[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] No_47769:
I successfully installed Android Revolution 9.3 recently so thought I'd give some details for reference to anyone else it might help as I made a mistake (on purpose of course, just to make things interesting!) and encountered a few road blocks that made things a little tricky. I've not posted here many times and wouldn't claim to be an expert but have quite a bit of experience with Android (Kindle Fire was my first device to which was an uphill struggle all the way) and other tech experience with PC's and some Linux OS.

If you have a device with different specifications please be very careful when it comes to downloading and using software on your device. Doing so with the incorrect software (eg. software for a different device, wrong CID number...) can be disastrous so please be careful - soft-bricking is one thing but a hard-brick is always possible if you don't pay careful attention.

If anything here doesn't make sense or there are processes you don't understand, step back and re-consider before doing anything. You carry out these procedures at your own risk and I accept no liability. Think, think and think again, it's worth taking the time.

First things first, I have an HTC One m7 that I rooted and custom ROM'd almost as soon as I got it, so Root access is a pre-requisite for these procedures and everything described here is done with a Windows operating system.

[/IMG]

If you don't know what “Root Access” is or need help with it, here's a great guide and there is an abundance of other information on XDA for just about any question you might have.

I originally flashed TWRP 2.6.0.1 Custom Recovery and installed Trickdroid 11.0.0, an excellent, customisable ROM that gave me almost no problems apart from APEX Launcher not working, NOVA Launcher works brilliantly though. I haven't found any direct upgrades (please correct me if I'm wrong) but as it stands it's still a very smooth and stable ROM. My other interest was to improve my phone through firmware upgrades, which is a different process from those described here and require S-OFF (Security Off) unless you're using OTA (Over The Air) Updates, which requires a locked bootloader!

Initial Upgrade Problems

I'm quite fastidious when it comes to these things, researching, collecting and organising everything I need before hand so I was pretty annoyed that I missed the note towards the bottom of the Android Revolution HD (ARHD) page where it states that TWRP 2.6.3.3 or newer is required - I can confirm this is indeed the case! I also did a data wipe in TWRP before starting the AROMA installer - not sure this was problematic but it probably didn't help and certainly wasn't necessary so I would advise against doing that.

Whilst the AROMA installer completed apparently successfully (apart from one “error” message - set_perm: some changes failed), it became very clear it was not successful when the phone failed to boot normally and instead simply booted into Recovery every time. I was quite worried I was in dire straits because I didn't have any back up or alternative ROM on the SD card at the time, and was about to discover the joys Windows 8.1 brings to certain processes - more on that later.

So I was faced with a semi-useless phone that allowed me to get into the bootloader and Recovery but not much else, however it's a credit to TeamWin because TWRP continued to function flawlessly, despite my best efforts to screw everything up! No variation or combination of wiping outside of or in AROMA and re-installing ARHD achieved anything new - the partitions weren't mounting or being read correctly (the usb partition in particular “could not be mounted” according to TWRP), so it was clear I was sufficiently over the edge and needed to back up before I did any permanent damage.

Solutions

All of the steps I took may not be absolutely necessary, but because it was quite screwed up I was very keen to wipe the slate and get everything back to a point I was happy everything was fully functional.

The first problem was that fastboot was not working from the bootloader, by which I mean I was unable to use fastboot commands from Windows, and the phone wasn't recognized by the Device Manager, regardless of driver's installed, which I knew were correct - this was a Windows 8.1 quirk, however while the phone was in Recovery I was able to communicate via adb.

So connected to the computer, I opened a command prompt: simplest way to do this is opening the folder where adb is on your computer, which is usually your main hard drive eg. C:, where an adb folder will have been created during the installation of the tools, right-clicking in that folder with the SHIFT key held down, then selecting “Open command window here”:

C:\adb>adb push Trickdroid.zip /sd/

[If you don't follow that method, you simply have to open a standard Command window and navigate to the location of your adb folder eg. C:\>cd adb]

NOTE: the "/sd/" command at the end here is important as it tells adb the location for the file to go on your phone (the internal SD card). I've seen this push command in other tutorials without this part and the operation has failed.

You'll get a few lines in the command prompt window confirming the process starting and completing.

Then I followed the usual installation procedure for a custom ROM through TWRP (Install> Select Trickdroid .zip) - I used this ROM because I had it to hand and knew it worked.

Once the install was completed I had a functional phone again and could start to rebuild the shattered pieces of my pride. As mentioned before, I didn't have a backup on the phone - this was because I lost my original stock backup thanks to a self-destructing hard-drive (avoid Seagate hard drive's), so I started to hunt around. Thanks to the wonderful contributor's of XDA I found some excellent resources, but which you use depends on your preferred approach, and what you want to achieve but here are a few.

MIKE1986's STOCK ROM's

RUU Collection's

Nandroid Collection's

HTC Guru's Reset

Keep in mind - each of these resources have very important and specific processes that go along with each of them, so be very careful when it comes to using them.

Windows 8.1 Quirks

Windows 8.1 (originally) had some difficulty talking to attached Android devices through fastboot, and whilst having the correct HTC drivers is vital, I found a thread relating to a Windows Registry issue, requiring a Windows Update (which you may have already received) and an update to the Windows Registry (which is crucial).

Installing HTC Sync will give you the relevant drivers, but the program itself can interfere with many processes, plus it's a bit rubbish so if you uninstall it (

just HTC Sync Manager

) from the “Uninstall Programs” application in the Windows Control Panel, you'll just be left with the drivers and no unnecessary bloatware on your computer.

