Credits go to @nlooooo for starting this thread!
Ok, there's a tool for almost all of that. Tool is updated, but you need to be sure to click the button for the right recovery, explanation below.
1. UNLOCKING OF BOOTLOADER
2. CUSTOM RECOVERY INSTALLING
3. BACKING UP STOCK ROM
4. ROOTING YOUR PHONE
5. CUSTOM ROMS INSTALLING
6. S-OFF
Ok, I did what I had promised, all suggestions and corrections are more than welcome.
All this came as 2 years experience with HTC phones (had Desire and Incredible S before), unlocking, rooting and taking their guts out .
Sources and links posted:
- HTC Developers site
- WinDroid HTC Desire X Toolkit v2.1 made by WindyCityRockr
- Android Developers site
- Cyanogen Wiki site
- SuperSU made by Chainfire
- Thanks to ckpv5 for nand ICS backup thread
- Thanks to Izzy Stinson for pointing me to things not explained enough
- Sources for recoveries can be found in my recovery thread
- Thanks to GtrCraft for the idea to include the backup of stockrom
- Thanks to nightwalkerkg and the rumrunners team for getting us the S-OFF
- Again thanks to ckpv5 for the S-OFF tutorial
WARNING
I’m not responsible for bricked devices, all you do is on your own responsibility. Most of the processes I’ll mention will work with some vital parts of your phone, so if you don’t have enough courage or until you don’t understand all the things you should do I recommend not to get involved with this.
Ok, there's a tool for almost all of that. Tool is updated, but you need to be sure to click the button for the right recovery, explanation below.
1. UNLOCKING OF BOOTLOADER
Everything starts with this. Unlocking of bootloader will allow you to make changes to some critical partitions of your phone (boot, system and recovery) and will allow you to flash custom recovery that can be used for installing of custom roms, mods and all kind of flashable zips. However, it won't s-off your phone, and other critical partitions (bootloader, radio) remain inaccessible.
So, I won't explain how to do that. Why? Because if you successfully unlock bootloader on your phone it means that you received enough knowledge for the rest of the process and you're qualified to go further.
This process will factory reset your phone (erase data partition) so backup your stuff before you proceed.
Ok, now go to htcdev.com, register your account, go to unlock bootloader section, for the device choose 'All other supported models' and follow the instructions carefully everything is explained in details. Pay attention to 'Required resources' on the first page after confirmation - you need Android SDK platform tools Java Runtime Environment and HTC Sync installed and there are all needed links. Files mentioned in step 5 you will find in Android Bundle zip you downloaded in folder adt-bundle-windows-x86_64\sdk\platform tools.
Here are some useful links about Android SDK platform tools, you won’t be needing most of it but it won't be bad to read.
http://developer.android.com/tools/help/adb.html
http://android-dls.com/wiki/index.php?title=ADB
http://android-dls.com/wiki/index.php?title=Fastboot
http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/wiki/fastboot
Remark: once unlocked bootloader can be relocked but can never be locked again. This can be done issuing command from fastboot:
fastboot oem lockThis means that on the top of you bootloader screen you’ll have a sign RELOCKED instead of LOCKED, which is a notice to HTC that you unlocked it once. Plus they have data about all users that requested unlock_code so they can deny your warranty whenever they want.
If you’ve successfully unlocked your phone bootloader we can proceed to the next step.
2. CUSTOM RECOVERY INSTALLING
- Go to this address:
There you can find custom recoveries for DesX. Some of them have a few bugs but they are generally functional. Download one of your choice, rename it to recovery.img and put it on the root of c: drive on your PC. Before downloading, read the thread linked to carefully, as it is important to check your hboot before installing a custom recovery.
Remark: you can use recovery image provided in WindyCityRockr's tool.
- Go here:
download SuperSU, connect your phone to PC and put it somewhere on your phone sd card.
