22/Jan - Stock ROMs + radios in update.zip format for GSM Hero

[Guest Mista0]

Hi all,

I really hate to be a right pain as im sure im going to annoy some of you by first saying im another newbie and that I have a very basic question for you all which im sure you will be able to help with.

Ok here goes.......

I have aquired a T-mobile G2 touch ok no problem but unfortunately I dont want to use it on T-mobile. All i looking at doing is this

1 - Debrand it and wipe it totally of everything T-mobile and basically turn it back into a standard HTC hero

2 - Have the ability to just update it with the HTC original ROM updates as you would on a standard unbranded hero

3 - Have it totally unlocked so I can use it on any network

Basically as you have all worked out all im looking at doing is trying to turn it back into a standard HTC hero

Is this possible????

If you can help I will be so gratefull - remember im a newbie so go gentle lol :-)

Many thanks

Steve

[Guest osigas]

Hi all,

I really hate to be a right pain as im sure im going to annoy some of you by first saying im another newbie and that I have a very basic question for you all which im sure you will be able to help with.

Ok here goes.......

I have aquired a T-mobile G2 touch ok no problem but unfortunately I dont want to use it on T-mobile. All i looking at doing is this

1 - Debrand it and wipe it totally of everything T-mobile and basically turn it back into a standard HTC hero

2 - Have the ability to just update it with the HTC original ROM updates as you would on a standard unbranded hero

3 - Have it totally unlocked so I can use it on any network

Basically as you have all worked out all im looking at doing is trying to turn it back into a standard HTC hero

Is this possible????

If you can help I will be so gratefull - remember im a newbie so go gentle lol :-)

Many thanks

Steve

That's good timing, I literally just gave in and modded my G2 last night after 2 months of umming and arring and have gone to HTC's latest generic ROM. Whilst it has greatly improved my phone's speed, responsiveness and signal strength, I have no idea whether the phone is unlocked to other networks. There is no T-Mobile "branding" other than on the initial boot screen. But anyway I did the following:

Using this tutorial as a base: http://theunlockr.com/2009/08/27/how-to-ro...o-in-one-click/

Followed the instruction to the letter, apart from downloading the newest versions of FlashRec and AmonRA's recovery image. Make sure to type the correct path to the new recovery image:

/sdcard/Recovery-RA-hero-v1.3.2.img

Then I installed the latest rooted HTC Generic 2.73.405.38and Radio (63.18.55.06IU_6.35.08.22) from the first post in this thread using the "update.zip" method just like in the instructions for Paul's MCR instructions:

The ROM is in an update.zip format for installation via the custom recovery image, I also strongly recommend installing the latest radio (63.18.55.06IU_6.35.08.22 at time of writing). As always, do a Nandroid backup before you do anything... just in case! :D

For the complete newbies, these are the steps you need to take with a 'virgin' Hero:

- Download the patched recovery image linked above and install as detailed in that post

- Download this custom ROM, and copy it to your SD card

- Enter the recovery image (if you're not in it already) by powering on while pressing 'home'

- Select 'nandroid backup' from the menu to do a backup

- If you copied the custom rom as update.zip, select 'apply sdcard:update.zip', else select the option below.

- all done

All in all took me about 15 minutes and my phone is remarkably improved. I may take the plunge into a proper "custom" ROM like Paul's MCR if the results can improve even further taking advantage of Apps2SD, swap partition etc...

[Guest Mista0]

That's good timing, I literally just gave in and modded my G2 last night after 2 months of umming and arring and have gone to HTC's latest generic ROM. Whilst it has greatly improved my phone's speed, responsiveness and signal strength, I have no idea whether the phone is unlocked to other networks. There is no T-Mobile "branding" other than on the initial boot screen. But anyway I did the following:

Using this tutorial as a base: http://theunlockr.com/2009/08/27/how-to-ro...o-in-one-click/

Followed the instruction to the letter, apart from downloading the newest versions of FlashRec and AmonRA's recovery image. Make sure to type the correct path to the new recovery image:

/sdcard/Recovery-RA-hero-v1.3.2.img

Then I installed the latest rooted HTC Generic 2.73.405.38and Radio (63.18.55.06IU_6.35.08.22) from the first post in this thread using the "update.zip" method just like in the instructions for Paul's MCR instructions:

All in all took me about 15 minutes and my phone is remarkably improved. I may take the plunge into a proper "custom" ROM like Paul's MCR if the results can improve even further taking advantage of Apps2SD, swap partition etc...

Thank you very much for the reply but im now toying with the idea of just selling it and buying a sim free hero instead........ SOOOOOO if you know of anyone who is after a total bargain then i will prob sell this or stick it on ebay.

its a T mobile G2 touch sealed in the original box, not even opened yet..... Delivered in the UK for £265 recon thats a bloody fair price what say you guys????

Steve

[Guest Paul]

Added 63.18.55.06JU_6.35.08.29 to the first post.

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[Guest cTn]

Added 63.18.55.06JU_6.35.08.29 to the first post.

