[Galaxy S 4 Mini General] mdawdy:
Being completely new to the technical aspects of this phone i wanted some clarification on the details. I did some more research and asked a bunch of questions of ExiLeX420. He very graciously answered in detail. Thank you ExiLeX420. I

incorporated the results as some Notes and Explanations into his original post

and reproduced it here. Hope this helps, especially others who are new like me!

As i post this i have not done this procedure yet myself. I have been having a technical problem requiring that i return the phone for repair. Once that process is settled, or my warranty runs out, then i will consider doing this myself.

Note:

The phone is rooted once you INSTALL CM11 (arco has it pre rooted for you), but the KNOX flag is tripped when you flash the custom recovery-clockwork-6.0.4.6-serranoltexx.tar.md5 onto the phone using Odin. Once you do this there is no going back! As soon as ANYTHING on the inside of the phone is modified via something other than Samsung it gets set to 0x1.

Before beginning do the following ...

Save your contacts to an external SD card

Download the stock i257m ROM from Sammobile. The link is at the end of this note. The stock ROM is actually very good to have because it allows you to start FRESH. Yes the KNOX flag will always be tripped, but it DOES allow you to get updates once you flash the stock ROM back onto the phone using Odin. But there is no need to update as CM11 runs on 4.4.

If you would like a list of all the apps on your phone then install AppBak and run it before proceeding with step 1 of the guide below. That way you'll have a list of all the apps you had if you want them back. The program even links them in the play store. Just run it again after finishing step 6 below to restore your apps. OTOH, if you have only a few apps to transfer over just write down a list and re-download/install them fresh.

====================

1.You need to download 4 files to your computer (linked below), and move gapps and CM 11 over to your phones storage - you could in theory use the internal storage but for the sake of this just use the external sd card.

Odin 3.09

gapps version 20140105

recovery-clockwork-6.0.4.6-serranoltexx.tar.md5 extracted on your pc (YOU MUST USE THIS RECOVERY TO FLASH CM 11) just download it from that post :)

CyanogenMod 11 Nightly

LTE VERSION

Notes:

gapps is a version of the google play store that works with CM 11 and allows you to download apps regularly, as if the phone wasn't modded.

Extracting the md5 from the zip is simple - just double click the zip and out comes the md5.

We are using the Nightly version of CyanogenMod rather than a release Candidate or even a Stable version because according to arco68 "the SGH-I257M ... in latest CM11 nightlies I've added a routine which will identify which variant it is, and it will set the model number accordingly. It sets the model number properly so you retain all of the features the phone comes with originally".

!!MAKE SURE YOU GET THE LATEST ABOVE VERSION OF CYANOGEN! IT IS THE GT-I9195 VERSION AND IS REQUIRED FOR YOUR PHONE TO WORK PROPERLY!! YOU MAY BRICK YOUR PHONE OTHERWISE

Now the fun part! After you have installed Odin and extracted recovery-clockwork-6.0.4.6-serranoltexx.tar.md5 somewhere on your pc :

2. Turn off the phone.

-Press and hold home, volume down and power. A "Download" screen should appear (a big yellow triangle, youll know when you see it)

-Connect your USB cable, and press volume up to continue.

-Start Odin, and uncheck "F. Reset Time", and then click AP button.

-Select "recovery-clockwork-6.0.4.6-serranoltexx.tar.md5" file that you previously downloaded and extracted, and press Start button (Odin might seem like it hung up when you first load the file but just let it do its thing!! It eventually let you press start). The phone will reboot when finished.

-After the phone resets (it wil vibrate) IMMEDIATELY hold volume up and home buttons to boot into recovery mode. if you miss it dont worry you can always try again.

Note:

If you miss you don't have to do ALL of the above steps over; you just have to boot into recovery using the volume up and home buttons. Just keep the phone in your hand and wait for it to reboot and vibrate, and when it does hold the power, home, and volume up buttons and you'll get into recovery.

3. Once your in recovery your going to want to wipe data/factory reset and wipe cache.

Note:

This step is done to delete all the old data left from the stock ROM so nothing conflicts with CM11. Use this method ...

Turn your Galaxy S4 mini OFF.

Simultaneously press and hold the Volume Up + Home + Power buttons on your device until the logo appears, then release.

Once Android system recovery loads, use the volume buttons to navigate to ”Wipe data/Factory reset” and the power button to select it.

Confirm your choice by selecting “Yes”.

Select “Reboot System Now”.

There are separate options to Wipe Data/Factory Reset and Wipe Cache.

4. Now choose install from sdcard and navigate to the files we put on there earlier, and install cm-11

5. When that is complete install gapps the same way you installed cm-11

6. REBOOT PHONE AND PROFIT!

Thats basically it people. After that is HIGHLY suggest going and reading the ORIGINAL posts where i got all of this info from, so you can be familiar yourselves :) Feel free to post any feedback or questions and ill get back to you ASAP!

Enjoy your new rooted and amazingly awesome SGH-i257m :D

SIDE NOTES:

1.Be sure to use the built in updater for Cyanogen! I have it set to check for updates DAILY (because its still in daily duuuuh :P ) and everything will work beautifully!

2.I DO NOT recommend restoring your apps data etc from your old rom using google backups, as it re-installs ALL the bloatware that is removed when you install CM11. Instead use an app like AppBak to give you a list of what you had so you can choose :)

Original Posts:

[GT-I9195][ROM][Official][4.4.2] CyanogenMod 11.0 Nightlies for S4 Mini LTE

[GT-I9190][ROM][Official][4.3.1] CyanogenMod 10.2 Nightlies for S4 Mini 3G

[RECOVERY][ROOT] Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini LTE (GT-I9195)

STOCK i257m ROMS for ALL Canadian Carriers

Sammobile Firmware List for SGH-i257m