Quick Check Before Taking the Plunge

**jimmyrules712** · 05-01-2012, 02:25 PM

I've been trying to do as much research as possible before making my first attempt to unlock/root/rom my GN. Based on research I already decided to start out using Liquid 1.35. Have I missed or misunderstood anything?

1. Setup Wugs root toolkit & drivers, etc.
2. Use Wugs to unlock & root
3. Install premium CWM ROM Manager
4. Use CWM to flash CWM Touch Recovery
5. Make nandroid backup
6. Wipe data/factory reset, cache, and dalvik cache
6. Flash 4.0.4 Radios
7. Flash Liquid 1.35 ROM & Extras
8. Reboot, make sure everything works and is set up, reboot again.
9. Install franco.kernal updater from market & flash franco kernal
10. New nandroid backup

Thanks in advance!

**2defmouze** · 05-01-2012, 02:30 PM

Pretty much good. I say do not use ROM manager period. You can download touch recovery here and flash with Wug's toolkit I believe if you are not sure how to use fastboot and flash it yourself:

Everything else looks like a good system to me. Feel free to ask if your unsure at any step along the way

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

**dmmarck** · 05-01-2012, 02:30 PM

Sounds good. Keep in mind, when flashing the CWM TOUCH recovery from Rom Manager you'll have to donate like $2. You can also flash it via fastboot, for free.

If you want to do neither, simply flash the latest regular CWM (it'll be apparent in RM, trust me)--I believe it's 5.5.04.

**Nechasin** · 05-01-2012, 02:30 PM

Looks good. Just a word of warning, when you flash CWM Recovery on a stock device, it only works for one boot. Which should be sufficient based on the steps that you intend on following. But if for some reason you do a full boot after you flash CWM Recovery and before you flash liquid 1.35, you will need to flash CWM Recovery again.

**dmmarck** · 05-01-2012, 02:32 PM

Originally Posted by Nechasin

Looks good. Just a word of warning, when you flash CWM Recovery on a stock device, it only works for one boot. Which should be sufficient based on the steps that you intend on following. But if for some reason you do a full boot after you flash CWM Recovery and before you flash liquid 1.35, you will need to flash CWM Recovery again.

I believe Wug's fixed it so CWM sticks--I'd check the changelog; I think it either deletes or renames that file so CWM will stick.

I've never had the issue, so my hands are tied with this regarding personal experience heh

**jimmyrules712** · 05-01-2012, 02:42 PM

Originally Posted by 2defmouze

I say do not use ROM manager period. You can download touch recovery here and flash with Wug's toolkit I believe if you are not sure how to use fastboot and flash it yourself:

Is this just to avoid being required to pay the $2 or is it easier to just not bother with it?

**2defmouze** · 05-01-2012, 02:59 PM

Originally Posted by jimmyrules712

Is this just to avoid being required to pay the $2 or is it easier to just not bother with it?

Both. While I have no problem with you donating to koush for his work -- he absolutely deserves it -- it will just be better for you to not use ROM manager. Use CWM recovery and get used to flashing things using that... Rom manager is a more noobish tool (no offense to anyone, lol) but it can screw up and you can find yourself in situations where you can't access it. It will be better for your overall android life to not use it and learn to do things more directly

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

**stoneworrior** · 05-01-2012, 03:20 PM

Originally Posted by 2defmouze

Both. While I have no problem with you donating to koush for his work -- he absolutely deserves it -- it will just be better for you to not use ROM manager. Use CWM recovery and get used to flashing things using that... Rom manager is a more noobish tool (no offense to anyone, lol) but it can screw up and you can find yourself in situations where you can't access it. It will be better for your overall android life to not use it and learn to do things more directly

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

Also there is another thing to consider. You open rom manager you will see all these fancy roms to flash. The problem with this is if you are new to this and do not know your way around this could brick your phone if you flash a rom you shouldn't.
Example #1. My wife has a Samsung Galaxy S II epic 4 g Touch (Give me a sec to catch my breath). It is rooted so if I open rom manager I could download a ICS rom and try to flash it. That is great but let's say she didn't like ICS and wanted me to put her GB backup back on her phone. Well rom manager isn't going to tell you that if you try and flash your GB back up that you could very well hard brick your phone. And doing business this way has been the norm for a while so it caught people off guard.
Example 2. The day I bought my Galaxy Nexus on Sprint I rooted it and opened rom manager. Here not only one hour after the release date was a whole slew of custom roms for me to flash right? Wrong, those where all Verizon builds and rom manager did not do a very good job at screening what kind of device it was running on. Rom manager read my phone as a CDMA Galaxy Nexus and pushed all those Verizon builds to my phone for me to download and possibly brick my phone.

