Android being an Open Source operating system
for mobile phones, offers limitless possibilities of optimization and
customization as per your requirements. Half the charm of an Android
phone lies in the root-based apps, beautiful mods and patches, and
custom ROMs. If you have not rooted your phone yet, believe me you are
not getting the most out of it. Rooting offers many advantages indeed
but, at the same time it is also a little risky as it breaks into the
wall of security build by the operating system.
According to a survey, 80% of Android
phone users live happy with an unrooted device and the reasons for this
are various- some people think of it as a sort of criminal activity,
some are afraid of losing warranty, some are afraid of bricking
their phone, while most people do not even know about the existence of a
term like “rooting”. If you are one who has enclosed himself in side
that great wall of security and have doubt in mind related to rooting,
do not forget to read the following article:
Anyways, the procedures like rooting and
installing a custom ROM is a bit risky and it’s true, but if you go
through it carefully, no harm will ever done to your Android device.
People brick their phone because they make some mistake. That’s the way
accidents happen! As an Android blogger, I have to root, flash stock and
custom ROMs, install mods and patches almost everyday. And believe me
all my device are pretty healthy and sound. If you understand things,
take precautions, create backups and do things carefully, you’ll never be caught into an uncomfortable situation.
Here are a few tips that that will help
you keep things under your control and you will be able to not only keep
all your data safe, but also restore your device to its normal
condition.
Got TWRP Recovery on Your Device?
Do you think you are well familiar with
all the features, functions and possibilities of the TWRP Recovery?
Think again! Read our detailed and in-depth introduction to the Team Win
Recovery Project: Click Here
Ensure Decent Battery Level
Whenever you have to install a custom
ROM or mod or mod on your phone, try to be ready for the worst
situations. Just imagine you are installing a ROM and your phones turns
off in the middle of things due to low battery! You will have to charge
the battery with an external charger because your device will not be
able to charge the battery because it does not have any ROM that makes
this function work. In such a situation, you will not be able to restart
the procedure or even restore from a backup Therefore, it very
important that your phone is amply charged before you set out on the
adventure.
Backup Your Apps, Contacts, Messages, etc.
Whether you have rooted your phone or
not, always backup your apps, contacts, call-log, messages, bookmarks,
calendar entries, etc. The best way is to schedule regular backups, preferably to external storage of your device and your computer. Here are some nice free apps that will make this task easy for you.
Put Your Phone in Debugging Mode
The term “debugging” is used in connection with development. Putting your Android device in debugging mode prepares it for direct connection with your computer via a USB cable without notification
or read log data. Flashing/installing anything that does not come under
official method, might be regarded as a development activity. It’s
another thing that you did not developed the ROM you are going to
install, but still it is a work of custom development. That’s is why,
whenever you perform any such task, it is highly recommended that you
turn on the USB Debugging mode from Developer Options under Settings of your device. On Android phones with Jelly Bean 4.2 and higher, the Developer Options are hidden by default and can be made to show by tapping 7 times on “Build Version” from Settings> About.
Further, you should also install the
appropriate USB Drivers on your computer as you can need them anytime.
To download the compatible USB Drivers for your phone/manufacturer, visit our USB drivers collection page.
Backup Your Phone’s IMEI
When you install a custom ROM on you
phone, sometimes it happens that the folder that stores your phone’s
IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) number is wiped. As a
result, your phone’s IMEI number is lost it does not receive network
signal. To avoid this happen to your phone, do not forget to backup a
folder called “efs”. You will be able to access the “efs” folder only when you have root privileges on your Android device.
To access efs data, download a root file explorer app like Root Browser, Root Explorer, X-plore File Manager, etc. You can use any other app of you preference.
Okay, open the root file manager app and look for a folder called “efs”.
You will easily find it as it is found on the root location of your
device’s internal partition (see below). Just press and hold the “efs“ folder and select “Copy”.
Now paste the folder on the external SD Card storage of you phone. It
will be even better if you copy it to your computer too. Suppose you
flash a custom ROM and lost your phone’s IMEI, what will you do? Having
backed up the efs data, you can easily restore your lost IMEI by restoring the “efs” folder back to its place.
In case you have a low/mid range Galaxy device from Samsung, you can use an app called Galaxy ToolBox for the purpose.
Download: Galaxy ToolBox.apk (187.15 KB)
Enter Recovery Mode Easily:
If you are a hard-core Android
enthusiast who likes to play with new ROMs and mods every now and then,
be careful or you might damage the hardware keys of your Android phone.
Since booting into recovery mode of a phone or tablet requires
hard-pressing of certain combination of hardware keys, doing it
frequently can have a negative effect
on the functioning of these keys. I have experience it myself when I
had a Galaxy S. Fortunately, there are several apps that can make
booting into download, bootloader or recovery mode very easy without being cruel to the poor hardware keys.
