[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] roirraW "edor" ehT:
Use PhilZ Touch Recovery to make a nandroid backup. Always recommended to have one or more backups handy and to make a new backup before any major changes.

Yep. In the development (non-original) section. [MENTION=4645794]CNexus[/MENTION]' stock rooted Odexed or Deodexed ND8.

Follow [MENTION=5104057]6th_Hokage[/MENTION] advice for a built in solution. Better than Foxfi.

Short answer, yes.

Not as short an answer, only as safe as much as you trust the developer of the ROM you choose. I can personally vouch for [MENTION=4645794]CNexus[/MENTION], [MENTION=4310299]bilgerryan[/MENTION], [MENTION=4513677]rwilco12[/MENTION], [MENTION=3769093]moonknightus[/MENTION], [MENTION=4130218]Chadthepathfinder[/MENTION] and several themers and various other users.

I've never had any problems with any custom ROM I've used in three different Android phones over the last four years.

Odin is for only flashing tar and tar.md5 files to your phone. It has other uses as well. The only ROM it's designed to put on your phone is the stock unrooted one, ND8 being the latest. This will wipe everything in your phone including internal storage.

It is also commonly used to put the phone's first custom recovery on, PhilZ Touch Recovery recommended.

A custom recovery can generally put any custom ROM on. Sometimes a newer version of a ROM might require a newer version of a custom recovery in order to either be flashed correctly or be able to backup and restore nandroid backups correctly.

The recovery isn't usually included in custom ROMs. The original stock unrooted ROM that you would Odin to the phone includes absolutely everything.

Yes. Any custom ROM is normally already rooted so if you flash one, there's no need to root before or after. I don't know if he was referring to that or something else that might just confuse you so I'm not going to go into details. ☺

No. Although I think (only limited experience with this so correct me if I'm wrong) only GSM phones really ever need unlocked, or at least phones with user replaceable SIM cards.

I didn't read the previous posts so sorry if I'm repeating something.

1. Find Odin 3.07 or 3.09 either in development (non-original) section or Google for it. Download it on your PC.

2. Find the very latest tar file of PhilZ Touch Recovery in the same section. Download it on your PC.

2b. Download the rooted stock or custom ROM you want on your phone (not your PC). If you're currently using stock TouchWiz 4.4.2, you're fine to try anything. If not, you'll have to either get on stock TouchWiz 4.4.2 first or download anything for TouchWiz 4.3 or older - or a completely custom non-TouchWiz ROM.

3. Launch Odin on your Windows PC.

4. Turn your phone off.

5. Put your phone in Download mode by pressing and holding the DOWN volume and Home buttons at the same time, and also press and hold the power button until you see anything at all on the screen, then let go.

Same as going into recovery but volume down instead of up.

6. Connect the phone to your Windows PC with a reliable, preferably the original USB cable.

7. Might take Windows a minute the first time to load the drivers. When you see in Odin in one of the empty squares at the top something like "COM 5", then you're good to continue.

8. Click the PDA button in Odin and select the PhilZ Touch Recovery tar file you downloaded.

9. If Odin lets you, uncheck the auto restart checkbox.

10. Click Start in Odin. Should only take 10 seconds if that.

11. When Odin says complete, unplug your phone, pop the battery out to turn it off, put it back in, and go into recovery mode (same as Download mode but volume UP instead of down).

12. Use PhilZ Touch Recovery to flash the rooted custom ROM you downloaded.

13. Choose reboot in recovery.

Recovery FLASHABLE version now posted near the bottom of the first post of the 3Minit Battery Mod for Conquest-Singularity and both Stock ND8 and NDC with 1000+ animated battery icons..

[BATTERY] Plasma Battery! ??? & wickeddecimalbarwide_colors

Charging still shot

Sent from my Sprint Samsung Galaxy SIII on TouchWiz 4.4.2 with Conquest: Singularity v7.0, Ktoonsez' latest kernel and the latest Philz Touch Recovery.