How to: Update your rooted V9/VC baseband Optimus S to VD w/out losing all your data.

[jstntp]

For everyone asking, this should work the same for any recovery.
Jstntp, even with the freeze at the lg logo after restoring your backup, you probably could have got by without wiping data, just the caches, so you'd still have your apps. It is more likely something in the system partition not playing well and system gets over written when you flash the new rom.

Ok, so your saying that even though the Nand did not fully boot, it still probably put all my prior info and apps on the phone.

I didn't even think of that. I was more in the mind frame of, Oh Crap!!!, wipe everything and hope for the best. LOL

Thanks for the info, good to know.


So I would be curious if this works :
After VC update, restore nand backup but not reboot. Instead wipe cache and dalvik then flash the 1.7 zip

Just a thought.

 

[Robchaos_]

The nand restore writes all the info during the restore process. During boot it is just loading modules, rebuilding dalvik, and loading stuff.

 

[trekkie1701c]

Bit the bullet and did it finally. Wasn't sure how it'd go with dual-baseband compatible ROMs so I flashed ThundeROM 1.6.2 before starting out. It's worked fine so far, trying to reboot in to my Cyanogenmod backup to see if it runs fine

EDIT: Forgot to wipe Cache after restoring. Still running fine

 

[O.a.T.]

1. Place the VC baseband compatible rom of your choice onto the root directory of your SD card.

2. Boot your phone into recovery and create a nandroid backup of your current rom.

3. Reboot your phone and connect it to your computer.

4. Run the LG updater tool to update your phone to the latest VC baseband

5. Once the LG updater is done flashing the firmware to your phone, your phone will reboot. I let my phone boot all the way up to the point where it was asking me to download a sprintID theme.

6. Fire up the command prompt! Go to your android SDK tools folder and type the following into your command prompt (not in an adb shell)
adb reboot recovery

7. Nandroid Restore the backup you made in step 1 then reboot your phone.

8. Once your phone fully boots up, go back into your command prompt and ADB reboot recovery again.

9. Wipe Dalvik Cache and Wipe Cache (no need to wipe data as that is nothing but all the apps you would be reinstalling anyways.)

10. Flash your VC compatible rom of choice to your phone and then select reboot when it is done flashing.

11. Your first boot might take a minute due to the phone having to rebuild the dalvik cache. Enjoy your phone still rooted, with all your apps, and the VC baseband compatible with all new versions of Thunderom and Nrom.

Trying to understand the details of the above. I'm assuming steps 2), 6) and 7) and not wiping data on step 9) is primarily to restore the apps and data. So if you're not interested in that, 2), 6), and 7) could be omitted and you could also include wiping data on 9). Or am I missing something "special" about the necessity of those steps in terms of upgrading from V9 to VC?

 

[tmeader]

Trying to understand the details of the above. I'm assuming steps 2), 6) and 7) and not wiping data on step 9) is primarily to restore the apps and data. So if you're not interested in that, 2), 6), and 7) could be omitted and you could also include wiping data on 9). Or am I missing something "special" about the necessity of those steps in terms of upgrading from V9 to VC?

You're correct, those are only necessary (especially 6 and 7) if you want to preserve your existing apps. That said, step 2 should ALWAYS be done "just in case".

 

[DCJoe]

Oh how I wished this method worked out for me. After trying multiple techniques to upgrade to VC without bricking, I had given up and downgraded back to V9 with Lego Rom. Everything was in working order, could turn on and off, plug the phone in, etc. I was happy but frustrated that I couldn't get a stable VC on my phone.

Then I saw this thread, which incorporated a few things I had tried before, including a straight jump to VC from a rooted, custom recovery and custom ROM V9. The success of others gave me the confidence to try it. I nandroided my Lego Rom setup and followed the directions. Everything was great, I installed VC through the LG tool, let it reboot, and then went into recovery (dreslisdee's 1.2 version). I flashed ThunderRom 1.7 as Lego doesn't fully work with VC. Everything was golden as of last night.

Then this morning I woke up and the phone was fully charged. No brick overnight through charging like I had happen before. Then I unplugged it and turned it on. Brick! I pulled the battery and was able to get to recovery. I turned it off and tried to turn it on again. Brick!

I knew I could get back to V9 by force flashing through KP500. So I did that, custom recovery was still there, I wiped everything and restored my Lego ROM nandroid. Back to square one.

I am typing this all to say that while I am ecstatic that this technique has worked for others, it didn't work for me, and I am quit sure that I followed the directions correctly. I am no longer frustrated, just resigned. One day someone will come up with a foolproof method, or Sprint/LG will realize what a mess was created by VC and release an update.

 

[tmeader]

I am typing this all to say that while I am ecstatic that this technique has worked for others, it didn't work for me, and I am quit sure that I followed the directions correctly. I am no longer frustrated, just resigned. One day someone will come up with a foolproof method, or Sprint/LG will realize what a mess was created by VC and release an update.

Sorry it didn't work out for you. Did you wipe cache/dalvik after flashing 1.7? Couldn't hurt when jumping from a nandroid backup of Lego ROM to TR 1.7.

As for LG "fixing" it though, I wouldn't hold my breath. This is all completely unofficial modifications to their released software. If something doesn't work out for you with the unofficial stuff, yet works fine with the official versions, doubtful they'll care too much. Sucks, but it's the truth.

 

[DCJoe]

I wiped cache/dalvik/data before flashing 1.7.

Good point about the update. But I think I read in another post that Sprint was having a bunch of returns of the Optimus S because even the OTA update was bricking some people's phones who hadn't rooted or anything. It's my opinion that there is something inherent in VC that is problematic. Why would it cause all these problems when going back to V9 always clears things up?

Anyway, either a modification of VC for the new roms, a root procedure for the OTA update (which may still have problems), or a new update from LG/Sprint is the long term solution to the bricking problem.

 

[O.a.T.]

Oh how I wished this method worked out for me. After trying multiple techniques to upgrade to VC without bricking, I had given up and downgraded back to V9 with Lego Rom. Everything was in working order, could turn on and off, plug the phone in, etc. I was happy but frustrated that I couldn't get a stable VC on my phone.

Then I saw this thread, which incorporated a few things I had tried before, including a straight jump to VC from a rooted, custom recovery and custom ROM V9. The success of others gave me the confidence to try it. I nandroided my Lego Rom setup and followed the directions. Everything was great, I installed VC through the LG tool, let it reboot, and then went into recovery (dreslisdee's 1.2 version). I flashed ThunderRom 1.7 as Lego doesn't fully work with VC. Everything was golden as of last night.

Then this morning I woke up and the phone was fully charged. No brick overnight through charging like I had happen before. Then I unplugged it and turned it on. Brick! I pulled the battery and was able to get to recovery. I turned it off and tried to turn it on again. Brick!

I knew I could get back to V9 by force flashing through KP500. So I did that, custom recovery was still there, I wiped everything and restored my Lego ROM nandroid. Back to square one.

I am typing this all to say that while I am ecstatic that this technique has worked for others, it didn't work for me, and I am quit sure that I followed the directions correctly. I am no longer frustrated, just resigned. One day someone will come up with a foolproof method, or Sprint/LG will realize what a mess was created by VC and release an update.

You and I have been in a similar predicament with the VC upgrade. Like you, I was encouraged by this development, but still fearful that I would end up in the same place - hung up on the LG logo after power down/up. I in fact was going to try a variation on this method because of one of my suspicions that for some reason the download used in the LG updater is corrupted. So what I was thinking about was in fact force flashing VC through KP500 with a correctly checksumed VC cab. I am confident about the integrity of my KP500 since I successfully force flashed back to V9. If this doesn't work I really am about to write it off as some unknown difference in my hardware. Any reactions from anyone about this approach?

 

[DCJoe]

I've tried that with a VC cab that was correctly checksumed. Bricked. But it might work for you. If you are confident that you can force flash back to v9 and restore your nandroid backup of your good setup, then why not try it? I kind of have it down to a science now. The whole thing only takes me 20 minutes. So I know if someone comes up with a better procedure to upgrade to VC I won't mind giving it at try.

