Android Q

This is the absolute beginning to modding your Android phone. You will need to gain root access (rooting your phone). You will first downgrade to RC29 in order to make other changes. Once downgraded, you will install the test keys. You can then update to a modified ROM (with root access). Finally, install a modified SPL bootloader. The last step is optional but recommended.

Getting root on your phone involves exploiting a security hole that existed in an early version of Android. The versions with the security holes are known as RC19, RC28, and RC29 (or RC7 or lower for UK phones). As of RC30 (RC8 on UK), Google patched the security hole so that your phone can not be rooted (don’t worry, we can still root it!).
To check your version, go to the Home Screen, click your menu button, choose “Settings”, and then click “About phone”. You will then see the following screen:

<<<Preparing>>>

Backup all of the contents of your SD card. Rooting your phone will wipe your phone and your SD card.

Format your phone’s SD card to FAT32 mode:

1. Hook your phone up to your computer using a USB cable and then wait for the notification to show up in your title bar of your phone.
2. Click the notification, and then click “Mount”.
3. A new removable disk should show up on your computer. Right click it and select Format, and select FAT32 as the file system type.

Either extract all the files in Downgrade.rar to the root of the SD Card, or download each file individually. The Downgrade.rar file includes all of the other files. Currently, only the Downgrade.rar file is available for download so please get it from the link at the bottom.

Ensure your phone is fully charged.

<<<Downgrading>>>

If you have US-RC30/UK-RC8 or higher, you will first need to downgrade your phone to a previous version. (Skip these steps otherwise).

1. Copy Dreaming.nbh to your SD card.
2. Shut down the phone and turn it on holding the power and camera button to enter the bootloader mode. You should see a gray/white screen with instructions to flash your phone with the update on your SD card. If you don’t see that, make sure you followed the instructions properly.
3. As per the on-screen instructions, press the Power button to start downgrade procedure to RC29. DO NOT DO ANYTHING TO INTERRUPT THIS PROCESS.

<<<Installing Test Keys>>>

1. Once you have downgraded to RC29, Reboot the phone.
2. Copy “install” file and recovery_testkeys.img to the root of your SD card.
3. Hit ENTER twice and type the following at the home screen. It will start searching your contacts, but don’t worry about that. Also, you won’t see any visible sign that the first command worked. Just go ahead and type the second command straight afterwards:

cd sdcard<press ENTER>
sh install<press ENTER>

After a moment your phone should reboot itself.

<<<Enabling Test Keys>>>

1. Switch off the phone and then hold down the HOME key while you switch it on again.
2. Keep the home key held down until you see the recovery screen (with the “!” triangle and the picture of the phone).
3. Press Alt+L on the keyboard and if you see “Using test keys” on the second line of text then the modified recovery image is installed

<<<Upgrading to modified RC30>>>

1. Copy the update.zip file to the root of your SD card.
2. You can now install a modified firmware by hitting Alt-S (which will install the “update.zip” file). This is the RC30 file released by JF.

<<<Install Modified Bootloader – Hard SPL (optional but recommended)>>>

1. To install the modified bootloader rename HardSPL.zip to update.zip (then place it to your SD card, deleting the older “update.zip” file).
2. Switch the phone off and then hold down the HOME key while you switch it on again.
3. Keep the HOME key held down until you see the until the new recovery menu, hit Alt-S to apply the new bootloader.

You can only see the skating androids when you power up holding the Power and Camera buttons, it replaces the multicolor recovery bootloader. The boot loader allows you to use fastboot in recovery mode. Once you’re done with the files on the SD card they can be discarded.

<<<Upgrading to Modified RC33>>>

Copy JFv1.42_RC33_MOD.zip to SD card and rename to update.zip. Switch the phone off and then hold down the home key while you switch it on again. Keep the home key held down until you see the until the new recovery menu, hit Alt-S to apply the new bootloader.

<<<Upgrading to a different ROM>>>

Download any ROM and name it “update.zip” and place it onto your SD card. Turn off the phone. Turn it back on while holding the HOME key until you see the recovery boot screen. Press “Alt + S” to apply the update file to flash to a new ROM. Please make sure you have the proper prerequisites for whatever ROM you install before flashing it.

Downgrade.rar – Megaupload (includes everything, or download them individually below)

Dreaming.nbh – 4shared
install – 4shared
recovery_testkeys.img – 4shared
update.zip – 4shared (Modified RC30)
HardSPL.zip – 4shared