HTC Desire — upgraded/updated to Android 2.2 – How To!
I have decided to not wait any longer for HTC / LEAF to get Android 2.2 on my phone – HTC Desire. And surprisingly the process was fairly simple. For the time being I have decided to stick with the stock HTC ROM which can be downloaded from here (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=773997). This works if you are coming from a stock Android 2.1-update1 phone. So what did I do
- Ensure that your phone is plugged into power. You do not want your phone to die in the middle of an update.
- Rooted my phone with Unrevoked — very easy if you run Linux
- Did a Nandroid backup just in case — Nandroid come with 2 above.
- Rename the downloaded ROM above to update.zip and copy to the root of your SD Card
- Switch your phone off.
- Power on into recovery mode. (Hold volume minus while powering on the phone)
- Select Recovery Mode from menu that come up. (Volume key to scroll and Power key to select)
- Select install from sdcard (volume key to scroll and press touch button to select – [the round button at the bottom of your phone])
- Scroll down to confirm that you want to install from SD Card (again volume key to scroll and press touch button to select – {what is this button called})
- Now be patient and just wait .. do not touch anything. In about 10 minutes you should have an Android 2.2 phone with all your data intact.
This instructions comes with no guarantee but it worked for me so there should be no reason why it should not work for you. Oh and when you boot and there is not HTC boot sound .. that is a feature of this ROM .. there is a small update from the link above if you want the sound back. There is various add-ons at the same link above.
The one small issue I have at the moment is that the Swype keyboard I am using is not working properly. Keypress typing works but not swype typing.
Please comment and let us know your experience and mileage.
Happy updating and thanks for nothing LEAF
Congrats, Marius! Quite a lot of very useful stuff open to you now.
Two essentials:
o Titanium Backup Donation Version
o Quick Reboot
Blue skies
Roy
I see Unrevoked was easy in Linux. Worked seamlessly for me in Windows Vista.
An important sidenote…
Rooting your Android phone does not change ANYTHING at all about how your phone operates. It simply gives you access to otherwise hidden parts of the phone’s operating system.
Rooting is a preliminary step that has to be done in order to install a new ROM. But you don’t HAVE TO install a new ROM if you don’t want to.
In other words, there’s no rush for you to do every step immediately. You can root your phone today, and install a new ROM next week.
The advantage of rooting your phone right away is that you can install apps that require a rooted phone. Apps like Titanium Backup. I would argue that Titanium Backup is a compelling reason to root your Android. It is THE essential app.
Thanks Roy and yes I rooted my phone a while ago and only installed the new ROM today. Yes also agree about Titanium .. have that installed also just one issue. Titanium need both root and busybox and busybox does not come with stock HTC. The stock ROM in my post has busybox added to it so Titanium works perfectly. Another app I installed that needs root is ShootMe to take screenshots by just shaking the phone.
Next adventure is to Root (no problem here since Unrevoked support Wildfire) and upgrade a HTC Wildfire that belongs to my son. Have not seen much ROMs around for the Wildfire.
Ah. BusyBox comes with Titanium. First time you run it, it checks whether it’s installed on your phone. If not, you click something, Titanium downloads a copy and installs it. It’s a one time operation.
Good luck with Wildfire!
I think there’s a MoDaCo rom for the Wildfire.
I still haven’t managed to get MoDaCo installed on my Desire. It’s a mystery! If you have any luck, lemme know!
I got the 2.2 update via the phone itself weeks ago.
Am I missing something?
Blake, you were one of the lucky few. LEAF has not officially released the Android 2.2 update for MTN and Vodacom phones in SA yet. Some updates as slipped through when LEAF was doing some testing and you must be one of the lucky ones.
It is still worthwhile to root your phone to get access to some other nifty things like Titanium backup and applications that need root access to perform their functionality.
Roy I must have missed the click something to get busybox installed but now problems since it is working perfectly now.
Will keep this blog updated with my Wildfire experience — will take a while since my son is away at varsity.
Thanks Marius,
This is great, what did you do for sms, contacts, etc? I take it these were lost in root upgrade?
Nick
Hi Nick…
When I did my root upgrade, I went with a stock Sense Froyo rooted rom.
I expected despair and loss and trauma. But when I switched my phone back on, NOTHING was different. No apps were missing. No smsses were gone. No ‘remember this password’ gals in my Dolphin web browser. The upgrade didn’t disturb a single thing.
Of course, this doesn’t mean you should be complacent. Do your backups.
The key for you to do this effectively is the steps you follow. Here’s what I recommend.
1. Root your phone using UnRevoked.
2. Immediately install Titanium Backup, and buy the donation version.
3. Backup everything to your SD card.
4. Now proceed with the rest of the prescribed steps, ensuring that you do a full NANDROID backup before anything else. Nandroid allows you to restore your system to its exact state if anything goes wrong. Be sure to do a physical copy of everything on your SD card to a separate hard drive somewhere. You wanna guard that backup diligently.
The process is painless.
All the best.
Roy
Nick, like Roy mentioned, nothing was lost. Everything was exactly as before but with the added functionality that comes with 2.2. The only thing that did not work as before was Swype keyboard I have, but for that I just needed to downloaded a new beta.
Made the leap! Thanks for the advice Marius and Roy.
It all went smoothly.
🙂
Fantastic, Nick! Congrats on joining the land of the free!
Remember, do a weekly Nandroid backup, followed immediately by backing up your SD card to your harddrive. The whole card. Do this faithfully, and you’ll remain a happy man.
Welcome Nick to our part of the world where you have control. Like Roy say, do that backups .. you never know when you will need them.
Was reading an article –
http://www.zdnet.co.uk/reviews/smartphones/2010/09/15/benchmarks-high-end-android-smartphones-40090081/
Pretty interesting… Have you guys looked at the CyanogenMod ROM?
Also took the leap….thanks for the info and advise guys, made it a breeze. Why can’t leaf do the same…oh yes, that’s right, because they’re a bunch of useless criminals!
Hi, thanks for this, it all worked great, except my market is not functioning at all, any ideas?
Ronald, no idea .. mine works perfectly. What is the problem you have?
Hi Guys.
I must say that I’m a bit scaptical in getting the update myself for the desire. What exactly does the 2.2 come with?
Reuben, the greatest + for me is that some apps (not all) can be installed on the SDCard which frees up internal memory. If you partition you SDCard with and additional ext partition then you can move all apps to the SDCard. I found the radio (particularly WIFI) to be much stronger. Also some apps like gMail and latest Maps needs 2.2. Also it just feels faster overall.
Thanks’ a lot Mr. Marius. I’m experiencing an issue where my phone just reboots itself when using an application that connects to the internet(eg Opera, googlemaps, compass, etc), the phone will heat-up and reboot itself.
I tried to get help from leaf and they suspected that it has to do with some of the apps that I’ve installed. And they also informed me that Android 2.2 update was now available in SA and that I should, on a daily basis, check for the update or go to MTN.
Has anybody experienced this problem and how did they solve it cause it’s really frustating me?
Hi Reuben…
For me, the biggest plus to rooting my phone is the ability to store my apps on the EXTRA 3 partition on my SD card. I suddenly have INSANE amounts of memory on the phone’s internal drive. Which means my phone is faster and much more stable.
This improvement comes from rooting the phone, and installing a ‘better’ operating system than the native one.
For tour interest, I’m running MoDaCo R8, which is on the list of downloadable romsfound using the free ROM MANAGER app.
If I were you, I would just do it. The phone becomes ‘yours’.
On the crashing front, it sounds to me as though you’re pretty close to having a ‘full’ phone. Download the free STORAGE INFO app. It’ll tell you what’s happening with your memory.
Also, get something like the free ADVANCED TASK KILLER. It’ll help you kill specific apps that you didn’t even know were running. You’ll maybe find that there’s a rogue app tying up your internet in some unkilled loop.
