[HOW-TO] Preparing to flash an ND8 (kitkat) rom

[CNexus]

Given that the first ND8 rom is out there now, I'd thought it would be a good idea to write up the steps you need to take BEFORE you can proceed to flashing your first ND8 rom.

Steps to take/verify before flashing an ND8 rom

1. Check your bootloader version. If you are not on the ND8 bootloader, any ND8 rom you flash will brick your device.
   
   You can check your bootloader version by running the following command in a terminal emulator app/shell on your device. Adb shell will work as well if you know how to get that going.
   
   

   getprop ro.bootloader

   If the version string it returns ends with "ND8" (no quotes of course), you are golden and you can skip to STEP 5. Otherwise continue to step 2.
   
2. Oh no. You ARE NOT on the ND8 firmware so you need to flash it before you can safely flash your first ND8 rom. Head over to THIS thread and flash the stock tar using ODIN (or a similar program) ON YOUR PC. Mobile ODIN will not just fail to flash it properly, but may leave you with an inoperable device aka brick. Don't try to take shortcuts. Following the instructions in the stock tar thread for how to flash the tar. NOTE: The restore tar MAY or MAY NOT wipe your internal storage so back up your information as necessary.
   
   After flashing the stock tar, head back here and move on to step 3
3. Download a custom recovery tar (I highly recommend Philz touch, works for flashing kitkat roms well with the greatest consistency. Grab the latest tar HERE)
4. Flash the recovery tar with ODIN (or a similar computer program such as jodin, heimdall, etc) the same way you flashed the stock tar.
5. Now you can flash your rom. Yes, it is slightly tedious the first time, but once you are on the ND8 firmware you needn't repeat these steps the next time you want to flash an ND8 rom :good:

Devs and others, I encourage you to refer all ND8 flashing questions here to keep things centralized and have one set of info from one person versus multiple from multiple people.

Have fun flashing!

 

[McBadass]

It definitely did wipe my internal data, so be sure to backup to your SD card or off-device. I fortunately had most of it backed up, but I think I lost some pictures.

 

[troyernet]

Is there any way to upgrade to rooted stock ND8 without losing data? I'm rooted stock MK3 and I don't think I've ever installed the Knox boot loader. My boot loader came back as MD4.

 

[roirraW "edor" ehT]

Is there any way to upgrade to rooted stock ND8 without losing data? I'm rooted stock MK3 and I don't think I've ever installed the Knox boot loader. My boot loader came back as MD4.

The only chance for you is if you're rooted Odexed. You'd have to unroot, flash the stock Knox MK3 bootloader, kernel and recovery, and then accept the OTA.

There is NO way to run TouchWiz 4.4.2 without the Knox ND8 bootloader.

And if you don't know one way or the other, I'd say there's more of a chance you're DeOdexed than Odexed, which won't work at all for the OTA.

Sent from my Sprint Samsung Galaxy SIII with M.O.A.R. v9.0, dkp kernel dated 3/20/2014 and TWRP v2.7.0.0.

 

[s9amme]

I've been itching to move to ND8. I'm currently on MD4, with no knox. With all this talk of knox, is it really that bad to have?

I'm on Ting, so I buy my phones outright and don't have phone insurance. I have my old SGS2 as my insurance. Its my understanding that the main issue with knox is if you downgrade your bootloader, it'll hard brick your device. Otherwise, you can still flash ROMs and what not through custom recovery just like before, regardless if its MD4 based or AOSP. I don't think i'll ever need to send my phone to Sprint/Samsung for warranty/repairs/ect. or downgrade bootloaders (never felt the need to). If I sell my phone, I'll just odin the stock ND8 and be done with it. Are there any other downsides to having a bootloader with knox?

 

[Super Dave426]

So just to be clear if I follow those 2 steps above I then can flash any ND8 ROM, I got that, but will the phone still be rooted? Why do I ask? Well if you keep reading the ND8 Full Restore thread bilgerryan posted to flash CF Auto Root, then recovery, so I am just a little confused. Here.

