[Xperia Z2 Original Android Development] Myself5:
MultiROM is a one-of-a-kind multi-boot mod. It can boot any Android ROM as well as other systems like Ubuntu Touch, once they are ported to that device. Besides booting from device's internal memory, MultiROM can boot from USB drive connected to the device via OTG cable. The main part of MultiROM is a boot manager, which appears every time your device starts and lets you choose ROM to boot. You can see how it looks on the left image below and in gallery. ROMs are installed and managed via modified TWRP recovery. You can use standard ZIP files to install secondary Android ROMs and MultiROM even has its own installer system, which can be used to ship other Linux-based systems.

Features:

* Multiboot any number of Android ROMs

* Restore nandroid backup as secondary ROM

* Boot from USB drive attached via OTG cable

You can also watch a video which shows it in action.​

WARNING

It is dangerous. This whole thing is basically one giant hack - none of these systems are made with multibooting in mind. It is no longer messing with data partition or boot sector, but it is possible that something goes wrong and you will have to flash factory images again. Make backups. Always.​

IMPORTANT

I'm not responsible for anything, you do all this on your own risk.

Once you have flashed and set up MultiROM, don't flash another boot.img using fastboot.

If you want to uninstall MultiROM, just flash the MultiROM uninstaller.

Your device must not be encrypted.

To all devs maintaing Stock-based ROMs: Feel free to use my patched stock kernels to add MultiROM support to your ROMs.

When booting another ROM, you'll notice that in some cases, you can enter the recovery of the boot.img of the ROM. Please don't use it, flash everything using MultiROM TWRP.

INSTALLATION

Install the MultiRom Manager app from the store and install the recovery and multirom.

Reboot into MultiROM TWRP and flash the MultiROM installer --> Sould be done automatically.

Make sure you are on a Rom compatible with one of these kernels and flash it

In order to boot a secondary rom you MUST enable the "kexec workaround" option in the MultiRom settings found in the recovery.

That's it. You can now go to "MultiROM menu" (Top right corner in the recovery) to start flashing other ROMs.

Alternative installation method (if installation via the above method fails)

Download the files named multirom-<date>.zip and recovery-<date>.img from here.

You should use md5sum to validate the downloaded files using the provided xyz.md5 files in the same download location.

Copy the files to the sdcard of your device.

Use "adb shell" to open a shell on the device and use "su" to obtain root rights (adb must be set up on your computer, instructions are found on xda).

Adjust the following command and enter it in the shell: "dd if=/sdcard/recovery-<date>.img of=/dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/FOTAKernel"

Reboot into recovery (shutdown, then VolDown + Power).

Flash the multirom zip from the sdcard.

Enjoy.

Adding ROMs

Go to recovery, select "MultiROM menu" (Top right corner in the recovery) -> Add ROM. Select the ROM's zip file and confirm.​

Using USB drive

During installation, recovery lets you select install location. Plug in the USB drive, wait a while and press "refresh" so that it shows partitions on the USB drive. You just select the location (extX, NTFS and FAT32 partitions are supported) and proceed with the installation.

If you wanna use other than default FAT32 partition, just format it in PC. If you don't know how/don't know where to find out how, you probably should not try installing MultiROM.

If you are installing to NTFS or FAT32 partition, recovery asks you to set image size for all the partitions - this cannot be easilly changed afterward, so choose carefully. FAT32 is limited to maximum of 4095MB per image - it is limitation of the filesystem, I can do nothing about that.

Installation to USB drives takes a bit longer, because the flash drive is (usually) slower and it needs to create the images, so installation of Ubuntu to 4Gb image on my pretty fast USB drive takes about 20 minutes.

Enumerating USB drive can take a while in MultiROM menu, so when you press the "USB" button in MultiROM, wait a while (max. 30-45s) until it searches the USB drive. It does it by itself, no need to press something, just wait.​

Updating/changing ROMs

1. Primary ROM (Internal)

Flash ROM's ZIP file as usual, do factory reset if needed (it won't erase secondary ROMs)

Go to "MultiROM menu" (Top right corner in the recovery) in recovery and do Inject curr. boot sector. if it is not done directly during installation of the Rom.

2. Secondary Android ROMs

If you want to change the ROM, delete it and add new one. To update ROM, follow these steps:

Go to "MultiROM menu" (Top right corner in the recovery) -> List ROMs and select the ROM you want to update.

