[Hero CDMA Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] unCoRrUpTeD:
Before you modify anything you will want to boot into recovery, assuming you flashed one, by holding down Home and turning the phone phone back on(power button). But since you don't have adb working then you probably haven't. You can still do this using terminal on your phone.

Download terminal emulator from market and then download a revoery image (AmonRa 1.6.2 or Darch's 1.7xx) and then mount your sdcard to the computer and transfer the recovery to the root of the sdcard. Open up terminal emulator and type in

su
cd /sdcard
flash_image recovery recovery-RA-heroc-v1.6.2.img(type the exact file name of the recovery you are using)
reboot recovery

If you had factory 2.1 on your phone then you have the latest radio. The radio can be flashed just like any ROM, but make sure that the radio is not for GSM phones as this will destroy your phone.

Instructions from Android Developers and ADB, Fastboot, and Nandroid for Noob

Download the latest Android SDK.

Unzip to C:\AndroidSDK

Right-click on (My) Computer, and select Properties

Go to Advanced settings

XP: Click the Advanced tab

Vista/7: Click Advanced system settings on the left

Click the Environment Variables button

double-click on Path (under System Variables)

Add the full path to the tools/ directory:

C:\AndroidSDK\tools\

(make sure a semicolon (;) separates this new path from all the others)

Latest windows sdk version appears to need: "C:\AndroidSDK\android-sdk-windows\tools", install location may change with further updates..

Run C:\AndroidSDK\SDK Setup.exe

If you get an error about not having Java SDK installed but you do, add the path to 'bin' within your Java installation location to the Path environmental variable as described above before the sdk entry you just made. (eg add "C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_20\bin;") This is likely to only be necessary where the 64 bit Java SDK is installed (obviously) on a 64 bit machine.

If it gives you an error about http go to settings and click on "Force http//....."

Unselect all options except for the USB driver

If you can't get the setup to work, download the USB-DRIVERS folder - HERE (Windows XP/Vista/Windows 7)

On your phone, click Settings > Applications > Development and make sure USB Debugging is on.

Plug your phone into your computer via USB cable (it needs to be on). It should say installing drivers if using Windows.

After it installs the drivers, goto the Start menu and type cmd into the search bar (Vista or higher) or click Run then type in cmd (XP) to open the command prompt.

Type the following into the command prompt window:

adb devices

You should see a serial number pop up, it’s the serial number of your phone. This means you are all set. If you do NOT see a serial number, then we need to reinstall the drivers.

Download USBDeview

While the phone is still plugged in, open USBDeview and sort by manufacturer. Find all the HTC/Android drivers and uninstall them all. (Windows Vista requires program to be run as an administrator, otherwise files won't uninstall.)

Once all have been uninstalled, unplug the phone from the USB cable and plug it back in.

The correct drivers should reinstall automatically (check the drivers as they are installing, one should say ADB Device driver).

To check, go to Devices in your Start menu then click on the “Android Phone”. Click on the Hardware tab, and check the list of drivers for ADB Interface under Type.

Done! Now you can use ADB to alter your phone from your computer.

If all else fails try installing HTC Sync software-- http://member.america.htc.com/download/Driver/HTC Hero (Sprint)/HTC_Sync_2.0.40.exe and then removing the drivers for it and then trying to install the android sdk drivers

Or you can dual boot with Linux and all you will need to do is download and unzip android sdk and edit 2 files and everything will work.