Rooted HTC Dinc, w Sense need to start fresh

[alp44]

Hi all,

I have a rooted Dinc running Froyo, with Sense. I've been fooling with it to the point that I'm sick of the out of space, reboots, and general mishaps the phone has experienced lately - don't ask me why.

I think I'm ready to go to a new ROM probably CM7.1 but I have a few questions that perhaps more experienced users can answer:

1. I've heard of GPS issues with CM7, and I use my navigation A LOT, so this is a huge concern for me. I've read various posts and it's not clear if this is still a problem.

2. I want my FM radio. I use it regularly and its one of the things I love about Android. How can I make sure I still have it with the new ROM?

3. I use Titanium Pro, ROM Manager & App 2 SD Pro. Can you direct me to a step-by-step guide where I can clean up the phone, (I will reload apps fresh) and then install the ROM without it laying on a bunch of leftover crap - which is my fear? I back up every evening with Titanium onto the SD Card.

4. I'm fairly savvy with tech but I know the least about re installing an Android ROM. I've been trying to get an education, but since the Dinc has been acting up, I'm worried the process won't go smoothly. Ironically, everything is finally laid out perfectly - after a year and a half of fiddling with it (so many options!)

5. Have purchased a 32 GB C10 sd card, backed up fully my 16 gb, formatted the 32 gb via Windows & the Dinc to FAT32, copied everything to new card, but it does not work, so I'm back with the 16GB. Phone now freezes and sometimes doesn't recognize card. Ugh. SO I need a fresh start. Every couple of years I do this with my Win PC and it's great. But I'm not confident in my abilities here.

6. I read that there is a possibility, that I might have the older version of App 2 SD Pro, and that it might have partitioned the card, hence the problem. Since I upgrade the apps regularly, how can I verify this?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you

Alp

 

[318sugarhill]

Ok,

1st. NANDROID BACKUP! Can't stress this enough. Reboot the phone into Recover. If you have Rom Manager, you can reboot through Rom Manager. Make sure you have the latest CWR before you reboot. Rom Manager will list if you are up to date with CWR or not. Once you are in recovery, use the volume keys on the side to move down to BACKUP/RESTORE. use the trackpad to select. Then choose backup. This will take about 10 min. Maybe longer. Make sure you have sufficient battery life before starting,

2. From here you can reboot if you like and then when the phone boots up you can download a Rom through Rom Manager. Rom Manager will download the rom, and then give you a choice to backup and then wipe for you before installing the ROM. I never do this anymore, as I had an issue once with a backup becoming corrupted so I now do everything manually. I get my roms online either here or from XDA or wherever you can find one you want to try. Download the zip file but do not open it. Place the zip file on your SD card. Do not put it in any folders, just on the root of the card (i.e. the first place you can drag it too) If you use a mac, make sure your safari settings don't open the file immediately after downloading. ALWAYS check the MD5 sum. The place you get the zip file from should list the md5. You can check the MD5 sum by using Astro from the market. With the file on your SD card in your phone, open astro, click on SDcard contents, scroll down till you find the file, long press and click details. This will list the MD5 sum in the information. If it does not match, DO NOT USE.

3. Once you have the Rom zip file, reboot into recovery. This is how you manually wipe. Once into recovery, scroll down to mounts and storage. the scroll down and select format data, format cache, and format system. This is three separate steps and you must confirm each one. Once finished, use the power button to return the previous menu. From here select wipe cache partition, and then wipe data/factory reset. Once all of that is finished, then you can install. Select install zip from sdcard. Then scroll down and find the zip file. Confirm and then the install will begin. Once it is finished, then just reboot system and your new Rom will load up.

It is normal for the phone to take a while to boot up the first time you load a new Rom. Once it loads, you will see it's like booting up a brand new phone. You will have to reactivate your google account, etc.

Once this is all done, then go to the market and download Titanium (and the pro version if you previously bought it). I suggest restoring Apps one at a time without restoring data. App only except for games like angry birds and such where your game progress is saved as part of the data. Also, you want restore wifi access points data so that all the wifi networks with passwords you connected to in the past will be remembered. Otherwise you will need to renter passwords when you want to connect again. Lastly with Titanium, DO NOT restore anything that is Red. These are system files that may cause problems between ROMs.

Good luck, enjoy, and don't ever be in a hurry. That's when mistakes are made.

PS. If you find yourself running out of SD card space or are worried about an SD card failure, make a copy of it on your computer. That way your Nandroid backups are saved. They can always be found in the clockwork folder on the SD card.

