[Nook HD, HD+ General] se1961:
Bought a brand new Nook HD+ with the intention of using it as an inexpensive tablet in my kitchen, primarily to access the web and run cooking apps. Out of the box, I found it laggy and unresponsive to the point of being unusable.

I have some experience rooting/jailbreaking my phones, very little experience with tablets. I was eager to get KitKat on the device right away—it has proven to be so much better on my phone, much better battery life, much more responsive, less buggy, more fluid, etc. Problem is, KitKat is bleeding edge, and there are no official builds, and most of the install guides for dummies (=me) refer to earlier (JB) versions of Android.

It turned out to be quite time consuming to read all of the different versions of the install process, and to patch together a process that worked. I thought I would document what I did, in order to (possibly) save others some of the time that I invested.

Note: this process does NOT install KitKat to the SD card. In plain English, these steps install a bootable recovery image onto a micro sd card. Booting into the micro-sd recovery will allow you to wipe stock from your device and install kit-kat, google apps and an internal recovery. When you are finished, you remove the micro-SD and you have an Android tablet that boots into kitkat. If you want something different stop reading!

1) get a class 4 micro SD (class 4 seems to be the one that boots most reliably in the Nook HD+ (see this thread: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2288688&page=12 )

2) Download win32diskimager (http://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager/?source=directory ) and this bootable CWM recovery image (http://nook.rootshell.ru/hd/emmc-cwm-early3.img.gz ).

3) Extract the CWM recovery image, and use win32diskimager to write the image to the micro sd.

4) Download EMMC (internal) recovery image and latest CM11 EMMC from this thread (http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2600572) . You want “Ovation Recovery Image (CWM)” and “cm-11-xxxxxxx-UNOFFICIAL-ovation-emmc.zip.” All recoveries and roms for this device are called Ovation. Download Paranoid Android Google Apps from this thread (http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2397942 ). MAKE SURE the version you download is for Android 4.4.x. It will say 4.4.x in the file name. I chose the Google Stock Package. (PA-Google Apps will allow you to enable ART if you want to.)

5) Turn on the Nook HD+, register it, and download all the system/firmware updates until the Google Play Store installs on your device (Google Play and Gmail etc. just recently got added to the Nook, so probably aren’t installed out of the box).

6) Transfer the three zip files (recovery image, CM11 and PA Gapps) you downloaded in step 4 onto the internal sdcard of the Nook itself. (This step is IMPORTANT: the current bootable version of CWM can ONLY read files on the internal SD, so you won’t be able to flash any roms or apps or recoveries unless they are actually on the device) I was unable to use the USB cable to transfer the files directly to the Nook from my computer—others have also had trouble getting Windows to recognize the Nook HD+ properly— and I didn’t want to spend a lot of time figuring it out, so I used the micro sd card as follows. If you can transfer directly from the computer, skip to step 7.

6a) Copy the new internal recovery, new system image and PA Google Apps from your computer to the micro SD card. Eject micro SD from computer.

6b) On the Nook, use Play Store to install a file explorer. I use Root Explorer: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.speedsoftware.rootexplorer&hl=en . You don’t need root to copy files from external to internal SD (and you don’t have root at the moment) so you can download any file explorer you like.

6c) Insert micro SD in the Nook while the Nook is still booted/on. The nook will flash a message saying that it’s mounting the SD card. Once it does, use the file explorer to copy all zip files downloaded in step 4 from the EXTERNAL to the INTERNAL SD. The internal SD card is referred to as “sdcard” or “sdcard0” and the external SD as “ext_sdcard” or “sdcard1”.

7)Turn off nook.

8) Insert micro SD card if it isn’t in already, and turn on the device. You should see the "Nook" logo, which gets overwritten by the "cyanoboot" logo. Keep waiting. It will eventually go into CWM. If it doesn’t, go back and start reading through the thread referenced in step 1. With any luck, you won’t have trouble. I had boatloads of trouble booting from the SD card until I got a class 4 micro SD, and used the bootable image linked in step 2. Since then I can boot every time.

9) Use CWM to backup stock rom, then wipe data/factory reset. (Very good instructions on using CWM here: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2317500 ) Flash the internal recovery. Flash the CM11 Rom. Flash PA Google apps. Remove micro SD. Select “Reboot System now”.

10) When you reboot, go to Settings/About tablet/Build number. Tap on that seven times to enable developer options. Go to Settings/Developer Options and select Advanced Reboot which allows rebooting into recovery from the power button.

11) OPTIONAL: Enable ART. ART is not compatible with all applications, so you might experience problems. You can see which applications work and don’t work here: http://www.androidruntime.com/. Enabling it made a very big difference for me in terms of smoothness; others with more experience seem to achieve similar, or better effects by modding with xposed, gravitybox, etc. See: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2579945&highlight=change+and+resolution&page=24) To read more about ART and what it does see: http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/1...-in-secret-for-over-2-years-debuts-in-kitkat/. If you decide to give it a try: Settings/Developer Options/ Select Runtime/Use ART.

12) Reboot—this time will take a while because ART (if you enable it) has to reconfigure itself.

For me, the difference is night and day. I now have a tablet that runs beautifully. Many many thanks to the hard working developers who make this possible, especially Verygreen, who provided the rom and recovery, and e.mote who wrote the "for dummies" thread that helped this dummy make it through the process.

Please comment and change anything that I have garbled. My goal is to consolidate information, not mangle it! ;)