[Video Tutorial] Noob Proof Everything Desire Guide UPDATED [04/04/11][Video Tut]

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LINKSLOVESANDROID

Senior Member
Dec 7, 2010
1,219
976
37
Timmins, Ont
Hello All! sorry ive been away on a wonderful voyage with my magical desire hd! then in august ill b hoping on a sensation. im sorry 4 lacking updates on this thread friends! i see its still being used and highly loved by the site. so ive decided maybe its time i pass this thread to another dedicated user whos willing to put down some time to update it. if any1 is interested, plz msg me. as much as i love the thank you button being clicked, id perfer to make all u dedicated desire users happy. so plz if any1 is interested, plz msg me
 
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drmulchandani

Member
Aug 3, 2007
15
3
Bombay
Noob question.
Do we partition the sd card i.e phone memory or the ext sd card.
Also once this is done, is the rom meant to be placed at root sd or sd ext?
I have already done the rooting and s-off.
Waiting to flash....
Sorry if this doesn't belong here!
 

markdexter

Senior Member
Oct 24, 2010
1,178
299
I have owned a HTC magic rooted it and done the whole custom ROM thing, recently got a Samsung Captivate, the same thing Rooted.
Last night got a HTC Desire for a 'very' good price, and used this Tutorial, I must say Hats off to you Sir, an amasing Tutorial, it couldn't have been any easier, every other Thread in XDA should take a look at this.

Thank you so much
 

bortak

Senior Member
Sep 28, 2010
2,331
885
London
Quick question:

I flashed a new radio (5.14.05.17) on my desire, does that matter when installing my stock RUU? (I had 5.11.05.27 before) or Would I need to downgrade the radio?
 
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danarama

Senior Member
Aug 22, 2010
31,277
18,811
Oxenhope, West Yorkshire, UK
Quick question:

I flashed a new radio (5.14.05.17) on my desire, does that matter when installing my stock RUU? (I had 5.11.05.27 before) or Would I need to downgrade the radio?

RUU's return the device completely to stock. This means it flashes NAND, recovery, Hboot and Radio. Whatever Radio is in the RUU filename is what radio will get flashed when using the RUU
 
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salahzantout

Senior Member
Jun 10, 2011
200
9
The 1GB is supposed to be used for apps. What rom are you using It should be an a2sd+ rom.

first thanks for replying

second, i have CM7 ROM, the same one u put in the tutorial and eeven have flashed, everything is working perfectly but the ext4 partition is killing me its not even being used, but i must mention that i put the install location to external ( assuming it to install on sd card )

however everytime i click on move to sd card they go to the fat32 partition

finally, i read ur faq, as u stated i now put the install location to internal, and ive checked info system and the a2sd is there and the free is less than the total..., but unfortunately its barely used... i assume that was because i changed the installation loccation to external right ??

and at last, from now on after i followed ur steps... will every app - even from market - get installed on the ext4 partition ?? and is there any recommendations u might add for that ?? and how will the real internal memory - the one provided by htc - be used ? will it stay the same since all apps will get installed on ext4 partition ?

ps : its the first time i flash a rom and great thanks to u ur tutorials have helped alot
 
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danarama

Senior Member
Aug 22, 2010
31,277
18,811
Oxenhope, West Yorkshire, UK
first thanks for replying

second, i have CM7 ROM, the same one u put in the tutorial and eeven have flashed, everything is working perfectly but the ext4 partition is killing me its not even being used, but i must mention that i put the install location to external ( assuming it to install on sd card )

however everytime i click on move to sd card they go to the fat32 partition

finally, i read ur faq, as u stated i now put the install location to internal, and ive checked info system and the a2sd is there and the free is less than the total..., but unfortunately its barely used... i assume that was because i changed the installation loccation to external right ??

and at last, from now on after i followed ur steps... will every app - even from market - get installed on the ext4 partition ?? and is there any recommendations u might add for that ?? and how will the real internal memory - the one provided by htc - be used ? will it stay the same since all apps will get installed on ext4 partition ?

ps : its the first time i flash a rom and great thanks to u ur tutorials have helped alot

Download simple2ext from the market. Use it to use the ext for apps and dalvik cache


Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
 

1234556789

Senior Member
Aug 20, 2008
372
3
Hello !
I had the following problem: the desire always boot in Fastboot.
I tried both : Bootscreen ( Hboot 093 s-on-rom clockmod 2507rcmix2.0)
Fastboot( at the top of screen) is coloured red.
and h-Boot coloured blue.
Both times boot need 5 seconds and only if i put out batterie it needs more.
-Whats wrong ?

