[Miscellaneous Android Development] drayln:
I am writing this guide to help others whom own a Huawei IDEOS U8150/T-Mobile Comet and wish to change ROM’s. I know going through thousands of posts to find the information needed can be intimidating so I hope to put all you need to know here. I found for organization purposes, creating a file on my desktop, to keep all the ROM’s and apk’s in helped a lot. As always I take no responsibility if you brick your phone. Anytime you flash a ROM you do take a risk that may happen so do so at your own risk. *Note these directions are made using Windows 7 64 Ultimate and assuming that the user is completely new to their U8150 and that they are running stock Froyo 2.2 ROM*

First Step..Rooting

Rooting your phone will allow you to use Superuser and to make changes that you normally can’t do without a rooted phone. *Note that rooting your phone normally will void your warranty*

Step one. Download an App called Z4root to your PC.

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=833953

Step two. Turn on USB debugging.

A. Appdrawer/settings/applications/development/debugging or android debugging..place a check mark in this.

Step three. Turn on USB storage.

A. Plug phone into PC.

B. Slide Notification Bar downward so you can view notifications. (bar at top of your phone screen, press and slide finger down from top to bottom of screen).

C. Press USB connected.

D. Press Turn on USB storage

Step four. Copy The Z4Root.apk file and paste it directly on your SDCard. *Do not have to place it inside a folder or anything on your SDcard*

Step five. Turn off USB storage

Step six. Disconnect phone from PC

Step seven. Go onto the app market (now called play store) and download a file viewer. I used ESfile Explorer. It is free and it works.

Step eight. Use ES File Explorer to open Z4root.

A. Enter appdrawer and press ES File Explorer

B. Press Z4Root. App will start. Choose either permanent root or temp root. Let app finish.

C. Open appdrawer and press on Z4Root app that is now in your appdrawer. When it starts it should say your phone is already rooted. If it does then you are ready to proceed. If it doesn’t then choose perm root or temp root and do it again.

****Your Phone is now rooted***

Apps you need

Download app called Superuser from play store or directly (for Froyo) from here

http://androidsu.com/superuser/

I suggest using the play store to add the apps and use the websites for information purposes about the apps.

*Optional but recommended*

Download and install ROM Manager app. You can use this app to install ROM’s and to flash recoveries.

Download and install No Frills CPU. You can use the app to set custom Over/Under clocking your phone.

Download USB Driver

I use PDANet driver which can be downloaded from

http://junefabrics.com/android/

Install this USB driver so you don’t have issues when in “fastboot” mode if using Android-SDK. When in this mode the PC will not recognize the phone while in this mode with the drivers it installs on your PC when you first plug your phone into your PC for some reason. The PDANet drivers will work fine for accessing the SDcard in storage mode as well as while connecting the phone to PC for using the android sdk.

Flash a Recovery

As stated above you can use ROM Manager to flash a recovery. Here is a video on how to use ROM Manager.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psmI8KmBNeY

I did not have success with this due to the recovery that ROM Manager flashed for me was Clockworkmod 3.0.4 I think. I suggest you use Clockworkmod 5.0.2.8 recovery. I use the android sdk to flash the recovery manually myself as I find that easier for me now. Here is a link to a video to install the android-sdk on a windows 7 64 PC. You will only have to set the SDK up one time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaNM-lt_aHw&feature=related

Using Andorid-SDK to flash custom recovery.

Make sure you have the SDK set up correctly and that the PDANet driver is working.

Download the clockworkmod recovery image to your PC from here

http://goo.im/devs/aorth/roms/u8150/clockworkmod_5.0.2.8_u8150.img (thank you Aorth)

Copy and paste the clockworkmod_5.0.2.8_u8150.img file into C: drive. DO NOT place it in a folder on the C: drive but just in root of C: Drive.

Make sure USB Debugging is on in options then..

Place phone into “fastboot mode/Boot Loader mode” by turning phone off then pressing

Volume down key + (Red) End Call Key + Power Button at same time and hold. The phone will boot to the IDEOS screen and freeze there. That is normal. IF it boots beyond that shut phone off and do it again.

Plug your phone into the PC

Click Windows Start menu and type cmd into the search box. A command prompt should start.

In the command prompt (this is assuming you have made sure that your sdk is working properly and that you have made sure PDANet driver is working) type

fastboot flash recovery c:\clockworkmod_5.0.2.8_u8150.img

press enter

“c:\clockworkmod_5.0.2.8_u8150.img” part of this is the location of the recovery image and the exact name of the recovery.

*Note you will not see the .img or any file extension until you enable it in folder options*

Can enable by typing “folder options” in start menu search area and then clicking Folder Options/View. Then remove the check mark from “Hide Extensions for Known File Types”.

Once the recovery has been flashed to your phone (you can read that it was successful in the command prompt window), unplug your phone and take battery out of it. Turn phone back on normally or you can use Volume UP key + (Green) Answer Key + Power all at same time to turn the phone back on and enter “recovery mode”. This is the mode that allows you to flash a ROM from SD card, do a backup, partition your sdcard and wipe cache and settings. You will know the recovery successfully flashed as you will now see clockworkmod recovery 5.0.2.8 on the screen with options to choose.

Flashing a new ROM…

BEFORE doing this you need to have all of your apps backed up with a program like Titanium Backup if you do not wish to lose the data you have in them.

Here is a guide for Titanium Backup

http://www.titaniumtrack.com/kb/titanium-backup-kb?page=TB+-+User%27s+guide

Download a new ROM to your PC. Examples are

DroniX 0.5.4(froyo 2.2.3), http://www.hacklabproject.org/downloads/index.php?dir=dronix/huawei_ideos_u8150/ROM/

DroniX0.6 Beta(gingerbread 2.3.7),

http://www.hacklabproject.org/downloads/index.php?dir=dronix/huawei_ideos_u8150/ROM/BETA/

CM7.2 RC1 Nightlies(gingerbread 2.3.7)

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1456890

There are many other ROM’s out there. I personally use the April 5th 2012 nightly from CM7.2 RC1. Here is a link for a page with a few more ROM’s for our phone as well as most of the information about the U8150.

http://xdaforums.com/wiki/index.php?title=Huawei_U8150_IDEOS#Unofficial_ROMs

The ROM will come as a ZIP file.

Copy and paste the zip file one your SD card.

A. Have the phone booted normally and place phone in USB storage mode by following procedure from above.

B. Copy and paste the ROM zip file onto your SD card.

C. Turn off phone

D. Press Volume UP key + Power + (Green) Answer Key all at same time. Phone will boot into Recovery mode. You will now see options. I recommend the first thing you do is BACKUP your phone. You will see this option in the menu. Use the direction button to scroll down to this option and press the center button to select it. Follow the prompts and you will back up your ROM.

E. Now select wipe data/factory reset.

F. Next select wipe cache partition

G. Now Select Advanced and then select Wipe Dalvik Cache

H. Now press the back arrow on phone and select Install zip from SDcard.

I. Now select Choose zip from sdcard

J. Now select the ROM zip that you copied and pasted on the sd card.

K. Follow the onscreen prompts.

L. When it is finished it will say install from sd complete. Hit the back arrow again and chose reboot phone.

M. Now the phone will reboot and install your ROM. It can take upwards of 15 minutes to install some ROM’s so be patient. When it is complete you will go through the process of adding and syncing your gmail account to your phone again as you did when you bought it new.

** You may need to install GAPPS to use google voice, maps, calendar, search with some ROM’s.**

You can download the GAPPS zip from here

http://goo.im/gapps/gapps-gb-20110828-signed.zip

To install you simply copy and paste the gapps zip to your sdcard same way as you did the ROM zip. Shut the phone down and reboot into recovery using the same method from above and install the zip the same way as you do a ROM. Reboot phone. Sign in with your gmail account and sync.

Factory Restore

Now another difficult thing for me was finding the correct stock ROM. I bought my phone in New Zealand from 2 degrees and I did not back up my factory ROM. I now have the stock ROM. The ROM for NZ is V100R001C183B825.zip. Downloaded from here

http://www.4shared.com/zip/jn26SU5H/V100R001C183B825.html

Once you have the Stock ROM zip downloaded to you PC you extract it somewhere on your PC. There will be a new folder wherever you extracted it to that is called U8150V100R001C183B825. Inside that folder there will be another folder called dload. You will copy and paste the dload folder (not the zip) onto your sdcard using the same method as above.

A. Now shut your phone down.

B. Press Volume Key UP + Power + (red) End Key

C. Phone will start the factory reset and do everything for you. Just be patient and let it finish and it will reboot and go to your homescreen when finished. * I personally do a factory restore when I change ROMS, ie going from DroniX to CM7.2 RC1.

FAQ

Q. Can I get multi touch to work on my IDEOS U8150?

A. Yes, but only if you have a synaptic driver on your phone and a ROM that supports multi touch. If you have a melfas driver multi touch will not work. At this time I am not aware of anyone working on making multi touch work for melfas drivers. You can check which driver you have by

A. On your dialer input *#*#2846579#*#* in your dialpad

B. Then select projectmenu > veneer information query > apparatus type query.

C. Then look for melfas or synaptics indicated

Q. Can I Over/Under clock my U8150?

A. Yes. Most custom roms will come with reworked Kernals that allow you to over/under clock. I currently use Max CPU-692mhz Min CPU-61mhz Governor- Smartass V2 SIO.

Helpful Links

http://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/huawei_u8510

http://studytribe.wordpress.com/2011/10/08/huawei-ideos-u8150-c8150-roms/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lf50AiHN2v0 (how to install Swype)

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1011527 (factory reset instructions)

http://xdaforums.com/wiki/Huawei_U8150_IDEOS (Phone Information and lots of other info)

I hope this guide has been helpful and If I missed anything or did something wrong please let me know so I may correct it. Thank you for all for your hard work and massive amount of time put into the ROM’s and apps for this phone.