Lesson here is to learn how to do it the hard way so you will be able to get out of a jam should/when things go south. This will require a bit of reading on your part, that reading will hopefully keep you up to date when problems arise on a device doing things under what is considered "Normal procedure"

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

**dmmarck** · 05-01-2012, 03:23 PM

Yup. You must be careful with ROM Manager. It's great for flashing a recovery, but past that, I use it for nothing. Oh and it's great to get into recovery. I use it for that all the time.

**stoneworrior** · 05-01-2012, 03:32 PM

Originally Posted by dmmarck

Yup. You must be careful with ROM Manager. It's great for flashing a recovery, but past that, I use it for nothing. Oh and it's great to get into recovery. I use it for that all the time.

Same here. Until I get a good custom rom on my Sprint version I'm using rom manager as my shortcut to custom recovery.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

**taappel** · 05-01-2012, 04:11 PM

If I were you, I would wait awhile before you flash a kernel. Try out a custom rom first, then try a different kernel to see if you like it better. In my experience, any issues I've had with custom roms on the GNex have actually been due to kernels I've flashed. You might have a smoother experience if you wait until you are comfortable with everything else before you flash a kernel.

Or you can disregard everything I just said, but consider yourself warned.

**dmmarck** · 05-01-2012, 04:12 PM

There's a lot of truth in that statement; most of the problems people have are kernel derived, aside from the usual not wiping, forgetting GAPPs, etc.

**asmallchild** · 05-01-2012, 05:04 PM

Originally Posted by 2defmouze

Both. While I have no problem with you donating to koush for his work -- he absolutely deserves it -- it will just be better for you to not use ROM manager. Use CWM recovery and get used to flashing things using that... Rom manager is a more noobish tool (no offense to anyone, lol) but it can screw up and you can find yourself in situations where you can't access it. It will be better for your overall android life to not use it and learn to do things more directly

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

Almost learned this the hard way last night, was flashing AOKP M5 using ROM manager and wasn't even given the option to install GAPPS

Rebooted into CWM recovery (which, I guess I'm lucky is an option built into the power menu of AOKP M5? Or is this universal across all ROMs?) and did it the right way from that point on

**2defmouze** · 05-01-2012, 05:10 PM

Originally Posted by asmallchild

Almost learned this the hard way last night, was flashing AOKP M5 using ROM manager and wasn't even given the option to install GAPPS

Rebooted into CWM recovery (which, I guess I'm lucky is an option built into the power menu of AOKP M5? Or is this universal across all ROMs?) and did it the right way from that point on

Just about every respectable rom should have an APM (advanced power menu) at this point.. Its one of the first things designed by devs for most phones

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

**stoneworrior** · 05-01-2012, 05:45 PM

Originally Posted by asmallchild

Almost learned this the hard way last night, was flashing AOKP M5 using ROM manager and wasn't even given the option to install GAPPS

Rebooted into CWM recovery (which, I guess I'm lucky is an option built into the power menu of AOKP M5? Or is this universal across all ROMs?) and did it the right way from that point on

Please correct me if I'm wrong but the phone should work just fine if you forget to flash the gapps. I have done this a dozen times before with other phones, I get in a hurry and just forget to flash them in recovery or even more annoying is a forget to push them to my SD card. You won't have the market, gmail and such but it won't break anything. You should be able to go back and flash gapps later but if doing this causes problems you can go back and start from the beginning. Annoying but not detrimental.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