Here are some good free apps
for you that will let you do this without touching the hard keys. If
you have installed a custom ROM, you need not install any such app
separately as most ROM developers integrate the boot options in the ROM
itself. Besides, we have an vast collection of methods of entering
Fastboot, Bootloader, Download and Recovery modes on most Android devices.
Backup the Complete ROM (Important)
Being able to install a custom ROM on your Android phone means that you have installed custom recovery like ClockworkMod
or TWRP on your Android device. Well, having a custom recovery on any
phone is a great advantage. It can perform all tasks done by stock recovery while adding lots of other useful options.
One such great feature is its ability to
backup the whole ROM, custom or stock, on your phone’s internal or
external storage. You can back as many ROMs as your phone’s storage can
afford. I strongly recommend that you always keep a backup of your phone’s original/stock ROM. Before you install a new custom ROM, always create a backup of your current ROM. Scroll down to the “backup and restore”
option and backup the ROM to the internal or external storage of you
device. If you select “backup”, the ROM will be saved to internal
storage. To save it to external SD card, select “backup to external
sdcard” option.
All backed up ROMs are saved on a folder called “clockworkmod” on your device’s internal or external SD card, depending on what location you chose while creating the backup.
It’s is always better to store the
backed up ROM on the external storage because sometimes the phone is
caught in a bootloop, or the screen goes into a frozen state, or you may
experience lags, or anything, and decide to reset/wipe
your phone to get it back to normal. In doing so, all data stored on
the internal storage is deleted. In certain situations you might have
the opportunity to backup your data but in some cases you might not be
able to do that.
How to Restore a Previously Backed up ROM:
As I said earlier, you should always
keep a backed up copy of the rooted stock ROM on the external SD card of
your phone. If the phone does not have an external SD slot, you can
save the backup to the internal SD card (not safe though). If you
frequently flash an AOSP, AOKP or CM based ROM, always keep a copy of
the Google Apps flashable zip saved on your phone.
So if you installed a custom ROM and you are having problems with it
or you just want to go back to the previous or any backed up ROM, do
this:- Boot you phone into CWM recovery mode
- “wipe data/factory reset”
- “wipe cache partition”
- Then go to “backup and restore> restore”, select the location (internal or external) of the backup.
- Select the file and confirm your choice by selecting “yes”.
So, this was a detailed tutorial to help
you land safely whenever you install a ROM. I have tried to be
inclusive but if feel that something is missing, do not forget to share
with us via comments. I believe the tips given here will prove useful to
you. Thanks for being with us! For more Tips & Tricks on Android, take a tour of our other tutorials.
Installing a Custom ROM
Now here is my classic way of installing
a custom ROM. I recommend it to all because it has proved perfectly
successful and never hurled down my phones into a single bootloop so
far. Always follow these steps in CWM Recovery:
- “wipe data/factory reset”
- “wipe cache partition”
- Go to advanced and “wipe dalvik cache” and “wipe battery stats”
- Go to mounts and storage and “format system”
- The go to “install zip from sdcard> choose zip from sdcard” and select the ROM file you want to install.
- In case, the developer has recommended to install GApps too, you should install it just after flashing the ROM (use Step 5).
- When it is installed, reboot the device.
Installing a custom ROM with these wipes
has a great advantages. Whenever you flash a new ROM, install it as
fresh copy. Less wipes means more chances of old and new system files’
clash, resulting in poor performance, lags and even a bootloop. While
some enlightened giants might disapprove of the idea of wiping the
battery stats of the old ROM, I still recommend to wipe it as it takes
nothing. However, you should also listen to any recommendations of the
developer whose ROM you are going to install.
Installing Google Apps
Most AOSP (Android Open Source Project),
AOKP (Android Open Kang Project) and CyanogenMod based ROMs do not come
with the Google apps pre-installed, so you have to install them
separately. To download and install the latest and compatible Google
apps to your phone, head over to our great collection.
Getting Signature Verification Error While Installing?
Well, it is an uncommon situation that
while installing a custom ROM on your Android device you see
installation aborted message because of Signature Verification error.
Two possible reasons for this to happen might be-
- You are trying to install a custom ROM using stock recovery that comes default with all Android phones. Remember, a custom ROM or mod requires a custom recovery like CWM or TWRP installed on it. If you are getting signature error, first of all try to find out the type of recovery your phone has. Boot into the recovery mode and read the lines on the top of the screen. If it reads “Android System Recovery”, you need to install a custom recovery first.
- The most common reason for the signature verification error while installing a ROM is a badly downloaded zip. All custom ROMs and mods for Android devices come in ZIPs that are packed with a MD5 Signature. If a downloaded zip is corrupt, it is sure to have a corrupt signature. To fix this, you can take aid of a MD5 Signature versification tool. You can also try to extract the downloaded zip on your computer. One nice quality of a ZIP archive is that it cannot be extracted properly if it is corrupt. In the case of a bad zip file, you should redownload it and try installing again.
