Ivan Femia How to install Eclair 2.1 on HTC Hero
Hi everybody,
I was wondering if I have to wait for HTC official firmware update for Hero or install a custom ROM in order to use the new Eclair Android System and I choose to install a new custom ROM, the AOSP Eclair 2.1.
What is AOSP Eclair 2.1?
The Android Open Source Project (AOSP) is the public, open-source repository used by Google and phone carriers and manufacturer’s to power their phones. It lags significantly behind the ‘private’ repository used by those companies, but the updates do come eventually. (source Modaco)
In this post I would like to give you a step by step guide to install AOSP Eclair 2.1 on a ‘virgin’ HTC Hero no brand. I’m not responsible for any damage or malfunction on your device, go ahead is only your choice.
EDIT: Read comments for updates
1. Backup all your data
First of all you need to backup all your data, on Android Market there are a lot of applications, I like and I used MyBackup Pro. Use the QR Code to install it.
2. Install SDK on your PC
Go to Android Developers web site and download the latest Android SDK. On Windows system create a new folder android-sdk under the root C:\ and unzip the archive in that folder.
3. Root your Hero
Now you have to obtain root access on your device.
- Go to Settings->Application->Development and enable USB debugging option.
- Check your current rom version Settings->About Phone if your build number is lower than 2.73 go to step 15.
- Go to Settings->Application and make sure Unknown source is checked ON.
- On your phone, goto Settings, SD card and phone storage, and click Unmount SD card.
- Click Format SD card (it should automatically remount after this).
- Plug the phone into the compuer via USB, then pull down the notification bar and click on the SD card notification. Then click mount.
- Download this APK and recovery image and save it to your computer:
flashrec-1.1.2-20090909.apk
Cyanogen’s / Modaco Hero Recovery Image - Extract the cm-hero-recovery.img out of the MoDaCoPatchedRecovery-1.0.zip and put it somewhere on your computer.
- Save both the cm-hero-recovery.img and the flashrec-1.1.2-20090909.apk to your computer, then copy them both to your SD card (do NOT put them inside any folders on the SD card, just put them in the root of the SD card itself).
- Unplug the phone from the computer once they are downloaded to the SD card.
- Goto the Market and download any file manager program if you do not already have one. These are some Astro, IO Filemanager, Linda File Manager.
- Open the file manager and goto SDCard and then find the flashrec-1.1.2-20090909.apk file and click on it.
If asked, tell it to use Package Installer to open it. It should automatically install the apk. - Open the FlashRec program and click on Backup Recovery Image and wait for it to finish.
- Once done, click on the empty text box in the FlashRec program and type:
sdcard/cm-hero-recovery.img
Then click on the Flash Custom Recovery Image button and wait for it to finish. Be sure to have typed the right command. - Restart into bootloader (switch on holding the back button)
- Extract the latest GSM Hero recovery IMG into your android SDK/tools folder (C:\android-sdk\tools).
- Download Superuser.zip and extract the contents to your SDK/tools folder (C:\android-sdk\tools).
- Plug in USB
- (Skip this step if your build number is greater or equal than 2.73 ) Open a command prompt from the tools directory and type the following command:
c:\android-sdk\tools> fastboot boot recovery-RA-hero-v1.5.2.img - Perform a Nanodroid Backup (recomended) from the recovery menu, once complete, continue.
- Then type the following commands in CMD exactly as they are here, hitting enter for a new line.
c:\android-sdk\tools>adb shell mount /system
c:\android-sdk\tools>adb push su /system/bin/
c:\android-sdk\tools>adb shell chmod 4755 /system/bin/su
c:\android-sdk\tools>adb push Superuser.apk /system/app/
c:\android-sdk\tools>adb shell reboot - Now you have rooted your Hero.
4. Install the new ROM
In this step you can install whatever custom ROM you like, I will describe how to install AOSP Eclair 2.1
- Download the latest AOSP Eclair custom ROM from AOSP Eclair 2.1 r2 for GSM Hero. Currently aosp-2.1-jnwhiteh-r3.zip is available.
- Rename it in update.zip
- Put the zip on the root of your SDCard
- Ensure that you have a backup of your SDCard
- Reboot your phone (switch on holding the home button until a black console screen appears)
- I prefer to do a wipe even the ROM’s author does not require it, so from menù select ALT-W
- Then install the new custom ROM, from menu choose flash. It could take some minutes.
- Reboot you device, the first boot is a little bit slow.
- Here we are this is you new Eclair Rom on Hero
5. Install GoogleBits
The last step is to install GoogleBits, it includes all of the relevant applications, many of them being the latest from the Nexus One.
- Download GoogleBits-sdk7-v1.7-signed.zip (RapidShare, Megaupload, DepositFile, HotFile)
- Unzip it in c:\sdk-android\tools\GoogleBits\
- Connect USB to your PC
- Type the following commands:
cd c:\android-sdk\tools\
adb remount
adb push GoogleBits\system\framework /system/framework
adb push GoogleBits\system\lib /system/lib
adb push GoogleBits\system\app /system/app
adb reboot - Configure your applications
- You have finished
A video of the new ROM on my device will be available soon
Hope this could help any of you.
Resources:
- Rooting the HTC Hero/G2..(success)
- [HOWTO] If you flashed the original RUU_Hero_HTC_WWE_2.73.* and got the new hboot
- AOSP Eclair 2.1 r2 for GSM Hero
c:\android-sdk\tools> Related Post
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by narres and Now Solutions, plinky.it. plinky.it said: How to install Eclair 2.1 on HTC Hero http://goo.gl/fb/8rnK [...]
Release 3 available for this ROM…
AOSP-Eclair-2.1-jnwhiteh-r3:
* An automatic backup and restore script makes updates seemless
* Brought back the old init.rc to solve the issue with LED notifications
* Changed launcher so it uses five home screens instead of the default three
And also GoogleBits 1.7
Links updated
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by plinkyblog: How to install Eclair 2.1 on HTC Hero http://goo.gl/fb/8rnK...
Changed ROM…. Now I’m trying VillainROM 1.2 (HTC Sense Enabled Android 2.1 – STABLE!) @ http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=622468&page=38
Ok AOSP-Eclair-2.1-jnwhiteh-r4 is the best one… No Sense UI
Finally I get the right one… r4 has battery drain problem and camera autofocus…
Now I’m on KaguDroid ROM and everything works fine…
KaguDroid 1.2
GoogleBits-sdk7-1.9-signed
Official post: http://htcpedia.com/forum/showthread.php?p=37462#post37462
Another great post.
Thanks for the tips and help.
Everyone, bookmark this site.
[...] Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door Dennis Zijn er goede ervaringen met custom 2.1 roms op dit moment? Zelf draai ik de MCR 3.2b nog steeds 1.5 cupcake gebaseerd maar wil wel een gok wagen naar een goede 2.1 rom Misschien open-eclair voor Hero proberen ! How to install Eclair 2.1 on HTC Hero | Plinky Blog [...]
Currently on Kagudroid 1.3 JIT
http://htcpedia.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2149
Stable, pretty fast, no battery drain and working camera!!!!
my phone came from England, I think. When I try and use the Recovery Flasher I can put the location of the recovery image in the app, but download recovery image is grayed out and cant be chosen and when I hit restore backup image it completes, but the button reboot into recovery mode cant be chosen.
Other problems are adb shell flash_image recovery /sdcard/recovery-RA-hero-v1.6.2.img is not allowed on my HTC Hero. fastboot boot is not allowed on my device either. I would like to install an AOSP image on my OTC/stock Hero phone, but cant. I can do it on my ADP1 phone though.
Hi cdprince,
I have a UK White Hero too. Is your build number lower than 2.73?
Regards.
