NOTE :- This Method will work in most cases, but make sure you take responsibility of whatever happens with your phone :) [Although nothing will happen :-P]
Now many of us use Android phones, the system we use is called as STOCK ROM, since it is given to us by the manufacturer.
Sometimes to enable additional functions or have different looks, themes or performance we might think of a different OS [ROM]. Custom ROM's are made with this in mind, usually they save a lot of your Internal space by removing all the unwanted apps, secondly there are performance improvements, many different functions etc.
Question arises how to get the custom ROM and How to Identify If it is good ?
- Whenever you search for a custom ROM, make sure you search for your own phone and not a different model [Different model's ROM might brick your Phone].
- Whenever you search the ROM, try finding it on XDA [which a large community of android developers].
- Try finding few famous ROM like cyanogenMod, Paranoid ROM, OmniRom, SlimROM, AOKP, MIUI, etc.
- It might happen that your model does not have any of the above mentioned ROM and it's name is something else, it's okay because the ROM developer gives name of his own choice.
- The mentioned ROM are little famous because they develop for a lot of phone models and they keep updating and fixing the bugs.
- If you go for a different ROM always check the working list and the bugs list of that ROM, generally provided by the developer. If not try reading the comments :)
- Make sure all the basic functions like calling, wifi, bluetooth work fine. There are always few bugs no matter how much great the developer is. So don't expect full stable ROM, but make sure it's basic functions are working.
- After that check the date on which ROM was developed and get an idea about how many times the developer has updated the ROM. Update frequency must be good or the first make of ROM should be stable.
- After selecting a proper ROM of your choice, the question is how do I flash it ?
Flashing a ROM is a simple thing, but before that we have a loads of work to be done :)
- First of all you need to make sure you have a working PC and your phone's drivers are Installed in your PC.
- Download basic tools required like ADB, Fastboot, you can find this on XDA.[Try this, click here.]
- Now Depending on your phone model you might have a bootloader to be unlocked. If you have a bootloader, you will have to unlock it first. It is a protective mechanism. Bootloader unlocking requires a code given by company sometimes, get that from their website. Then follow the unlocking methods for your model and once bootloader is unlocked you are free to go. WARRANTY IS VOID ONCE YOU UNLOCK THE BOOTLOADER.
- Once the bootloader is unlocked you need to have a recovery option, stock recovery will not work. so find the recovery image for your model [usually ROM developers give us the link to download the custom Recovery].
- Recovery could be CWM or TWRP etc... flash it on to your phone.
- Every phone has a different method of flashing Recovery, the most common is, rebooting the phone in fastboot mode, then in PC opening the fastboot through cmd and typing
fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
- Once the recovery is flashed take nandroid backup of your phone. Option named backup does this function. It will backup your current data, files, ROM etc. [If something goes wrong you can always use this backup to restore your phone to original state].
- Copy this backup into your PC and Custom ROM file in to external SD card.
- After the backup make sure you mount the system and wipe system, cache, internal memory, dalvik cache, data.
- If your phone is not having a external SD card then, copy the ROM into Internal Memory and Don't wipe internal memory :)
- This clean wipe will clear everything from your phone. Now flash the custom ROM that you have downloaded. Also flash G-apps [Basic google apps].
- Reboot the system, usually the reboot takes a lot of time like 25-30 mins.
Now enjoy the custom ROM :)
What if something goes Wrong ?
- Just flash the Nandroid backup using the Recovery.
- You can flash STOCK ROM anytime you want if you have the Images of firmware [STOCK ROM]. [If no firmware is available nandroid backup helps :-P]
Note :-
When you get a update for ROM either OTA will be there, but if you want to "flash" the new update :-P , just wipe cache & dalvik cache and flash the new Updated version. [DATA WILL BE SAFE].
This is really a basic Idea about how you will proceed through the flashing of Custom ROM.
This will work majority of times, but some models are quite tricky.
Do a little research before trying out.
If you are new to whatever that was explained above, or want a little information then click here Things you should know about android.
Comments are welcomed :)
Thank You.
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