[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Venturio:
LeWa OS Guide

Okay, I just spent like 5 hours learning everything I could about the A800 since I got fed up with the whole stock ROM ****. This is my first time working with an Android phone, I come from an iOS jailbreak background.

Here's my step-by-step guide on how to go from the default, stock ROM to LeWa OS ported for the A800. Excuse my typos, I'm tired and want to sleep.

NOTE: Since I don't have 10 posts yet I can't hyperlink. So just remove the spaces/[square brackets] in the links.

1. Back your stuff up. Contacts/messages/etc WILL be lost. Including apps and so on.

2. Root your phone if you haven't. This is probably the easiest step. I used [srsroot . com]. It's a very straight-forward program and if you can't get it to work, try Bin4ry. If that doesn't work either then you're doing something wrong and should probably stop.

3. You need to "install" CWM - ClockworkMod Recovery on your A800. This basically replaces the phone's native "recovery" system (what it falls back on if software breaks etc) with a custom one which will allow you to install a custom ROM.

Now in order to do this, you must first download a CWM for the A800. I used [http: // download748 . mediafire . com/ hmjq67b8g6sg / n17x1vtzn3gwv4n/ A800 . rar]this one. Un-Rar the file and move the .img to your SD Card.

4. To install the custom recovery that you just downloaded, you'll need to get yourself an app called Mobileuncle Tools. Just type that into Google Play, download, install. Make sure the CWM recovery is on your SD card. Open the app, scroll to Recovery Update, choose your file in "recovery file in SDcard." Confirm the pop up, wait a bit, and done.

5. Now what you need is the LeWa OS, the custom ROM we're using for this. Get it [http : // www . needrom . com / mobile/lenovo-a800-8/] here or somewhere previously linked in this thread. If you're getting it from NeedRom you'll need to make an account, takes about a minute.

6. Move the ENTIRE ZIP FOLDER to your SDcard. This is important. Don't extract it, don't touch it. Just move it.

7. Now we're ready for the big step. Using Unclemobile Tools, you can easily boot into the new recovery mode we installed just earlier. Click Reboot Recovery (or whatever it's called). Your phone should restart itself and you should be presented with a rather simple interface with neon text. You navigate here using the volume keys and confirm using the power button.

7.1. CLEAR DATA/CACHE. THIS IS IMPORTANT. If you do not do this you'll have to repeat this step and manually boot into recovery mode.

7.2. Go to Install Zip From SDCard. Then find your ZIP file. If you didn't find it then you either didn't put it on your SD card or managed to extracted it or something. Assuming you didn't mess up, select your Zip file, confirm the installation and wait.

8. Wait a while. Once the installation is complete, go back to the main menu of the recovery and hit reboot. I sure hope you didn't forget to clear your data and cache. If you did, the phone won't boot past the Lenovo - For Those Who Think animated logo. In that case, you need to manually enter recovery. You do this by taking out the battery, putting it back in, starting the phone and immediately holding down the volume keys (before the lenovo logo pops up).

9. If everything worked as it should the LeWa OS screen should pop up after two minutes or so.

10. Grats, you made it. Now go enjoy the ROM.

Some observations I've made from using LeWa OS for a few hours: It's significantly faster than the stock ROM and has all sorts of nifty features and looks pretty sleek. However, it lacks Google Apps (including the Play Store so you can't just download apps). This is fine for me, I don't need many apps and like my phone light and uncluttered. It's also rather easy to install any other necessary apps you may need - just go find a working .apk, put it onto your SDCard and use the File Manager app to install it.

If you really want google apps, you gotta flash it. Essentially you should go find a signed version of the google apps (I can't tell you where, google is your friend) for 4.0 ICS, put it on your SD card, boot into recovery (LeWa OS has an option where you boot into recovery, just hold down the power button and hit reboot), select install from zip and point it at the google apps zip (don't wipe like you did last time.)

If you know how to you can also flash more apps on there using the recovery - but if you know how to do that then you didn't have to read all this.

Hope this helped someone out there, struggling with the crap that Lenovo decided to churn out. :confused: