[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 Android Development] schaggo:
This guide will hopefully help people with minimal to zero knowledge or people which are very afraid to just try things on their own to upgrade their Samsung Galaxy Note GT-N7000 to a newer firmware, which might be a pre-release firmware, a leak from somewhere or which won't be or isn't yet available on KIES. The procedure outlined graphically and textually explicitly only takes care of firmware releases which don't come packed as a single .tar.md5 file of about 850mb, but to releases which are split up in several packages of varying size with the file extension .tar.md5. The same procedure applies to single-file releases as well, coming as a single packaged .tar.md5 file. When flashing a single file release, naturally some steps can or must be skipped, like extracting the image files or several selection dialogs in CWM, as there is one one choice to make when dealing with a single file.

The procedure outlined may not be the shortest possible or the least complex one. But I do judge it to be the probably most universal one and following the steps closely should avoid all kind of problems and lead to a seamless and trouble free update. All possible firmware combinations should be updateable this way, as long as the prerequisites are met and the instructions are followed closely. This procedure does not influence or trigger the custom binary flash counter or the yellow warning triangle.

Information: Please read instructions carefully, as it took me quite some time to structure and present them as they are. You may ask questions if problems arise, if important details differ from the steps presented here or you would like to add anything, but post's which clearly show that the author didn't read this message or the very clear instructions in their entirety and rather just puts up a post out of pure lazyness, will get deleted and I will ask moderators or admins to impose some sort of punishment on the poster. I will not let party poopers insult me with their lazyness.

The information presented is structured and numbered. All steps which follow a number are according to my judgement closely connected and form one step. This explains why not every single click or action gets it's own number. Numbers in brackets inside a paragraph, for example [3] means there is a picture existing for the information given in this step. In this example case, it would be picture with index number 3, as pictures as well will be numbered and labelled accordingly.

If you find this information helpful, you may hit the thanks button.

End of introduction. The procedure starts here.

Minimum prerequisites:

Pre-rooted firmware on the device *)

CWM app

SD card, ~1GB free space

*) If you come here without a pre-rooted device, go back and check the threads on how to obtain root. Do not ask here, this thread is for updating an already rooted device only.

1. Prepare the device:

You'll need to prepare your device in a specific way to be able to use this method. You will need an external SD card with at least about 1GB free storage. Access the SD card on the device or by mounting it on your desktop pc [1]. Create a folder in the root of the card named "firmware". Thus, when accessed through the device, the complete path to that folder should be "/sdcard/external_sd/firmware" [1]. This is the folder CWM checks for firmware parts to be flashed.

Image 1: Path on external SD card

2. Find the appropriate firmware you want to upgrade to:

Decide on a firmware you want to upgrade to. Download it from your source of choice. You may end up with a .zip or .rar. or generally speaking an archive file [2] you have to extract. Do so.

Image 2: archived firmware release

After the extraction you will most likely find a subfolder being created with several files inside. The content of the firmware you downloaded may differ from the content shown in the image below [3], this does not matter, as long as some central files which I will get to later are at hand. Once you got this far, you may minimise the window, as we will continue elsewhere.

Image 3: extracted firmware release

3. Find and flash the matching cf-root kernel:

Information: If you just rooted your device and did not change kernels since, there is a certain possibility that you already run a cf-root kernel. In this case, this step can also be left out. If you do not know or are unsure, continue to follow the guide.

In order to maximise compatibility with the CWM app, a cf-root kernel will be used for all flashing activities. Find the kernel matching the the firmware you chose to upgrade to in chainfires cf-root release thread. You find the thread here: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1331784

If there is no exact match, general rule of thumb use the one you read the best reviews about or just the newest one available. It does not matter if the kernel is two or three releases older than the firmware you want to flash.

Substeps 3.1 Download and extract the kernel image:

- 3.1 a) Download the corresponding kernel as instructed above.

- 3.1 b) The kernel comes pre-packed as a .zip file. Extract it [4].

- 3.1 c) Inside the .zip there will be a .tar file. Extract it.

- 3.1 d) You'll find a file named zImage, push it to the device into the folder created in step 1.

- 3.1 e) Unmount the SD card from the pc, in case you have it mounted.

Image 4: archived cf-root kernel (release shown: KL7)

Substeps 3.2 Flash the kernel on the device using CWM:

- 3.2 a) Launch the CWM app, select "Flash kernel" [5].

- 3.2 b) Navigate to folder from step 1 and select zImage.

- 3.2 c) Confirm the dialog [6], the device will reboot. *)

*) In case you encounter a bootloop, turn off the device, enter recovery with VolUp-Home-Power and chose to "wipe cache" and under advanced, "wipe dalvik cache". Reboot afterwards.

Image 5: CWM app, select [1] (left); Image 6: kernel flash confirmation (right)

4. Flash the firmware:

Navigate to the folder you minimised in step 2, containing the extracted firmware. Of interest are only 3 (three) files, which must be copied to the folder created in step 1. Depending on the firmware release, the names of the files of course differ. Below I will give the generic name of the three files in question and then list a couple variations, so everyone can figure out, which files are to be taken. After copying the files, make sure to unmount the SD card from the pc, it must be accessible on the device.

Files of release XXLA3:

CODE_N7000XXLA3_CL880036_REV02_user_low_ship.tar.md5

MODEM_N7000XXLA3_REV_05_CL1095424.tar.md5

GT-N7000-MULTI-CSC-OXALA3.tar.md5

Files of release XXLA1:

CODE_N7000XXLA1_CL868264_REV02_user_low_ship.tar.md5

MODEM_N7000XXLA1_REV_05_CL1093393.tar.md5

GT-N7000-MULTI-CSC-OXALA1.tar.md5

Abstraction: The files containing CODE, MODEM and MULTI-CSC are to be taken and put in the folder created in step 1.

Substeps 4.1 Flash the firmware on the device using CWM:

- 4.1 a) Launch the CWM app, select "Flash stock firmware" [5].

- 4.1 b) Confirm the dialog, also confirm the second dialog.

- 4.1 c) Select zImage as "Source file for: kernel" [7].

- 4.1 d) Select MULTI-CSC as "Source file for: cache" [8].

- 4.1 e) Confirm the dialog.

- 4.1 f) Chose "Keep CF-Root kernel" [9].

Image 5: CWM app, select [2] (left); Image 7: kernel source confirmation (right)

Image 8: cache/CSC source confirmation (left); Image 9: root options (right)

The device will now reboot twice, enter recovery each time and flash the firmware chosen. After the flash, you will be running an updated and pre-rooted Android build on a cf-root kernel. You may freely flash the kernel of your choice in case you do not want cf-root. It is highly recommended that you do switch over to cf-root when flashing to have maximum compatibility between kernel, recovery and CWM app.

You may hit the thanks button now ;)