[Motorola Droid RAZR] Ohmster:
Lesson Learned: How to install a stock ROM in Safe Strap

I am SO frustrated with my own stupid ideas on how to install and setup a stock rom in Safe Strap, get hit with the very same issues, over and over, that I decided to write a How To on the subject to help others avoid this costly mistake, realize there is an easy way, and allow them the opportunity to take advantage of this strategy before going through this hassle, over and over, until they figure it out.

What Do I Mean?

In Safe Strap, we have a standard, stock rom slot and up to 6 numerical rom slots to install additional roms, thus giving us a "multi-boot system" on our phones, a very neat concept and it works! This is like having a PC that can boot Windows 7, Windows 8, or Linux. How cool can this get, right?

So how do we set this up, a rock solid stock rom and our dream, every day new rom? What are the mistakes one can make when installing a stock rom and a new, cool rom? Well, after years of experience and what seems like the same amount of time being frustrated, I have come up with a new policy for my stock rom. To streamline it, make it fast, dependable, and "thin". My original rom on the phone I bought was a Motorola/Verison blur rom, running Gingerbread Android. It was the fastest, sleekest phone I ever saw and the MSRP for the phone is $600, I had to get insurance. To answer what exactly is a "blur rom", I had to Google a bit. I found a pretty good explanation of it on droidxforums, of which I am a Senior Member.

Hello and welcome to the forum. You're right about Blur, it's just added bloat that Moto decided we needed on our phones, most of it is crap, but some of it can be quite useful. Getting a blurless ROM isn't going to inhibit any downloads from the Market, alot of the Blur apps just won't run on Blurless ROMs because the developers remove some of the required system apps that Blur apps need.

So yes, I want a blur rom, but with much of the bloat removed, and rooted. Thus, for me, the best stock Motorola blur rom was Matt's Utility for XT912 phones. Cannot be beat. This is perfect and goes right into my stock rom slot, it is Jellybean at it's finest, rooted with much of the bloat removed, all of it so far as I can tell.

This stock rom is for emergency use. I sometimes get a bad build in cm11 and suddenly find myself unable to make or receive calls, use GPS or WiFi, have lockups or crashes, and have no time to fix it now, I need a working phone. Stock rom to the rescue! But because I use cm11 in my rom slot 1, use it every day, depend on it and it is my daily working phone rom, I rarely go into my stock rom. It always works and it is rock solid.

So What Mistakes Did I Make On My Stock ROM?

Well, I went overboard. I installed Matt's Utility Jellybean rom and gapps. That would give me a nice, solid, working phone. But like a total dummy, I installed every app that I thought was cool, liked, used occasionally, games, things I could live without, photo editors, video editors, calculators, anything you can think of that might be cool. So, I have 250 apps installed in my stock rom. Why is this a problem? Because when I *do* have to revert to stock, Google begins to update 30 apps, and is asking for permission to update 20 more because the permissions have changed. So now I must leave the phone on stock, allow it to update up to 50 apps, thus requiring 12 or more hours of updating, slowing the phone down with it, all the while I must use this stock rom. BIG mistake. The very idea of a stock rom is "a rescue rom" that you can boot to, anytime your main rom takes an unexpected dive. Not some monster of apps that needs massive and constant updating, every time you ever boot to use it.

What Should I Have Done With My Stock ROM and How To Fix It Now?

Well, since this stock rom is a fallback system in the event my all star rom, cm11 takes a dive, I should have left it lean and mean. That means install the rom, gapps, and ONLY a very, very few essential applications that I cannot live without such as Waze GPS, Password manager, favorite browser and file manager, and little else. What can I live without? Countless games, Electronic references, editors, video apps, music apps, and anything that adds up to 100, 200 apps, or more. Then reverting to stock would only require a few updates and NOT 50 or more. How can I fix this? Ugh, go into the playstore, choose "My Apps" from the menu, and start uninstalling. And this will take a long time. Just leave it lean and mean. That's it. I really do not need Adobe Photoshop Express to do advanced photo editing, nor do I need 3D games, and even Facebook is questionable.

My Advice for picking and installing a stock ROM

Just find a good, rooted, reliable stock rom, install it and gapps clean. Boot to your stock rom and install Safe Strap. Install any "must have" apps and keep it minimal. Must Have Apps are Titanium Backup, Safe Strap, any GPS app that you use daily, password app, bank or financial access software, favorite browser, favorite file manager, ONE music app, anything that is really important and something you would likely use and need in a one week period. Once you hit ten additional apps, STOP, consider if you really, really need these things, and thin out what you can live without.

Follow this advice and you will have a good, solid stock rom that you can jump into and actually use, anytime you have the need. Not like me right now, stuck updating 50 apps that need updating, things I have not actually used in my stock rom, ever, or not even in the past year,

every single time I ever boot to or use my stock rom!

Think about it.

I hope this advice helps others to avoid the "Update from hell" I go through every time I enter my stock rom. This I will fix and I will never make this mistake again. Goodnight all. ;)