Select "Flash ZIP" and flash ROM's ZIP file.

Install a stock rom as secondary

This only works if you are using MultiRom version 33c or larger (excluding 33x-z).

1. Existing primary stock rom

Use these instructions if you plan to move an existing stock rom installed as primary. This guide assumes that multirom recovery is properly installed.

Shutdown the device.

Start the device into multirom recovery (VolDown + Power).

MAKE A BACKUP!

Go to "MultiROM menu" (Top right corner in the recovery) in recovery and tap "Swap roms".

Select the option "Copy primary rom to secondary/internal" and start the operation.

Wait until the operation finishes and flash your desired rom. (Alternatively you can also use any secondary rom to be the primary rom using the "Swap option" mentioned above.

Reboot.

2. Fresh stock installation

Use these instructions if you do not have a stock rom installed as primary. This guide assumes that multirom recovery is properly installed.

Shutdown the device.

Start the device into multirom recovery (VolDown + Power).

MAKE A BACKUP!

Install the stock rom via an install zip of via an FTF. NOTE: For the FTF method you need to shutdown the device and boot into download mode (VolDown pressed while connecting the USB cable; cable connected to the PC). Use for instance flashtool to flash ONLY the kernel, system, and cache image. In addition, you MUST select "Wipe apps_log"!

When the device reboots, let it boot up and finish the first time setup procedure.

Shutdown the device.

Start the device into multirom recovery (VolDown + Power).

Go to "MultiROM menu" (Top right corner in the recovery) in recovery and tap "Swap roms".

Select the option "Copy primary rom to secondary/internal" and start the operation.

Wait until the operation finishes and flash your desired rom. (Alternatively you can also use any secondary rom to be the primary rom using the "Swap option" mentioned above.

Reboot.

CHANGELOG

=== Version 33d (Bugfix release) ===
- Fix the apps_log issue for good (FINALLY).
- Support for LOS in combination with stock.

=== Version 33c ===
- Sync with XperiaMultiRom repository: cleaner implementation of some patches & extends the rom support w.r.t. old builds.
- Improved compatibility of custom N roms (AOSP init system) with stock roms: Allows to use stock roms as secondary rom.
- Bug fix: Set the version number in the Mrom binaries (for automatic updates).

=== Version 33b ===
- Small maintenance update to support "embedded/combined ramdisks" of secondary roms.

=== Version 33a ===
- Fixed booting Stock after starting secondary N rom.

=== Version 33z ===
- Fixed boot image injection of stock roms.

=== Version 33y ===
- New nokexec version 4 (previous: version 2).
- Support for AOSP 1.3.3 kernels (1.2.2 based kernels are also supported).
- Support for Android N (>= 7.0).
- Support for Sony Z2 stock roms as primary rom (I am investigating the installation as a secondary rom: it's installing, but not yet booting).

=== Version 33x ===
- Update Multirom from version 32 to 33.
- Update Multirom TWRP from version 2.8.7.0 to 3.0.2.

Detailed Xperia-Multirom Changelog

MultiRom

MultiRom Recovery

General Multirom Changelog

To be found here.

SOURCEs

MultiROM - https://github.com/XperiaMultiROM/multirom/ (branch master)

Modified TWRP - https://github.com/XperiaMultiROM/android_bootable_recovery (branch master)

Kernel w/ kexec-hardboot patch - https://github.com/Myself5/android_kernel_sony_msm8974/ (M5-Kernel)​

FAQs can be found here.

CREDITs

Tasssadar

Myself5

AdrainDC

Olivier

Garcia98

Thunder07

skin1980

Envious_Data

[NUT]

AndroPlus

Panic Brothers

I do not accept donations. But you may consider donation to Myself5 who did the original port, or to Tassadar who envisioned Multirom and did most of the implementation. We just jumped on the rolling train ;)

Myself5:

Tassadar:

Thanks a lot to those who have donated!

XDA:DevDB Information

MultiROM for Sony Xperia Z2, Tool/Utility for the Sony Xperia Z2

Contributors

Myself5, Diewi

Source Code: https://github.com/XperiaMultiROM/multirom/tree/master

Version Information

Status: Testing

Created 2015-01-13

Last Updated 2018-01-23