Unfortunately the OP in the ND8 thread never updated the initial post to include all of the requests that followed, like listing the MD5 and attaching the root instructions that were posted. I am pretty sure I got the answer to my questions by reading the thread again, but I can see how things get confusing fast. So keeping root is a 3 step flash.

 

[roirraW "edor" ehT]

I've been itching to move to ND8. I'm currently on MD4, with no knox. With all this talk of knox, is it really that bad to have?

Are there any other downsides to having a bootloader with knox?

No, and no.

So just to be clear if I follow those 2 steps above I then can flash any ND8 ROM, I got that, but will the phone still be rooted?

Give me a sec and I'll post some links for you. I'll edit this post with them.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2743971

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2750674

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2741413

Follow the instructions in ANY of those thread's first posts AFTER ODINing ND8 and you'll be rooted.

Sent from my Sprint Samsung Galaxy SIII with M.O.A.R. v9.0, dkp kernel dated 3/20/2014 and TWRP v2.7.0.0.

 

[tpike1296]

I may have asked this in another thread, and if so, I apologize (I've been horribly sick) but is there any way to ODIN through WIFI or something? The MicroUSB port on my phone is destroyed and I can't afford a repair. I am rooted, with a custom recovery, on the MD4 bootloader, and would like to move up to an ND8 based KitKat ROM, but obviously the broken port is causing a bit of a problem.

 

[roirraW "edor" ehT]

I may have asked this in another thread, and if so, I apologize (I've been horribly sick) but is there any way to ODIN through WIFI or something? The MicroUSB port on my phone is destroyed and I can't afford a repair. I am rooted, with a custom recovery, on the MD4 bootloader, and would like to move up to an ND8 based KitKat ROM, but obviously the broken port is causing a bit of a problem.

There is absolutely no other way than through hard wire USB?Micro USB. Sorry.

Sent from my Sprint Samsung Galaxy SIII with M.O.A.R. v9.0, dkp kernel dated 3/20/2014 and TWRP v2.7.0.0.

 

[SoldToBears]

Hi CNexus. I appreciate the guide. I seem to have run into a bit of an issue though.

I was on 4.1.2 (rooted Sprint L710) and decided to flash this update. I used Odin 3.09 and flashed the stock ND8 as per step 2. Everything went fine and it booted up without any problems so I went back into download mode and flashed the custom recovery you have linked in step 3. Odin gave me the big green "PASS" and the phone rebooted. Again no problems so I transferred the rooted stock rom (this one) to my SD card, turned the phone off and went to boot into recovery mode.

Here is where the problem is. When trying to boot into recovery, I get to the screen that says something like "booting recovery..." and then the screen just goes dark. Nothing happens as long as I hold down the buttons. As soon as I let them go the phone boots up like normal. :/

I repeated all of the steps again thinking maybe something (maybe me) messed up the first time. Same issue. Recovery won't load but the system boots just fine.

If you, or anyone else, have any ideas I would greatly appreciate some help. Thanks.

 

[jwigley24]

Hi CNexus. I appreciate the guide. I seem to have run into a bit of an issue though.

I was on 4.1.2 (rooted Sprint L710) and decided to flash this update. I used Odin 3.09 and flashed the stock ND8 as per step 2. Everything went fine and it booted up without any problems so I went back into download mode and flashed the custom recovery you have linked in step 3. Odin gave me the big green "PASS" and the phone rebooted. Again no problems so I transferred the rooted stock rom (this one) to my SD card, turned the phone off and went to boot into recovery mode.

Here is where the problem is. When trying to boot into recovery, I get to the screen that says something like "booting recovery..." and then the screen just goes dark. Nothing happens as long as I hold down the buttons. As soon as I let them go the phone boots up like normal. :/

I repeated all of the steps again thinking maybe something (maybe me) messed up the first time. Same issue. Recovery won't load but the system boots just fine.

If you, or anyone else, have any ideas I would greatly appreciate some help. Thanks.

To boot into recovery u have to let go of the volume up, home button, and power key all at once when the "booting recovery" screen appears. If you're still holding them down when the "booting recovery" screen disappears, you're phone is going to start up like normal.

 

[SoldToBears]

To boot into recovery u have to let go of the volume up, home button, and power key all at once when the "booting recovery" screen appears. If you're still holding them down when the "booting recovery" screen disappears, you're phone is going to start up like normal.

Ah! Thank you so much! :highfive: For some reason I thought I had to keep holding them down until recovery loaded. Thanks again. I appreciate it.

 

[Saafir]

Pit for mapping

Hey guys I downloaded the ND8 tar and I am trying to flash with Odin but it just sits at Get PIT for mapping ..... what should I do here? I have looked around for a solution but am unable to find one. Thanks in advance! (using Odin 3.07 and 3.09)

---------- Post added at 11:32 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:18 PM ----------

Hey guys I downloaded the ND8 tar and I am trying to flash with Odin but it just sits at Get PIT for mapping ..... what should I do here? I have looked around for a solution but am unable to find one. Thanks in advance! (using Odin 3.07 and 3.09)

Cancel the help request gang. Apparently my Micro USB cord must be faulty. Flashing now

 

[n00b-xda-disciple]

A couple days ago i flashed Philz 6.00.8 d2spr for rooting my virgin mobile s3 4.3 version with odin. Today I upgraded with 4.4 kit Kat stock tar, then flashed philz 6.008 again through odin, rooted ,debloated ect. My question is can I upgrade/flash philz 6.00.8 d2spr to the newst philz recovery through recovery? Or do I need to odin a recovery again. Also i originally tried to odin the d2lte version but odin said it was invalid so I used the d2spr.

Sent from my SPH-L710

 

[ghostyroasty]

Can I just take the ota since it has already downloaded and then flash the rest later this evening? I now have two update notifications living comfortably on my notification bar.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

 

[CNexus]

Can I just take the ota since it has already downloaded and then flash the rest later this evening? I now have two update notifications living comfortably on my notification bar.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

Only if you are on 100% stock rom with stock recovery

 

[roirraW "edor" ehT]

A couple days ago i flashed Philz 6.00.8 d2spr for rooting my virgin mobile s3 4.3 version with odin. Today I upgraded with 4.4 kit Kat stock tar, then flashed philz 6.008 again through odin, rooted ,debloated ect. My question is can I upgrade/flash philz 6.00.8 d2spr to the newst philz recovery through recovery? Or do I need to odin a recovery again. Also i originally tried to odin the d2lte version but odin said it was invalid so I used the d2spr.

Sent from my SPH-L710

You can flash any recovery from your custom recovery. The first one is just Odined because you can't flash that from stock recovery.

Old Philz had separate SPR and LTE builds. The SPR ones aren't built anymore and you can flash the latest LTE one just fine, that's what I use.

Sent from my Sprint Samsung Galaxy SIII with M.O.A.R. v9.0, dkp kernel dated 3/20/2014 and TWRP v2.7.0.0.

 

[TheBarkeep]

A couple days ago i flashed Philz 6.00.8 d2spr for rooting my virgin mobile s3 4.3 version with odin. Today I upgraded with 4.4 kit Kat stock tar, then flashed philz 6.008 again through odin, rooted ,debloated ect. My question is can I upgrade/flash philz 6.00.8 d2spr to the newst philz recovery through recovery? Or do I need to odin a recovery again. Also i originally tried to odin the d2lte version but odin said it was invalid so I used the d2spr.

Sent from my SPH-L710

You may try philz touch 6.26.6 d2lte.

 

[n00b-xda-disciple]

Nd8 sd permission fix.zip and nd8 tether mod.zip works for my virgin phone by the way.

Sent from my SPH-L710 VM ND8 (Sprint Rooted Modded Stock 4.4.2 Kit Kat Rom)

 

[mandingo823]

Thank you CNexus for all your genius work. Had to pop my cherry to thank you. You and other devs have help me unbricked my hard bricked phone. Now Im as good as new with KitKat running. Now to a flash this Wicked Rom. :laugh: