[HTC Desire 601] MeniscusKing:
The King’s Ultimate Downgrade Fraken-guide for HTC Desire 601

(And to be more specific the HTC 601 Virgin Mobile ZARA CL)​

YES YOU FINALLY FOUND WHAT YOU WERE LOOKING FOR OH GOOGLER LOST AT SEA​

“My battery is dieing” –an HTC DESIRE user who updated

[Insert disclaimer here, I’m not responsible for basically messing up your phone]​

Hello stranger and welcome to what I like to call the King’s Ultimate Downgra—just look at the title. Okay so you’ve been stuck with the crappy update for the HTC Desire 601, you know the one that Virgin Mobile and HTC got our hopes up last year when we found out we were getting the 4.4.2 KitKat update. Then you found out that it’s a POS and drain’s your battery faster than you can say CHARGER PLEASE! I’m going to cut to the chase here, you don’t have much time, I understand. I can tell you right now this will probably take 2 hours at the most. OKAY FIRST

FIRST

Do you know what ZARA CL means!? Alright if you do next step if not, you better power off your phone and do the old Volume down and power on method. Also abandon this guide if you are ZARA UL but I will say the info in it can come in handy for you all. Make sure you have the Fast Boot setting turned off in the power options. Okay right there on the white Bootloader (Yes that is the bootloader) screen it should tell you at the top what you have. Cool right? Okay you’re learning, all you need to know is what you have. If you want to know more google it sometime I don’t care.

SECOND

You need to know how to use a command prompt, terminal, whatever you want to call it. Mainly you’ll want to know your change directory command aka cd.

THIRD

You will lose all your data. Your SD card contents should be fine but you will want to look up a backup guide if you don’t want to lose anything. Speaking of you may want to get yourself and SD card reader or some other method to plug your SD card into a computer.

FOURTH

Have the HTC drivers installed to your computer for this device. You can find them on their website but you’ll have to deal with some stupid HTC sync program which if it annoys you like it did me just uninstall it but leave the drivers

LAST

Don’t be discouraged. You’re going to learn a lot and be able to help other people once you figure this all out. I’ll be updating this guide so ask questions and I will determine if it’s necessary to add to it. I’m assuming you know a little about computers so this isn’t a complete newb guide. All right let’s GET IT ON!

Files you will need.

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B6WBFlAKqe30a2ktU3ZEaUUzSTg&tid=0B6WBFlAKqe30TjRLa2Qxa0toYlU

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1IfdFmI1wlvVEdvYndVVkNDODQ/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1IfdFmI1wlvOVFpVzJNVmhUSEk/edit?usp=docslist_api

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1IfdFmI1wlvaDF0ZFBPNUUwNDA/view?usp=sharing

These will also be posted throughout the guide so if you find yourself getting ready to download a duplicate just use the one you already have. Also I do not take any credit for these files, I'm just hosting some of them so they don't disappear.

Step 1 Unlock the damn bootloader

This part was fun for me, the HTC website isn’t exactly clear on what’s going on but basically you need to go register an account with them and get this crap sorted out. So go here https://www.htcdev.com/ and once you get in there register and everything, then go to the Unlock bootloader it’ll kind of sort of walk you through it all but when you get to that [-------Select Your Device------- ▼] just pick the “All Other Supported Models” Then follow the guide. At Step 4 it’ll give you a fastboot binary. WHAT THE F*** IS A FASTBOOT!? Okay it’s just a program that you will use to interact with your phone and boy is it handy. You’ll be using this multiple times. Remember the command line stuff? Time to apply some knowledge. You’ll need to be in the same directory as your saved fastboot, and once you get there you should be able to use your commands. It’ll give you the one’s you need. Once you get through all that then go onto step 2 if you are having trouble by all means there are guides upon guides out there for this step.

Step 2 Flash the damn recovery

First download this I’ll tell you what to do with it in Step 3. You should be downloading the STOCK ODEX ROOT file https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B6WBFlAKqe30a2ktU3ZEaUUzSTg&tid=0B6WBFlAKqe30TjRLa2Qxa0toYlU

This part is where things will feel scary to you, but don’t fret! You already unlocked your phone so let’s go all the way. Go here https://twrp.me/devices/htcdesire601cdma.html You will need to go to the Download Links and get you a fresh version of TWRP recovery (take the one on top). What is it? You’ll see once you get there, just make sure to put that .img file in the same directory as fastboot. Did you leave that command line open? Good! If not go back to the directory on the command line where you now have fastboot and twrp-2.8.6.0-zaracl.img. Remember how HTC told you to go to that fastboot menu in the Bootloader on your phone? Do it. Have it plugged into your computer too.

