[AT&T Samsung Galaxy Note I717] darkspr1te:
Hi, Ive just finished doing the family bit so before i head off to bed i thought i would give you a idea of what's next.

1. Put you phone into download mode (vol down, power, home as before, then vol up to get download mode)

2. use odin to flash samsungE160recovery.tar under the PDA option only.

3. activate ADB mode on the phone and use

adb push cwm-160-update.zip /sdcard/

4. reboot phone into recovery mode (vol up and vol down and power) you should see E110 recovery at the top, select install zip, browse to zip file and select with home, the partition storing recovery.img has now been replaced twice, once via odin and now via cwm recovery E110,ok now select reboot

5. Enjoy cwm recovery.

cwm recovery has a backup option, i've not used it yet for my backups as i started with nothing (spend some time reading my JTAG fix thread).

I do recommend booting back in recovery (not download mode) mode and using the backup option.

As mentioned its just a idea, a hint at what you have to do next. I recommend you read some of the flashing guides out there, they are all much the same in terms of drivers, files type rules etc. Also rule of thumb, never select partition/bootloaders/options you dont know the exact meaning of in odin.

You phone is not like your PC, if you trash your PC's hard disk you press reset and stick in a bootable CD.

Your phone ALWAYS boots from internal storage and the is NO bios to select boot from CD.

i wanted to mention to others before,

Some people are confused by update.zip and xxx_home_xxx.tar files, basically .zip from recovery and .tar from odin, understanding the next bit might save you from a brick.

1. Odin uses internal look up chart and the pit file stored on your phone(plus some other info) to write the files stored in a .tar file to the various partitions on your phones EMMC or memory chip,it does not take into account any form of mod's to your phone, the phones software, where the files are placed and does no check to ensure those files are intact and correct and provide the right information when it refers to them, so when it pulls your pit file ( lets say 1 or two bytes of info is damaged) and tries to write data back to the device, 1 byte starting as a '1' and after damage its '90' will throw off quite a lot of math the system uses, that gives us a brick.

2. update.zip files have a script or list of instructions inside that tell CWM where and how to put the files, CWM knows your system as it's just booted it places them in the correct place. this does not mean less bricks when you use the wrong file, it does give you a better chance of not having a brick on a modded phone. still, flashing the wrong file in the first place wont save you.

finally, i've flashed my phone many many times using only PDA for my needs and not bricked(wrong files have given me boot loops etc), it's normally user error that causes bricks, from my reading of most forums the bricked cases normally admit to not following the guides(eventually), or my fav jumping the gun, most recent bricks are from a dodgy leaked copy of ICS, lots of users jumped in, flashed phone, added to the world brick problem.

When changing versions, BACKUP your phone data, many options available and many guides on such, this is due to settings in one version may not work in the next,, so it's always a goo idea to use the clear data/cache/system reset etc option within your recovery mode, most often with modded roms, not so much factory but it's still a good idea to go clean into the new software.

Right, i must sleep.

Cheers and will update more tomorrow, please read the guides for tegrak, i will update with information to reduce chances of bricking but there is little point me repeating the guides.