[Tut] Preparing Your One X for Custom Roms (For Dummies)

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Alex240188

Senior Member
May 4, 2010
1,131
739
Hull
There seems to be a lot of confusion in the air around either how to unlock your bootloader or how to install a new recovery.
I am writing this as a very easy step by step guide to do all the things necessary to get your new HTC One X ready to accept some custom fun so here goes nothing

Unlocking Your Bootloader

Words of warning - unlocking your boot loader will wipe your data partition
Things you have put on your internal memory will be fine but all of your apps etc will be gone.

Before we can even think about doing anything the first port of call is unlocking your bootloader.
As of the time of writing this there is currently no S-OFF method available so this is the only method of flashing a new recovery or boot image.
I'm going to keep this as simple as possible

1. Go Here "http://www.htcdev.com/" and create yourself an account on HTCDEV.
2. Download These Fastboot Files
3. Make a new folder on your C: drive called fastboot.
4. Extract The Zip downloaded in step 2 to the new folder
5. Go Here http://www.htcdev.com/bootloader/ and select "All Other Supported Models" and "then begin unlock bootloader"
6. Yes, Tick both Boxes, Proceed
7. Skip up to step 8 as we have all we need for the first 7 steps
8. Power off your phone by holding the power button down for 10 seconds
9. Power your phone on by holding power and volume down
8. Highlight Fastboot With Volume+or- then press Power
9. plug your phone into your PC and open a Command Prompt.
(windows XP - Click Start > Run > type CMD in box then press OK
(Windows 7 - Click Start > type CMD in search box then press Enter)
10. cd to your folder where we put fastboot files cd c:\fastboot
11. type this into your command prompt window fastboot oem get_identifier_token
12. select & copy the text as per step 9 on the HTCDev website
13. paste your identifier token into the box at the bottom and submit
You Will Very Shortly Receive an email from HTCDev with a link to the second part of the instructions and your "Unlock_code.bin" attached
14. download the "Unlock_code.bin" from the email and save it to the same folder that we extracted fastboot files to in step 2
15. type this into your command prompt window fastboot flash unlocktoken Unlock_code.bin
16. The Display Will change on your phone, press Vol + to accept and power to confirm.
Note you may get an error on screen or on your cmd window (cant remember which now) that says something about too many links. It is nothing to worry about and your bootloader will still unlock
Congratulations You Have Successfully Unlocked Your Bootloader



Now to the good stuff

Installing A Recovery

This one is very simple to do once you have your bootloader unlocked.
A thing to note; at present there is no USB-Mass Storage in recovery so if you are planning to install a custom rom i would get it put on the internal memory of your phone now rather than messing things up later and been unable to install it

(if you have follwed my unlocking guide skip to step 4)
1. Download These Fastboot Files
2. Make a new folder on your C: drive called fastboot.
3. Extract The Zip downloaded in step 1 to the new folder
4. The Official Version of CWM has been released and is now capable of flashing all roms, you can grab it HERE
5. download the custom recovery and save it in the same folder as you did the fastboot files
6. Power Phone Off by Holding power button for 10 secs
7. select Fastboot with volume + or - then press power
8. plug your phone into your PC and open a Command Prompt.
(windows XP - Click Start > Run > type CMD in box then press OK
(Windows 7 - Click Start > type CMD in search box then press Enter)
9. cd to your fastboot files folder cd c:\fastboot
10. type in your command prompt fastboot flash recovery name_of_recovery_image.img
in my case it was fastboot flash recovery recovery-clockwork-touch-5.8.2.7-endeavoru.img

Congratulations you now have a custom recovery

power off the phone by holding power for 10 seconds
power on the phone holding power+volumer down
choose recovery with volume +/- then power to select

You are now on your custom recovery
First Thing - Do A Nandroid Backup Of Your Current Rom In Case anything bad happens

Make sure you already have your new rom on your internal memory as you cannot enable mass storage in the current recovery builds.

Wipe then Flash your new Custom Rom

Or you can download the latest SuperSU binaries from HERE and install them Via Recovery to just root the stock rom

Hope this helps some of you
 
Last edited:

Alex240188

Senior Member
May 4, 2010
1,131
739
Hull
Thx !
Wasted a lot of time yesterday downloading entire Java, SDK, for a 2 minutes job...
Your package seems great !

to be fair i dont even think we need the 2 adb files in the package i uploaded as we are only using fastboot however the htcdev website said to have them so may aswell include it, only a small download
 

zaranoa

Member
Apr 6, 2010
12
1
Thank you you helped me a lot with such
A geest device:thumbup::thumbup:
Sent from my HTC One X using xda premium
 

777ace

Senior Member
Mar 1, 2011
511
75
Cairns
It was exactly what I was searching for... Thanks a lot ;)

+1!! It's easy once someone spells it out, lol.

