[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] snoshreddax21:
UPDATE 8-18-12: OFFICIAL CYANOGENMOD NIGHTLIES ARE UP.

Hey Guys, I haven't seen anyone post this yet so I figured I'd give it a shot. First and foremost, I take ABSOLUTELY NO CREDIT FOR ANYTHING IN THIS POST. Let it be known that none of this is my work and the purpose of this post is to consolidate information into an easy-to-follow guide. Also, I take no responsibility for any damage you do to your own phone. It's your responsibility to understand the risks involved and do your research before you make ANY modifications. If you'd like to use this guide for a project you're working on or another thread, that's fine with me. All I ask is that you give credit where it's due.

BEFORE WE START. If you cannot follow detailed instructions, please don't bother using this guide as you're only going to waste your own time as well as mine. I won't be answering any questions or providing support for problems that are clearly covered in the guide.

Now that we've achieved an unlocked bootloader, Cyanogenmod's team is already at work and has a build of CM10 up and running. (It's technically an alpha, but for me EVERYTHING works perfectly: data, wifi, bluetooth, GPS, MMS, camera, camcorder, the whole nine. The only thing I've found to NOT be working is NFC). The post can be found on both Cyanogenmod and Austen Dicken's Google+ page. Those can be found here:

https://plus.google.com/117962666888533781522/posts

A word of caution:

Since I'm not a Cyanogenmod developer, I have no control on the stability of their posted builds. So if you go through the guide and your MMS isn't working, there's not a whole lot I or anybody else can do for you at the moment considering these are still alpha builds. Although I mentioned everything works currently for me, I can neither guarantee this nor help you troubleshoot technical issues as I am not the developer of the ROM itself. On the other hand, if you have any questions or problems following the guide, I'm happy to help you out to the best of my ability.

For this to work, you must be ROOTED and have an UNLOCKED bootloader. I'm not going to make a super-detailed write up on how to achieve both of these, but here's a general outline of steps for those that are new here. If you're already rooted and have your bootloader unlocked, you can skip straight to step 4.

Pre-install:

First, BACKUP EVERYTHING. Do a nandroid backup and backup your apps and data in Titanium if desired.

Install the latest Samsung USB drivers so your phone and your computer don't have any connection problems. Those can be found here:

http://www.samsung.com/us/support/owners/product/SCH-I535MBBVZW?

on the bottom under Manuals/Downloads and then Software.

I highly recommend backing up your IMEI incase something goes wrong. I'm not going to cover that here, all info can be found in this post:

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1791291&highlight=backup

You have been warned.

You need to have your SD Card formatted to FAT32. exFAT WILL NOT WORK. So if you're like me and have a 64GB SD card, neither Android nor windows will let you format to FAT32 natively, so you have a few options.

Using command prompt within windows:

http://www.xoomforums.com/forum/mot...-format-sd-card-especially-64gb-fat-32-a.html

Use a disk management program like Acronis Disk Director (I think they may have a free trial but don't quote me on that).

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/diskdirector/

Then, you may want to Odin back to stock using the latest Samsung firmware. Now, you DO NOT need to Odin back to stock for the rest of this guide to work. But it should fix any 4G/3G data problems you may have been having on custom k-exec ROMs and I thought it was a good idea to start completely fresh now that we have total freedom. So if you were having bad experience on any custom ROMs with a flaky data connection or GPS taking a long time to lock, give it a try and see if it fixes things for you.

If you're going to give it a try, both the Odin program and stock Odin firmware can be found in this post:

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1755386

Download the latest version of Odin and the latest stock firmware version. Extract the Odin zip and load it up. Click the PDA button, find the stock firmware you just downloaded. Boot into download mode on your phone by powering down, then powering back up while holding the home and volume down buttons. Click start in the odin window. This process should take a while. After your phone reboots, get through the setup and dial *2767*3855#. Your phone will reset and you'll be COMPLETELY back to stock and any radio/hardware connection issues should be fixed. If you're still having problems let me know.

Now, to the fun part.

1. Root your phone.

NoxiousNinja's GS3DebugFSRoot Tool is the easiest and most foolproof way I've found. Read the directions in the post and follow the instructions in the command prompt window. Very easy and lightweight.

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1792342

As you continue throughout this process, pay careful attention to the prompts as it will ask you for [y/n] responses that you must confirm. After finishing, go into the newly installed Superuser app and on the far left panel, click where it says "tap to check for updates." Then click "update" on the bottom EVEN IF YOU HAVE THE NEWEST VERSION. I don't know why it works, but it does.

2. Flash a custom recovery.

Download mmmeff's EZ Recovery flashing app from the play store. Just search for "EZ Recovery" and you'll find it. Once installed, make sure you allow root access, then select "CWM 6.0.1.0" from the dropdown (NOT THE TOUCH VERSION AND NOT TWRP . It just makes it easier on everyone if something goes wrong. I can personally confirm that the touch version is incompatible. Some users are reporting TWRP is working fine, so you can try that at your own risk but I can't provide any support if it doesn't work for you since I haven't tried it myself.), make sure you have the "Recovery" toggle selected on the left, and click "flash recovery". Don't worry about rebooting yet as we still have a few things to do. The thread for the app can be found at:

http://rootzwiki.com/topic/29698-72...-recovery-flashing-app-ya-dingus/page__st__10

3. Unlock your bootloader.

I've also chosen to use mmmeff's Bootloader unlocking app from the play store for this guide as it is universally acceptable no matter what operating system everyone is running. In the play store, search for "GS3 EZ Unlock". Once installed, again make sure you allow root access and then click the HUGE button in the middle. It only takes a few seconds and then you're done. Thread is here:

http://rootzwiki.com/topic/32456-app-ez-unlock-easiest-way-to-unlock-your-bootloader/

4. Flash Cyanogenmod.

First, you'll need some downloads. You can use the Cyanogenmod 10 Alpha build or a nightly CM10 build.

Cyanogenmod 10 ALPHA build:

http://goo.gl/RYzHT

MD5: 3662de3c8942f19dc95ca911207b1602

CM10 Nightlies can be found at:

http://get.cm/?device=d2vzw

Jellybean GAPPS:

http://goo.im/gapps/gapps-jb-20120726-signed.zip

Mirror:

http://www.mediafire.com/?63l7wtwlc09923c

MD5: f62cfe4a827202899919fd932d5246d7

Put both of these zips on the root of your SD card.

Before you get all trigger happy, we need to do some things first.

For those of you who are new at this, I'll say it again, BACKUP EVERYTHING. This next step will wipe everything on your phone.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR FLASHING A NEW INSTALL OF CYANOGENMOD:

Now, boot into recovery (power off and then power back on while holding the home and volume up buttons) and wipe SYSTEM, DATA, CACHE (all can be found in Mounts/Storage menu), and DALVIK CACHE (can be found in advanced menu). A system wipe is not technically necessary but I did it just to make sure I didn't have any problems. Then, go into "install zip from SD card," then "choose zip from SD card". First, flash the Cyanogenmod zip, and after that finishes flash the Gapps zip. Go back a couple levels, click "reboot system now," and you're done!

INSTRUCTIONS FOR FLASHING AN UPDATED BUILD OF CYANOGENMOD

Now that you have a working install of Cyanogenmod, it gets a lot easier. If you're currently on the Alpha build and are switching to the new nightly builds, I would HIGHLY recommend you perform a FULL wipe including system, data, and both caches. Some people moved from the alpha to nightlies and were having problems so if you do a full wipe the first time you'll be fine. If you want to update from a nightly build to a newer nightly, all you should need to do is wipe both caches.

I hope this helped at least a few people, I tried to arrange it into as easy of a guide as I could. Please let me know if you see any problems or necessary changes and I'll try to keep this thread updated as new builds are upped. TO EVERYONE THAT IS NEW HERE, PLEASE DO NOT BUG DEVELOPERS WITH STUPID QUESTIONS REGARDING RELEASE DATES OR PROGRESS. I can assure you that they're working hard, we got a full release the day after our bootloader got unlocked. So be patient, nightlies and beta versions of CM and AOKP will come soon enough.

If you're interested, after you're done you can try flashing a new radio and/or kernel. Unless you're having problems, I wouldn't recommend you try this unless you know what you're doing because you could make things worse. Consider yourselves warned. Radios and instructions can be found in Invisiblek's thread here:

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1788313

Do some research on kernels, but at the time of writing I can recommend imoseyon's Leankernel. That and instructions are here:

http://rootzwiki.com/topic/32286-kernel-aosp-jb-leankernel-minimalistic-kernel-v05-beta-81612/

N00bs, Both of ^these^ steps above are completely optional and if you do choose to try them THIS THREAD is NOT the place to ask for support. Realize that before you start messing with stuff you don't understand.

If this guide helped you out, please consider hitting the thanks button.

Thanks;)

As per request, here's some initial screenshots: