever it is that you have done that you dont like.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well I need an unlocked bootloader before I can install CWM. Unlocking it wiped my phone so TB was the only option I had
Pirateghost said:
here's something i learned over the last 2 years:
if you want to be safe, DONT EVER RESTORE SYSTEM ANYTHING....
simple really. just restore missing apps+data and move on. set your system settings manually.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Too late now, there doesnt seem to be any problems. I will use your advice next time, thanks!
CollegeProfesor said:
Well I need an unlocked bootloader before I can install CWM. Unlocking it wiped my phone so TB was the only option I had
Too late now, there doesnt seem to be any problems. I will use your advice next time, thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i've never had any major issues restoring system data/apps when just wiping my rom and flashing the same thing back on (similar to what you have done), but i always recommend staying away from the system stuff in TiBu, to keep things sane
U should not have any issues restoring everything with Tb because your rom is the same as before
I am getting desparate with my phone state SGS3, as funny things are happening like it suddenly goes crazy and opens apps after apps etc... Also applications that can not be traced, I am currently on 4.1.2 XXELL4 version, and I got advised to wipe data partition and cache, which as I understand it quite risky process of losing what I have, so do PLEASE inform is there a safe way, like you guys develop programs for us amateurs to do it automatically and safely, regaining our previous phone state?
My intention is to really get rid of junks I have on my phone and get a nice new obedient one I had before?
Thank you
You should make a backup of all apps and contacts ( for contacts you can sync with google) and then go into recovery mode and do wipe data factory reset and wipe cache partition. Finally do reboot system now and then reinstall the app backup and restore contacts.
I hope i help you and i wait for your news.
Hoping you have a recovery mode called cwm, and are aware of it,
You can wipe cache and data
It would get your phone back in state as if it were out of the manufacturer's factory!
All apps you've installed would be wiped out
Sent from my MT11i using xda premium
CWM problem
Warwolf_1 said:
You should make a backup of all apps and contacts ( for contacts you can sync with google) and then go into recovery mode and do wipe data factory reset and wipe cache partition. Finally do reboot system now and then reinstall the app backup and restore contacts.
I hope i help you and i wait for your news.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you so much for your reply, actually I do have CWM on my phone but when I run it is says it should be used with CF-CWM v1.1 or newer and that I am running different recovery and various features has been disabled, so I did not follow your advise yet, can you guide me in this matter also? the one I hace is CWM manger v3.60.
Further to that contacts I have backup but for the rest of my programs will Titanium Backup (not pro version) do for me to call back and restore all of it?
Waiting for you reply impatienly and thank you once more for your kindness
Still need HELP!!!
avadis99 said:
Thank you so much for your reply, actually I do have CWM on my phone but when I run it is says it should be used with CF-CWM v1.1 or newer and that I am running different recovery and various features has been disabled, so I did not follow your advise yet, can you guide me in this matter also? the one I hace is CWM manger v3.60.
Further to that contacts I have backup but for the rest of my programs will Titanium Backup (not pro version) do for me to call back and restore all of it?
Waiting for you reply impatienly and thank you once more for your kindness
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Also I tried to download the lates version of CWM from this site but it is ttf format and I was not able to install it. As I mentioned I wanted to install on the existing one, as when I unistall a program from my phone and try to install another one it says old version exists and does not install it.
Once more thank you and wishing you a very Merry Xmas and great New Year
More help
Ghostfreak NB said:
Hoping you have a recovery mode called cwm, and are aware of it,
You can wipe cache and data
It would get your phone back in state as if it were out of the manufacturer's factory!
All apps you've installed would be wiped out
Sent from my MT11i using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you Please also consider my other questions and guide me accordingly, thank you and wishing you great New Year!
Use a higher version of cwm...I'm sure it would be floating around in xda
Also just do a factory reset from settings or flash a new rom that should solve the issue
And Use TB Pro ..(just a suggestion) much more useful and worth the price...That can restore app's data and app alone as you wish...
I was mucking around with Titanium Backup and froze (*not uninstalled) Blinkfeed. Unfortunately, this caused my phone to crash. Now it will not boot. I am able to get it into CWM recovery, but I never made a .zip to recover from and now I just feel stupid. Is there any way to recover this?
Am I able to do a factory reset in order to get the phone working again? (And also, will this remove my root) The data I'm not terribly concerned about. All important pictures have been backed up already and there are no documents that are dire. I just need a working phone.
Thank you for any help you can provide!
I would just put a rom zip onto a microSD and flash that.
Although I wouldn't have thought that freezing BlinkFeed would crash your phone and get it stuck in a bootloop, so what do I know?
Performed a factory reset and that doesn't seem to have fixed the problem.
I'm going to look into flashing a rom but that is something I haven't done before and I'm not too comfortable with it.
Do you have any suggestions? I just want to keep the standard stuff (what it was shipped with). I was mainly rooting to get rid of bloatware and have a bit more freedom.
EDIT: Rebooted a second time and the factory reset seems to have taken hold. I'm back at square one but it is far better than nothing.
EDIT2: Not quite back at square one as my backup through Titanium Backup still existed and I was able to utilize that. Lost some contacts, call history, and texts. That's all!
Glad to hear that you were able to fix it. If you ever need a stock Sense rom, I would recommend CleanRom. Watch out though, its really easy to become a flashaholic
i did the same thing : )
Dwight Caffery said:
Glad to hear that you were able to fix it. If you ever need a stock Sense rom, I would recommend CleanRom. Watch out though, its really easy to become a flashaholic
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
, but i actually did delete blinkfeed on the m8 verizon using titanium. screen went black. i can get into recovery mode, but no backup made yet because i havent decided on which rom i like best. i did a factory reset with no change after reboot. can i install a rom on my sd then use it to reboot my phone? please help. thanks in advance
S.Hash said:
, but i actually did delete blinkfeed on the m8 verizon using titanium. screen went black. i can get into recovery mode, but no backup made yet because i havent decided on which rom i like best. i did a factory reset with no change after reboot. can i install a rom on my sd then use it to reboot my phone? please help. thanks in advance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Or run the stock s-on ruu which doesn't wipe.