How to install a ROM on S-ON HTC devices

Recently, I posted a post about installing a ROM on all android devices except HTC S-ON devices. Every HTC device is S-ON by default but there are some exploits for certain phones that enable you to make them S-OFF (Security-off). This security actually prevents a kernel from being flashed through the recovery. For this reason, there is one added step while installing a ROM on S-ON devices. This tutorial is mostly similar to the previous one.

Before we get started, here are a few things you need to know.

1. Installing a new ROM requires a factory reset of your device. This deletes everything except user data files. Things you lose include user apps, contacts, messages, call log and saved WiFi passwords. On the other hand Gallery, Music, Downloaded items and files you can see in your file manager are not lost.
2. If you are installing an upgrade of your previously installed ROM, data wipe is not mandatory, unless the developer says so. Nevertheless, a data wipe is always recommended.
3. To backup data, you can use different apps. The simplest one you can use is Super Backup. For advanced users, I'd recommend Titanium Backup. This data can be restored after installing the app once the ROM has installed.
4. AOSP ROMs (Cyanogenmod, Android Open Kang Project and Paranoid Android) mostly do not have Google Apps included due to copyright issues. Google Apps or gapps are therefore separately downloaded and installed as a zip. You can downloaded the latest gapps for you ROM from here.

Here is what you need:

1. A custom ROM zip (and gapps, if required).
2. A rooted device with a custom recovery installed.
3. Android SDK (just adb and fastboot tools needed)

Here is how you install a new ROM:

1. Extract the ROM to yield the boot.img file from the zip. Transfer the ROM zip to your internal memory.
2. Put the boot.img file in the sdk tools folder.
3. Open command prompt and navigate to the sdk tools folder.
4. Connect your device with USB debugging on in developer tools.
5. Reboot the device into fastboot from the sdk with the command "adb reboot fastboot"
6. Once the phone has rebooted into fastboot, showing fastboot menu, flash the kernel with command "fastboot flash boot boot.img"
7. Once it has been flashed, reboot into recovery.
8. Once in recovery, select factory reset and confirm. Then wipe cache. Then go to advanced and wipe dalvik cache. This completes the wiping process.
9. Go back and select install zip. Select and install the custom ROM zip.
9a. Install the gapps zip, if applicable.
10. Reboot your device.

Congratulations, your new ROM is ready to use!

Applicable to (but not limited to):
1. HTC One X
2. HTC One
3. HTC One S
4. HTC Sensation (if S-ON).

How to install a new ROM (for all except S-ON HTC devices)

People always ask me how to install a new Android ROM onto their devices. This is very simple and I'll try my best to make it simpler. This tutorial assumes that your devices is rooted and you have a custom recovery (like Clockworkmod, TWRP or 4ext recovery) installed.

Before we get started, here are a few things you need to know.

1. Installing a new ROM requires a factory reset of your device. This deletes everything except user data files. Things you lose include user apps, contacts, messages, call log and saved WiFi passwords. On the other hand Gallery, Music, Downloaded items and files you can see in your file manager are not lost.
2. If you are installing an upgrade of your previously installed ROM, data wipe is not mandatory, unless the developer says so. Nevertheless, a data wipe is always recommended.
3. To backup data, you can use different apps. The simplest one you can use is Super Backup. For advanced users, I'd recommend Titanium Backup. This data can be restored after installing the app once the ROM has installed.
4. AOSP ROMs (Cyanogenmod, Android Open Kang Project and Paranoid Android) mostly do not have Google Apps included due to copyright issues. Google Apps or gapps are therefore separately downloaded and installed as a zip. You can downloaded the latest gapps for you ROM from here.

Here is what you need:

1. A custom ROM zip (and gapps, if required).
2. A rooted device with a custom recovery installed. This includes all devices except S-ON HTC devices. S-OFF HTC devices can use this method. For S-ON devices or to check which one are you, click here.

Here is how you install a new ROM:

1. Transfer the ROM to your internal memory. Internal memory is preferred because it is safer than an SD card because of a risk of corruption.
2. Boot your phone into recovery. Every device has its own way to boot into recovery which you can easily find out by googling it. If you can't find it, ask me.
3. Once in recovery, select factory reset and confirm. Then wipe cache. Then go to advanced and wipe dalvik cache. This completes the wiping process.
4. Go back and select install zip. Select and install the custom ROM zip.
4a. Install the gapps zip, if applicable.
5. Reboot your device.

