Hero trying to get its first Modaco

[Guest steam03]

I have been reading about Modaco ROM recently and decided to get my stock Hero the Modaco ROM. I have a few very noob questions.

I'm aware that my asian Hero requires downgrading before I can root the phone to get modaco, will I lose everything I have since I bought the phone when I do downgrades?

What is the first version of Modaco ROM should I install and do I have to work my way up 3.2b1 2 3 4 5?

I read that 3.2b5 needs a premium subscription or something; this means I have to pay to get it right? What is the price and how do I do that?

Does 3.1 or 3.2 b1234 have a charge as well?

[Guest pillock]

I'm hoping someone else will back me up on this to be 100%, but I'm almost positive the following is correct.

You need to install a recovery image - the reason you may need to downgrade is that on some later ROMs the 'hole' that the recovery image flasher uses (flashrec) has been closed. If you're on an early ROM, the hole is open and you can flash the recovery image without wiping your data/system partitions.

And then.... if you flash the recovery image (recommended: AmonRA1.5.2) you've an option to make a "nandroid backup" which is an image of your phone - apps, contacts, settings - the works. Thus, if you screw up or don't like MoDaCo (unlikely on both counts!) you can "nandroid restore" this backup and your phone will be 100% as it was - cupcake stock ROM, all your apps and settings back in place.

Note your phone is not yet rooted - however the new recovery image allows you to flash a ROM that is rooted.

Now, sometimes you can flash MoDaCo without wiping all your data, so all your apps and settings will be preserved. It depends on what ROM you're coming from as to whether this will work or not - if your ROM is too old, you need to wipe first before installing MoDaCo so you'll need to investigate backups for anything you want to keep that's not in the Google cloud.

Really, the first step is to go into Settings -> About Phone and tell us what version you're currently running. This will enable us to let you know your options - whether you need to downgrade or not, and whether you need to wipe or not.

To quickly answer your other questions - you don't need to go through the ROMs in version order, you can just grab the latest and install that. The "Premium" ones are the very latest released and only available to subscribers - you're paying for ad-free subscription to the website, not the ROM although the ROM is a benefit! It's £9.99 for ad-free.

Edited February 10, 2010 by pillock

[Guest descenpet]

yes, asian hero need downgrading before you can root. and yes downgrading will wipe your phone.

after downgrading and installing custom recovery, you can install any version of MoDaCo. either 3.1.1 or 3.2b5 or any other custom rom.

3.2b5 is only available to premium members so yes you have to pay for premium subscription. it's under your account control>paid subscription

ad-free is 10GBP per year and plus is 20GBP per year. premium subscriptions will allow you to access any beta roms and online rom kitchen on MoDaCo.

non-beta roms (eg, 3.1) are free to public.

[Guest steam03]

It will be so great if you guys can identify my options for getting myself modaco. Here are my versions of various things.

Firmware: 1.5

Build number: 2.73.721.9 146733 CL#62020 release-keys

Software version: 1.0.0.A6288

Kernel version: 2.6.27-44690c1a htc-kernal@and18-2 )

Baseband version: 63.18.55.06EU_6.35.06.18

[Guest steam03]

yes, asian hero need downgrading before you can root. and yes downgrading will wipe your phone.

after downgrading and installing custom recovery, you can install any version of MoDaCo. either 3.1.1 or 3.2b5 or any other custom rom.

3.2b5 is only available to premium members so yes you have to pay for premium subscription. it's under your account control>paid subscription

ad-free is 10GBP per year and plus is 20GBP per year. premium subscriptions will allow you to access any beta roms and online rom kitchen on MoDaCo.

non-beta roms (eg, 3.1) are free to public.

So if I downgrade, can I run a nandroid now to backup all my stuff and use it when I have my modaco 3.X installed? Will that keep my settings and apps?

Eventually 3.2 will become non-beta, does that mean it will become free some time down the road?

[Guest descenpet]

build 2.73.721.9 needs to be downgraded i think

i don't know if there is a stock recovery nor if there is nandroid script on stock recovery since i never checked before i downgraded mine.

for 3.2, when it becomes public release, it will be free.

Edited February 10, 2010 by descenpet

[Guest kendon]

So if I downgrade, can I run a nandroid now to backup all my stuff and use it when I have my modaco 3.X installed? Will that keep my settings and apps?

you can (and should) make a nandroid backup. but if you want to keep your settings you need to backup these with some app. iirc it is not possible to backup settings without having root, so there is no option for you. a nandroid backup is like a disk-image of your phone, it will restore the exact same state of the complete phone (except recovery image and some other stuff you don't need to care about now), you can not select what should be restored, it's all or nothing.

Eventually 3.2 will become non-beta, does that mean it will become free some time down the road?

that is correct. my suggestion would be at this point to install mcr3.1, when 3.2 is final you can upgrade without losing your settings. there might be a reason why paul hasn't made it final yet, and for the first try you should go with the stable version. just for the record the latest version of the recovery is 1.5.3.1, which you find over at xda (someone mentioned 1.5.2 in this thread).

[Guest pillock]

Apologies, I missed the word "Asian" in your text.... yes, the Asian Hero needs to be downgraded, which needs a wipe. No way around it i'm afraid, and you don't get the chance to make a nandroid backup before wiping (as you need an earlier ROM, which wipes your device, before you can use the hole to install the recovery image).

Remember all your contacts/calendar/email etc are saved by Google so it's only really apps....

[Guest CitizenLee]

Some apps you might find useful before you downgrade:

BookmarkBR to back-up / restore bookmarks

Contact2SIM to back-up / restore contcts (I don't sync contacts with Google)

ExportContacts to export contacts to .csv file (handy as an extra back-up)

SMS Backup to back-up / restore SMS messages

AppManager to back-up (non protected) apps

AppsInstaller to restore apps later

I can't think of much else you would need to back-up really.

Any photos or mp3s should be on SD anyway ;)

[Guest steam03]

Ok great, thanks guys. THere is a lot of info up to this point for me to digest already. I'm sure I will run into more questions later.

LIke now...

- I'm afraid I got confused in the nandroid part. Can I or can I NOT use nandroid with my current ROM version to backup/restore my current stuff?

- So if I use the above apps Citizen Lee introduced, do they all go into the SD card? Do the apps have a feature to import the SMS/contacts..etc back into my phone when I have 3.1?

Lastly...just to get every fact straights to minimize my chances of screwing things up..

Should these be my steps to approach my Modaco transformation?

1. Get the apps and backup all the stuff possible.

2. Copy all the stuff from SD to computer.

3. Use SD to make goldcard and downgrade following http://theunlockr.com/2009/10/18/how-to-do...-can-be-rooted/ to this version 2.73.405.66, which 3.1 is optimized on.

4. Download 3.1 here (Do I need to download the other addon packs seperately if I don't have access to online kitchen to make a custom one?)

'Core' download

'Enhanced' add on pack

'Wavesecure' add on pack: http://www.wavesecure.com/installations/update.zip

'Boot Sounds' add on pack

5. Install as per instructions

Please let me know if I missed anything important. Thank you so much.