There's a simple download and instructions on how to apply the relevant changes to the Windows Registry which can be found here. If you haven't done anything like this before it can look quite intimidating but rest assured, follow these instructions to the letter and you'll be fine, maybe don't try screwing around with the other registry files though!

Recovery - Refresh and Upgrade

Whilst trying to get the phone to boot (in it's semi-disabled condition) I played around with the backup functions in Recovery, which unsurprisingly didn't work. I also deleted some of the folders within the TWRP “Backups” folder, thinking they might be confusing or causing some conflict.

So, to start afresh, I flashed a stock recovery, which can be found here.

Your phone needs to be in fastboot mode and attached to your computer - power off, then hold the volume down button and power button until the bootloader opens. Your recovery image needs to be in the adb folder, preferably named “recovery.img”. Open the Command Prompt for adb (right click in the adb folder whilst holding the SHIFT key) and flash the .img file over to the phone.

C:\adb>fastboot flash recovery recovery.img

Again you'll see a few lines in the command prompt window confirming the process starting and completing, once it's done shutdown and reboot the phone.

Of course the stock recovery isn't much use in terms functionality, and this process effects the ROM, essentially re-setting it - your SD will be fine but if you had eg. text messages, they'll be deleted so back anything like that up before doing this.

I shut down and re-booted once more just to be sure everything was ok, and then flashed the custom recovery in the same way as the stock, but now was the time to jump to a more up to date TWRP (or recovery of your choice) - I went with 3.0.0 in this case. Delete the stock recovery from the adb folder, then save the new custom recovery .img file (again re-naming it to “recovery.img”) in the same folder before fastboot flashing with the command prompt window:

C:\adb>fastboot flash recovery recovery.img

Sweet, now we've got a lovely new TWRP that looks a little different than the old version but with the same wonderful UI and functionality, and a few extras. The first time I booted into Recovery it asked me if I would like TWRP to be able to write onto the phone, or remain as “read only”. Whilst you might want to do this, there's no real reason and it kind of defeats the purpose of the recovery, plus you're not going to be able to do a backup or install files so just agree to that and you're good to go.

TWRP Information & Resources

System/ROM

Now running smoothly I was ready to upgrade, but to ensure there were no unpleasant ghosts in the system I went back to a stock ROM first. There's a variety of options as mentioned earlier, including any backup you may have saved yourself, but I went with a stock ROM provided by mike1986 this time which can be found here, whose incredible work and contributions can't be underestimated.

[NOTE: This *STOCK* ROM is NOT the same as the “out of the box” system my phone originally came with, which was 4.1.2 “Jellybean”, HTC Sense 5.0, however it served the purpose of wiping the phone slate clean to a stock system.]

I used the deodexed 6.09.401.12 - basically the difference between odexed and deodexed is the .apk structure - it's most specifically related to modifications and avoiding conflicts in the ROM. Here's a thread if you want to learn a bit more about it.

So just like any other ROM, copy the .zip file onto the SD card - simplest way to do this is having your phone connected to your computer, open up the browser window and navigate to your SD card, selecting a suitable location, just make sure you know where it is! (You can push it over via adb but it's really not necessary.) Then boot into Recovery, click Install, navigate to the .zip file location and select One_6.09.401.12_deodexed.zip (or whichever one you're using), then swipe to install.

The AROMA installer will kick in so just follow the on-screen instructions, reading each step carefully and soon you'll have the ROM installed with the usual Root access.

Don't forget the first boot after an install like this takes some time - that's completely normal, including an “Optimizing Apps” window before you get to the home screen so just be patient.

If you want to stop here then obviously that's your choice, however if you wanted to get/use OTA updates you'd need to follow some other steps to be totally stock, including locking your Bootloader, and there's a wealth of information here if that's your aim.

Custom ROM

Onto the Custom ROM of your choice - I recommend you do some research and check out reviews to find what you like the look of, but I've gone with mike1986's Android Revolution HD this time round. Download the ROM .zip and just like before, move it to your phone's SD card (no point in keeping the Stock ROM on the phone as well so delete that first to free up space, though you might want to keep it on just in case until the upgrade has completed successfully).

Reboot into Recovery via the bootloader, click Install and navigate to the .zip file, select Android_Revolution_HD-One_93.0_ef29f7.zip and swipe to install, carefully following the steps in AROMA and installing according to your preferences.

Once again after completion, reboot and be patient whilst the first boot runs its course and you're all set!

Don't forget you'll need to install the Xposed Framework to take full advantage of the Sense Toolbox within ARHD, without it simply won't work fully - it will work at a basic level but you'll get a warning/notification that you don't have full functionality. You can find lots of detailed information about this here - read it carefully because again, the correct software for your phone is

very important

- basically you need the latest installer, which is an .apk, and the relevant .zip files for your device.

For my phone (HTC One m7 - Quad-core 1.7 Ghz Snapdragon (Krait) 600 CPU, ARMv7 Soc (2Gb RAM) ARM CPU), one of the packages wouldn't install, claiming it wasn't correct for my device. Why exactly I'm not sure (because I absolutely, positively got the right packages!) so I'll update this when I know more, however the Xposed Framework software has worked fine since then, I'm not getting any error messages, it's all up to date and working fine.

That's it! Explore you're new ROM and enjoy. I hope this is helpful, if you've got any questions feel free to ask and I'll do my best to help. Much credit and thanks go to the people I've looked to for advice, and who have done incredible work compiling, modding and hosting the files used for these processes.

Thank and donate whatever you can to them so they can continue the sterling work.

Particular thanks to:

Mike1986

crushalot

matt95

sToRm1nG

… and anyone else in the XDA-Developers community I haven't named specifically but have been exceptionally helpful in sharing their knowledge and resources.