[Android General] MSF Jarvis:
Flashing a custom recovery is the epitome of Android Hacking and Rooting. But it is always not a straightforward process. Here I am going to share three different methods for flashing a custom recovery. But first let us understand what a custom recovery is.

CUSTOM RECOVERY

Traditionally every android phone comes equipped with some sort of "recovery" program which is used for, well, recovery[emoji14]. It was intended to be used as a fallback measure in case you ended up messing with your phone. But these recoveries were (and are) terribly underpowered and offered a very basic set of features. Here comes in the topic of

"Custom Recoveries"

. Exactly what it means, it means a recovery that has been customised or/and tweaked for some added features. The three big and famous names in the custom recovery circles are:

TeamWin Recovery Project (TWRP)

[IMG="TWRP Recovery"]http://i.imgur.com/ZxC6JyM.jpg[/IMG]

Features

Completely Touch-Driven and User Friendly UI

Fully Customizable XML-Driven Interface

Officially supports most Android devices

Has a good and extensive feature set

Supports ADB Sideload

Is a personal choice:D

ClockWorkMod Recovery (CWM)

[IMG="ClockWorkMod Recovery"]http://i.imgur.com/Yc8mNch.jpg[/IMG]

Features

The First (most probably) custom recovery for android

Volume Rocker and Power Button Controllable UI

Can perform all sort of wipes including /boot and/devlog

Unofficial Versions available for most devices

Officially available only through Koushik Dutta's ROM Manager Premium app available here

Not very user friendly

Philz Touch Recovery

[IMG="Philz Touch Recovery"]http://i.imgur.com/tVLI9Za.jpg[/IMG]

Features

CWM based recovery

Features three interaction modes - Full Touch, Partial Touch, Only Rockers(Non-Touch)

Everything pretty much the same as CWM including UI (though it has a okayish background)

Now after your little tuition session let's get our hands dirty and flash some recoveries!!!:D

As for every tutorial you will need some tools set up. They are:

Working ADB and Fastboot (only for 1st method) refer here for help in setting up adb and fastboot.

Rashr from here (only for 2nd method)

Terminal Emulator for Android by Jack Palevich from here (only for method 3)

Any Recovery image for your phone (Search "name_recovery model_name image XDA" on Google)

Rooted device for method 2 and 3

First Method - Fastboot Method

First set up ADB and Fastboot if you haven't already done so. Windows users can follow my guide here

Place the downloaded recovery.img or whateveritisidontcare.img in the same place you put your adb and fastboot if you haven't added adb directory to the PATH variable

Press Shift and rightclick on your anywhere in the white area of the screen. A popup will come up with an option "Open Command Window here". Select it

A Command Prompt shall open up. Make sure your device is connected and USB Debugging is enabled

Type the following commands one by one

adb reboot bootloader
fastboot flash recovery recovery.img

If successful your command prompt should look something like this.

[IMG="CMD Flash"]http://i.imgur.com/XzQKYEa.jpg[/IMG]

Done!

Second Method - Using Rashr

Ensure you have Rashr installed and have root access

Open Rashr, grant it root acess, then close it.

Download the recovery image on to the root of your sdcard.

Use a root explorer to copy the image to "/data/data/de.mkrtchyan.recoverytools/files"

Open Rashr, select Recovery from Storage browse to the recovery on the sdcard and continue. IMPORTANT : Rashr may seem to be unresponsive for some time after selecting recovery image. IT IS NOT. Do not FC it or do anything, just keep your device aside and wait for it to report success or failure.

[IMG="Rashr"]http://i.imgur.com/TC8SLJo.png[/IMG]

Rashr will take some time and hopefully won't throw up any error and show success

That's it. Enjoy !!!

Third Method - Terminal Flashing Method

This one's relatively simple. Here it goes

Open terminal emulator and type the following commands. Be sure to hit grant on the superuser prompt

cd /sdcard #type the address of the file directory, i am assuming it to be /sdcard
su
flash_image recovery recovery.img #replace recovery.img with whatever is the name of the downloaded file

If it says "Not found" or some such bull****, It's probably because Busybox isn't installed. Stock ROMs do not have busybox so you'll need [MENTION=1335872]Stericson[/MENTION]'s BusyBox Free installer. It's available on the play store for free.

Done !!!

Hopefully you will be able to use these guides as a stepping stone to the world of android hacking...:victory: