[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] aroganone:
I've cleaned up my notes. I didn't do anything with SIM since I never installed one. Purely using this phone as a fun android machine.

Step by step (windows)

• Install adb

- https://www.xda-developers.com/install-adb-windows-macos-linux/

• On phone: settings | about phone | tap build number 7 times.

- Back to main settings | system settings | developer options

- Enable oem unlocking

- Enable usb debugging

• Tmp root adb shell to gain root access

- Mtk-su

- https://xdaforums.com/android/development/amazing-temp-root-mediatek-armv8-t3922213

• Backup partitions manually

- Make sure you grab, boot, recovery, system (LARGE), nvdata, nvram. But you should just grab ALL of them

- This script is for linux only so I didn't bother (https://github.com/for2ando/dump-android-partitions)

- System and userdata are huge. Pull those individually and delete right afterwards

- https://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2450045

- adb devices

- adb shell

ls -al /dev/block/platform/bootdevice/by-name

adb shell

dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0p30 of=/sdcard/system.img

adb pull /sdcard/system.img

• Usb driver for fast boot mode (maybe optional)

- Not sure if this is needed or maybe the universal driver for sp flash tool is good enough

- Try these drivers first:

- https://mega.nz/file/uQo1XDDI#EF0V4Tr5LgQvXuPAOSrcegtByZqrZt0tGtZe_8RZLms (xda)

- Universal naked drivers

- https://xdaforums.com/google-nexus-5/development/adb-fb-apx-driver-universal-naked-t2513339

- Plug in phone usb and go to device manager. Right click and install driver and point to naked dir.

- May have to boot to unsigned driver mode

https://www.howtogeek.com/167723/ho...8.1-so-that-you-can-install-unsigned-drivers/

• Unlock flashing in fastboot

- Reboot to fastboot. Vol + and power. Vol + to cycle menu to fastboot. Vol - to select

- If drivers were installed properly:

- fastboot devices

- fastboot oem unlock (optional since you already did this through the debug menu)

- fastboot flashing unlock (this lets you now flash any partition)

- Press Vol + on the phone to confirm.

- Flash vbmeta.img

- https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ifnXCIdkqKnk_a1HII9RqQd5CVFWz1xR/view

- https://androidfilehost.com/?fid=818070582850505317

- fastboot --disable-verity --disable-verification flash vbmeta vbmeta.img

• Download stock firmware

- {Mod edit: Link to paid services website removed. Oswald Boelcke, Senior Moderator}

- http://www.mediafire.com/file/4vtzo....COM_U300AS_9.0_ANS_US_SPT_38user_01.zip/file

• Now we are going to completely wipe the phone and install the stock firmware from above

- Install sp flash tool

- https://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1982587

- https://forum.hovatek.com/thread-159.html

- Drivers (either link is the exact same version)

- https://mega.nz/file/uQo1XDDI#EF0V4Tr5LgQvXuPAOSrcegtByZqrZt0tGtZe_8RZLms (xda)

- https://mega.nz/file/3h8BSY5J#0sfvyru6Hl6FsryUO2v9Yi1mmtsE4wrze68L4rjSGNk (hovatek)

- Completely power down: hold vol +/-/power all 3 at same time for 10 sec.

- Open the scatter file from stock rom

- click format all and download

- Power up phone using vol + and power and immediately plug in usb cable. This should start the formatting and flashing process immediately. If you get the low battery image you did it wrong. Vol + and power may reboot it and then you have to full power down again. Sometimes I had to pull the battery and re-insert. (pop cover near lower left side near screen)

• Use sp flash tool to restore nvram and nvdata

- https://forum.hovatek.com/thread-23412.html

- Create a recovery directory and copy these 4 things.

- Scatter file

- Boot.img from stock firmware

- Nvdata.img and nvram.img from when you initial backed up all partitions.

- Modify scatter file according to above instructions.

- Make sure you untick boot.img when you load the modified scatter file.

- Flash it just like before

• First boot into stock firmware. It takes a while

- Optional: backup ALL the partitions again since this is the last time you will have adb access

- At least backup the boot.img

- Enable developer mode again

- Enable oem unlocking

- Enabloe usb debugging

• fastboot flashing unlock and Flash vbmeta.img again

• Root boot.img

- https://github.com/topjohnwu/Magisk

- https://github.com/topjohnwu/Magisk/releases

- https://topjohnwu.github.io/Magisk/install.html

- Downnload magisk manager apk (latest)

- Use the boot.img you just dumped or even the one from stock.

Copy the boot/recovery image to your device

Download and install the latest Magisk Manager

Press Install → Install → Select and Patch a File, and select your stock boot/recovery image file

Magisk Manager will patch the image, and store it in [Internal Storage]/Download/magisk_patched.img

Copy the patched image from your device to your PC. If you can’t find it via MTP, you can pull the file with ADB:

adb pull /sdcard/Download/magisk_patched.img

Flash the patched boot/recovery image to your device and reboot. For most devices, here is the fastboot command:

fastboot flash boot /path/to/magisk_patched.img

• Flash the custom rom

- Back to fastboot

- Since there is no twrp recovery you can't get open gapps installed with lineage so I went with havoc with gapps

- https://sourceforge.net/projects/havoc-os/files/arm64-ab/

Havoc-OS-v3.7-20200709-Official-GApps-arm64-ab.img.xz

- fastboot erase system

fastboot flash system system.img

fastboot -w

Seems to erase userdata, cache, metadata

fastboot reboot

- First boot takes like 5 min.

• Re-install magisk manager apk and run it

- It will want to download some zip to complete setup. That's fine. Do it.

- Reboot and confirm magisk is installed properly

• At this point there seems to be a bug in havoc 3.7 and you adb always shows unauthorized. Apparently adb works in 3.5

- https://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=82900067&postcount=303

• Useful apps

- Root checker

- Joeykrim

- https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.joeykrim.rootcheck&hl=en_US

- Root explorer

- Speed software

- https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.speedsoftware.rootexplorer&hl=en_US

- Droid hardware info

- Inkwired

- https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.inkwired.droidinfo&hl=en_US

- Treble info

- Hackintosh five

- https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=tk.hack5.treblecheck

- https://apkpure.com/