 

[Wanda]

In response to you questions about certain apps:

Navigation and GPS work just fine on CM7. There were some early nighty's that had issues but those have long been worked out. I use my navigation a lot as well and would never dream of using a ROM that didn't have it.

CM7 has it's own version of FM radio but it works just the same. The last time I was running CM7 my FM radio actually didn't work but I haven't done a clean install of the ROM in ages so I'm not really surprised. Lots of other CM7er's didn't report problems so I'm fairly certain it was an isolated problem with my particular phone...when I flashed back to a Sense based ROM it worked with no problem.

Good luck and don't hesitate to jump into the wonderful and spare-time-consuming world of ROM flashing. Lot's of us around here ready to help if you need it.

 

[alp44]

Thank you SO much for that very detailed response. It's extremely helpful. I believe I've done multiple nandroid backups, (paranoid) but was worried that they might be corrupt since the phone has behaved badly, and I'm most likely backing up the problems as well as data.

My confusion with the Nandroid backup has been that it doesn't say Nandroid backup, although I do it via ROM Mngr, so I'm never sure if that's the nandroid b/u although it does take 10 min. And just so I don't come off like an idiot, I have multiple b/u of the SD card on my laptop. Learned the b/u lesson years ago the hard way. (grin)

Thanks a mil!

a

Ok,

1st. NANDROID BACKUP! Can't stress this enough. Reboot the phone into Recover. If you have Rom Manager, you can reboot through Rom Manager. Make sure you have the latest CWR before you reboot. Rom Manager will list if you are up to date with CWR or not. Once you are in recovery, use the volume keys on the side to move down to BACKUP/RESTORE. use the trackpad to select. Then choose backup. This will take about 10 min. Maybe longer. Make sure you have sufficient battery life before starting,

2. From here you can reboot if you like and then when the phone boots up you can download a Rom through Rom Manager. Rom Manager will download the rom, and then give you a choice to backup and then wipe for you before installing the ROM. I never do this anymore, as I had an issue once with a backup becoming corrupted so I now do everything manually. I get my roms online either here or from XDA or wherever you can find one you want to try. Download the zip file but do not open it. Place the zip file on your SD card. Do not put it in any folders, just on the root of the card (i.e. the first place you can drag it too) If you use a mac, make sure your safari settings don't open the file immediately after downloading. ALWAYS check the MD5 sum. The place you get the zip file from should list the md5. You can check the MD5 sum by using Astro from the market. With the file on your SD card in your phone, open astro, click on SDcard contents, scroll down till you find the file, long press and click details. This will list the MD5 sum in the information. If it does not match, DO NOT USE.

3. Once you have the Rom zip file, reboot into recovery. This is how you manually wipe. Once into recovery, scroll down to mounts and storage. the scroll down and select format data, format cache, and format system. This is three separate steps and you must confirm each one. Once finished, use the power button to return the previous menu. From here select wipe cache partition, and then wipe data/factory reset. Once all of that is finished, then you can install. Select install zip from sdcard. Then scroll down and find the zip file. Confirm and then the install will begin. Once it is finished, then just reboot system and your new Rom will load up.

It is normal for the phone to take a while to boot up the first time you load a new Rom. Once it loads, you will see it's like booting up a brand new phone. You will have to reactivate your google account, etc.

Once this is all done, then go to the market and download Titanium (and the pro version if you previously bought it). I suggest restoring Apps one at a time without restoring data. App only except for games like angry birds and such where your game progress is saved as part of the data. Also, you want restore wifi access points data so that all the wifi networks with passwords you connected to in the past will be remembered. Otherwise you will need to renter passwords when you want to connect again. Lastly with Titanium, DO NOT restore anything that is Red. These are system files that may cause problems between ROMs.

Good luck, enjoy, and don't ever be in a hurry. That's when mistakes are made.

PS. If you find yourself running out of SD card space or are worried about an SD card failure, make a copy of it on your computer. That way your Nandroid backups are saved. They can always be found in the clockwork folder on the SD card.

 

[alp44]

In response to you questions about certain apps:

Navigation and GPS work just fine on CM7. There were some early nighty's that had issues but those have long been worked out. I use my navigation a lot as well and would never dream of using a ROM that didn't have it.

CM7 has it's own version of FM radio but it works just the same. The last time I was running CM7 my FM radio actually didn't work but I haven't done a clean install of the ROM in ages so I'm not really surprised. Lots of other CM7er's didn't report problems so I'm fairly certain it was an isolated problem with my particular phone...when I flashed back to a Sense based ROM it worked with no problem.