Found it for myself ( settings/power /fastboot)

kind regards
gandalf
 
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salahzantout

Senior Member
Jun 10, 2011
200
9
Download simple2ext from the market. Use it to use the ext for apps and dalvik cache

thank u, i did it and it worked but ofcourse after reflashing cm7 again,
i hope u try modifying ur discussion board by adding this, it would be great for others to know, because without this partitioning ext4 wouldnt be that efficient
 

clads

Member
Feb 26, 2007
14
0
Very usefull thank you so much, best tut' ever :)

(I've flashed my desire with insertcoin's rom, all work perfectly !)
 

turshija

Senior Member
Dec 17, 2009
66
14
Novi Sad
www.gametracker.rs
Hello,
first of all, great tutorial, I've watched all the videos and read everything.
Just before I start, I would like to ask few things:

1. I've already rooted my Desire using UnRevoked method few months ago, now I can just continue from step 4 (S-OFF) without any problems ?

2. in the step 1, I can't find my version of RUU, is that really necessary ? Since I don't have any provider warranty, etc so If something goes wrong with my phone, I don't have to unroot it and hide evidence that I've played with it etc, I'll just take it to random service and pay for the repair :)

3. the thing that bugs me the most:
you didn't mention anything about Radio update ?
in step 7 video (where you install cyanogenmod 7), you just put cyanogenmod file on SD card and flash it, and thats it ?
but in the cyanogenmod thread I see this:
Code:
3. Update your radio! New radio from HTC 2.2+ roms is required
as I can see, my current radio is 5.09.05.30_2, is that enough or I have to update it ?
I didn't find any Linux version of "how to flash radio", only windows version here, can anyone point me the link ?

3.1 How risky is radio update ?

3.2 Do I need some particular version, or the newest should work just fine ?

Kindly waiting for a response and I'm ready to start with everything :)

4. about the step 5 (partitioning SD card) I have only 2GB SD, and I'm planning to buy bigger one these days, so what will I have to do when I upgrade to new card ?
Should I partition it like this again ? What will be stored on this ext4 partition in the meantime ? Only apps that I move with app2sd, or system will store some vital files there also which I will have to transfer manually ?
 
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danarama

Senior Member
Aug 22, 2010
31,277
18,811
Oxenhope, West Yorkshire, UK
Hello,
first of all, great tutorial, I've watched all the videos and read everything.
Just before I start, I would like to ask few things:

1. I've already rooted my Desire using UnRevoked method few months ago, now I can just continue from step 4 (S-OFF) without any problems ?

2. in the step 1, I can't find my version of RUU, is that really necessary ? Since I don't have any provider warranty, etc so If something goes wrong with my phone, I don't have to unroot it and hide evidence that I've played with it etc, I'll just take it to random service and pay for the repair :)

3. the thing that bugs me the most:
you didn't mention anything about Radio update ?
in step 7 video (where you install cyanogenmod 7), you just put cyanogenmod file on SD card and flash it, and thats it ?
but in the cyanogenmod thread I see this:
Code:
3. Update your radio! New radio from HTC 2.2+ roms is required
as I can see, my current radio is 5.09.05.30_2, is that enough or I have to update it ?
I didn't find any Linux version of "how to flash radio", only windows version here, can anyone point me the link ?

3.1 How risky is radio update ?

3.2 Do I need some particular version, or the newest should work just fine ?

Kindly waiting for a response and I'm ready to start with everything :)

4. about the step 5 (partitioning SD card) I have only 2GB SD, and I'm planning to buy bigger one these days, so what will I have to do when I upgrade to new card ?
Should I partition it like this again ? What will be stored on this ext4 partition in the meantime ? Only apps that I move with app2sd, or system will store some vital files there also which I will have to transfer manually ?

1. Yes

2. You would have HTC warranty for 2 years providing you have an RUU. If you're not bothered about warranty, dont worry. Ensure you have a goldcard as RUU's are sometimes neccessary for recovery purposes.

3. If your phone had official 2.2 on it, then your radio is sufficient. No need to change it.

3.1 it can be risky. Radio is in NVRAM which is not very accessible. If you flash a bad one, you risk a BRICK. One thing to do is check MD5 of the radio once downloaded. If it matches the file is safe. Then you just have to ensure you dont lose power during the flash. If you're S-off though, you will be fastboot flashing (Do not use recovery if S-off) which also means you need to ensure that you do not break usb connection during the flash. My advice, if everything works, leave the radio alone. However I dont want to scare you. Ive flashed countless radios with no issue. Just be careful you do your checklist first


3.2 Its just what works for you.

4. If you chose a rom with a2sd+, all your apps (/data/app) will be symlinked (moved) to /sd-ext/data/app and possibly /data/dalvik-cache/ will be linked to /sd-ext/data/dalvik-cache/.