Congratulations, your new ROM is ready to use!

Applicable to (but not limited to):
1. All Samsung Galaxy S devices.
2. All Samsung Galaxy Note devices.
3. Virtually all Samsung Galaxy devices.
4. HTC Sensation (if S-OFF).
5. All Nexus devices.

[Off-Topic] Solution to "Please insert correct map disc" {edit: link is dead}

I own a Toyota Vitz 2009 model which comes with an NDDN-W58 audio system installed. It was a great hassle to get it's stereo working if you get the error "Please insert correct map disc". I finally got it working so I thought I'd share how to get rid of this issue.
Firstly you need to know that there is no known way of changing the language of the stereo system. Also there is no way to be able to run DVD's while the car is moving either. This tutorial is only to get rid of the aforementioned issue.
Here's what you need to do:

1. T download the map disc image, go to http://dh16.com/27454228 (Google Chrome is recommended because this page is in Russian) [link is dead now, will refresh when I get time.]
2. Click Download in the "Free" column in the lower part of the page.
3. A page full of advertisements will open up and you need to click on one to continue.
4. After clicking on an ad, a countdown of 30 seconds will begin at the top which will end with the download link. Click on it.
5. Enter the captcha code on the download page and proceed with the download.
6. Extract the rar to yield the ISO file.
7. Burn the ISO file onto a blank DVD with a burning software at 4x (ImgBurn is recommended).
8. Once done, this will be your map disc.
9. Insert it into the Map Disc slot into your stereo.
10. Voila! The stereo works like a charm!

Feel free to ask about any confusion.

How to upgrade Samsung Galaxy S3 to Android 4.2.2

It's been a while since the official Jelly Bean 4.2.2 leaked for the Samsung Galaxy SIII and now I'd like to tell you how to upgrade your S3 to the latest official Android version.

What you need:
1. Odin (included in the download package below).
2. The official ROM.

How to upgrade:
1. Download both Odin and the ROM.
2. Boot your phone into download mode. (You can do this by holding Volume down, Home and Power keys till it takes you to download mode).
3. Select Continue.
4. Connect your phone to your PC.
5. Let all drivers install automatically. This will not work till all drivers are installed automatically.
6. Open Odin.
7. Add I9300XXUFME3_I9300OJKFME1_HOME.tar.md5 to PDA
8. Make sure re-partition is NOT ticked
9. Start flash, sit back and wait a few minutes.
10. It will boot automatically and you're good to go!

How to upgrade Samsung Wave GT-S8500

 
Today I have a Samsung Wave GT-S8500 on my hands. I am running Windows 8 and have the latest Samsung Kies installed. Still, I had a lot of trouble so I thought I'd share my experience. Here's what you need.

1. These drivers.
2. Multiloader v5.67
3. Bada update 1.2 for your country.
4. Bada update 2.0 for your country or the default one.

Note: You can donwload the updates from SamMobile.

After you have all the files and have installed the drivers, here is how to install an update:
0. Connect your phone in Download mode. To boot into download mode, turn it off, take out and reinsert the battery, keep pressing the volume down and camera button and turn it on with the power/ end call button (all three buttons should be pressed till you see the download mode).
1. Extract the relevant update.
2. Open Multiloader. It should show a COM port as ready. If it doesn't you are either not in download mode or you are missing drivers.
3. Select LSI.
4. Check Boot change and Full donwload.
5. Click Boot and select the BOOTFILES folder.
6. Click AMS and select amss.bin file that is located on your BOOTFILES folder and same goes to the following.
7. Click Apps and select apps_compressed.bin file.
8. Click Rsrc1 and select Rsrc_ Open_Europe_Common.rc1 file
9. Click Rsrc2 and select Rsrc2_ (Low/Mid).rc2 file
10. Click Factory FS and select FactoryFs_ Open_Europe_Slav.ffs file
11. Click CSC and select S8500XXXXX.csc file
12. Click SHP APP and select ShpApp.app file
13. Click FOTA and select .fota file
14. Click Download and wait for reboot.

You phone will reboot into the version of bada installed. Enjoy!