A Rom change will sort it out. Start with MoDaCo R8. It’s perfectly stable, and incorporates HTC SENSE, so you won’t experience any discomfort.
Hi
I recently followed these instructions on with a windows PC.
So I would just like to add. On step 2, it might be necessary to follow these extra steps to get the USB driver working.
1.Enable USB debugging on your phone (Settings, Applications, Development)
Then ->
http://unrevoked.com/rootwiki/doku.php/public/windows_hboot_driver_install
There after, u can continue with step 3 🙂
and Thanx for this post!!
Oh… there’s another compelling reason to root your phone and load a Rom that allows you to move apps to your SD card… ANGRY BIRDS. What a game.
I’m sure you can run it on a stock phone. But it’s a pretty big app. So it would chew up a fat whack of your available app memory.
Roy, have to agree on this … Angry Birds – what an awesome game. And it can be moved to the SDcard without the extra partition. It uses the standard Android 2.2 SDCard move capability.
I’m very much a non-gamer, and I’ve surprised myself by LOVING Angry Birds.
Re moving apps to the SD card…
I might be misunderstanding things. But my take on it is this…
Stock Froyo DOES let you move stuff over. But each app still uses a significant amount of internal memory.
The APS2SD+ hack available to rooted phones fools the OS into thinking that the EXT2 or 3 partition is actually internal, and it installs the ENTIRE app to the SD card, instead of just a portion.
My observation since doing the MoDaCo R8 install is that I’ve got TONS of space. I can install whatever I like. Which was absolutely not the case without APS2SD+.
But I may have gotten this wrong.
Roy, you are 100% correct, it is exactly like you explain
Hey Marius
Ive rooted my desire now using youir instruction and help, but while I have waited for the right rom, I ran into a few questions:
Did you update your radio before changing to the above mentioned rom?
What Radio do you currently have – and when your rom was applied?
Can I get my old rom back easily?
Since your new rom (above mentioned), have you found any problems or issues?
Im hesitant to change and land up not enjoying my phone as much as I do now.
Hilton
No did not upgrade the radio before, it was part of the download I mention. The radio I have is 32.44.00.32U_5.09.05.30_2
Regarding getting your old ROM back .. just do a NANDROID backup (part of the unrevoked rooting) and when you boot into recovery mode you can restore your old ROM
No have not had any issues what so ever. I am very happy with the way it runs.
Thanks Alot Marius!!!
just waiting for my battery to fully charge, then gonna give it a go!
hope its for the best…
Righto…
Update complete… every thing is runing smoothly but my market, I get an error stating “the linked program is no longer installedon your phone” when I tap the icon…
any help here?
Hi
Im running 2.2 on my HTC Desire with build number 2.09.405.8, I received an OTA update and when I update it shuts down and start with the installation but it runs for a minute and boots up again what should I do to complete the update bcoz it shows up over and over again but it doesnt update please help
Thanks
Enos, If you do not run the stock HTC software but rather a ROM like in this post then you should not apply the OTA update … you should rather get an updated ROM.
ok thanks
Hey Marius,
Im having difficulties adding an ext partition to my 8Gb sd card, do you know any way which is ‘fool’ proof. I just cant seem to get this right…
Ive tried almost all the walkthroughs I can find, but still no luck
Hiya Hilton…
I’ve been through your pain, trying to sort out a 16gb card. There IS a semi-foolproof way of doing it.
1. Root your phone.
2. Install ROM MANAGER on it.
3. In ROM MANAGER, under ‘Utilities’, choose ‘Partition SD Card’. Choose 512mb.
This SHOULD do the trick, with one or two provisos.
The first proviso — I *THINK* — is that you need to have your SD card formated as a single volume FAT32 drive. It failed when I tried to use a card that already had an ext3 partition on the card.
The second proviso is that SOME cards simply won’t work, no matter what you do. I have a spare 16gig card sitting around doing nothing. I *CAN* format it with an ext3 partition in Windows, using a piece of freeware called EASEUS PARTITION MANAGER (which is worth a download, even though it’s unlikely to help you much with this particular issue). Windows sees the drive, sees the partition, and all’s hunky dory. I stick it in my phone, and it cannot see the drive. The SD card remains invisible.
Just a note… use EASEUS to check whether or not your card has some sort of ext partition on it. Normal Windows partition manager can’t help you in this regard. And if your card has an ext3 partition, formating it using standard Windows disk tools doesn’t do anything at all to the ext3 partition. If there IS an ext3 partition on the card, you MUST remove it (EASEUS is the tool I use to do this). THEN you must reformat the card as a single-volume fat32.
I really hope this helps.
Blue skies
Roy
PS: The 16gb card that doesn’t work is a Kingston type IV. The one that DOES work is a Samsung type II. But it’s slow as all hell. You really should have a type VI or higher.
Ive got a mobile bits class 4, 8gb. Ive tried the rom manager, and it completes the process but nothing changes… Ive tried Paragon Partition Manager, but it “Cannot with with the selected drive”, it can however read the disc, and erase, but not partion it. Ive also tried doing it through adb, with the card not being found no matter what I do… If SDCards were heavier, I would have thrown this thing against a wall by now… X]
I believe that some phones are ‘picky’ with the Ext they read, what ext does our rom read happily? I think you also have new rom linked above?
should be WORK with the selected drive… 😉
DEFINITELY NO EXT?
Hmmmm. Quick question… are you *SURE* nothing’s changed? The drive doesn’t behave any differently with the ext3 onboard. It may be there, but you may simply not notice it.
One way to know whether it’s there or not is to use TITANIUM BACKUP. It gives detailed information on the main screen about the card.
For instance, mine says…
Internal: 154 MB (20.1 MB free)
SD Card: 15.2 GB (7.61 GB free)
SD Card (a2sd): 479 MB (263 MB free)
Another way of checking whether or not you HAVE an ext 3 partition is to boot into ClockworkMod Recovery (use ROM MANAGER, Recovery, Reboot Into Recovery). Once in, go to ‘Mounts and Storage’, ‘Mount SD Ext’. If you HAVE an ext partition, that entry will mount, and you’ll see evidence of it when it changes to ‘Unmount SD-ext’.
PARTITION MANAGER
I’ve downloaded bunches of partition managers. The only one that came close to being able to crack this problem was EASEUS. Give that a try.
When you’re working with the card out of your phone, how are you interfacing it with your computer? My notebook has a small built-in SD card reader. I have my micro SD card in an adaptor, and I’m doing it that way.
WHAT EXT?
I *think* I’m using an ext 3 partition. It’s whatever ROM MANAGER gives me as default. I believe that ext2 is useless, and only ext3 and above work properly. But I’m really not sure. Esoteric areas for me.
8GB CARD THAT WORKS
The SD card that I was using before I got the two 16gb cards is a Lexar 8gb type IV. I was able to partition it as an ext3 by using Easeus. The sequence DOES count. You HAVE TO do it in order…
1. Format the entire card as a FAT32 in your computer. I used Easeus.
2. Eject the card. Put it back in. Refresh Easeus.
3. At the end of the drive, pop a new partition in. It’s drag and drop. Make it something like 512mb. Make it a logical drive. Ext 3. Run the process.
4. Eject the card again, pop it in again, and check. The first partition must be a primary partition, and it must be FAT32. (The cluster sizes seem to make no difference, by the way.)
If this doesn’t work, your next job is to reformat the card as FAT32 using Easeus, then trying ROM MANAGER to create the ext in your phone. If it still doesn’t work, it’s the card. Buy another one. The Lexar 8gb type IV DEFINITELY works, the Samsung 16gb type II DEFINITELY works, and the KINGSTON 16gb type IV DOES NOT work.
tried again now with ROM Manager, process completes and the response after reboot is a tri angle with the android on screen, touching power goes into recovery. while in recovery if i mount the sd ext, nothing is found… this is boggling me..
