[Xperia Play General] GuestD0788:
Recently I posted about Sony/Verizon finally allowing meid unlock of the r800x.

I thought I'd come back and write up a little guide to help those of you that are wanting to upgrade your Verizon r800x device to a fresh install of CM9.

Things You'll Need

Unlocked Bootloader

Xperia Fastboot Drivers

Android SDK

Cyanogenmod 9 (I used the 2012-11-25 nightly)

Flash Tool (Links are under installation)

Verizon's 2.3.4 TFT

Gapps for CM9

Keiran & Atarii's CDMA Fix (There are some touchpad fixes out there too but I'm not covering those as I chose not to use them)

Recovery Play

Setup Stage

Download everything listed above.

Install Flash Tool and copy Verizon's 2.3.4 TFT into Flash Tool's firmware folder

You'll want to get Android SDK installed.

In the SDK manager, you want to be sure to have platform tools and Google USB driver checked and installed.

Unlock your bootloader following the steps on Sonys Unlock Bootloader webpage. Congrats your bootloader is now unlocked.

Start your phone and connect your usb connect your SD card to the PC.

Make a folder to store your rom setup files and copy the Cyanogenmod 9 Zip, Gapps, and Keiran & Atariis CDMA Fix Zip to that folder. Unmount USB Storage.

Back up your app data using Titanium Backup or some other tool to your SD card.

Navigate to the install path of your Android SDK and locate the platform-tools folder.

Open up the CM9 Zip file and extract boot.img to the platform-tools folder.

Also copy the recoveryPLAY.img to the platform-tools folder.

Run the command prompt and navigate to your platform-tools folder. Keep the command prompt open throughout this whole guide.

cd c:\program files\android\android-sdk\platform-tools

for example

Disconnect your USB cord from the phone and shut the phone off. Hold the search button and plug the USB cord back in.

You should see a blue light. If windows can't find the drivers for your fastboot, point it to the platform-tools folder.

Run the following code and when that is complete run the 2nd command:

fastboot boot recoveryPLAY.img

fastboot reboot

Unplug your usb and press the back/return button on your phone until you see ClockworkMod show.

Navigate to backup/restore and choose to backup your phone (home is up, list is down, search is enter). We are doing this incase something goes wrong with with your Cyanogen install, in which case you will simply restore your phone.

Poweroff the phone.

Start Flash Tool, press the lightning icon and select flash mode. Select Verizon's 2.3.4 TFT and click next.

Hold the back button on your phone, insert the USB cord, and press the power button to start flash mode when flash tool asks you to.

Boot your phone and activate your service using verizons *228 program. After the phone reboots, turn it off.

Back at your command prompt, run the following codes and then immediately unplug the USB cord.

fastboot flash boot boot.img

fastboot reboot

Your phone should start and you should see a FXP boot screen, start pressing the volume down button to enter into recovery.

Navigate through clockworkmod using your vol up/down keys and choose the install zip from SD option (home is enter).

Select choose zip from SD card and navigate to your CM9 zip you copied to your SD card earlier. Select yes.

After install completes, repeat the step above but this time choose your Gapps Zip file.

Lastly repeat the step again and this time choose Keiran & Atariis CDMA Fix Zip.

Reboot your phone and hopefully if everything went well, your phone will start up into the OS after a minute or two.

Go through the setup that pops up (you shouldnt need to activate your service, you did that previously in the fresh 2.3.4 install).

Lastly open up voice dialer and say Open APN and it should come up with an option to Open APNs. Select it.

That should bring you to a screen and there should be an option for Verizon Wireless, select that and return to your home screen. You're done.

If for whatever reason you encounter problems. Boot into recovery and restore your 2.3.4 backup.

I am not responsible for any botched upgrade attempts. You assume the risk when you unlock your bootloader and all modding attempts made on it.

This guide was writen as a suggested route one can take for upgrading your phone and any problems encountered along the way were not my doing.

Search the Xperia Play Forums if you encounter any weird problems.