Fix Your G1! Read Closely

Did you soft brick your phone, if you can get into recovery by starting the phone and holding the home button. Then follow the instructions below. You can recover your phone to cyanogenmod.

Make sure you have a full charge for this.

1. Go here and download the OTA Update file.

2. Now go here for the latest Cyanogenmod update.

3. Save these zip files to your desktop.

4. Now hold down "home button" during power up. This should take you to a screen with a black background and green letters. Now go a head and choose the USB Toggle Selection, or MS USB Toggle. This will engage the USB Drive.

(The screen you are looking for looks something like this.)

5. Once connected to the PC copy the files that you saved to your desktop to the removable storage, your G1. DO NOT PUT THESE IN A FOLDER. Just drop the "signed-dream_devphone_userdebug-ota-14721.zip" and the "update-cm-4.2.14.1-signed.zip" onto the phones SD card. You can even take the sdcard out and do this manually.

6. Now that the files are on your SD card either turn off your USB Toggle or reboot the phone into recovery once again, either way works.

7. Once you are at the main recovery screen and you KNOW that the files are copied on your phone, choose "apply any zip from sd".

8. Now pick the signed-dream_devphone_userdebug-ota-14721.zip. Press the home button to apply.

9. This will finish and DO NOT REBOOT

10. Choose the "apply any zip from sd" option again and choose the cyanogenmod rom and press the "home button" to continue.

11. Once this has finished reboot your phone, if all went well you will be booting into an openbox mode.

12. If it goes back into a screen that says formatting cache just reboot again.

13. Just wait a while, it takes time to boot on a fresh install.

Hope this was helpful.

How To Apply Your Themes

Ok, so I get a lot of questions about themes and how to apply them. So the first thing is to know what type of file is a theme file. these are usually .zip files. Just like the ROMs we apply. Well you can get all of your themes here.

I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR BRICKED OR DAMAGED PHONES. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A FULLY CHARGED BATTERY AND READ THE INSTRUCTIONS A FEW TIMES BEFORE YOU ATTEMPT THIS. IF YOU COME HERE AND TELL ME I BROKE YOUR PHONE, i WILL LAUGH AT YOU.

So now that you have looked through the themes and found one compatible with your build. Go ahead and download it to your computer.

1. Plug in your phone and mount it.

2. Copy compatible theme file to the root of your SD.

3. Reboot your phone (Talk+Menu+Power).

4. When the phone is powering on hold down the Home button.

5. You will boot into the recovery screen.

6. Now you want to choose G1: Apply any zip from SD or myTouch: Apply SD card: Choose Zip

7. This will take you to a screen with a list of the zip files. (This is assuming you downloaded these to your SD card and did not save them to a folder)

8. Select the theme you want and press the trackball.

9. Press home to continure.

10. Reboot.

To get back to the original Cyanogen them find the default theme file or just reflash the update.

If you want a different way to apply themes you can use the Cyanogenmod updater. Just paste the zip files in the cm-updates folder on your sd. Unmout your card and open CM Updater. Now go to the screen for existing updates, touch the button in the middle and you should get a list of themes and updates.

And if you just want CM-Updater to download your themes for you,

1. Open CM-Updater.

2. Press menu.

3. Touch Configuration.

4. Choose Theme Update Servers.

5. Choose Manage Theme Servers.

6. Press Menu and Choose Update Theme Servers.

7. Select Yes.

8. Now go do a Check Now again.

9. Go ahead and download one, when it is done downloading it will ask you if you want to apply the update. Say Yes, or press update or whatever it is.

This will leave you on the recovery screen when you are done. Just reboot and you got it! Hope this helps. Enjoy!

Tips, Tricks and Apps for the G1 and the myTouch

So now you have rooted your phone, maybe even partitioned your SD card. what now?

Well first you are going to want to be able to update. I start out on CyanogenMod 4.1.99 because you have to have that flashed to update to 4.2.2 or higher. I know I read that somewhere. But anyway, You can go here and get the latest version of CyanogenMOD. Download the latest ROM and flash it to update. Then you want to go to the Market and download CyanogenMOD's Updater and get that app installed. Now you can open that and check for Cyanogen's updated ROMs. I suggest being hooked up to WiFi, but you just download and apply! It will leave you sitting at the Recovery Screen, so just hit Reboot phone and viola! You are updated.

Applying a Theme is just like applying a zip for a rom, in fact you do it exactly the same. Different themes have different setting so you have to be careful. And certain themes are for certain rom builds. So make sure you download a theme that is speceifcally for your version. For example, if you flash a theme that was made for 4.1.99 to a rom that is updated to 4.2.2, you will have some issues and possibly have to wipe and re image your phone, or find the original cyanogen theme for your version and flash that. The best place to get themes is here. They have the name of the theme, the changelog, screenshots and download links.