- Do not disconnect your phone from PC, reboot phone to fastboot on one of this ways :
1. choose restart from power menu and when the screen comes off wait for the buttons to turn off and immediately push volume down, the phone will boot to bootloader, then select fastboot from bootloader menu
2. issuing command
adb reboot-bootloaderfrom command prompt that will take you directly to fastboot
- once you’re in fastboot mode open command prompt, lead it to folder where you installed adb and fastboot (remark: unlocking bootloader guide pointed you to make a folder c:\Android for this) and issue commands
fastboot flash recovery c:\recovery.img
fastboot reboot-bootloader
fastboot erase cache
The second and third commands are not quite necessary but they don’t harm and leave your phone with no trails of previous recoveries. Now you can disconnect your phone from your PC.
3. BACKING UP STOCK ROM
Now it is really important to backup your stock ROM. Dependent on your CID and hboot version, you can't use RUU to get back to stock, especially if your phone is branded by your carrier. Also, RUUs are only available for ICS bootloader (hboot 1.24 and lower). For JB there are only nand backups for a few CIDs uploaded by some nice xda members. So if you definitely want to be able to get back to stock any time, you'll have to backup your current configuration first. That's done by:
Reboot your phone to recoveryThat will take some time. After that's finished, you should make a copy of that backup somewhere safe (it's located on the sdcard in folder TWRP, just copy the whole folder somewhere).
Backup -> Select all partitions -> Swipe to Backup
4. ROOTING YOUR PHONE
- From fastboot menu choose bootloader and then recovery to reboot phone to recovery
- If you successfully boot to recovery choose options:
Install zip from sd cardNavigate to UPDATE-SuperSU-vx.xx.zip you stored on sd card and choose it. Once the installation is finished reboot your phone. Now you should see SuperSU app in app drawer and your phone is rooted.
Choose zip from sd card
5. CUSTOM ROMS INSTALLING
There are already quite a few ROMs available for our device. But watch out... many of them are discontinued, mostly the CM ROMs as well as the ROMs based off CM. Go here for the index:
That’s the Index thread I created for all user to track development for our device. There you’ll find roms that can be installed.
I have to emphasize that every chef gives an instruction how to install his rom, so here I’ll just give you the basics for custom rom installing using custom recovery.
- Download the rom of your choice and put it on the sd card of your device
- Unpack boot.img from rom.zip and put it on the root of c: drive on your PC
- Reboot phone to recovery
- Choose option ‘wipe data/factory reset’
- Choose option ‘wipe cache partition’
- Choose option ‘advanced’ and in next menu choose ‘wipe dalvik cache’
- Go back to main menu and choose ‘install zip from sd card’ and then ‘choose zip from sd card’
- Navigate recovery to rom zip you put on sd card and choose it
- Wait until the installation is finished
- Reboot your phone to fastboot and connect it to your PC
- Open command prompt, lead it to folder where you installed adb and fastboot (remark: unlocking bootloader guide pointed you to make a folder c:\Android for this) and issue commands
fastboot flash boot c:\boot.img- Reboot your phone
fastboot reboot-bootloader
fastboot erase cache
The last few steps are needed since there is no way to s-off our device, so boot.img included in rom.zip has to be flashed separately via fastboot.
Remark: don’t ever forget for the golden rule of flashing ‘Always make a nand backup before you flash something'.
6. S-OFF
As S-OFF makes your device vibrating 7 tmes on each boot, you should really think about if you need it. If you are not sure about it, then it's not for you. If you still want to do it, go here:
Use the first link to get to the files needed to do your S-OFF. In the second link you'll find the things you can do after the S-OFF procedure including downgrading the hboot in order to install RUUs etc.
Ok, I did what I had promised, all suggestions and corrections are more than welcome.
All this came as 2 years experience with HTC phones (had Desire and Incredible S before), unlocking, rooting and taking their guts out .
Sources and links posted:
- HTC Developers site
- WinDroid HTC Desire X Toolkit v2.1 made by WindyCityRockr
- Android Developers site
- Cyanogen Wiki site
- SuperSU made by Chainfire
- Thanks to ckpv5 for nand ICS backup thread
- Thanks to Izzy Stinson for pointing me to things not explained enough
- Sources for recoveries can be found in my recovery thread
- Thanks to GtrCraft for the idea to include the backup of stockrom
- Thanks to nightwalkerkg and the rumrunners team for getting us the S-OFF
- Again thanks to ckpv5 for the S-OFF tutorial
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