[Nexus 9 Original Android Development] frov:
Upgraded to Dec 2016

Now it was time to upgrade the Nexus 9 to the December image of 7.1.1. Making some notes here on this successful action.

First I made a backup of the important apps with TitaniumBackup and copied these files over to the (Windows) PC.

I DL-ed the image file from https://developers.google.com/android/nexus/images, and got file volantis-nmf26f-factory-dcb1615a.zip.

I also updated the Android SDK on the PC to make sure I have the latest platform-tools, like adb and fastboot: SDK-Manager and run it as administrator:

tools/Android SDK Tools: 25.2.4

tools/Android SDK Platform-tools: 25.0.3

As I also use TotalCommander and the ADB plugin in there, I made sure that plugin is also the latest: http://www.totalcmd.net/plugring/android_adb.html

Connect the N9 to the PC over USB.

I used the ADB plugin to reboot the Nexus9 to bootloader: ADB Plugin --> Power --> Bootloader

The N9 then comes into the basic screen of the bootloader. There is seen that it is (of course) still Unlocked.

On the PC I extract the DL-ed zip file into the c:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools directory. This is only so that the fastboot command is found.

On the PC I then opened a CMD shell as administrator and went into the platform-tools dir.

I ran the bat file called flash-all.bat. That takes some minutes to flash over all partitions.

The N9 reboots and I enter all data for my account. The N9 runs again, but now 7.1.1 Dec 2016 :o

Then I took ChainFire's Autoroot tool in CF-Auto-Root-flounder-volantis-nexus9.zip and ran that as follows:

I extracted the zip file in some dir. I saw it came with its own platform-tools like fastboot, but I wanted it to use the latest ones in c:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools.

So, in the platform-tools dir, c:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools, I created a "tools" dir similar as what the bat file root-windows.bat expects.

In that tools dir I placed the files from the platform-tools dir: AdbWinApi.dll, AdbWinUsbApi.dll, fastboot-windows.exe.

I also removed the 'OEM unlock' section in the bat file as my N9 was already totally unlocked and so.

So effectively the only real line left over in the bat file was this one: tools\fastboot-windows.exe boot image\CF-Auto-Root-flounder-volantis-nexus9.img

In a CMD shell (as administrator) I ran that bat file and it made the N9 be flashed and reboot into that image: it shows a pirate Android figure and does it magic.

It then reboots once or twice and comes back into Android. Now with root :o

I then uploaded the latest TWRP image in twrp-3.0.2-1-flounder.img to the N9 and used the new TWRP tool for flashing that into Recovery:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=me.twrp.twrpapp

I used the ADB plugin in TotalCommander to boot the N9 into Recovery: ADB --> Power --> Recovery

It then reboots into the familiar TWRP Recovery tool :o

I used that to flash in the latest SuperSU: SR1-SuperSU-v2.79-SR1-20161221223537.zip

I still wiped cache and so and rebooted into system.

So that again took a bit of time, but then it booted into 7.1.1.

Copied over all TitaniumBackup files to the N9.

Installed TitaniumBackup from the PlayStore and used that to restore all apps.

That is it :D