Extract .zip Android ROM

Search This thread

Sparrow40k

Member
Mar 9, 2014
40
1
Sydney
This is most likely a really newbie question..
But does anyone know how I can extract the .zip ROM file from an Android phone. The best I could find were people that were doing a backup of there phone (I don't know if they are .zip or not). But I want to somehow extract the .zip from the phone and be able to flash like a custom ROM.

Thanks in advance!
 

es0tericcha0s

Senior Member
May 6, 2010
4,417
878
mobilemojo5280.com
This is most likely a really newbie question..
But does anyone know how I can extract the .zip ROM file from an Android phone. The best I could find were people that were doing a backup of there phone (I don't know if they are .zip or not). But I want to somehow extract the .zip from the phone and be able to flash like a custom ROM.

Thanks in advance!

I understand what you are looking for, but there is not a way to do that. The backup and restore method would be as close as you could get, but the method to backup leaves the various partitions in .img file formats which the custom recovery (has to be a custom recovery like ClockWorkMod, TWRP, etc) would be able to read, copy, and restore. Does the same thing that you are looking for, just in a different way.
 

Sparrow40k

Member
Mar 9, 2014
40
1
Sydney
I understand what you are looking for, but there is not a way to do that. The backup and restore method would be as close as you could get, but the method to backup leaves the various partitions in .img file formats which the custom recovery (has to be a custom recovery like ClockWorkMod, TWRP, etc) would be able to read, copy, and restore. Does the same thing that you are looking for, just in a different way.

If I am unable to extract a .zip of the ROM, how do I work on the ROM and do things like port it?
All the websites I look at say to download the .zip, but my phone (JiaYu G4s) doesn't have a ROM available. The closest would be the JiaYu G4; which to my (very small) knowledge is no good to me because the internals are all different.
 

es0tericcha0s

Senior Member
May 6, 2010
4,417
878
mobilemojo5280.com
Last edited:

Sparrow40k

Member
Mar 9, 2014
40
1
Sydney
That's one of the major downsides to having a phone that isn't supported by the manufacturer or the dev community. Technically, the manufacturer is supposed to release the source code per GPL, but most of the ones that use MediaTek chips never do.

http://www.xda-developers.com/android/have-you-paid-your-linux-kernel-source-license-fee/

I'm not sure how devs that work on those devices do it...


Edit: Found it :D

http://phonegist.blogspot.com/2014/02/how-to-make-stock-rom-of-mediatek.html

So, by following the steps on the link provided. I actually am able to create a .zip from the ROM installed on the phone?