Help with Milestone SBF

[Dorsch]

Hello everyone,

today I decided that I want to root my DX. I had 2.3.4 .621 installed and followed this guide to get it rooted. I did everything according to the instructions. However, I'm stuck at step 6a and 6b. I downloaded the stock rooted .621 from here but haven't been able to install it. My questions are:

1. Can someone instruct me on how to install the stock rooted .621
2. Do I have to install the stock rooted .621 if I want to install a custom ROM later?
3. If the stock rooted .621 is not required to install custom ROMs, and if I already applied the 604 SBF as per instructions, can I just go ahead and install a new custom ROM?
4. Which ROMs do you recommend? I'm new to this so I would like to try a ROM that has a really cool theme.

Thanks in advance!

 

[leftspin]

Hello everyone,

today I decided that I want to root my DX. I had 2.3.4 .621 installed and followed this guide to get it rooted. I did everything according to the instructions. However, I'm stuck at step 6a and 6b. I downloaded the stock rooted .621 from here but haven't been able to install it. My questions are:

1. Can someone instruct me on how to install the stock rooted .621
2. Do I have to install the stock rooted .621 if I want to install a custom ROM later?
3. If the stock rooted .621 is not required to install custom ROMs, and if I already applied the 604 SBF as per instructions, can I just go ahead and install a new custom ROM?
4. Which ROMs do you recommend? I'm new to this so I would like to try a ROM that has a really cool theme.

Thanks in advance!

You don't need to install the stock rooted .621 if you want to install a ROM later, you can install the ROM straight from rooted .604/Milestone. I would recommend Liquid Remix 3.2.1, it's fast, has awesome battery life and hundreds of themes available on the Play Store.

As far as actually installing the ROM, you're going to need ROM Manager and Droid 2 Bootstrap Utility (yes, Droid 2, not Droid X) off the Play Store. Download ROM Manager and install ClockworkMod Recovery. Then download the ROM you want to install and place it on the SD card. Then open Droid 2 Bootstrap Utility and press bootstrap recovery, grant it SU permissions, and wait for it to say "Success!" and then press reboot recovery. When you're rebooted into the recovery menu, using the volume keys to navigate and camera button to select, press wipe data/factory reset, wipe cache partition, and then under advanced wipe dalvik cache. Then press back to go back to the main menu, hit install .zip from sdcard>choose zip from sdcard and then navigate to where you put your ROM and select it. Wait for it to do its thing and then reboot into your freshly installed custom ROM

 

[Dorsch]

You don't need to install the stock rooted .621 if you want to install a ROM later, you can install the ROM straight from rooted .604/Milestone. I would recommend Liquid Remix 3.2.1, it's fast, has awesome battery life and hundreds of themes available on the Play Store.

As far as actually installing the ROM, you're going to need ROM Manager and Droid 2 Bootstrap Utility (yes, Droid 2, not Droid X) off the Play Store. Download ROM Manager and install ClockworkMod Recovery. Then download the ROM you want to install and place it on the SD card. Then open Droid 2 Bootstrap Utility and press bootstrap recovery, grant it SU permissions, and wait for it to say "Success!" and then press reboot recovery. When you're rebooted into the recovery menu, using the volume keys to navigate and camera button to select, press wipe data/factory reset, wipe cache partition, and then under advanced wipe dalvik cache. Then press back to go back to the main menu, hit install .zip from sdcard>choose zip from sdcard and then navigate to where you put your ROM and select it. Wait for it to do its thing and then reboot into your freshly installed custom ROM

Leftspin you're that dude! Thank you so much.

 

[Dorsch]

btw I have a new problem now. My phone is stuck in boot loop and the battery is too low to enter bootloader. It won't charge when I plug it in. Is there a fix?

 

[leftspin]

btw I have a new problem now. My phone is stuck in boot loop and the battery is too low to enter bootloader. It won't charge when I plug it in. Is there a fix?

What'd you do to get stuck in a bootloop? Maybe try wiping data in stock recovery, otherwise charge the battery in someone else's phone or use their battery to flash the SBF again

 

[Dorsch]

I installed liberty, then I tried installing CM7 but it didnt work (with stock rooted .621 installed). That's how I got there

I'll follow your advise, thanks again.

 

[leftspin]

I installed liberty, then I tried installing CM7 but it didnt work (with stock rooted .621 installed). That's how I got there

I'll follow your advise, thanks again.

The CM7 install is probably where it happened, there are two different CM7's for the DX. One is a 2nd init version that needs to be flashed over the FroYo kernel (.340, which you can no longer get to) and the other is the GB kernel one. Where'd you get yours?

Here's the GB one, for when you're back up and running: Updated Info On RevNumbers CM4DX-GB(5/22/2012, HDMI Out, 1% Battery, No Charge LED, FM radio, Charge While Off) - CyanogenMod [shadow] - RootzWiki

 

[Dorsch]

Yup, installing CM7 caused the problems. I think I accidentally installed one of the nightly updates, not knowing what kernel was required.

What's the difference between the CM7 for GB and the one for Froyo? I plan on doing a factory reset and then flashing back to the 604 Milestone. From there, can I install CM7 for the GB kernel?

Thanks leftspin.

 

[leftspin]

Yup, installing CM7 caused the problems. I think I accidentally installed one of the nightly updates, not knowing what kernel was required.

What's the difference between the CM7 for GB and the one for Froyo? I plan on doing a factory reset and then flashing back to the 604 Milestone. From there, can I install CM7 for the GB kernel?

Thanks leftspin.

Well, the difference is in the kernels. FroYo uses a FroYo kernel and GB uses a GB kernel. Some GB ROMs use the FroYo kernel and some use the GB kernel. GB ROMs on the FroYo kernel are what we call "2nd init" ROMs. To put it simply, a 2nd init ROM is a ROM that uses an older kernel to boot and run newer software, in this case the FroYo kernel to run GB. They did this because at one point there was no GB kernel for the Droid X and since the bootloader is locked, the developers couldn't simply replace the FroYo kernel with their own GB kernel. ICS ROMs for the DX are also 2nd init, using the GB kernel to boot ICS. The trouble you ran into was that every ROM needs to be flashed over the proper kernel version, 2nd init GB over FroYo, and non-2nd init GB over GB. When you flashed the ROM that needed the FroYo kernel over the GB kernel, it couldn't boot because it wasn't made to boot from that kernel.

And yes, once you're back on the rooted .604 build you should be able to install Rev's GB CM7

 

[Dorsch]

Thank you leftspin. I'm back up and my phone is back at .604. The download speed for CM7 is super slow... it'll take me 5 hours to download 100MB so I'm probably gonna go with Liquid Remix as per your suggestion. Could you possibly provide me with a URL? I just wanna make sure I download and install the right version. Thanks a bunch man!

 

[Dorsch]

Actually I'm good, just found a download link for Liquid Remix 3.2.1

Thanks again for all your help