Question (and I know it's probably been discussed elsewhere, but clearly I've only just noticed it), with this issue with not being able to enable mass storage...does this mean that once I've chosen a particular ROM, placed it onto SD and unlocked/flashed recovery, I won't be able to flash another different ROM? Can I not just flash through fastboot??
 

f4flake

Senior Member
Jan 6, 2009
227
102
Is it worth collating the oem get_identifier_token calls and responses? As there may be an obvious correlation whereby HTVDev can be bypassed or the process simplified.
 

Alex240188

Senior Member
May 4, 2010
1,131
739
Hull
+1!! It's easy once someone spells it out, lol.

Question (and I know it's probably been discussed elsewhere, but clearly I've only just noticed it), with this issue with not being able to enable mass storage...does this mean that once I've chosen a particular ROM, placed it onto SD and unlocked/flashed recovery, I won't be able to flash another different ROM? Can I not just flash through fastboot??

If the dev has released a set of fastboot images then you can install them through fastboot.
You can change roms as you still have USB mode in the custom Rom you have, the only real problem comes if you format your system partition and then realise you don't have a Rom to install on the sdcard, at this point you can't get to a position where you can put a new zip on so you would have to do the ruu and start from scratch

It's only when in the recovery that USB doesn't work, as soon as you flash your new Rom and boot it you can use USB as normal

Sent from my HTC One X using XDA
 
Last edited:
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aussie1234

Senior Member
Dec 24, 2008
593
118
Australia
Excellent

Hi

Thank you for taking the time to put this together.

I think your tutorial will save many people much sweat!!

Plus it will help reduce the "I've bricked my phone" threads also!!

Cheers

Aussie :)
 

Alex240188

Senior Member
May 4, 2010
1,131
739
Hull
Is it worth collating the oem get_identifier_token calls and responses? As there may be an obvious correlation whereby HTVDev can be bypassed or the process simplified.

It's highly unlikely that we will be able to learn anything by the identifier tokens, if anything is to be learned it would be finding what link your own identifier token has to the unlock_code.bin that they send you in the email, but we will probably never know

Sent from my HTC One X using XDA
 

DrPlumEU

Senior Member
Nov 13, 2010
121
9
London
Great set of instructions.

Really looking forward to getting new HOX now ;-)

Sent from my A500 using XDA Premium HD app
 

kedirakevo

Senior Member
Jan 12, 2011
164
7
I cant download the boot file as modacos website catchpa image isnt working for me... any help here?
 

drizztzou

Senior Member
Apr 17, 2008
274
38
Shenzhen
When I do the process of unlock from htcdev, I got this error:

Error Code: 122.
Error Reason: Email cannot be sent.

Anyone can help?
 
Last edited:

Petteri

Senior Member
Nov 30, 2009
785
237
München
chinamobiles.org
Same error Message for me, but it seems to be an error by HTCdevs Email sending like you see, i done same with my Sensation XL before 2 months and it works. Surely HTCdevs have any issues by sending mails from their system! Hope thats not generally when ONE X has Software: 1.26.401.2

But cool TUT! I`m impressed! :rolleyes:
 
Last edited:

RJ200X

Senior Member
Jun 25, 2010
87
2
I have 1.26.707.4 getting the same 122 error interspersed with site unavailable. I think something is wrong on htcdev at the moment
 

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  • 276
    There seems to be a lot of confusion in the air around either how to unlock your bootloader or how to install a new recovery.
    I am writing this as a very easy step by step guide to do all the things necessary to get your new HTC One X ready to accept some custom fun so here goes nothing

    Unlocking Your Bootloader

    Words of warning - unlocking your boot loader will wipe your data partition
    Things you have put on your internal memory will be fine but all of your apps etc will be gone.

    Before we can even think about doing anything the first port of call is unlocking your bootloader.
    As of the time of writing this there is currently no S-OFF method available so this is the only method of flashing a new recovery or boot image.
    I'm going to keep this as simple as possible

