[Q] Root noob questions - HTC Rezound

I just want to make sure I understand the process before I go and mess up my phone. If someone could help me out a bit, that would be awesome.
#1 - Backup
I used a tool called Simple ADB backup (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=36499906) to backup my phone. I'm not sure if it created an image or what (it's a .ab file at 6GB), but I also used Moborobo to backup contacts & apps. I already have my music, pictures, contacts backed up through gmail and such, so I'm not too worried about the data, only the fact that I want to be able to revert back to a stock ROM in case I mess up.
#2 - Make sure USB debugging is enabled and drivers are installed.
#3 - Wipe / unlock the bootloader through the htcdev website. This wipes all data from my understanding.
#4 - Install CWM or TMRW (this lets me load a ROM?)
#5 - Download ROM and use TMRW to install / load.
Now I've heard various things about S-off vs S-on. IT seems some ROMs can install with or without it and apparently with s-on is safer in terms of avoiding a bricked phone. S-off allows for deeper functionality for certain apps?
Now do I need a toolkit of some kind to do any of this or is that only with certain phone? Where does the SuperSU come into play?
I'm sure this isn't complicated to a lot of you, but this is the first I've looked into rooting. Did the past couple hours researching and figured I need to talk it out before going through with anything. As for ROM, I think I'm leaning towards the Cyanogen right now. It seems like a base version of Jelly Bean but slightly tweaked. I'm mostly looking to keep it clean and simple as possible and removing the bloatware and improve performance.
Thanks in advance, I'm excited!

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rumpus01 said:
I just want to make sure I understand the process before I go and mess up my phone. If someone could help me out a bit, that would be awesome.
#1 - Backup
I used a tool called Simple ADB backup (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=36499906) to backup my phone. I'm not sure if it created an image or what (it's a .ab file at 6GB), but I also used Moborobo to backup contacts & apps. I already have my music, pictures, contacts backed up through gmail and such, so I'm not too worried about the data, only the fact that I want to be able to revert back to a stock ROM in case I mess up.
#2 - Make sure USB debugging is enabled and drivers are installed.
#3 - Wipe / unlock the bootloader through the htcdev website. This wipes all data from my understanding.
#4 - Install CWM or TMRW (this lets me load a ROM?)
#5 - Download ROM and use TMRW to install / load.
Now I've heard various things about S-off vs S-on. IT seems some ROMs can install with or without it and apparently with s-on is safer in terms of avoiding a bricked phone. S-off allows for deeper functionality for certain apps?
Now do I need a toolkit of some kind to do any of this or is that only with certain phone? Where does the SuperSU come into play?
I'm sure this isn't complicated to a lot of you, but this is the first I've looked into rooting. Did the past couple hours researching and figured I need to talk it out before going through with anything. As for ROM, I think I'm leaning towards the Cyanogen right now. It seems like a base version of Jelly Bean but slightly tweaked. I'm mostly looking to keep it clean and simple as possible and removing the bloatware and improve performance.
Thanks in advance, I'm excited!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay, first, what machine are you on? Linux,mac,xp,vista,7? You can't unlock on 8.1 drivers aren't compatible. But Yes you unlock via HTC dev, I have a tool to help for that if you want to try it it helps first time root you still have to take the info that it gives you and put it into HTC dev then put the code you get from the email you get into the folder but I don't know if you would want that I need someone to test it But continuing.
Unlock via HTC dev if you want to do it manually with the command first.
1. Open a cmd prompt where your fastboot tool is using shift+right click.
2. Boot into fastboot by pulling the battery, then holding volume down and power, then clicking on the first thing which is fastboot by clicking power.
3. Back to the computer type
Code:
fastboot devices
4. If your device is found your good to get your unlock data, if not you need to reinstall drivers/check your connection/or your on windows 8/8.1
5. Now to get your unlock token.
Code:
fastboot oem get_identifier_token
6. Copy and paste this into HTC dev starting at
Code:
<<<< Identifier Token Start >>>>
And ending with this line:
<<<<< Identifier Token End >>>>>
7. Submit the unlock token it will say if its valid or not and send you a email with it is.
8. When you get the email it will have a item called Unlock_code.bin place this item into the same folder in which your fastboot is in.
9. Initiate the command
Code:
fastboot flash unlocktoken Unlock_code.bin
10. It will then send the Unlock_code.bin to your phone, you will see a prompt saying "Unlock bootloader" Then volume up and click yes. It will wipe ALL of your data back it all up before you do anything...
11. When your phone finally reboots. If you would like a custom recovery boot back into fastboot again, (Pulling battery then volume down+power button and clicking on fastboot
12. Then once into fastboot, back to your computer download either
TWRP: http://techerrata.com/browse/twrp2/vigor
PhilZ: http://goo.im/devs/philz_touch/CWM_Advanced_Edition/vigor <-------you must use this if using a ROM by snuzzo "aka Plain-andy or illusion ROM
CWM: Or go here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1914215 Download one of the zips, Extract it with your favorite extractor. You should get a .img in a folder, extract it and put it in your fastboot folder. This is only for CWM.
Take one of the .img's from above that you just downloaded and place it in the folder with your fastboot.
13.Back to your computer to push the recovery. Then while your phone is still in fastboot and connected to the computer make sure your device is still found.
Code:
fastboot devices
then if your device shows up, you are good to then flash the Recovery. Initiate this command.
Code:
fastboot flash recovery <name of recovery>.img
14. It should write the img successfully.
15. If you would like to go into recovery, you can either press "bootloader" In the fastboot option then click recovery and go into it from there. Or do
Code:
fastboot reboot
it will reboot your phone like normal. Then you can put your ROM and correlating GAPPS of choice onto your phone via USB Mass storage, along with SU. Put it on the root of your external SD card. Then you can reboot into recovery. After booting normal and transferring the ROM of choice you can then enable USB debugging and do
Code:
adb reboot recovery
16. It will reboot you to the recovery that you used. You might get a lot of errors on your phone. IGNORE THEM!!
17. Go to install and find SU from your external SD card. Install that. Then after that I would suggest STRONGLY making a backup (NANDroid) By clicking the backup button in any recovery, make sure you back it up to your external SD card.
18. Make sure that you have your ROM of choice on your SD card.
19. Wipe the hell out of everything once your ready to install your ROM.... EXCEPT SD CARD
20. Install the ROM and GAPPS in that order.
21. After a confirmed flash, wipe, cache and dalvik.
22. Boot into fastboot. (Power+Volume down and clicking fastboot)
23. Take your original <Name of ROM>.zip and extract it. Open the folder. In the folder will be a item called boot.img
24. Place this boot.img into the folder with your fastboot.
25. Again initiate the command
Code:
fastboot devices
make sure the device is found.
26. Initiate the command, this will flash the kernal aka "boot.img"
Code:
fastboot flash boot boot.img
27. Once you've confirmed that it has flashed the boot.img do
Code:
fastboot reboot
it will reboot your device. WAIT AT LEAST 20 MINUTES!!! FIRST BOOT CAN TAKE A WHILE!!!
28. Once rebooted set up
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Now talking about s-off, if you like to flash ROM's a lot I would suggest it, if not and your just staying on one ROM then just stay s-on. s-off allows you to write to every partition to the phone. s-off can be dangerous as if say you flash a ROM made for the S3, well your phone will flash it happily and well brick itself going down happily... But with s-on it will abort the flash or anything. That being said theres also the advantage of s-off being you can flash a ROM for your phone, flash and go, no computer. S-off can do some stuff inside the phone such as bootlogo's etc.. BUT its not needed for almost any app in the play store or any ROM... s-off just simply means you can write to every partition freely. No its not required. Now if you were to mess up and something goes corrupt on the phone and you need to return to stock for some reason......Well.... You almost kinda need s-off for that.... unless you do
Code:
fastboot oem lock
relock your bootloader and run a RUU..... But while s-off you can simply run a RUU (ROM upgrade utility I think ) But you can just run it.... This is how your would "return to stock" if anything messes up.... s-off can be EASILY obtained via rumrunner, use the universal 0.5.0 it will s-off your device http://rumrunner.us/downloads-2/
Unlike the old version of s-off which requires linux and a 22ga wire.... Hope this answers any questions!
I will post anything if i missed something, have to go, typed this real quick, please don't do this yet I think its right though....
edit: Just checked over it and made some changes... This should be exactly step by step... Or for what I did and what most others did. If I missed anything, someone else please post...

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After more research, I am editing my original response.
The above is too many steps for me; I know it can be simpler. I'm going to go with the Everevolv ROM and just want to verify my findings on the install process.
- Make sure all Rezound drivers installed
- Install & update Android SDK
- Unlock bootloader / wipe phone data
- Install TWRP
- Put Everevolv ROM .zip on SD card (not extracted)
- Boot into TWRP & Flash ROM
Now, I have not rooted my phone and I am S-ON, so I know I need to flash in fastboot with the command: "fastboot flash boot boot.img".
Does this mean I flash with the android SDK instead of TWRP? Or at what point in the install procedure do I flash the boot.img file?
From my understanding, this ROM does not require root access. Is this correct?

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rumpus01 said:
After more research, I am editing my original response.
The above is too many steps for me; I know it can be simpler. I'm going to go with the Everevolv ROM and just want to verify my findings on the install process.
- Make sure all Rezound drivers installed
- Install & update Android SDK
- Unlock bootloader / wipe phone data
- Install TWRP
- Put Everevolv ROM .zip on SD card (not extracted)
- Boot into TWRP & Flash ROM
Now, I have not rooted my phone and I am S-ON, so I know I need to flash in fastboot with the command: "fastboot flash boot boot.img".
Does this mean I flash with the android SDK instead of TWRP? Or at what point in the install procedure do I flash the boot.img file?
From my understanding, this ROM does not require root access. Is this correct?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. Unlock via HTC dev.
2. Make sure drivers are installed.
3. Push recovery to phone.
4. Back up stock to SD card.
5. Wipe everything including system.
6. Flash ROM and GAPPS.
7. Flash boot.img in fastboot using
Code:
fastboot flash boot boot.img
8. Reboot phone.
If you have any questions with that. I will explain each step more in depth. But steps 1-11 were unlocking help.
Step 12-19 is pushing the recovery, making a back up, rebooting to it.
Step 20-end actually getting the device to boot after flashing ROM. If I need to explain again. I will. In a ever more simplified version. Plus the reason that there were so many steps is because the longest step literally takes like 2 minutes max. The rest is almost like 30 seconds besides actually flashing the ROM and GAPPS. I tried to do as much detail as POSSIBLE!!! Please consider rereading it, if you don't understand a step, ask and I will gladly explain. But it is a COMPLETE STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE. Hope you get your phone rooted, but if you didn't know what fastboot was....you might need some more reading..... I can write up a complete guide of what EVERYTHING means, what EVERYTHING does. But fastboot is just where you flash recovery/boot.img/etc.....any questions, please ask, I will explain or someone can beat me to it

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Awesome man, thanks so much! I'll give it another read... I have a few hours set aside later tonight to investigate the whole process once again, so I'll certainly have more questions.
Once again seriously, thanks for the help!

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rumpus01 said:
Awesome man, thanks so much! I'll give it another read... I have a few hours set aside later tonight to investigate the whole process once again, so I'll certainly have more questions.
Once again seriously, thanks for the help!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
sweet. Just PM me or post here :good:

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pball52998 said:
sweet. Just PM me or post here :good:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Alright man so after re-reading it, it's starting to make a whole lot more sense now. Initially, I was wondering why the hell there were so many steps in your first post. Now I realize you were just going step by step through the HTC unlock process as well, which I'm guessing HTC walks you through more or less but you clarified it in more detail.
Now in a broader step by step list, you said this:
1. Unlock via HTC dev.
2. Make sure drivers are installed.
3. Push recovery to phone.
4. Back up stock to SD card.
5. Wipe everything including system.
6. Flash ROM and GAPPS.
7. Flash boot.img in fastboot using
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Now my understanding is that unlocking the bootloader wipes all data, but #4 is a backing up procedure... Is this just creating a backup of the stock ROM on my phone at the moment, without any of my apps or personal data? Then #5 would actually be wiping the stock ROM?
These few steps confuse me a little:
20. Install the ROM and GAPPS in that order.
21. After a confirmed flash, wipe, cache and dalvik.
22. Boot into fastboot. (Power+Volume down and clicking fastboot)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are GAPPS included with the ROM download?
#21 - Are you telling me to "cache and dalvik" or is that part of the flash process that I don't have to do in separate steps? For example, are you saying
a) After a confirmed flash, you need to wipe, cache, and dalvik.
or
b) After a confirmed flash, wipe, cache, and dalvik, you need to boot into fastboot.
WTH is dalvik?
Now I think those are my only questions regarding the process for the moment; I'm going to check out some YouTube videos of some of these processes individually to get a better understanding. It sounds to me like most of this makes sense once you actually start going through the process and seeing it instead of reading about it, but I wanted to do as much homework as possible first.
Think I'll go ahead and give this a try tonight... It sounds like with S-on, I can only screw it up so much but we'll see. I did all my chores tonight so I can focus on this tomorrow all night if I wonk it out and just be without my phone during the day.
Oh one last question - Will I be able to get updates / update without flashing again?
Thanks again man!!!

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Okay. So my "full" step by step makes more sense now? Good now do you see why I had so many steps? It was each individual part. Step by step. With clear detail or at least I tried
So moving onto the "unlocking wiping data" yes it will wipe every piece of data. But leaves stock. What I would suggest is putting su on your SD card and that being the first thing you flash before wiping or backing up..I've heard you can't back up bare bone stock. It must have root, or so I've heard... So put su on your sd card and flash it first (aka go to install and find it swipe to flash. Su should now flash. You now have root or should). Not very hard, just flashing it won't do any damage.
But backing up. When you back up it pulls every piece of info you have and puts it into a folder on your SD card. Like I have no stock... I accidentally erased it... But besides that. Do you see in my signature how I have 3 roms on my rezound. PAC, CM, And sense 5. See every one of those has been backed up. If I were to restore it, it would automatically restore to the point where I made the backup.
So now let's say. You have your backup of stock. It's on your EXTERNAL SD CARD. It should be about 1-3 gb backup. So now we have that backup made in twrp. Wipee we now have stock saved just incase something happens
So then we go in to the wipe button. Youre going to
factory reset 3 times
Wipe data, cache, dalvik cache, boot and system 3 times each. Don't ask why 3 I really don't know. But one isn't good enough...it's proven... So this leaves you with no OS oooo noooo. But the thing is you have your backup on your external hard SD card. And also your ROM/gapps on there. (gapps is google apps) but you must download the two separately. Both in a .zip format. Not a folder... Can't flash a folder... But there should be a need gapps button on the evervolv page? Click it and it should take you to a download for gapps. Remember all this is on the root of your external SD. So now we have 3 things on your SD card and no OS. O Lordy.... Time to hit up the install button!!! ;D now were going to choose the evervolv ROM. Bam, click add more zips, find gapps, click it. Bam, now you have two zips queed to flash. Just swipe to flash make sure you choose the rom before the gapps. so time passes (less than 5 minutes) and rom and gapps are now flashed. When it gets done flashing you should have some options. One being wipe cache/dalvik. That is where your question of the #21 is... Sooo.... Dalvik is pretty much like our java almost... It runs our apps...soon android will be changing to ART (android run time).
Blah blah blah, doesn't matter!! Lol xD so then after wiping your cache and dalvik after flashing your rom, return to the main menu of TWRP you should see a button on twrp's main menu, at the very bottom right, "reboot" when you click on that you should get 4 options, reboot system, bootloader, recovery, power off. We want to choose bootloader. This will bring us to fastboot (it will say fastboot usb in bug red letters if your in fastboot) where you flash the boot.img that you extracted earlier from the zip and placed it in the same folder as your adb/fastboot you remember? We need to open a cmd prompt and flash this boot.img "aka kernel" so were going to type in that cmd prompt: fastboot flash boot boot.img
This will flash the boot.img to your phone once confirmed, (only about 6 seconds to write it) were going to reboot the phone and hope for the best.. Do: fastboot reboot
It'll reboot your phone, remember first boot can take a while....
Also what do you mean by your last question??????
Sent from my crappy Jailbroken apple iPad.....
Freedoms just another word for nothing left to do... Nothin' ain't worth nothing but it's free.....

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Hey man! I did not read your full post just now because I'm tired of thinking about this stuff, but I went through your step by step instructions and everything seemed to work out. I'm currently waiting for on my first boot; it's at the Evervol screen with the heartbeat animation going on. Everything made perfect sense once following your guide to the actual process; it just seems risky since there's no good way to practice unless you have a spare phone or something.
The only thing that tripped me up was that my SD card had all the data from my previous ROM even after everything was wiped. So I formatted it in Windows prior to copying the SU, ROM, and GAPPS zips on there.
Oh and I noticed after wiping and booting into the "clean" stock ROM, I had no service... Obviously, I didn't try to fiddle around with that since I was about to install a new ROM, but I can see that being a problem if this ROM ever loads (been about 22 mins).
I did find this info on a different thread:
1. Go to the dialer and press *#*#4636#*#*
2. Click on "Phone Information"
3. You should notice almost towards the bottom radio settings, Make sure the radio is on and change the settings from WCDMA to GSM (auto)
4. Exit out of the screen by pressing the back button
5. Reset the phone and you will have service.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll give that shot if it's no bueno!
Thanks again man, I'll post back tonight if I don't fall asleep before it's done loading, lol. Either way I'll post back tomorrow. Seriously thank you again, can't believe you typed all that out for me, even when the first 11 steps were step by step from HTC too. :good: True internet assistance!

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Did you flash the boot.img in fastboot?? That can cause you to stay on the boot screen forever. I've had that problem @rumpus01 and glad it all made sense!!! :good:
Sent from my Rezound running PAC-Man with SENSE!! 4.4.2 S-OFF

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pball52998 said:
Did you flash the boot.img in fastboot?? That can cause you to stay on the boot screen forever. I've had that problem @rumpus01 and glad it all made sense!!! :good:
Sent from my Rezound running PAC-Man with SENSE!! 4.4.2 S-OFF
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did indeed as it was listed in your steps, of course!
It's been about an hour now, so I'm guessing something went askew and it is not going to power up. What course of action should I take from here? I'm guessing go back to stock ROM via recovery (the backup I made), and then do the whole process over again, aside from unlocking and what not. I definitely installed SU before making a backup, so hopefully that works out.
Thanks again! It's never simple...

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Okay one question. How much did you wipe before you clean installed the ROM? Did you wipe everything but External SD 3 times? Including system?
Sent from my Rezound running PAC-Man with SENSE!! 4.4.2 S-OFF

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pball52998 said:
Okay one question. How much did you wipe before you clean installed the ROM? Did you wipe everything but External SD 3 times? Including system?
Sent from my Rezound running PAC-Man with SENSE!! 4.4.2 S-OFF
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, I did not... I did everything before your post about that, so I'm guessing that's the problem. I also only wiped cache, dalvik cahce, system, and internal storage. There's an option for android secure and factory reset under the wipe menu as well, but I wasn't sure about those...
I tried pulling battery and rebooting, I'm guessing it's dunzo. I am now booted into recovery mode and going to recover to the backup I made, and try the whole thing again after reading your post about wiping multiple times.
EDIT: To clarify, I am wiping everything 3 times before restoring. Then I'm going to reboot normally to see if the restore worked, and then go through the process again except wiping multiple times before installing the ROM this time.

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Crap....sorry I didn't mention that to begin with..... And don't do the recover yet. Try wiping everything.... 3x then try booting. After the boot.img flash in fastboot... Sorry I forgot that man.... First off though, if everolv doesn't work. You can always try another ROM. Go s-off (takes at most like 30 minutes) then flash everolv.... But try wiping everything at least 3 times except the SD card. The reason for the two wipes is because one clears main. Then it goes into emmc and clears I think.. Sorry I completely forgot about it and it went over my head....
Sent from my Rezound running PAC-Man with SENSE!! 4.4.2 S-OFF

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pball52998 said:
Crap....sorry I didn't mention that to begin with..... And don't do the recover yet. Try wiping everything.... 3x then try booting. After the boot.img flash in fastboot... Sorry I forgot that man.... First off though, if everolv doesn't work. You can always try another ROM. Go s-off (takes at most like 30 minutes) then flash everolv.... But try wiping everything at least 3 times except the SD card. The reason for the two wipes is because one clears main. Then it goes into emmc and clears I think.. Sorry I completely forgot about it and it went over my head....
Sent from my Rezound running PAC-Man with SENSE!! 4.4.2 S-OFF
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Crap I already wiped everything and tried a restore, which doesn't appear to be working haha. And don't worry man, I can't believe you gave that many instructions to begin with. It's a lot of steps! Nothing happens when I boot after doing my recover install. My computer gives the sound of a USB device but says nothing, and my phone doesn't even light up in any way. I'm going to go wipe everything and try rebooting it normally again.

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Well just wipe, wipe, wipe, then install the ROM and gapps. Flash boot.img and you should boot fine.... Btw if you want stock, there's a ROM for that xD
Sent from my Rezound running PAC-Man with SENSE!! 4.4.2 S-OFF

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pball52998 said:
Well just wipe, wipe, wipe, then install the ROM and gapps. Flash boot.img and you should boot fine.... Btw if you want stock, there's a ROM for that xD
Sent from my Rezound running PAC-Man with SENSE!! 4.4.2 S-OFF
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So after wiping everything, I go to "install" and all the zip files for the GAPPS and SU and ROM are on my Internal storage device... didn't I just clear that 3 times???
I cleared everything including internal storage and selected reboot, and recovery told me SU was not installed and asked if I wanted to. I chose yes and rebooted. Then wiped cache/dalvik cahce 3 times each, and now installing the ROM and GAPPS again... I think I wiped my internal SD card & system in addition to cache and dalvik cache after installing SU but before installing the ROM and GAPPS initially... I wonder if this was the main source of the problem.

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Okay. Everything's wiped. There is no os installed. So that being said. You have your ROM and gapps on your SD card. Correct? Or external SD card. Either will work dear sir. Install those and then flash the boot
Img and see your result. That should be the easiest way to boot.
Sent from my Rezound running PAC-Man with SENSE!! 4.4.2 S-OFF

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pball52998 said:
Okay. Everything's wiped. There is no os installed. So that being said. You have your ROM and gapps on your SD card. Correct? Or external SD card. Either will work dear sir. Install those and then flash the boot
Img and see your result. That should be the easiest way to boot.
Sent from my Rezound running PAC-Man with SENSE!! 4.4.2 S-OFF
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
WELL WELL, IT IS WORKING. IT blew through that Evervolv boot screen in like 2 minutes this time.
I see that my service is not working, and my computer said MTP USB Device drivers failed to install. I now see that has something to do with transferring media files to PC.
Well, whatever. I am cool with this for now, at least it is installed. Very tired, let's all go to sleep! Thanks again for all the help man, feel like I'm paying someone for remote support lol.

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Lol gg man. We got it. Cheers!!! :good:
Sent from my Rezound running PAC-Man with SENSE!! 4.4.2 S-OFF