[One (M9) Original Android Development] nkk71:
​

PREFACE

I've had this running for quite a while, but due to the amount of time I can dedicate to coding and testing, I've come to the conclusion of sharing it, even if it is not as ready as I would like it to be, and more changes are already on the way.

This is a beta version, so please treat it as such, and have your backup handy.​

Seeing the no-kexec workaround has been in use for quite a while, and also being used on other devices successfully, I consider it a stable release.​

I also ask you to read every single word in the thread (well at least the first four posts), as I continue to elaborate on them.

As a community, it's easier to track down bugs, misbehaviours, etc. when working as a team, so your feedback will be greatly appreciated, but I kindly ask you to be

very specific

, every little detail counts, and the "it doesn't work" posts will not be taken into account.

Thank you for your understanding.​

For your information, I have successfully tested and multi-booted:

ViperOneM9 3.5.0 (in primary)

MaximusHD 6.0.0 (directly to secondary)

ViperOneM9 3.5.0 (directly to secondary)

CM-13.0-20151210-NIGHLTY (directly to secondary)

Slim-himaul-5.1.1.beta (directly to secondary)

Notes:

* the supposedly "corrupted/inaccessible" external sdcard on Android 6 (Marshmallow) is not multirom related afaik.

* some of these ROMs take a long time to boot up, well above 10minutes, so patience
​

You use this tool at your own risk!!

I have tried to put as many safeguards as I can,

but I cannot be held accountable for any soft-bricks, hard-bricks, loss of data and/or information,

or anything else going wrong.​

Introduction

MultiROM is one-of-a-kind multi-boot mod for HTC One M9 (hima). It can boot any Android ROM as well as other systems like Ubuntu Touch, Plasma Active, Bohdi Linux or WebOS port. 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, daily prebuilt image files to install Ubuntu Touch 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

* Use for example Ubuntu Touch or Desktop alongside with Android, without the need of device formatting

* Boot from USB drive attached via OTG cable

​

Warning!

It _is_ dangerous. This whole thing is basically one giant hack - none of these systems are made with multibooting in mind. It is messing with boot sector and data partition. 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.​

Now seriously: Warning!

Beware of Dragons, Goblins, Gremlins and lingering primary_boot.img​

Due to lack of kexec-hardboot kernel support, I am messing with your boot partition!​

Since we lack kernels with kexec-hardboot patch on the M9, I'm using a workaround to bypass that restriction, and although tested successfully on the HTC One M7, HTC One M8 and HTC One M9, there are still several circumstances where things can go wrong.

If you are in doubt, either ask, or avoid it completely; MultiROM has always been a huge hack to begin with, and this is even more of a hack.

Always have a backup ready.

If you do get stuck [trying to (re)boot to

primary

] (i.e. starring at the boot animation, for a very long time) it is likely you have a lingering primary_boot.img (a gremlin), your primary ROM, should in fact be intact, but the workaround has "confused" the primary kernel, and has an incompatible one being used.

This is

usually

easily fixable by just restoring your "boot.img" from within TWRP->Restore.... there should be no need to restore everything else.

Please bear in mind, that some ROMs (particularly Sense based ROMs), can will take a long time to boot up, well above 10minutes, so patience!
​

Installation

Not supported at this time: 1. Via MultiROM Manager app

This is the easiest way to install everything MultiROM needs. Install the app and select MultiROM and recovery on the Install/Update card. If the Status card says Kernel: doesn't have kexec-hardboot patch! in red letters, you have to install also patched kernel - either select one on the Install/Update card or get some 3rd-party kernel here on XDA. You are chosing kernel for your primary ROM, not any of your (future) secondary ROMs, so select the version accordingly.

Press "Install" on the Install/Update card to start the installation.

​

2. Manual installation

Note 1: Your device must not be encrypted (hint: if you don't know what it is, then it is not encrypted).

MultiROM has 3 parts (well, it should, but in this case it only has 2) you need to install:

Modified recovery (TWRP_multirom-YYYYMMDD-vXX-UNOFFICIAL-hima.img) - download the IMG file from second post and use

"fastboot flash recovery TWRP-multirom-20151210-v32a-beta1-UNOFFICIAL-hima.img"

(in download mode, for example)

C:ADB>fastboot flash recovery TWRP-multirom-20151210-v32a-beta1-UNOFFICIAL-hima.img"
target reported max download size of 800000000 bytes
sending 'recovery' (40248 KB)...
OKAY [ 2.883s]
writing 'recovery'...
(bootloader) HOSD CL#576582
(bootloader) start@1
(bootloader) recovery@100%
(bootloader) Update partition OK
(bootloader) end@Done
OKAY [ 3.475s]
finished. total time: 6.359s

C:ADB>fastboot reboot-bootloader
rebooting into bootloader...
OKAY [ 0.003s]
finished. total time: 0.003s

MultiROM (multirom-YYYYMMDD-vXX-UNOFFICIAL-hima.zip) - download the ZIP file from second post and flash it in the MultiROM Recovery.

.

.

Patched kernel - You can use either one of the stock ones in second post or third-party kernels which include the patch, you can see list in the second post. Download the ZIP file and flash it in recovery.

We don't have a patched kernel, so I'm using a workaround.

You current rom will not be erased by the installation.

Download links are in the second post.​

Adding ROMs

1. Android

Go to recovery, select Advanced -> MultiROM -> Add ROM. Select the ROM's zip file and confirm. As for the space, clean installation of stock 4.2 after first boot (with dalvik cache generated and connected to google account) takes 676mb of space.​

2. Ubuntu Touch this is NOT SUPPORTED

Use the MultiROM Manager app to install Ubuntu Touch.

Ubuntu Touch is in development - MultiROM will have to be updated to keep up with future changes in Ubuntu, so there's a good chance this method stops working after a while and I'll have to fix it.

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 Advanced -> MultiROM in recovery and do Inject curr. boot sector.

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 Advanced -> MultiROM -> List ROMs and select the ROM you want to update.

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

In some cases, you might need to flash patched kernel - get coresponding patched kernel version from second post and flash it to the secondary ROM sama way you flashed ROM's ZIP file.

Explanation of recovery menus

Main menu

- Add ROM - add ROM to boot

- List ROMs - list installed ROMs and manage them

- Inject boot.img file - When you download for example kernel, which is distrubuted as whole boot.img (eg. franco kernel), you have to use this option on it, otherwise you would lose MultiROM.

- Inject curr. boot sector - Use this option if MultiROM does not show up on boot, for example after kernel installation.

- Settings - well, settings.

Manage ROM

- Rename, delete - I believe these are obvious

- Flash ZIP (only Android ROMs) - flash ZIP to the ROM, for example gapps

- Add/replace boot.img - replaces boot.img used by this ROM, this is more like developer option.

- Re-patch init - this is available only for ubuntu. Use it when ubuntu cannot find root partition, ie. after apt-get upgrade which changed the init script.​

Screenshots

here

Source code

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

Modified TWRP - https://github.com/Tasssadar/Team-Win-Recovery-Project (branch master)

Device files - ....

Everything is here:

https://github.com/multirom-htc

https://github.com/nkk71
​

XDA:DevDB Information

MultiROM, Tool/Utility for the HTC One (M9)

Contributors

nkk71, Captain_Throwback

Version Information

Status: Stable

Current Stable Version: 33testbuild

Stable Release Date: 2016-11-15

Created 2015-12-10

Last Updated 2016-11-15