Build num 2.73.405.5 Mine is black
This is what I have tried:
cdprince@ubuntu $adb shell flash_image recovery /sdcard/recovery-RA-hero-v1.6.2.img
error writing recovery: Permission denied
cdprince@ubuntu $ adb push ~/phone_HERO/superuser/su /sdcard/
554 KB/s (34612 bytes in 0.060s)
cdprince@ubuntu $ adb shell /sdcard/su
/sdcard/su: permission denied
@ubuntu $ adb shell mount -rw -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system
mount: Operation not permitted
cdprince@ubuntu $ adb shell mount -rw -o dirsync -t vfat /dev/block//vold/179:1 /sdcard
mount: Operation not permitted
cdprince@ubuntu $ fastboot devices
HT9C1L901806 fastboot
cdprince@ubuntu $ fastboot boot ~/phone_HERO/recovery-RA-hero-v1.6.2.img
downloading ‘boot.img’… FAILED (remote: not allow)
cdprince@ubuntu $ adb push /home/cdprince/phone_HERO/recovery-RA-hero-v1.6.2.img /sdcard/
459 KB/s (3895296 bytes in 8.272s)
cdprince@ubuntu $ fastboot boot /sdcard/recovery-RA-hero-v1.6.2.img
cannot load ‘/sdcard/recovery-RA-hero-v1.6.2.img’
cdprince@ubuntu $ adb shell mount
rootfs / rootfs ro 0 0
tmpfs /dev tmpfs rw,mode=755 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts rw,mode=600 0 0
proc /proc proc rw 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs rw 0 0
tmpfs /sqlite_stmt_journals tmpfs rw,size=4096k 0 0
/dev/block/mtdblock3 /system yaffs2 ro 0 0
/dev/block/mtdblock5 /data yaffs2 rw,nosuid,nodev 0 0
/dev/block/mtdblock4 /cache yaffs2 rw,nosuid,nodev 0 0
/dev/block//vold/179:1 /sdcard vfat rw,dirsync,nosuid,nodev,noexec,uid=1000,gid=1000,fmask=0000,dmask=0000,allow_utime=0022,codepage=cp437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,utf8 0 0
cdprince@ubuntu $ adb shell mount -rw -o dirsync -t vfat /dev/block//vold/179:1 /sdcard
mount: Operation not permitted
cdprince@ubuntu $ adb shell mount -rw -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system
mount: Operation not permitted
cdprince@ubuntu $ adb push ~/phone_HERO/superuser/su /sdcard/
554 KB/s (34612 bytes in 0.060s)
cdprince@ubuntu $ adb shell /sdcard/su
/sdcard/su: permission denied
cdprince@ubuntu $adb shell flash_image recovery /sdcard/recovery-RA-hero-v1.6.2.img
error writing recovery: Permission denied
Did you try to perform first?
cdprince@ubuntu $adb remount
cdprince@ubuntu $adb shell
try to do all the operation with root.
Regards
Thanks for your response. I am not sure what you mean by try to do all the operation with root.
cdprince@ubuntu $ adb root
adbd cannot run as root in production builds
cdprince@ubuntu $ adb shell sudo remount
sudo: permission denied
Sorry,
try this:
cdprince@ubuntu $ su -
#adb remount
I hope this would work
I tried that, but it did not work and I would be very surprised if it did work.
I was going to try creating a gold card next:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=572683
If you can think of anything else let me know.
Thanks.
[...] http://www.plinky.it/blog/index.php/2010/01/23/how-to-install-eclair-2-1-on-htc-hero/ [...]
I was successfull using:
http://theunlockr.com/2009/08/27/how-to-root-your-htc-hero-in-one-click/
and:
http://theunlockr.com/2009/08/27/how-to-load-a-custom-rom-on-your-htc-hero/
But I still could not use fastboot, but I am rooted.
I used to load ROMs using:
fastboot flash boot boot.img
fasatboot flash system system.img
fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
fastboot flash userdata userdata.img
fastboot reboot
This worked on ADP1, but now I think the commands must be given with adb shell as root for a stock/OTC phone. I am not sure the exact syntax, but I know the adb shell help doesnt contain all the commands that can be given. So a little help would be nice.
I always got “Back FAILED: Could not run command” while doing Backup Recover Image.