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Thanks Paul, now only waiting for HTC Generic 2.73.405.66 :D any chance you could post a guide how to create custom update packages like this for windows?

[Guest Paul]

Added leaked HTC Generic 2.73.405.66 to first post.

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[Guest Floejen]

Added leaked HTC Generic 2.73.405.66 to first post.

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Doesn't seem to be working for me.

I did a wipe, flashed the new rom, flashed the teknologist 1.8 kernel. Now it gets stuck on the T-Mobile boot screen.

Could I be doing something wrong?

EDIT: Did it again without flashing teknologist kernel straight after and it's booting up fine now.

Edited November 24, 2009 by Floejen

[Guest teknologist]

Thanks Paul, now only waiting for HTC Generic 2.73.405.66 :D any chance you could post a guide how to create custom update packages like this for windows?

Mate, just give Paul some time...He always gets things done pretty fast, why would you have him spend time writing a guide instead of doing the actual job of packaging the update.zip ? ;-)

I am pretty sure it's going to show up on the Modaco Rom topic pretty soon.. ;-)

Peace

[Guest kwiksand]

Hey Paul,

As always, a huge thanks for all your hard work!

I've just tried the new radio again and it seems to be working even better than before, though I imagine thats totally subjective and I'll suffer from terrible T-Mobile coverage woes like always! For now, a definite improvement I think! :D

Can I ask how the radio releases work, is there any official HTC release notes/tech notes for the release (i.e "boosted GSM radio sensitivity" or "included preliminary 802.11a support") or is it just included with the RUU's and nothing more said?

[Guest accuphase]

Added leaked HTC Generic 2.73.405.66 to first post.

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Hi Paul,

a big thank you from Germany for this great and fast work!

Rom and radio update went smoothly - Hero is working fine with these new ingredients :-)

Best

[Guest cTn]

Mate, just give Paul some time...He always gets things done pretty fast, why would you have him spend time writing a guide instead of doing the actual job of packaging the update.zip ? ;-)

I am pretty sure it's going to show up on the Modaco Rom topic pretty soon.. ;-)

Peace

Step by step guide from Paul would be awesome, but i was looking just for some "good" links whit guides so next time i could repack my own build or so :D

[Guest shenshang]

cheers paul, the radio update is a huge improvement from IU, my reception has almost doubled.

[Guest kendon]

same here (germany), the new radio made definitely an improvement (at least for the bars in the status bar, who knows about real reception :D just kidding)

it is the biggest improvement since the update from the stock radio (oldest one in the list in the first post) to the EU version, which was the newest back then. the two in between where not that big of an improvement, if any at all.

gonna have a look at the rom now, any news on using it with teknologist's kernel? maybe flash the rom, boot once or twice, then update the kernel works? i think there is too much stuff going on at first boot that we don't know that might crash it...

[Guest pina]

last week i installed modaco 2.9. Which radio does it have included and do I have to update the radio?

[Guest teknologist]

same here (germany), the new radio made definitely an improvement (at least for the bars in the status bar, who knows about real reception :D just kidding)

it is the biggest improvement since the update from the stock radio (oldest one in the list in the first post) to the EU version, which was the newest back then. the two in between where not that big of an improvement, if any at all.

gonna have a look at the rom now, any news on using it with teknologist's kernel? maybe flash the rom, boot once or twice, then update the kernel works? i think there is too much stuff going on at first boot that we don't know that might crash it...

You'll have to wait for MCR, as I use a ramdisk that works only with Paul's ROM.

(the init scripts in particular)

[Guest Nazgulled]

Do the letters in the radio's filenames (EU, IU, JU...) mean anything besides providing a different way to know which know is the latest version? (E < I < J) Or do they mean anything else that we should be aware? I mean, at first I thought the EU was a version for europe or something but then I saw many people using IU, which was a lot improved and so I'm using that too. If they're all the same and the letters are just "version numbers", I guess I'll update too since you guys are saying good things about it :D But, if possible, can someone clarify that for me?

[Guest kendon]

You'll have to wait for MCR, as I use a ramdisk that works only with Paul's ROM.

(the init scripts in particular)

hm ok. the community kernel project uses standard init script configuration i think, i started to use this for my own kernel, but then got distracted and had other problems (f*cked up my sdcard and had to wipe...). would be nice if we could have a kernel that is as compliant to linux standards as possible, imho.

[Guest cTn]

last week i installed modaco 2.9. Which radio does it have included and do I have to update the radio?

There is no radio included in MCR, you have to update radio manualy

[Guest teknologist]

hm ok. the community kernel project uses standard init script configuration i think, i started to use this for my own kernel, but then got distracted and had other problems (f*cked up my sdcard and had to wipe...). would be nice if we could have a kernel that is as compliant to linux standards as possible, imho.

Well my kernel is. The only thing that tights it to a specific ROM is the ramdisk.

The reason I chose Paul's MCR is because:

1) I started from his 1.2 kernel, hence the -mck-teknologist-1.8 name in the version

2) It was anyway the *only* custom ROM for HTC's Hero at that time (is there any other now by the way ??)