Partition the new card how you like. If you are using Clockwork recovery 2.5.0.7 or newer or AmonRA 2.0.1 or newer, best thing is:

1) Nandroid backup
2) Copy SD FAT32 partition (including hidden files) to PC
3) Partition new card ( I recommend Gparted personally)
4) Copy PC data back to FAT32
5) Nandroid restore.

Nandroid on the recovery versions mention ed backs up the EXT so all your apps will be restored on the new card.
 
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turshija

Senior Member
Dec 17, 2009
66
14
Novi Sad
www.gametracker.rs
Many thanks for an excellent reply :)
I've flashed CyanogenMod 7 on my phone, didn't touch Radio and everything works just fine :)
From my small SD (2gb) I've made 256MB ext4, and left the rest as FAT32.. ;)
Now what is the procedure if I decide to switch back to other ROM ?
Is it the same as installing CM7 ?
Just put the ROM zip on SD card, wipe all my data and flash it from recovery ?
 

Arkasius

Member
Aug 23, 2010
39
1
Dokkum
Thank you for this guide.
I have my first android phone and it happens to be a HTC Desire and this was really a nubbins guide to flashing this phone.

Once again Thank you very much.
 

knudsen19

Senior Member
Mar 22, 2010
93
2
Randers
1. succes, 2. not so much :(

First off, many thanks for this amazing guide, followed it to root my first Desire gsm, which unfortunatly got stolen. Now trying to follow it on my second, but I get stuck at pt. 3, trying to S-off it with Alpharev 1.8. It finds my device, but says it can't identify it as a supported device. My device is rooted, however I'm still official RUU, no custom Rom and Hboot is 0.93 - I can't find any answer anywhere how to get Alpharev to reconize my device as a supported, since it is! :(

Any help is much appriciated.
 
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danarama

Senior Member
Aug 22, 2010
31,277
18,811
Oxenhope, West Yorkshire, UK
First off, many thanks for this amazing guide, followed it to root my first Desire gsm, which unfortunatly got stolen. Now trying to follow it on my second, but I get stuck at pt. 3, trying to S-off it with Alpharev 1.8. It finds my device, but says it can't identify it as a supported device. My device is rooted, however I'm still official RUU, no custom Rom and Hboot is 0.93 - I can't find any answer anywhere how to get Alpharev to reconize my device as a supported, since it is! :(

Any help is much appriciated.

Assume you're using the same USB cable and USB port as before?
 

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    ****UPDATED*****
    04/04/11 - Added Gingersense Roms to Step 7

    20,000 Views!!!

    Hello XDA and community. I've compiled a complete walkthrough to root, s-off, and flash a custom rom on your GSM HTC Desire. This guide was created with NOOBS in mind so please follow along.

    ***This method only works for users with hboot 0.93 and lower. Sorry 1.06 users, but until unrevoked updates, your stuck on stock htc***

    To check your hboot, turn off your phone. Hold volume down and press power while continuing to hold volume down. A white screen should load with alot of information on it. The 2nd line will have your hboot version.
    HBOOT-USB-PLUG-Desire.JPG


    ***I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE IF YOU BRICK YOUR DEVICE***

    Table of Contents

    Step One - Service Provider RUU roms
    Step Two - Root Preparations
    Step Three - How To Root Your Device
    Step Four - How To S-Off Your Device
    Step Five - How To Partition Your Sd Card
    Step Six - How To Nandroid Backup
    Step Seven - How To Flash a Custom Rom
    Step Eight - Optional Extras


    The 1st thing im going to teach you about is your service providers RUU rom. This is not nessesary for the rooting procedure, but nessesary if you have problems or need to send your phone in for repair. So lets be safe and download it before hand.


    STEP ONE - Download Your Providers RUU rom

    A RUU rom is the stock rom your provider had preinstalled in your desire. The reason for downloading is just incase you have problems, you can always reflash the RUU back to the factory default. Your providers RUU rom will erase your root, s-off, apps, contacts, sms messages, and call history. The RUU will not touch anything you have saved to your sdcard such as music, photos, or videos.

