[EVO 4G Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] thegh0st:
please feel free to direct me to any threads I might have missed - there is sooo many on here...

I have spent the last 2 to 3 weeks reading forums & articles (mostly from xda here once I found it or sites linked from here). I think I have a lot of things down and I even attempted to start my first root but after trying to use the adb shell I could not get a response from my phone. after reading and re-reading I determined that my EVO needs a factory reset before this will work (have not done this as of yet). I even confirmed this on another thread with someone else having a similar problem.

but before I dive in again I thought it wouldn't hurt to sign up here and ask questions (even repetitive dumb ones to some I'm sure) & get input. thanks for any help in advance.

and to let everyone know a little about me - I work on computers for a living and have for quite a few years now so I am alright with technical things and electronics. (more of a hardware guy but I install software & OS's etc.) I have flashed many motherboards also which flashing the phone sounds similar.

ok so on to my questions (these are in no order either just as I remember them)

as I said flashing a phone sounds similar but it sounds like there is approximately 4 different things to flash? is that right? a ROM, a recovery tool, you're wimax partition/key (might be saying this one technically wrong), and a kernel?

is a recovery tool (which is Amon_RA or clockwork - is that right to?) completely necessary? is there a stock version? also the HBOOT is just the boot loader right? nothing to do with the recovery tool if I understand correctly.

if necessary I want to use the Amon_RA from what I have read to. do I need to download and flash this separately? I thought I read it was part of the ROM package but I can not find where I read that at right now.

btw - I have saved all my phones info (software & hardware versions) if that would help with answers

before I go further I will try to keep it brief and give some information as to what I would like (I have read those threads to so I am pretty sure about this for now) - I am looking to go with the latest SprintLovers ROM. well I would actually luv gingerbread but I'm not ready for anything to "not" work. if I understand this correctly SprintLovers should have everything stock and be unlocked. I want what I have now including my 4G (I didn't see 4G listed as not working for this ROM) to work but I want what Sprint is keeping me from taking advantage of to - all the goodness built into Froyo but mainly full non-restricted wired & wireless tethering. I have also decided to go with the deodexed (sp?) version to have everything possibly necessary.

this will take up more room though on the built in memory right?

another question arises from the above - is it not possible to just root my phone and then continue using my stock ROM? or is the stock sprint ROM also locked in some manner to some degree (like being odexed if I understand the meaning correctly)? where I would not be able to use/install apps that require a rooted device

let's see

oh yes about doing a NANDROID backup - from everything I have read it seems like this backup occurs after the rooting AND flashing of a new ROM to the phone - am I right about this? if so that means I am just backing up my NEW ROM I just flashed? and not the stock one I had from the factory? if so is there no way to backup the stock ROM? or is that just completely unnecessary and being paranoid on my end as I have read about unrooting and using a stock RUU which I guess would be the same thing my phone has right now?

is it possible to just backup the wimax partition - root my phone - flash the SprintLovers ROM and be done without flashing a kernel or the wimax partition? (is that the right order?)

as for the kernel I have read many threads on that to and would just like to continue using the stock kernel for now.

one the threads I am going by and planning to follow is...

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=829045

but I do have a question - the instructions under "Lets Get Rooted!"

- well it states to push two files to the phone - PC36IMG.zip & PC36IMG-MR.zip then goes on to instruct on renaming the first to PC36IMG-ENG.zip and renaming the second to PC36IMG.zip and flashing both - why is this? what does MR stand for? I am guessing that is not 2 ROMs is it? if it is why would that be necessary? on that thread it also says he is using the SprintLovers ROM but if I go to the SprintLovers ROM thread the instructions there don't mention flashing PC36IMG.zip twice. the download I followed from the SprintLovers thread only linked me to download one PC36IMG.zip also (which I downloaded).

lastly (i think), how does my phone know to keep it's phone number or that it is still a sprint device and that it should talk to sprint to make phone calls and such? is that built in somewhere else or another part of the built in memory that does not get flashed?

thanks again to anyone and everyone who has time to help me. feel free to point me in the right direction if you have read my post and feel I am misunderstanding something. i look forward to learning some more & finally getting my phone rooted. :) :confused: :D

(sorry about the huge post & if I posted this in the wrong spot)