Help with recovery and flashing

[HunterKiotori]

Hello everyone, i know i am really late in the game here by playing with this phone but my friend has one and wants me to fix it up for him. it is completely stock running android 2.3.6. I can't seem to make heads or tails of how to stick a recovery on this thing and flash a rom. can anyone point me in the right direction as how to do this? thanks mates

 

[creepyncrawly]

First thing you need to know is that the recovery is compiled into the kernel, so you don't flash a recovery separately, you just flash a custom kernel and you will have a custom recovery after.

The latest stock firmware for this phone is 4.1.2 Jelly Bean, but since the phone is still on the original 2.3.6 firmware, you could flash the old Siyah kernel and use it's recovery to flash custom firmware.

You need to root the phone first. You can root this phone with Framaroot using the Aragorn exploit. Then go to this post and download the Tar version of Siyah 2.6.14 Kernel. Flash it in PDA without ticking Re-Partitioning.

Stable custom Touchwiz based firmware available in the development forum are SHOstock or Cooked. Both are based on 4.1.2, and neither are currently supported but both are stable.

If you want something more recent, there are various aosp based firmwares available in the development forum. You may not be able to flash some of them directly from that old recovery in Siyah 2.6.14, but if you need help, you'll have to try to get some help in their threads, because I don't use those.

Happy flashing, and if you need help, ask.

 

[azeem40]

First thing you need to know is that the recovery is compiled into the kernel, so you don't flash a recovery separately, you just flash a custom kernel and you will have a custom recovery after.

The latest stock firmware for this phone is 4.1.2 Jelly Bean, but since the phone is still on the original 2.3.6 firmware, you could flash the old Siyah kernel and use it's recovery to flash custom firmware.

You need to root the phone first. You can root this phone with Framaroot using the Aragorn exploit. Then go to this post and download the Tar version of Siyah 2.6.14 Kernel. Flash it in PDA without ticking Re-Partitioning.

Stable custom Touchwiz based firmware available in the development forum are SHOstock or Cooked. Both are based on 4.1.2, and neither are currently supported but both are stable.

If you want something more recent, there are various aosp based firmwares available in the development forum. You may not be able to flash some of them directly from that old recovery in Siyah 2.6.14, but if you need help, you'll have to try to get some help in their threads, because I don't use those.

Happy flashing, and if you need help, ask.

If you don't mind me asking, what's the benefit of having the recovery compiled into the kernel. Do you think it is better than having them separately, and if so, can you explain why?

 

[creepyncrawly]

If you don't mind me asking, what's the benefit of having the recovery compiled into the kernel. Do you think it is better than having them separately, and if so, can you explain why?

You'd have to ask the Samsung engineers why they did that. Since the more common standard is to have the recovery in it's own separate partition, it suggests that is the better solution, I would think.

 

[SteveMurphy]

Having been on a device for a while that has a separate partition for recovery (N5), it's a feature that is extremely comforting in that it is virtually impossible to brick those types of devices.

 

[azeem40]

The way I see it is that having the kernel on the same partition as the recovery is beneficial as more kernels can be built, instead of it being ignored.