    Now on your phone, goto settings>about phone>software then look for your baseband version and build version. Use that information to find your RUU file here:

    http://shipped-roms.com/shipped/Bravo/ and here: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=695667

    Once you have your RUU file downloaded, store it in a safe place on your pc. Now im going to show a video of me flashing my providers stock RUU. You do not need to do this, im only shooting this to showcase to new comers that its easy to erase root and return to your providers stable sense 2.2.

    ******PLZ NOTE YOU DO NOT HAVE TO PERFORM A RUU FLASH, I ONLY DID ONE TO SHOWCASE HOW EASY IT IS TO REMOVE ROOT ACCESS AND FEATURES ******


    Watch this video showcasing how to flash the RUU if you ever need too:


    I created part one strickly because I understand how difficult it can be when you want root access but your afraid of the repercussions.

    Now that you understand how todo a emergency reflash, lets prepare your phone and computer so they can transmit the root through hboot

    STEP TWO - Root Preparations

    First things first, download and install HTC sync which can be found at: http://www.htc.com
    After its completely installed, open control panel then goto programs and features. Look for HTC sync and uninstall it. But leave the drivers. DO NOT UNINSTALL ANYTHING OTHER THEN HTC SYNC. The drivers are needed to connect your phone in hboot mode. Next, Your going to have to flash a modifed usb driver so you can transmit the root through hboot mode. i was going todo a video for this section but i found this tutorial could showcase what you need todo alot clearer then i could with a video. So just click the following link and continue following along

    http://unrevoked.com/rootwiki/doku.php/public/windows_hboot_driver_install

    After youve updated the usb hboot driver, its time to prepare your phone. First thing we are going todo is turn on usb debugging. Goto settings>applications>development>usb debugging and turn this feature on. It allows your phone and pc to have a conversation and exchange information with one another. Next, click your back button so your at settings>applications and make sure unknown sources is also turned on. At this point, you should reset your phone and reset your computer. Now that youve prepared your phone and pc to communicate through hboot mode, your ready to use unrevoked to root your phone

    STEP THREE - Rooting Your Device Using Unrevoked

    Now that your ready fto flash root access, download Unrevoked3 here: http://unrevoked.com/recovery/

    Unrevoked is the program used to flash superuser, busybox, and clockwork recovery into your phone. Once downloaded, hook your phone up to your computer and when it asks you what kind of connection you'd like, click charge only and dont ask me again.

    Heres a video to showcase the installation. Just follow along:


    After youve successfully rooted your device, youve opened your device to most but not all features your device is capable of doing. You now have to S-off using alpharev to fully unlock the power of android.

    STEP FOUR - S-Off Precedure With Alpharev

    HTC created a new security feature they have implemented into the majority of there phones which blocks the ability to really tweak the phones internal features like your splash screen, boot animations, changing the size of system partitions, etc. You must create a way to bypass the security system which can be done with alpharev s-off procedure.
    First thing were gonna do is download the alpharev hboot reflash utility from: http://alpharev.nl/
    Once you have this file downloaded, you have to burn it with an iso burning program or place it on a usb drive. I perfer the disc as i have so many laying around. I Used Magic Iso to burn the boot disc which can be found here http://www.magiciso.com/download.htm
    Once you have magiciso installed, all u have to do is open it, then click the "Burn dvd/cd with iso" then click the alpharev iso, then burn it.

    Once you have your alpharev s-off disc in hand, you must setup your pc so it reads boot discs before it reads windows on your hard drive. To do this, restart your pc. When your pc restarts, it will have a screen with your manufacturers logo. In one of these corners it will say something like "press F5 for setup." press the required button your specific computer asks for and it will bring your too a menu like this:

    vmware-player-bios-boot-menu.png


    Your computer will start the boot sequence from the top of the list. So you want to move your cd/dvd drive above your hdd in the boot list. once youve moved it above your hdd, save the changes and close the setup menu. Below is a video of the S-off precedure starting from where the text ended.


    After youve successfully s-offed your device, its time to partition your sdcard.

    STEP FIVE - Partitioning Your Sd Card With Gparted

    A majority of custom roms today come with a feature called "App2sd". This feature allows movement of most applications to your sd card to save valuable system space which is definately needed for a device with such a small amount of room for applications [131mbs] as the desire. To set this feature up, you must first partition your sd card using a program called "Gparted". You can download this program here: http://gparted.sourceforge.net/download.php

    After youve downloaded the file, you must burn it in the same method as you burned alpharev. Again, use magiciso to burn a boot disc you can use to bootup when you turn on your pc. Follow along with this video:



    STEP SIX - Stock Nandroid Backup
    After youve successfully partitioned your sd card, youve got to make a stock nandroid backup just incase you have an issue with a rom you decided to try.
    Watch this video for instructions:



    Now that youve made a backup of your stock rom, your ready to flash a custom rom

    STEP SEVEN - Flashing A Custom Rom

    Now that your ready to flash a custom rom, you have quite afew choices. But after many months of testing, im going to post my personal favorites of each type.