I am very happy with Paul's work on MCR so I don't find it important (in my point of view at least) to have linux init-scripts...at the end it's just my phone.. ;-)

I just wanted a kernel that works out of the box with the ROM I use! ;-)

If you guys want to make a generic ramdisk with linux like init-scripts you just need to build that ramdisk and then create the boot.img which is basically a kernel+ramdisk.

Let me know should you need help. In particular for this dev ROM, you need to extract the ramdisk from their boot.img and rebuild a boot.img with my kernel and their ramdisk (modifying it to add a compache init script if you want ramzswap). Rather easy to do...catch me on twitter ( @teknologism ) if you want help. I'd be glad to give you some help !

The MCK-Teknologist-1.8 kernel source is here if you want to have a look: http://github.com/teknologist/HTC-Hero-Teknologist-Kernel/

Has been there since the release of MCR 2.9

Oh by the way, your phone is running Android ! not GNU/Linux at all, just a linux kernel, the rest is far from GNU/Linux (no Libc , no udev, custom mount system, Dalvik Vm, etc.) ! ;-)

Search google for "Android is not Linux"... ;-) One to start: http://bit.ly/4qUVr4

There is a big slideshow here:

http://tree.celinuxforum.org/CelfPubWiki/E...ers_Android.pdf

--Eric

BTW, the so called community kernel is the same kernel as mine, the difference is the ramdisk. In fact LoxDev "borrowed" my linux kernel config...the only major thing he changed was the name from mck-teknologist-XX to 1.4-community. And please, I don't mean to start a flame war here, just trying to clear things up, and I am happy he is spending energy now working on bringing Eclair to Hero ! Hope he's faster than HTC !

Edited November 25, 2009 by teknologist

[Guest Pieronip]

Thanks to Paul for this rapid release of useful updates!

Can I ask, as a relative n00b - If I do a Nandroid backup prior to flashing a new radio, will a Nandroid restore revert the radio to pre-flash status. i.e. does a Nandroid backup keep me safe from a corrupt radio flash?

Thanks.

[Guest stevenz]

JU radio flashed fine and going well on my Telus Hero. Signal strength still says -77dB, will have to wait until I get home to see if I get any more bars as the reception at work tends to be pretty good anyway.

Any chance radio firmware could improve the WiFi performance? I've got one of the D-Link DI-524 routers that the Hero is apparently known for not talking well with and the throughput tends to be very poor. (HSDPA gets me 1.6MB/sec versus around 300KB/sec over wifi on a 20mbps broadband connect).

I'll experiment anyway and report back.

Cheers Paul!

EDIT: Reception of both cell & wifi seems to be about the same as IU.

Edited November 26, 2009 by stevenz

[Guest kendon]

Well my kernel is. The only thing that tights it to a specific ROM is the ramdisk.

...

thank your for that explanation, i am not that experienced (not to say not at all) with kernel "hacking". i think i basically know what to do now, i figured most of that stuff out already, just didn't know exactly about the function of the ramdisk. maybe i have some time over the weekend, got invited by a friend for his two-day-birthday party, but i don't know if i can make it yet... if not there will be a new kernel after the weekend :D

[Guest JadeMonkee]

Thanks to Paul for this rapid release of useful updates!

Can I ask, as a relative n00b - If I do a Nandroid backup prior to flashing a new radio, will a Nandroid restore revert the radio to pre-flash status. i.e. does a Nandroid backup keep me safe from a corrupt radio flash?

Thanks.

Yes it does , and yes it will. Go for it.

[Guest JadeMonkee]

I don't know if it's related, but since I upgraded to the latest radio, I've received the error

"The process com.htc.provider has stopped unexpectedly. Please try again"

three times since upgrading (having never seen it before).

I last received the error after opening Twidroid, but I think it's appeared in other situations, too.

Is anyone else experiencing this?

EDIT: I just downgraded back to the IU radio (I had a nandroid backup from before I upgraded to JU, but thought I'd try and just install the update.zip before resorting to the backup). I'll let you know if it helps the error or not. If I get the error, I'll restore the nandroid backup I made before I upgraded the radio, and report back here if that fixes it.

EDIT2: That was quick. Only 3 minutes after posting this, I got the error again. I'm gonna restore that nandroid backup, and see if that fixes it.

EDIT3: Well, after restoring the nandroid backup, I never received an error. However, I remembered one thing: I'd installed an ad-blocker (AdFree Android) after upgrading. So, after I'd restored my "IU" nandroid backup, the Ad Blocker was missing. I just upgraded (again) to JU to see if it was the fault of this program, rather than the radio (which I think is likely). I'm guessing that com.htc.provider was trying to reach one of the blocked sites?

Again, I'll post back here if I get that error again, just so y'all know.

EDIT4: Still no error. Looks like AdFree Android was the culprit.

Edited November 30, 2009 by JadeMonkee

[Guest stuins]

Sorry which are difference between HTC Generic 2.73.405.66 and 2.73.405.5? If this Rom is official why I don't see it in HTC support site? What is leaked Rom? Sorry but I'm newbie..