[Redmi K20 Pro / Xiaomi Mi 9T Pro Guides, News, & D] DontDamnMe:
Hi guys,

Hope it's ok if I start this thread, I just wanted to give new users some feedback before/ after unlocking and flashing an India ROM on my sealed China ROM K20 Pro (8/256). It might be useful to some, or maybe even help others. Thanks a lot to Robbo.5000, Madsponge and Hursty UK (hope I got it right?) among others for their help and advice. :)

- [BUYING PROCESS] My trip with the K20 Pro started here: https://xdaforums.com/k20-pro/help/best-site-price-to-buy-t3939616/post79918346#post79918346 (about 18 days to get it from China during high season, not too bad I guess). (FYI, the real Global version will come out in Europe in a few weeks but the 8/256 won't be available here.)

- [UNLOCKING PROCESS] I then started the "infamous" unlocking process which triggered the even more "infamous" unlocking wait time. Why did Xiaomi choose to do that? Pretty strange if you ask me. Why should you wait 5 days or more? Anyways, in my case it was almost 6 days. That part of the process went smoothly (I run a kinda old Windows 7 PC). I rebooted the phone and it was unlocked indeed. Then started the stressful process: flashing a +400 euros phone without knowing if it would actually work. Kinda reminded of the time when we "backuped" PS1 (PSX) games, haha.

- [FLASHING PROCESS] I used the official MiFlash tool, with the official India ROM (fastboot file, .TGZ extension). First problem : MiFlash couldn't install the drivers because a /log/ folder was missing, which I had to create manually (didn't see that mentioned on the forum, but might be my OS? Oh well). The rest was OK until I launched the flashing process and hit the "clean all" button (I carefully didn't choose the clean all and lock which would have bricked the phone).

>> Link to the official India ROM Fastboot .TGZ -> http://bigota.d.miui.com/V10.3.3.0....FKINXM_20190711.0000.00_9.0_in_a1c0a15dec.tgz

>> Link to the official MiFlash tool I used -> https://xiaomiflashtool.com/download/xiaomi-flash-tool-20181115

>> Use the official Xiaomi USB-C cable - do not try another USB cable

>> Important reminder: please change the default option in the flashing tool and

DO NOT choose "clean all and lock"

. Change it to "clean all" only (you don't want to lock it as you might brick it - see posts below about this)

- [STRESSFUL REBOOT] The flashing process ran for about 10 minutes, said "error: Not catch checkpoint (\$fastboot -s .*lock)". Needless to say I was very stressed out at that point, especially with the not cool red message "error" on the right of the tool, in the column "result". I thought the phone was bricked...but no, it just rebooted normally with the India ROM on it. Honestly I don't know what happened, if it was normal or something but I didn't see anyone mentioning this.

Some feedback post flash: everything is fine, the phone seems even faster than on China ROM but it might be just an impression. I do not like the POCO launcher at all, when you're used for 4 years with the classic MIUI launcher it's honestly a pain, I like to see all installed apps on the home and next screens. I had an issue with my Mi Cloud backup (home screen): Mi Cloud said there was no backup even though I did one just before flashing. The rest of the sync process (except home screen - maybe because of POCO launcher?) was fine though: pics, notes, calls, messages, etc. Too bad we're missing NFC but it feels good to be back on "Global" (was coming from a Mi 8 Global phone). Oh yeah, missing the multiple shots option from the China ROM (where you can choose the "best" shot), but it will come to Global one day I guess.

- [MI CLOUD BACKUPS] I can confirm the Mi Cloud home screen backup issue described above is indeed because of the POCO launcher: my previous backups didn't have it (Mi 8 Global, K20 Pro China) and so Mi Cloud couldn't restore from those backups. I now have a POCO launcher backup (daily in Mi Cloud) and I can restore from those. So keep that in mind: if you come from non POCO you won't be able to restore home screen, but same thing if you move from POCO to a non POCO launcher. If you're not familiar with those backups, it's very practical (usually...) when you change phone because you just have to restore it and you'll have all your icons, apps and stuff like before.

[UPDATE] As you might know, a European Global version will be released in a few weeks, let's see if it has the POCO launcher or not.

Thanks again all for the help and let me know if you have more feedback. :)