    1. Go Here "http://www.htcdev.com/" and create yourself an account on HTCDEV.
    2. Download These Fastboot Files
    3. Make a new folder on your C: drive called fastboot.
    4. Extract The Zip downloaded in step 2 to the new folder
    5. Go Here http://www.htcdev.com/bootloader/ and select "All Other Supported Models" and "then begin unlock bootloader"
    6. Yes, Tick both Boxes, Proceed
    7. Skip up to step 8 as we have all we need for the first 7 steps
    8. Power off your phone by holding the power button down for 10 seconds
    9. Power your phone on by holding power and volume down
    8. Highlight Fastboot With Volume+or- then press Power
    9. plug your phone into your PC and open a Command Prompt.
    (windows XP - Click Start > Run > type CMD in box then press OK
    (Windows 7 - Click Start > type CMD in search box then press Enter)
    10. cd to your folder where we put fastboot files cd c:\fastboot
    11. type this into your command prompt window fastboot oem get_identifier_token
    12. select & copy the text as per step 9 on the HTCDev website
    13. paste your identifier token into the box at the bottom and submit
    You Will Very Shortly Receive an email from HTCDev with a link to the second part of the instructions and your "Unlock_code.bin" attached
    14. download the "Unlock_code.bin" from the email and save it to the same folder that we extracted fastboot files to in step 2
    15. type this into your command prompt window fastboot flash unlocktoken Unlock_code.bin
    16. The Display Will change on your phone, press Vol + to accept and power to confirm.
    Note you may get an error on screen or on your cmd window (cant remember which now) that says something about too many links. It is nothing to worry about and your bootloader will still unlock
    Congratulations You Have Successfully Unlocked Your Bootloader



    Now to the good stuff

    Installing A Recovery

    This one is very simple to do once you have your bootloader unlocked.
    A thing to note; at present there is no USB-Mass Storage in recovery so if you are planning to install a custom rom i would get it put on the internal memory of your phone now rather than messing things up later and been unable to install it

    (if you have follwed my unlocking guide skip to step 4)
    1. Download These Fastboot Files
    2. Make a new folder on your C: drive called fastboot.
    3. Extract The Zip downloaded in step 1 to the new folder
    4. The Official Version of CWM has been released and is now capable of flashing all roms, you can grab it HERE
    5. download the custom recovery and save it in the same folder as you did the fastboot files
    6. Power Phone Off by Holding power button for 10 secs
    7. select Fastboot with volume + or - then press power
    8. plug your phone into your PC and open a Command Prompt.
    (windows XP - Click Start > Run > type CMD in box then press OK
    (Windows 7 - Click Start > type CMD in search box then press Enter)
    9. cd to your fastboot files folder cd c:\fastboot
    10. type in your command prompt fastboot flash recovery name_of_recovery_image.img
    in my case it was fastboot flash recovery recovery-clockwork-touch-5.8.2.7-endeavoru.img

    Congratulations you now have a custom recovery

    power off the phone by holding power for 10 seconds
    power on the phone holding power+volumer down
    choose recovery with volume +/- then power to select

    You are now on your custom recovery
    First Thing - Do A Nandroid Backup Of Your Current Rom In Case anything bad happens

    Make sure you already have your new rom on your internal memory as you cannot enable mass storage in the current recovery builds.

    Wipe then Flash your new Custom Rom

    Or you can download the latest SuperSU binaries from HERE and install them Via Recovery to just root the stock rom

    Hope this helps some of you
    4
    Any idea why we can't root One X (Tegra 3) without HTCdev.com or when we will be able to (raught estimation)?

    Thanks

    Sent from my HTC One X using xda premium

    I would assume it's because nobody has found an exploit in the tegra architecture yet. I know Paul is working on it.
    Other processors like the Qualcomm used in the HTC one xl still have the same exploits from years ago so there's are easily cracked. Patience is virtue and root without unlocking will come eventually

    Sent from my HTC One X using xda app-developers app
    3
    Official Clockwork Mod has been updated and device.id now reports correctly meaning you can use it to flash all custom roms now, guide updated for new recovery

    for those just wanting to update download the latest version from HERE

    copy to the fastboot folder
    open a CMD window up and cd to the directory cd c:\fastboot
    run fastboot flash recovery recovery-clockwork-touch-5.8.2.7-endeavoru.img
    power off by holding power for 10 secs
    power on holding power + volume down
    select recovery with vol down
    press power to reboot to new CWM
    1
    Thx !
    Wasted a lot of time yesterday downloading entire Java, SDK, for a 2 minutes job...
    Your package seems great !
    1
    Hi, I'm thinking of unlocking boot loader on my One X (Tegra 3, International). Can someone please tell me if instruction on OP is still the best way to do this or is there a better solution?

    Many thanks,

    Sent from my Desire HD using xda premium

    Try unlocking on HTC Dev website.
    They will send you the unlock.bin file.
    you put the unlock.bin into the fastboot folder


    Boot into fastboot and type :

    fastboot oem unlock

    unlock bootloader site:http://www.htcdev.com/bootloader
    For fastboot use this :http://d-h.st/K52

    Good Luck!