So by this time I assume that you have gotten bored and installed the CyanogenROM Updater 4.5.1 on your phone and are wondering how to use it. Well, just touch the check now button and it will tell you if there is a ROM to download. then go through what i mentioned previously. Now for themes, you have to add your own servers. This is not that hard.

Open CM-Updater.

Press the Menu button.

Select Configuration.

Select Theme Update Settings.

Select Manage Theme Servers.

Press the menu button and select Update Featured Theme Servers.

This will auto populate the servers for your themes.

All of these themes will be in the XDA Forums - Dream - Themes and Wallpapers section. You can also download themes and put them in your CM-Updates folder on your SD card, then they will read as existing updates.

How to root your myTouch

Just like the G1 your mytouch will probably come with a stock Android 1.6 version that blocks the recovery flasher. So once again we must downgrade.

I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR BRICKED OR DAMAGED PHONES. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A FULLY CHARGED BATTERY AND READ THE INSTRUCTIONS A FEW TIMES BEFORE YOU ATTEMPT THIS.

Downgrading for the myTouch:

This is very close to a G1. But with a couple of variations. Once again you will need the original image. This will be called the sappimg.nbh file. You can get this here.

1. Press Menu>Settings.

2. Select SD card & phone storage

3. Unmount SD card

4. Format SD Card (YOU MUST FORMAT THIS FROM YOUR PHONE).

5. Connect the phone to your computer.

6. Pull down Notifications ans choose "Select to copy files to/from your computer"

7. Select Mount.

8. Now copy the sappimg.nbh file to the ROOT of your SD card! Do not put it in a folder!

9. Power off your phone.

10. Power the phone on by holding down the volume and power buttons.

11. This will take you to the fastboot HBOOT screen.

12. Press the trackball and wait for it to detect the sappimg.nbh.

13. Press the trackball again to apply the sappimg.nbh.

14. Once this is completed reboot the phone.

Now your myTouch is downgraded to android 1.5 CRC1 or RC29 or whatever, go to the market and make sure you have the Linda File Manager installed on your phone(or any other file explorer). Now you want to get the FLASHREC app here. You can navigate to this from you linda file manager and install it.

We are going to be using the Aman Ra recovery image. Get this here.

So use the linda file manager to install the Recovery Flasher.

Now open the Recovery Flasher and select "Backup to flash Cyanogens Recovery 1.4"

once this has finished you will want to type "/sdcard/recovery-RA-dream-v1.5.2.img"(no quotes).

Now restart the phone and hold down home to verify that the recovery image has installed correctly. Once again you should see a screen with green text and a black background.

Now you will need to flash a custom rom to gain root access. You can get the rom that I use to start with here. You want the DRC83 Defanged. Get this zip file into the root of your SD card (DO NOT PUT THIS IN A FOLDER!!). You also want to get the CyanogenMOD rom here and place it into your root also.

1. Now boot into the recovery screen by holding home and power buttons and choose "Wipe data/factory reset"

2. Now choose "Apply sdcard: choose zip".

3. Select the DRC83_base_defanged.zip with the trackball that you have already pasted in there.

4. Press home to apply.

5. STOP AND DO NOT REBOOT YOUR PHONE

6. Now go ahead and choose "Apply sdcard: choose zip".

7. Select the update-cm-4.2.9.1-signed.zip(or current version) with the trackball and select home to apply.

8. Reboot

9. When this is finished go ahead let the phone power all the way up again and make sure to reboot twice.

There you go, you should be rooted and ready to enjoy the perks of a rooted phone now.

How to root your G1 the easy way.

So I have been all over the internet gathering info on rooting my G1. Androidspin.com, Androidandme.com and mostly XDA Forums. I have found several guides and now I use a mix of those guides to root peoples phones. This is the least complicated method I can bring to the table. So I hope this helps a lot of people.

So there is a hole in the bluetooth programming in Android 1.5, I guess, that lets you take root control. That is what they are exploiting. That is beyond my knowledge. So most phones you come across are going to be on stock Android 1.6. This is where you run into a problem. Someone came out with a 1 click root app, but it does not work on Android 1.6. so you must downgrade.

I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR BRICKED OR DAMAGED PHONES. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A FULLY CHARGED BATTERY AND READ THE INSTRUCTIONS A FEW TIMES BEFORE YOU ATTEMPT THIS. ALWAYS DO A NANDROID BACKUP!

Downgrading for the G1:

Downgrading for the G1 is simple. Just get the DREAIMG.NBH file. You can get this here. It will download a file called DREAIMG-RC29.zip. Unzip this with Winrar or 7zip or winzip or whatever fits your fancy. You will have a file called DREAIMG.NBH.