    First, we have sense roms. Sense roms are the same as the stock htc rom butwith tweaks and modifications. My personal favorite sense rom is Leedroid which can be found here: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=768703

    htcsense.png


    Second, we have sense hd roms. sense hd roms are roms pulled from the desire hd. There basically the same as sense roms except they give you extra features like flipclock, the porsonalize button, skins, etc. These are my second favorite type of rom. And my personal favorite sense hd rom is Cool Sense Hd which can be found here: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=899943

    DesireHDscreenshotskins.jpg


    UPDATE- Third, We Have Gingersense roms. Gingersense is a sense hd rom updated to googles gingerbread 2.3.x. So youll have all the greatness of a sense hd rom with the additions of gingerbread like notification settings, a new app drawer etc. These roms are amazing but still in development stages and lack specific features like camera and a proper 3d graphics lib. My personal favorite is Robo's RCMixS which can be found here: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=988570

    dd83cf5.jpg
    image16.png


    Fourth, we have ASOP roms. These are the stock google roms. They are pritty bare minimum roms but incredible in the speed department. These are my favorite type of rom. And my personal favorite of the bunch is Cyanogen Mod 7 which can be found here: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=957344

    9bd71_139410-Gingerbread-Homescreen.jpg


    Last but not least, we have MIUI roms. These are the closest thing your going to get to an Iphone. If your looking for an iphone look, go with an MIUI rom. Favorite MIUI rom is Xj's 2.3 which can be found here: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=957291

    wpid-miui-weather.jpg


    It's up to your personal preference, so go ahead and choose your favorite then continue. Im going to use Cyanogen Mod 7 RC3. Follow the video ;)

    Now that you have your custom rom installed, your good 2 go! enoy the power of android. The desire is already a great device but with all the extra youve just setup, its spectacular. There are still extras you can flash if you choose too. Step eight is purely optional.

    [OPTIONAL] STEP EIGHT - How To Use Android Flasher

    Android Flasher is a program for your pc you can use to flash custom splash screens [the 1st screen u see when u bootup ie. the joker alpharev], your boot animation [the cm7 spinning wheel], and your recovery [clockwork, amonra]. Download android flasher here: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=794638

    And a good desire splashscreen thread is here: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=8367224

    Basically, extract the downloaded file to your desktop, open it and click android flasher. hook your phone up via usb cable on charge only. click the splashscreen box and begin. it will then ask where the file is. direct it to your file and click ok. it will ask if this is the picture you want. click ok. it will then load the splash into your phone. The odd time you will get a error and it wont flash. If this happens to you, just restart your computer and try again. Also make sure unknown sources is on and usb debugging.

    Ive just spent approx 20 hours creating this thread to help all the newcomers to the forum so plz, if this helped you, click the thank you button ;)
    7
    Edit> The OP did PM me about my request for PVT4 but as yet its not here so to help others, I shall put it below:

    Essential information before rooting

    Current Android Software version

    Settings>About phone. We need to check if your software is the ARA build (ARA 2.xx.415.x) this is the Arab build


    Hboot version, PVT and Erase size.

    Boot into Hboot (from off, hold volume down and press power)
    Make a note of your Hboot version - Must be lower than 1.06
    Make a note of your PVT version. If it is PVT4 you must now check if the erase size is 40,000
    "Download Terminal emulator" from the market and open it.
    Type "cat /proc/mtd" and press enter. It will return results of either 20,000 or 40,000


    The reason we need to know the above:

    The ARA build dictates you use unrevoked 3.32 (3.21 is best for anything else)

    If erase size is 40,000 Amon RA 2.0.1 is better as Clockworkmod recovery supplied with Unrevoked does not work.

    To select a recovery different to clockworkmod in unrevoked, before connecting the phone, go to File > Custom recovery

    Hope this helps.

    http://androidforums.com/desire-all...g-unrevoked-windows-published-19-03-11-a.html
    4
    This is an extremely useful guide, and I don't want this thread being polluted with questions. If you have a suggestion for the guide and the OP is willing to do it then post that here.

    Questions belong in the Q&A forum. Please keep this thread clean.

    Thanks...