(Status 7) Installation Aborted Error
Another instance of installation of a custom ROM or mod aborted might be due to the presence an older or incompatible version of ClockworkMod Recovery on your Android device. In such cases, you will get the following message while installing the ROM:– installing : /sdcard/xxxxxxxxx.zip
finding update package…
opening update package…
installing update…
assert failed: getprop(“ro.product.device”) == “m0″ || getprop(“ro.bulid.product”)
== “m0″ || getprop(“ro.product.device”) == “galaxy s3″ || getprop(“ro.bulid.product”)== “galaxy s3″
E: Error in /sdcard/xxxxxxxxx.zip
(status 7)
installation aborted.
To solve this issue, you can try
updating your CWM recovery. There is another solution to this too but
it’s is a little tricky. In this method, you’ll have to edit a code line
in the “updater-script” found inside the ROM .zip file without extracting it.
If you prefer to do this, remove the following lines found at the beginning of “updater-script” found at this path: ROM.zip> META-INF> com> google> android> updater-script:
assert(getprop("ro.product.device") == "m0" ||
getprop("ro.build.product") == "m0" || getprop("ro.product.device") == "galaxys3" || getprop("ro.build.product") == "galaxys3");
Upgrading Custom ROM without Loosing Apps & Settings
We always recommend a full wipe before
installing a new custom ROM for best performance. Doing this, deletes
all the apps and resets the Settings of your device and this is
certainly not a desirable thing. Nobody wants to install all apps and
configure the device again and again. While you have no option but to
wipe everything with a new ROM, things can be more pleasant if you are
going to install a greater updated version of the same ROM.
You can upgrade your phone’s custom ROM
without losing your installed apps, data, contacts, messages, call-log
and settings. Here are the steps that you need to follow while
installing the newer update package of a ROM over an older one:
- Copy the custom ROM in zip package to your device.
- Boot the phone in CWM or TWRP recovery.
- Wipe the cache partition
- Wipe dalvik cache (found under “advanced” option in CWM)
- Then install the ROM and when it is done, wipe dalvik cache again.
- Finally, reboot the device.
Recovering from a Bootloop
Having performed the wipes recommended
above, there are nominal chances that your phone might be stuck on the
bootscreen but in case you get into such a situation, what would you do?
Bootloop is a situation when your phone
refuses to boot/start normally due to some system file clash or
incompatible element that prevents it to boot. To recover from a
bootloop, follow the steps given at this tutorial.
How to Install a Mod or Patch or Kernel:
If your phone is on the stock ROM with
CWM installed or a custom ROM, you can find different Mods and patches
and Kernel for your device. If you have to install any such file, do
this:
- Boot your phone into CloclworkMod recovery mode.
- Again, do not forget to backup your current ROM before flashing anything on your phone.
- Go to “install zip from sdcard> choose zip from sdcard” and select the file you want to install.
- When the installation is done, go to “advanced” and “wipe dalvik cache” (not necessary in all cases).
- Finally reboot device using “reboot system now” option.
Avoid Restoring Apps & Data Backed Up on Another ROM:
Whatever ROM we install on our device,
we want it to be quickly ready with our favorite apps and configuration.
And therefore we keep all such data backed up so that they we can
restore them in case we factory reset the device or install a new ROM.
Restoring previously backed up apps or data is a a very convenient thing
as it saves a lot of time and effort but this convenience might give
rise to another inconvenient situation.
In fact, all such backup apps (Titanium
Backup, for example) are meant to restore data on the same ROM on which
the backup was created. Due to system file discrepancies among different
ROMs, restoring apps and data this way might make your phone laggy and
slow. Therefore, I recommend you to avoid doing this for better
performance of the new ROM.
Fixing Battery Heat Up and Drain:
Better performance and battery-life is
why most of us turn to custom ROMs. We keep trying from the available
ROMs and stick to one that meets up to our expectations. Now there are
two ways to find out how the battery performs- with the help of a
battery monitor app (stock or third-party) and by taking note of the
battery performance during the hours of a day.
If you feel that your device is not
yielding good battery just because the battery monitor stats show it,
you might be wrong in your judgement as most such apps sometimes lie to
us.
Remember that with any ROM installed on your Android device, you will discover two things: 1. battery heat up, and 2.
battery drain. And these issues for the most part are due to process of
your phone’s new software and battery sync. It usually requires 3-4
full-charge and discharge cycles before things go to a normal state and
after this, you will notice great improvement in battery performance.
So, do not be quick in concluding anything about battery.
Let the battery calibrate and while you
wait try one more thing. Whether you get a new phone or new software on
your old device, avoid putting your device into charging mode
frequently. Turn off the phone, plug charger, wait till it is fully
charged and then use it till it is fully discharged. Repeating this
several times will improve the battery-life of your device. I have
tested it and it really works.