Note: If you use the Default Bada 2.0 given above, it boots into German language. To change the language, follow these steps-
Einstellungen> Allgemein> Sprache> Anzeige> English> Ja

ADB and Fastboot drivers

One of the major problems in getting your Android development going is getting your drivers to work, especially on Windows 7 and Windows 8. Here is a set of drivers for this particular purpose. Go to device manager, right click on any of your devices that is not installed correctly and click update driver. Then manually direct the path to this folder, Windows will automatically detect the driver. If it warns you about the driver not being signed, install it anyway. This is particularly hard on Windows 8 in which installing unsigned drivers is a drag. You can google that if you're running Windows 8.

Download here.

Note that these drivers are actually for Nexus devices (LG Nexus 4, Samsung Galaxy Nexus and Samsung Nexus S) but they ought to work with virtually any Android device.

Comment below if you need any help.

How to root Samsung Galaxy S T959 (Vibrant)

Today I had the chance to root and upgrade a Samsung Vibrant, which is the T-Mobile version of the Samsung Galaxy S. It originally runs 2.1 Eclair but can be upgraded to 2.2 Froyo via Kies.

The trouble with Vibrant is that it cannot be rooted if it is running Froyo. First, it has to be downgraded to Eclair via Odin, and then can you apply the root update file. I wasn't even able to root it via the universal root tutorial.

For the sake of others, I will now list the steps of rooting the Samsung Vibrant in case it is running 2.2 Froyo.

1. Download Odin, this PIT file and this tar of the Stock 2.1 Eclair.
2. Put the phone into download mode. The best way to do that is to turn off the phone and reinsert the battery. Then press both volume up and down and connect the USB cable while holding them.
3. Let all the drivers install. This won't work till all the drivers are automatically installed.
4. Open Odin. You should see a COM port connected and colored yellow.
5. Select the PIT file, and put the tar file in PDA.
6. Re-partition will be checked and that's okay.
7. Click start.
8. Ideally, it should start and complete in about 5 minutes. (If it hangs or gets stuck at setting up connection, try again with different ports. For me, it didn't work for quite some time. Then I tried to restart the phone but it showed the triangle of death [a phone and a computer with a yellow triangle in between]. But when I tried it again with that screen, Odin worked the first time.)
9. When booted into Eclair, enable USB debugging from Applications> Development.
10. Copy this update.zip to the INTERNAL MEMORY. This file will root the phone and install Superuser and BusyBox.
11. Also copy this update.zip to the INTERNAL MEMORY. This file will install Clockworkmod Recovery. Obviously both files should be applied separately because at a time only one file named update.zip can be placed.
12. To install an update, boot into the recovery. To do that, turn off your phone and then turn it on by holding the volume down and power buttons. In the stock recovery, select "reinstall packages".
13. Repeat above step with Clockworkmod Recovery update.zip

Congratulations, you now have a rooted Samsung Galaxy S Vibrant T959! Feel free to flash new ROMs!

Source

Dual boot your Samsung Galaxy S3

If you own a Samsung Galaxy S3 and have also used AOSP ROMs, you'd know the awesomeness of both TouchWiz and AOSP ROMs (cyanogenmod, AOKP etc). The vanilla experience of AOSP and the goodies of Samsung's TouchWiz are both very tempting and it's very difficult to choose between the two. For this reason, XDA Elite Developer gokhanmoral has made a new kernel (SiyahKernel) with a custom recovery which enables you to dual boot your i9300 and enjoy both flavors.
Before we start, here are a few things to keep in mind:

• Always make a nandroid backup in case anything goes wrong.
• The kernel only supports TouchWiz and AOSP Jelly Bean ROMs (Any Ice Cream Sandwich or MIUI ROM is NOT supported) [Update: The latest build from MIUIAndroid is supported. Tested and working.]
• Keep a backup kernel and recovery to flash, just in case you're not happy with Siyah.

Let's get started. Firstly, download the latest SiyahKernel from the developer's website. Transfer the ZIP to your phone and flash it through recovery. Reboot into your primary ROM and find the app STweaks. If it hasn't appeared, download it from Play Store for free. In STweaks, go to Dual Boot options and click "Hijack Recovery". Reboot into recovery.

In Siyah recovery, follow these steps:
Dual boot options.

• Format 2nd ROM data, wipe cache, wipe dalvik cache.
• Install 2nd ROM from (location)
• Flash gapps
• Flash SiyahKernel again to 2nd ROM
• Reboot.

Once you've rebooted, you'll find that to reboot into the secondary ROM, you have to press the Home or Volume down key while it's booting. You can also boot into the 2nd ROM from STweaks. Another useful feature of STweaks is the slide2wake option, it is really awesome.
Enjoy!
Source