[Galaxy Note 3 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] wizengamot:
First, I have installed a ROM on my phone before and I followed very specific instructions. I am a developer in the land of microsoft so I recognize I am very much a newbie here.

Now, on to what I have now and what I want to do.

1. I have a Note 3. The SM-N9005. The baseband version is: N900W8.... suffice to say it is a canadian phone. If the rest of the baseband numbers are important I will post them, just ask.

2. I want to install the Alliance ROM, it seems to have what I am looking for.

3. When I rooted and ROMed my phone years ago I used the following thread: http://xdaforums.com/show....php?t=2614772

4. Currently my phone is running a Jedi ROM from the vintage of that thread. However I must have made a mistake back then because the Hotspot feature does not work. Making the hotspot feature work again is my primary reason for undertaking this operation. The 4G works, I can use the Internet on the phone just fine. The wireless works I can connect to a wireless signal and use the internet that way (I confirmed this was working with mobile data off). The hotspot will allow a connection from a device (such as my laptop), but no data passes between the 4G connection and the connected computer.(yes, I turned on Mobile Data On) I have tried this using different computers connected to the hotspot to confirm it is the fault of the Note3.

Back when I did this flashing thing before I had to be careful to get the right CSC file and modem file and a few other steps. I had to specify the correct CSC file in addition to the rom I wanted to flash.

With that background, my questions are below (if you need any more info to point me in the right direction, just ask):

One last note... I will be performing any and all instructions from a macbook pro Mid 2012 with no other devices on the usb host controller running a near virgin copy of windows 7.

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Do I need to worry about CSC files, modem files and so on to Flash to Alliance ROM and still have everything work? I ran across a thread that said that some ROMs have all the CSC files in them, but I cannot find any direct information (or I missed it) about the Alliance ROM with regards to CSC files and the like.

I thought I had TWRP installed, but when I boot to recovery the top two lines read

line1: Android system recovery <3e>

line2: KOT49H.N9005XXUENB4

Is this TWRP? Should I download the latest TWRP for my device and flash it using the AP button from Odin 3.10? If there is a different technique I should use, I will try it.

The instructions say that if I am not installing from stock 4.4.2 or stock 5.0 that I should install stock first, then install the alliance rom. I visited the sammobile website and there are no ROMs for the USA or Canada there... am I missing something or should I just use the UK ROM from that website? I guess I am not sure how to identify the correct ROM for Canada.

I did load the Alliance ROM 8.2 onto my SD card and attempted to use the option apply update from external storage and it failed. Nothing happened at all and the phone eventually rebooted and the ROM never installed.

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide me on this endeavour. I am largely looking for resources that I have not been able to find up until now. I am okay with help such as Read This Post! and so on.