Things to Do Before and After Installing a Custom ROM

Things to Do Before and After Installing a Custom ROM +
Troubleshooter 

Android being an Open Source
operating system for mobile
phones, offers limitless
possibilities of optimization
and customization as per your
requirements. Half the charm of
an Android phone lies in the
root-based apps, beautiful
mods and patches, and custom
ROMs. If you have not rooted
your phone yet, believe me you
are not getting the most out of
it. Rooting offers many
advantages indeed but, at the
same time it is also a little
risky as it breaks into the wall
of security build by the
operating system.

According to a survey, 80% of
Android phone users live happy
with an unrooted device and
the reasons for this are various-
some people think of it as a
sort of criminal activity, some
are afraid of losing warranty,
some are afraid of bricking
their phone, while most people
do not even know about the
existence of a term like
“rooting”. If you are one who
has enclosed himself in side
that great wall of security and
have doubt in mind related to
rooting, do not forget to read
the following article.

To Root, Or Not To Root,
That’s The Questions

Anyways, the procedures like
rooting and installing a custom
ROM is a bit risky and it’s true,
but if you go through it
carefully, no harm will ever
done to your Android device.
People brick their phone
because they make some
mistake. That’s the way
accidents happen! As an
Android blogger, I have to root,
flash stock and custom ROMs,
install mods and patches
almost everyday. And believe
me all my device are pretty
healthy and sound. If you
understand things, take
precautions, create backups
and do things carefully, you’ll
never be caught into an
uncomfortable situation.

Here are a few tips that that
will help you keep things under
your control and you will be
able to not only keep all your
data safe, but also restore your
device to its normal condition.

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INSTALL CWM CUSTOM RECOVERY on Your Device.

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Ensure Decent Battery LeveL
Whenever you have to install a
custom ROM or mod or mod on
your phone, try to be ready for
the worst situations. Just
imagine you are installing a
ROM and your phones turns off
in the middle of things due to
low battery! You will have to
charge the battery with an
external charger because your
device will not be able to
charge the battery because it
does not have any ROM that
makes this function work. In
such a situation, you will not
be able to restart the
procedure or even restore from
a backup Therefore, it very
important that your phone is
amply charged before you set
out on the adventure.

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Backup Your Apps, Contacts,
Messages, etc.
Whether you have rooted your
phone or not, always backup
your apps, contacts, call-log,
messages, bookmarks, calendar
entries, etc. The best way is to
schedule regular backups,
preferably to external storage of
your device and your computer.
Here are some nice free apps
that will make this task easy for
you.

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Put Your Phone in Debugging
Mode
The term “debugging” is used
in connection with
development. Putting your
Android device in debugging
mode prepares it for direct
connection with your computer
via a USB cable without
notification or read log data.
Flashing/installing anything
that does not come under
official method, might be
regarded as a development
activity. It’s another thing that
you did not developed the
ROM you are going to install,
but still it is a work of custom
development. That’s is why,
whenever you perform any such
task, it is highly recommended
that you turn on the USB
Debugging mode from
Developer Options under
Settings of your device. On
Android phones with Jelly Bean
4.2 and higher, the Developer
Options are hidden by default
and can be made to show by
tapping 7 times on “Build
Version” from Settings> About.

Further, you should also install
the appropriate USB Drivers on
your computer as you can need
them anytime.

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Backup Your Phone’s IMEI
When you install a custom ROM
on you phone, sometimes it
happens that the folder that
stores your phone’s IMEI
(International Mobile
Equipment Identity) number is
wiped. As a result, your
phone’s IMEI number is lost it
does not receive network
signal. To avoid this happen to
your phone, do not forget to
backup a folder called “efs” .
You will be able to access the
“efs ” folder only when you have
root privileges on your Android
device.

To access efs data, download a
root file explorer app like Root
Browser, Root Explorer ,  etc.
You can use any other app of you
preference.
Okay, open the root file
manager app and look for a
folder called “efs” . You will
easily find it as it is found on
the root location of your
device’s internal partition (see
below).Just press and hold the
“efs “ folder and select “Copy”.
Now paste the folder on the
external SD Card storage of you
phone. It will be even better if
you copy it to your computer
too. Suppose you flash a
custom ROM and lost your
phone’s IMEI, what will you
do? Having backed up the efs
data, you can easily restore
your lost IMEI by restoring the
“efs” folder back to its place.

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Enter Recovery Mode Easily:
If you are a hard-core Android
enthusiast who likes to play
with new ROMs and mods every
now and then, be careful or you
might damage the hardware
keys of your Android phone.
Since booting into recovery
mode of a phone or tablet
requires hard-pressing of
certain combination of
hardware keys, doing it
frequently can have a negative
effect on the functioning of
these keys. I have experience it
myself when I had a Galaxy S.
Fortunately, there are several
apps that can make booting
into download, bootloader or
recovery mode very easy without
being cruel to the poor
hardware keys.

Here are some good free apps
for you that will let you do this
without touching the hard keys.
If you have installed a custom
ROM, you need not install any
such app separately as most
ROM developers integrate the
boot options in the ROM itself.
Besides, we have an vast
collection of methods of
entering Fastboot, Bootloader,
Download and Recovery modes
on most Android devices.
-------------------------
How To Boot Android
Devices In Fastboot,
Download, Bootloader Or
Recovery Mode

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Backup the Complete ROM
(Important)
Being able to install a custom
ROM on your Android phone
means that you have installed
custom recovery like
ClockworkMod or TWRP on your
Android device. Well, having a
custom recovery on any phone
is a great advantage. It can
perform all tasks done by stock
recovery while adding lots of
other useful options.

One such great feature is its
ability to backup the whole
ROM, custom or stock, on your
phone’s internal or external
storage. You can back as many
ROMs as your phone’s storage
can afford. I strongly
recommend that you always
keep a backup of your
phone’s original/stock ROM .
Before you install a new custom
ROM, always create a backup of
your current ROM. Scroll down
to the “ backup and restore”
option and backup the ROM to
the internal or external storage
of you device. If you select
“backup”, the ROM will be
saved to internal storage. To
save it to external SD card,
select “backup to external
sdcard” option.

All backed up ROMs are saved
on a folder called
“clockworkmod” on your device’s
internal or external SD card,
depending on what location
you chose while creating the
backup.

It’s is always better to store
the backed up ROM on the
external storage because
sometimes the phone is caught
in a bootloop, or the screen
goes into a frozen state, or you
may experience lags, or
anything, and decide to reset/
wipe your phone to get it back
to normal. In doing so, all data
stored on the internal storage
is deleted. In certain situations
you might have the opportunity
to backup your data but in
some cases you might not be
able to do that.

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How to Restore a Previously
Backed up ROM:
As I said earlier, you should
always keep a backed up copy
of the rooted stock ROM on the
external SD card of your phone.
If the phone does not have an
external SD slot, you can save
the backup to the internal SD
card (not safe though). If you
frequently flash an AOSP, AOKP
or CM based ROM, always keep
a copy of the Google Apps
flashable zip saved on your
phone.

So if you installed a custom
ROM and you are having
problems with it or you just
want to go back to the previous
or any backed up ROM, do this:

1. Boot you phone into CWM
recovery mode
2. “wipe data/factory reset”
3. “wipe cache partition”
4. Then go to “backup and
restore> restore”, select
the location (internal or
external) of the backup.
5. Select the file and confirm
your choice by selecting
“yes”.

So, this was a detailed tutorial
to help you land safely
whenever you install a ROM.

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Installing a Custom ROM
Now here is  classic way of
installing a custom ROM. I
recommend it to all because it
has proved perfectly successful
and never hurled down
phones into a single bootloop
so far. Always follow these
steps in CWM Recovery:
1. “wipe data/factory reset”
2. “wipe cache partition”
3. Go to advanced and “wipe
dalvik cache” and “wipe
battery stats”
4. Go to mounts and storage
and “format system”
5. The go to “install zip from
sdcard> choose zip from
sdcard” and select the
ROM file you want to
install.
6. In case, the developer has
recommended to install
GApps too, you should
install it just after flashing
the ROM (use Step 5).
7. When it is installed, reboot
the device.

Installing a custom ROM with
these wipes has a great
advantages. Whenever you flash
a new ROM, install it as fresh
copy. Less wipes means more
chances of old and new system
files’ clash, resulting in poor
performance, lags and even a
bootloop. While some
enlightened giants might
disapprove of the idea of
wiping the battery stats of the
old ROM, I still recommend to
wipe it as it takes nothing.

However, you should also listen
to any recommendations of the
developer whose ROM you are
going to install.

SOURCE:-
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