Okay now you’ll type this magic spell into the Command Prompt.

fastboot flash recovery twrp-2.8.6.0-zaracl.img

It should take but 10 seconds if that and your recovery will be flashed! Woo, aren’t we having fun?

Now comes the real scary part.

Step 3 Install the wrong damn ROM for your phone but benefit from it in the end

So remember in Step 2 that thing you downloaded? You need to get that on the root of your SD card, I don’t care how you do it just get it on there.

Next you’ll want to install this to your phone and you’ll do that by getting back to the bootloader screen on your phone and loading the recovery. All you have to do is select recovery and it will do it’s thing. When you get into the recovery go right for the install and navigate to the STOCK_ODEX_ROOT_HTC_ZARA_UL_601_2.14.1401.86_v.1.0.1.zip file. Click install and it should do it’s thing, while it does that let’s go onto step 4.

Step 4 Use the damn creepy rumrunner application

So once your phone installs the rom you’ll want to restart your phone and boot into your newly rooted rom! YAY CONFETTI it’s the wrong rom. But you have root and this will allow you to get what’s called S-Off which is good if you need to flash your firmware. I’m not going to walk you through this one, just go to this already made guide and it will help you immensely. http://xdaforums.com/desire-601/general/guide-tips-achieving-s-off-rumrunner-t2827793 Good luck stranger.

Step 5 Flash the damn firmware

Thanks http://xdaforums.com/desire-601/help/kitkat-downgrade-to-jelly-bean-t2854899 for all the info. Thank you Yoshi, Chuckie I don’t even know what to say to you. YOU STRANGER DON’T TOUCH THOSE FILES ON THERE

If you made it through rumrunner congratulations! Here download this if you already haven’t https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1IfdFmI1wlvOVFpVzJNVmhUSEk/edit?usp=docslist_api

This step is pretty mystical but I got this firmware from a stock rom somewhere down the road. Now for some reason my phone absolutely hated this file and would reject me placing it on the SD card which is why I mentioned getting an SD card reader of some sort. Basically you’ll want to rename that file 0P4EIMG.zip, and put it on the root of your SD card. Then reboot your phone into the bootloader, you’ll be prompted soon after that to install the file. Hit yes and let it do it’s thing. After you power down the phone take the SD card and remove the 0P43IMG.zip file from it. You won’t be needing it anymore.

Step 6 Gotta get back to JB run the damn RUU

So if you went by the downloads you should have this https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1IfdFmI1wlvVEdvYndVVkNDODQ/view?usp=sharing

This you will run on your computer but first you need to put your phone in fastboot mode again like you did when you unlocked it and when you flashed the recovery. After that run it and walk through the steps. This will take a while, it will take a long @$$ time to update the radio, just be patient.

Step 7 Almost there, just gotta flash the damn recovery again!

You know how to flash recoveries so flash https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxPNhWHyBhRQZXZjbkVreG9zSW8/view?usp=sharing

You’ll have to extract it first to get the .img file but once you have it you’re golden.

Step 8 lock the damn bootloader

For some reason you cannot boot the device now into Android without it hanging on the Virgin Mobile screen so what you need is to lock the bootloader. Easy peasy.

Go to your bootloader and go to fastboot. On your computer go to your command prompt where it should still be in the directory where you put fastboot and type.

fastboot oem lock

Done! Reboot your phone and you should have Jelly Bean!

Step 8special ROOT

You can download this https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1IfdFmI1wlvaDF0ZFBPNUUwNDA/view?usp=sharing and use Philz-Touch recovery to install this zip through the install option. This will root your phone.

YOU NOW HAVE AN S-OFF, ROOTED HTC DESIRE 601 ZARA CL VIRGIN MOBILE PHONE WITH ANDROID 4.2.2

CONGRATULATIONS :victory:

Thanks to all the users out there at xdadevelopers! Your work was crucial to this guide as well as many other contributors.

Update

Philz-Touch Link is no longer valid therefore I'm uploading it myself.