Okay. Take it out of your phone. Slap it into your computer. And format it as a single FAT 32 volume using EASEUS.
Roy, I have followed your strict and direct rules on the successful partitioning of an sd card. I can now call you a master at it!
the partition is there, now just to see if my desire agrees…
thanks alot for the help roy, much appreciated!
Eish. I must have spent at LEAST 15 hours trying to format my 16gb card. These rules are really just blood and sweat and swearwords condensed into something hopefully useful.
I really hope your ext works!!!
Well it seemed to good to be true, the sd card will not mount now in my handset, but it is visible in the recovery… strange stuff!
guess the card must be a dud?
Yup. Sounds like you’re experiencing EXACTLY what I did with my dud 16 gig card. (By ‘dud’, I just mean that contextually. You can still use the card as a backup device. Just not in your phone.)
Time for you to get yourself a different card. I’ve seen a 16gig type II card at Incredible Connection. But it’s DAMN expensive for what you get. Around R800. That’s kinda outrageous. Should be around R350. Maybe less.
I found a place in Bruma that sells cards for a reasonable amount. But type II is definitely slow. You’ll notice the lag. It’s driving me mad.
So I reckon you’d be better off finding something online. (And no… none of the South African online retailers are selling anything. They CLAIM they’ve got stock, you order, and they get back to you with a ‘sorry!’ letter. Try Amazon.)
yea.. well Ill run it now as my memory ’til I can find the right one, imagine being able to get our hands on this->http://www.phonenews.com/lexar-announces-high-speed-32gb-microsdhc-card-14575/
32Gb and Class 10!
the pleasures it would have…
comes in at just over a grand…
but I think its worth it…
Where about in Bruma Roy?
There ARE places online you can buy that droolworthy 32 gig card. And they come in at under a grand. BUT… you NEVER know till you’ve stuck it in your damn phone whether it’ll work.
Managed to find a Lexar 8gb, class 4. Followed the full procedure, but it still an invisible card, Im wondering if it hasnt got sumthing to do with the rom??
I don’t think it’s antything to do with the rom. My malaise with the 16gig card was across four different roms. (That was part of my attempt to control for variables.) Those same roms completely accept the other 16 gig card.
You HAVE tried a complete clean format first, using some or other Windows-based app, have you?
Next question… What ROM are you running? And have you tried any others?
I find Pinkolin’s Pinky Desire 1.8 to be totally stable and useful.
Oh… just saw your question about where in Bruma.
Can’t recall the name of the place.
It’s opposite the Bruma China Mall. There used to be a big FotoCats branch where this spot is now.
To get to it, let’s say you’re travelling from Eastgate towards that sharp left curve on Bruma lake. You get to a traffic light. On your right is a decrepit Nando’s, and some sort of TAB bar. Across the road on your right is Bruma Flea Market. Across the road on your left is China Mall. Turn left there.
Next corner, turn left, then immediately right into the place’s parking lot. If you get to a Fruit & Veg city on your left, you’ve missed the right turn by a few metres.
Hope that helps.
Make sure that the card you’re getting is a Samsung. Along with the card, you get a free adaptor, which is a Kingston. But the card itself is a Samsung.
You should be able to put the brand new card into your phone, and, using ROM MANAGER, format the EXT3 directory as the very first thing you try on the card. It SHOULD work. But it may need a Windows format if that doesn’t work.
Hey Roy,
Im using the latest ROM release from HTC linked above.
Having no problems with the ROM.
All cards I try take the partition perfectly using EASEUS, but the ‘invisible card’ returns when placed in my phone.
I’ve also tried ROM Manager, but there are issues there too, The phone reboots but straight to a White triangle with an Excalmation, then I hit power and Im in Recovery, an error saying something like -> E: cache/update.zip not found
signature invalid
update incomplete
(not exact wording)
What I dont understand is that the primary partition is still FAT32, so it should Technically still be read, the EXT3 partition not so much???
Also ROM manager partitions to EXT2 it seems..
??