Now that we have that down. you want to on your g1.

Backup any info on your SD card that you want to save.

1. Press Menu>Settings.

2. Select SD card & phone storage

3. Unmount SD card

4. Format SD Card (YOU MUST FORMAT THIS FROM YOUR PHONE).

5. Connect the phone to your computer.

6. Pull down Notifications ans choose "Select to copy files to/from your computer"

7. Select Mount.

8. Now copy the DREAIMG.NBH file to the ROOT of your SD card! Do not put it in a folder!

9. Now power off your phone.

10. Now power your phone on by holding the Camera and Power buttons down as it powers on.

(Assuming the previous steps were done correctly you will see a rainbow screen and then it will cut to a blue screen.)

11. Press the power button to start the update. Which is actually a downgrade to Android v1.5 RC29.

12. This will take a moment. when it is finished it will ask you to press the action button to finish.

13. The TrackBall is the action button.

14. This may take you back to the Rainbow screen. If this happens, press the Call+Menu+Power (The 3 Finger Salute) to force a reboot.

Assuming you did this correctly you will boot into an earlier version of android.

Ok so now that we have downgraded the G1, we get to the easy part.

Files/Apps you will need for the G1:

Linda File Manager (On the market)

Recovery Flasher

HTC Android Image (signed-dream_devphone_userdebug-ota-14721.zip)

CyanogenMODs Latest Release

1. Go to the market and make sure you have the Linda File Manager/AndExplorer installed on your phone.

2. Now you want to get the FLASHREC app here. You can navigate to this in your download folder from you linda file manager and install it.

3. We are going to be using the Aman Ra recovery image. Get this here.

4. Open the Recovery Flasher.

5. Select "Backup to flash Cyanogens Recovery 1.4"

once this has finished you will want to type "/sdcard/recovery-RA-dream-v1.2.3.img"(no quotes) assuming that you have save the recovery image to the root of your SD card and then select 'Flash Recovery'.

6. Now feel free to verify that this flashed correctly. Power off your phone and boot into the recovery screen by holding down "home button" during power up. This should take you to a screen with a black background and green letters. Now go a head an choose the top selection and reboot the phone.

7. Copy the HTC Android Image and the CyanogenMOD rom to the root of your SD card. (DO NOT PUT THESE IN A FOLDER)

8. Now reboot your phone into the recovery screen by holding down "home button" during power up.

9. OK, now that we are in the recovery menu you want to choose "apply any zip from sd".

now pick the signed-dream_devphone_userdebug-ota-14721.zip. Press the home button to apply.

10. This will finish and DO NOT REBOOT

11. Choose the "apply any zip from sd" option again and choose the cyanogenmod rom and press the "home button" to continue.

12. Once this has finished reboot your phone, if all went well you will be booting into an openbox mode.

14. if it goes back into a screen that says formatting cache just reboot again.

Ok, now we are done, you have root access to your phone. YEA!!!

Coming soon:

How to root the myTouch

How to Partition your SD card for Apps2SD

MS Windows & Linux Dual Boot

So I get a lot of people asking me how to install a MS Windows/Linux Dual boot. Well, this is relatively easy and there are a few different ways to do it. The easiest way that I use is to install Wubi into my Windows(http://wubi-installer.org/). This makes life pretty simple. It sets the dual boot in the Windows bootloader. Then the next time you reboot, the option to choose Ubuntu will be in the bootloader. Once you have loaded Ubuntu for the first time, you will have to go through the standard Ubuntu setup. When I did this it picked up all of my hardware and ran very smooth. When installing Wubi, you are also given the option to choose Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu and Mythbuntu. It also gives a wide range of options for the size of the "partition" that you will be using, up to 30 gigs. This is the only thing I thought could have been bigger, or perhaps to give the option to select an entire partition for the install. But in the end, it will save the n00b from the headache of trial and error.
Now as far as a true dual boot. The best way I have found to pull this off is to separate one drive into two partitions. I always like having a decent size drive for this, like 250 - 320 gig minimum. I then install MS Windows 1st, on the second partition. I get windows all setup and then I go ahead and boot to my linux distro and go to the live disk. I do not set a swap partition because I have like 4 gigs of ram. But if you want to do that it is fine. Once you have finished installing your linux and reboot, your bootloader should have changed to the GRUB bootloader, (or if you are smarter than me, whichever bootloader you would like). This will put windows at the bottom of the list of OS choices.

So there you go. Windows/Linux on a dual boot.There are a couple of other options out there like coLinux (http://www.colinux.org/?section=screenshots) and Cygwin (http://www.cygwin.com/) for more experienced users. These apps will let you run Linux and Windows side by side.