**2defmouze** · 05-01-2012, 05:50 PM

Originally Posted by stoneworrior

Please correct me if I'm wrong but the phone should work just fine if you forget to flash the gapps. I have done this a dozen times before with other phones, I get in a hurry and just forget to flash them in recovery or even more annoying is a forget to push them to my SD card. You won't have the market, gmail and such but it won't break anything. You should be able to go back and flash gapps later but if doing this causes problems you can go back and start from the beginning. Annoying but not detrimental.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

Yes and no. More often than not it will still boot up but obviously you'll be missing everything important... And usually you will get errors trying to flash them after booting into your rom already. If you forget to flash gapps you are better off starting over, wiping and flashing the rom, then gapps, then rebooting.. Rather than trying to flash them after the fact.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

**asmallchild** · 05-01-2012, 06:02 PM

Originally Posted by 2defmouze

Yes and no. More often than not it will still boot up but obviously you'll be missing everything important... And usually you will get errors trying to flash them after booting into your rom already. If you forget to flash gapps you are better off starting over, wiping and flashing the rom, then gapps, then rebooting.. Rather than trying to flash them after the fact.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

Eek looks like I lucked out

Flashed GAPPS after the fact and luckily did not run into issues, I'll be sure not to make this mistake in the future!

**2defmouze** · 05-01-2012, 06:07 PM

Originally Posted by asmallchild

Eek looks like I lucked out

Flashed GAPPS after the fact and luckily did not run into issues, I'll be sure not to make this mistake in the future!

Might be lucky, might not. Hopefully you'll be ok.. But if you start getting errors or FC's (force closes) at any point you should assume that's likely the cause. But like I said hopefully you'll be ok

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

**stoneworrior** · 05-01-2012, 06:09 PM

Originally Posted by 2defmouze

Yes and no. More often than not it will still boot up but obviously you'll be missing everything important... And usually you will get errors trying to flash them after booting into your rom already. If you forget to flash gapps you are better off starting over, wiping and flashing the rom, then gapps, then rebooting.. Rather than trying to flash them after the fact.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

Must be a Samsung thing, I realized I forgot to flash gapps on my Evo 3d after going to work one day. I was waiting on a important call from my son about a surgery he was having scheduled so I didn't want to try and flash anything and risk missing his call. The phone worked like a champ and I even logged onto my drop box account through the browser and loaded the apk of maildroid, used maildroid backup on the SD to restore my settings and received calls, text messages and emails all day. When I got home I flashed the rom and gapps and got everything back to normal. The point being the phone worked great and I used my drop box and maildroid to work around the missing Gmail app.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

**asmallchild** · 05-01-2012, 06:15 PM

Originally Posted by 2defmouze

Might be lucky, might not. Hopefully you'll be ok.. But if you start getting errors or FC's (force closes) at any point you should assume that's likely the cause. But like I said hopefully you'll be ok

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

Hmm I'll be on the lookout

I literally have not stopped playing with my phone since unlocking, rooting, and flashing last night

So far so good with the FCs

**2defmouze** · 05-01-2012, 06:24 PM

Originally Posted by asmallchild

Hmm I'll be on the lookout

I literally have not stopped playing with my phone since unlocking, rooting, and flashing last night

Lol nice... It's a whole new world!

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

**SOTK** · 05-01-2012, 06:57 PM

Originally Posted by jimmyrules712

I've been trying to do as much research as possible before making my first attempt to unlock/root/rom my GN. Based on research I already decided to start out using Liquid 1.35. Have I missed or misunderstood anything?

1. Setup Wugs root toolkit & drivers, etc.
2. Use Wugs to unlock & root
3. Install premium CWM ROM Manager
4. Use CWM to flash CWM Touch Recovery
5. Make nandroid backup
6. Wipe data/factory reset, cache, and dalvik cache
6. Flash 4.0.4 Radios
7. Flash Liquid 1.35 ROM & Extras
8. Reboot, make sure everything works and is set up, reboot again.
9. Install franco.kernal updater from market & flash franco kernal
10. New nandroid backup

Thanks in advance!

Personal preference, but you may want to consider flashing AOKP M5 instead of Liquid Rom. M5 has all the latest kernel changes in it. I'd run this for while, get used to all the options, let the kernel settle in, and just see how the phone goes. After that, try flashing kernels and/or different Roms. Again, just a suggestion.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2