Good luck and don't hesitate to jump into the wonderful and spare-time-consuming world of ROM flashing. Lot's of us around here ready to help if you need it.

Whew! That's a relief! I'm sick of being manipulated by telcos on what should be on my phone - it's why I rooted the moment I could. I'll update here when I finally do this.

Thanks for your help and for putting my mind at ease. And since I'm a never ending tinkerer who - as my friends say - can't leave well enough alone, I'm sure that this is only the 1st toe in the ROM waters. Ciao!

a

 

[alp44]

Thank you SO much for that very detailed response. It's extremely helpful. I believe I've done multiple nandroid backups, (paranoid) but was worried that they might be corrupt since the phone has behaved badly, and I'm most likely backing up the problems as well as data.

My confusion with the Nandroid backup has been that it doesn't say Nandroid backup, although I do it via ROM Mngr, so I'm never sure if that's the nandroid b/u although it does take 10 min. And just so I don't come off like an idiot, I have multiple b/u of the SD card on my laptop. Learned the b/u lesson years ago the hard way. (grin)

Thanks a mil!

a

Here we go..................... Jumping off the ROM cliff.... will I land on my feet? Please stay tuned.

 

[Wanda]

If your jumping off a cliff it generally doesn't matter what body part you land on...you're F'ed!

 

[alp44]

If your jumping off a cliff it generally doesn't matter what body part you land on...you're F'ed!

Haha, Funny....!

So I leapt off the cliff. Loaded Cyanogen 7.1 ROM (thanks to all of the help here) and am using Go Launcher with a spiffy Windows Theme, which I liked better than ADW & other launchers. Manually re-installed many of my apps from the Android & Amazon Market. Mostly, what I thought during the process is, why didn't I do this sooner? It's great fun. Like being in WIlly Wonka's factory.

I also took the opportunity of switching my 16 gb SD card, to the 32 GB I had purchased - clean install, so there would be no problems. Working great.

The Cyanogen radio has barely a signal, so I'm already missing my Sense UI radio.

Everything seemed okay, but the last hour, the android Market, Titanium Media Sync & WeatherBug app are all crashing. Can't figure out why....

Everything else seems to be Jim Dandy.

If anyone has any ideas on the radio and force close on some apps, please share.

Thanks a mil!

 

[PvilleComp]

CM7 does not include the Radio - You are still using the Radio you had previously. You're just seeing an accurate signal reading for the first time.

Check the Baseband in your About phone settings. The current official Radio is 2.15.10.07.07. If you are lower than that you can upgrade here: Radios | PvilleComp's

Be sure you check the MD5 before flashing!!!!! (There's a how to for that on the site.) Rename the file PB31IMG.zip and place it on the root of your SD Card. Reboot into HBOOT and the file will flash.

You may want to run Fix Permissions in Recovery if you are having Force Close issues.

Hope this helps. Welcome to the Dark Side... We have cookies!

 

[318sugarhill]

CM7 does not include the Radio - You are still using the Radio you had previously. You're just seeing an accurate signal reading for the first time.

Check the Baseband in your About phone settings. The current official Radio is 2.15.10.07.07. If you are lower than that you can upgrade here: Radios | PvilleComp's

Be sure you check the MD5 before flashing!!!!! (There's a how to for that on the site.) Rename the file PB31IMG.zip and place it on the root of your SD Card. Reboot into HBOOT and the file will flash.

You may want to run Fix Permissions in Recovery if you are having Force Close issues.

Hope this helps. Welcome to the Dark Side... We have cookies!

WOOOAAAA! Don't send the newbie down that road yet! I don't believe he was talking about baseband with the radio comment. I believe he was referring to the FM radio app from the phone itself. I don't think 3g/data/phone reception was the problem here.

 

[PvilleComp]

WOOOAAAA! Don't send the newbie down that road yet! I don't believe he was talking about baseband with the radio comment. I believe he was referring to the FM radio app from the phone itself. I don't think 3g/data/phone reception was the problem here.

LOL - FM Radio

I must need a break - when I saw Radio, all I thought of was the Radio! Thanks sugarhill.

 

[Wanda]

Nice...self "Picard face palm"

Actually I'm with you Stig...I was totally thinking baseband radio. Nice catch sugarhill.

 

[318sugarhill]

Ha Ha, that is an awesome picture of picard to use there.

 

[Wanda]

Ha Ha, that is an awesome picture of picard to use there.

It's even better when he (Stig) lays one down on you!! Nothing beats the "Picard face palm" except for the double face palm...pure awesomness!

 

[PvilleComp]

But you have not sen the power of the ASCII Facepalm!

Muaahhhahahaha