Newbie questions on upgrading ROM?

[Guest drdtyc]

I have got a new Liquid MT since Nov 6 and like it very much.

It is a prepaid Rogers (Canada) phone with Froyo 2.2.2 ROM

Having read the various threads here, I am tempted to upgrade the Rom to Gingerbread.

My former job was a computer programmer about two decades ago.

Hence I am quite confident to follow the upgrading instructions posted in this forum.

I have the following questions to ask for your advice:

1. Is it worth the effort to upgrade the Rom from Froyo 2.2.2 to Gingerbread?

This is my first smart phone and so far for the first few days of owning it I have only used a small number default apps like Facebook, Gmail and Webbrowser.

I use this phone with a PetroCanada pre-paid SIM card for Unlimited Web Browsing (UWB) i.e. restricted to Port 80 and on a slower speed 2G network. Under this UWB plan, Google Map and Youtube are only available using WiFi but not the Rogers telecom data network. (PetroCanada is using the Rogers network - hence I do not need to unlock my phone)

2. Do I need to ROOT the phone before I can backup the stock Rogers Rom?

I wish to backup the stock rom so that I can always go back to it if I mess up with any upgrade.

3. Would the European ROMs affect my North American radio reception?

My phone has this Bulid Number: Acer_LiquidMetal_1.101.47_PA_ROGERS

The European ROM I intend to use is Acer_4.000.13.EMEA.GEN1_A32G

I presume EMEA is European radio and PA is Pacific/Asia radio.

Rogers uses 2G network and HSPA+ network on the frequencies of 850/1900 MHz.

4. Do I need to install APPS2SD in order to save up memory space on the phone for installing more apps from Google Play?

Thanks for you advices!

Edited November 9, 2012 by drdtyc

[Guest Mtman1]

I have got a new Liquid MT since Nov 6 and like it very much.

It is a prepaid Rogers (Canada) phone with Froyo 2.2.2 ROM

Having read the various threads here, I am tempted to upgrade the Rom to Gingerbread.

My former job was a computer programmer about two decades ago.

Hence I am quite confident to follow the upgrading instructions posted in this forum.

I have the following questions to ask for your advice:

1. Is it worth the effort to upgrade the Rom from Froyo 2.2.2 to Gingerbread?

This is my first smart phone and so far for the first few days of owning it I have only used a small number default apps like Facebook, Gmail and Webbrowser.

I use this phone with a PetroCanada pre-paid SIM card for Unlimited Web Browsing (UWB) i.e. restricted to Port 80 and on a slower speed 2G network. Under this UWB plan, Google Map and Youtube are only available using WiFi but not the Rogers telecom data network. (PetroCanada is using the Rogers network - hence I do not need to unlock my phone)

2. Do I need to ROOT the phone before I can backup the stock Rogers Rom?

I wish to backup the stock rom so that I can always go back to it if I mess up with any upgrade.

3. Would the European ROMs affect my North American radio reception?

My phone has this Bulid Number: Acer_LiquidMetal_1.101.47_PA_ROGERS

The European ROM I intend to use is Acer_4.000.13.EMEA.GEN1_A32G

I presume EMEA is European radio and PA is Pacific/Asia radio.

Rogers uses 2G network and HSPA+ network on the frequencies of 850/1900 MHz.

4. Do I need to install APPS2SD in order to save up memory space on the phone for installing more apps from Google Play?

Thanks for you advices!

1) Definitely

2) No you need clockworkmod to back up the entire rom

3) I don't know

4) Personally, I use link2sd instead, but there are many ways of saving space (app2sd etc)

[Guest drdtyc]

2) No you need clockworkmod to back up the entire rom

Thanks for your advice.

I have installed ClockWorkMod Recovery 5.0.2.8 on my Liquid MT. It went through OK, I believe.

On the screen of the phone, I can see the three color boxes and the following 2 messages:

- Sending "recovery" - Okay

- Writing "recovery" - Okay

It then reboot.

But I am now meeting a showstopper.

Whenever I try to boot into the recovery mode - by using the Key combo to power up the Liquid MT or running the ROM Manager app downloaded from Google Play, I can only see the Acer logo on the start up screen and then the MT hangs there. I wait for several minutes in case it is doing something in the background. In the end, I need to take out the battery to reboot.

Any alternative suggestion?

EDIT: I also tried Vache's RecoveryMT 2.2 and 3.0. Both installed OK with the three color boxes and the two Okay messages on the screen of the phone. Again, when I tried to get into recovery mode, the phone hangs at the start up screen showing Acer logo. Needed to take out the battery to reboot. Please suggest ways for me to try. Thanks!

EDIT2: Do I need to clean up and reformat the SD card before I install RecoveryMT? I have not done so.

Edited November 10, 2012 by drdtyc

[Guest drdtyc]

A quick update.

It seems that Recovery cannot be installed in my acer Liquid MT with the stock Froyo rom for Rogers (Canada).

I have read about a similar problem for Acer Liquid with stock Rogers rom.