 

[Robchaos_]

Has anyone grabbed a logcat from a phone booting up and getting stuck?

 

[DCJoe]

Has anyone grabbed a logcat from a phone booting up and getting stuck?

How would one do that? I know how to run logcat, but would you be able to see what is happening when it gets stuck? The only way to see it would be to "unstick" it, either through going into emergency or getting back to recovery and rebooting. Would the logcat still be there after going through that? Does it survive through reboots?

I wouldn't be averse to trying it sometime tomorrow if someone thinks it would be helpful. But it is a good 40-45 minutes of work when you include flashing up to VC, bricking, trying to get the log, and then going back down to v9 and restoring my nandroid. I wouldn't want to do it unless I knew I could get a good log out of it. But if the log would survive (I just don't know the details of how logcat works), I would try it.

 

[O.a.T.]

I've tried that with a VC cab that was correctly checksumed. Bricked. But it might work for you. If you are confident that you can force flash back to v9 and restore your nandroid backup of your good setup, then why not try it? I kind of have it down to a science now. The whole thing only takes me 20 minutes. So I know if someone comes up with a better procedure to upgrade to VC I won't mind giving it at try.

That's not encouraging, but glad you mentioned you tried this. Guess I may just have to be content with V9 for a while. The only real disappointment on my part may be if/when gingerbread for the Optimus S is released, as I hadn't seen any improvement in my area with the new radio, wasn't having problems with my sd card, and in fact saw some things presumably from the new graphics drivers that I didn't like.

 

[glitchsta]

RobChaos...thanks alot man, this was way easier than reverting back to stock and updating! I was running CM7, this is what I did...I wiped installed thunderom 1.6, made nandroid, installed LG updates, restored nandroid, updated to thunderom 1.7, updated PRL/Profile (Fixed 1x data), and now I am going to wipe all and install CM7....Thanks man it all worked exactly like u said it would =] I just got a new 16gig class10 patriot SDHC card so I kinda wanted to start fresh =] w00t w00t

 

[O.a.T.]

Has anyone grabbed a logcat from a phone booting up and getting stuck?

Tried to a while back, but was unable to since the device is not recognized till sometime after the LG logo boot portion. At least, that is what it seemed to me at the time.

 

[Sparty73]

First, thanks a ton for this VC update method. It saved me a ton of time when it came time to upgrade to ThundeROM v1.7.

Since I've upgraded though, I seem to have lost maybe 15-20MB worth of internal storage space, and I'm now getting "not enough room" message errors. Is there any VC upgrade related reason as to why this may be happening? I have the same apps as I did before I applied the update, and my internal storage went from about 35MB to 15MB free.

 

[KSmithInNY]

First, thanks a ton for this VC update method. It saved me a ton of time when it came time to upgrade to ThundeROM v1.7.

Since I've upgraded though, I seem to have lost maybe 15-20MB worth of internal storage space, and I'm now getting "not enough room" message errors. Is there any VC upgrade related reason as to why this may be happening? I have the same apps as I did before I applied the update, and my internal storage went from about 35MB to 15MB free.

It's your kernel. You tried flashing xonia. Reflash the ROM over top of its self and this time don't flash xonia kernel.

 

[Sparty73]

It's your kernel. You tried flashing xonia. Reflash the ROM over top of its self and this time don't flash xonia kernel.

I flashed Xionia (successfully) after flashing ThundeROM simply to gain OC'ing abilities. It's my understanding that ThundeROM v1.7 comes with a stock kernel (right?). If that's the case, I'll probably just keep Xionia and deal with the lack of room.

I didn't realize a kernel could take up so much space! That makes sense though, since I was using the OC kernel that came with ThundeROM v1.6.2 prior to this whole VC/ThundeROM update process.

 

[glitchsta]

I believe thundering 1.7 comes with an overclocked kernal, no need to flash one ...

 

[jimroeder]

Great walkthrough! Worked exactly as describe for me. Just wondering if anyone recommends a different kernel than the stock one that comes with ThundeROM 1.7

Thanks!