See here: http://code.google.c...ki/howToInstall

In fact, I tried the above URL's method to install Recovery, but not successful.

In the end, I just went ahead to install from SD card the Acer official Gingerbread ROM Acer_LiquidMT_4.000.13_EMEA-GEN1_03.32.01 for Europe. It unlocks my phone and is much leaner (i.e. more space in the ROM for my chosen apps) than the stock rom with the Rogers junk apps.

I can confirm that the Rogers locked Liquid MT for Canada can work properly the EMEA rom for Europe.

After this rom upgrade, I can now easily install CWM Recovery and have made a copy of the rom in SD card.

I am now happy to explore more custom roms.

Which custom gingerbread rom is recommended for being stable and lean allowing me plenty of space to install my chosen apps? Please advise.

Edited November 12, 2012 by drdtyc

[Guest Mtman1]

Well done :) personally, I would use azurmetal s if you want the breeze ui feel, or cm7.29 by davidevinal if you prefer cm7 and themes

[Guest ltpitt]

Give Lewa Os a try :)

[Guest drdtyc]

Well done :) personally, I would use azurmetal s if you want the breeze ui feel, or cm7.29 by davidevinal if you prefer cm7 and themes

Give Lewa Os a try :)

Thanks for your suggestions!

I wait for awhile before flashing a custom rom as this base Gingerbread rom is still looking fresh to me.

Just an update of what I have achieved so far beside flashing Gingerbread to replace Froyo.

I have managed to partition the SD card using CWM Recovery and am now using Link2SD to free up space on the phone memory.

Edited November 15, 2012 by drdtyc

[Guest ltpitt]

If I can give you a suggestion simple2ext (s2e) did a great job for me.

link2sd didn't allow me to install huge games (100 mb apk = no space on the device) but simple2ext did.

Also with very interesting performance.

[Guest drdtyc]

If I can give you a suggestion simple2ext (s2e) did a great job for me.

Does S2E work with Acer_4.000.13.EMEA.GEN1_A32G rom?

I read from its Google Play page that S2E works only with CyanogenMod7, CyanogenMod9 and CyanogenMod10.

Apologies if the above is a stupid newbie question!

Edited November 16, 2012 by drdtyc

[Guest ltpitt]

Does S2E work with Acer_4.000.13.EMEA.GEN1_A32G rom?

I read from its Google Play page that S2E works only with CyanogenMod7, CyanogenMod9 and CyanogenMod10.

Apologies if the above is a stupid newbie question!

I suppose so (I am on cm7) but I didn't try :(

[Guest jloch]

In the end, I just went ahead to install from SD card the Acer official Gingerbread ROM Acer_LiquidMT_4.000.13_EMEA-GEN1_03.32.01 for Europe. It unlocks my phone and is much leaner (i.e. more space in the ROM for my chosen apps) than the stock rom with the Rogers junk apps.

can you please provide a link to this file

[Guest russLiquidMetal]

Worth upgrading I upgraded my through menu in phone a lot better then I installed clockworkmod recovery then rooted it installed busybox then installed technolovers 1.5kernel stays stock ROM but runs at 1612CPU and then i partioned my ad car to 2gb and installed technolovers ad2sdx13a then your internal memory is now 2gb 30gb left on sd runs great

[Guest chessman9]

<snip>

In the end, I just went ahead to install from SD card the Acer official Gingerbread ROM Acer_LiquidMT_4.000.13_EMEA-GEN1_03.32.01 for Europe. It unlocks my phone and is much leaner (i.e. more space in the ROM for my chosen apps) than the stock rom with the Rogers junk apps.

I can confirm that the Rogers locked Liquid MT for Canada can work properly the EMEA rom for Europe.

<snip>

Hi drdtyc, thanks for sharing this. I was pretty much in the same boat as you were when you first started this thread. Bought phone recently, also doing the petrocan/speakout thing. Had rogers stock 2.2.2 rooted with vache recovery 1.01 (which seemed to work with 2.2.2), link2sd to overcome severely low phone storage, proxydroid for apps to use proxy. Was pretty happy with that and read stuff about european rom's freqency being different so didn't look into it more. But since you posted this about the european gingerbread working ok on rogers, I'd thought to follow your trail. I'm also curious where you found the stock 4.000.13.EMEA.GEN1_A23G european acer_ug/bin file? Since, on Acer site, european OS_Acer_4.000.13.EMEA.GEN1_A23G_A.zip extracts to an install program without the ucer_ug/bin that doesn't allow flashing european rom to rogers. So, after googling all day and finding broken links, I finally found the older

SDs_Acer_LiquidMT_4.000.07_EMEA-GEN1_03.29.01.zip right under my nose here at the end of the liquid metal bin collection section (thank you lots mr.vache!), flashed that with acer download tool, then upgraded via wifi to official 2.3.6. Kinda round about since i couldn't find the bin, but hey it did the trick. Next to play with custom roms when get too anoyed with pesky acer ui :) thanks again.

Edited December 22, 2012 by chessman9