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Root How to return to pure V4 or V6 Verizon stock with only CWM recovery

Neph81

Android Expert
Mar 3, 2012
1,399
823
Wisconsin
DO NOT USE THIS NANDROID IF YOU TOOK THE V7 (ICS) UPDATE. YOU WILL HAVE NO DATA CONNECTION. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.



Ok, so because this has been asked for a few times, and I had spare time, here is how to return to pure, fresh out of the box, V4 or V6 firmware stock using just a few files and CWM Recovery. Now this will have no root, no CWM Recovery, no anything that you may have put on here once you are done.

First:

Make sure you have CWM Touch Recovery installed. The first one that was released (non-touch based) does not handle nandroid backups correctly.

Then grab these files based on which version you want to restore and follow the corresponding instructions.

DO NOT MIX AND MATCH VERSIONS. YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO TAKE OTA UPDATES PROPERLY IF YOU MIX V6 NANDROID WITH V4 RECOVERY RESTORER

V4:

http://androidfiles.massivefilehost.com/v4_stock/stock_recovery_restorer.zip

http://androidfiles.massivefilehost.com/v4_stock/v4_stock.zip

Extract the contents of v4_stock.zip to the sd card of your phone so that the directory inside of your zip is at /sdcard/clockworkmod/backup/v4_stock/ . If you do it wrong and put it at /sdcard/clockworkmod/backup/v4_stock/v4_stock/ it will not work.

Copy stock_recovery_restorer.zip to the base directory of your sdcard so the end result should be /sdcard/stock_recovery_restorer.zip


Next :

Now boot into recovery.

Make one final nandroid backup if you are so inclined.

Now at the root menu of CWM Recovery choose wipe data/factory reset , then yes.

Then go into advanced -> Wipe Dalvik Cache -> yes
and also advanced -> Wipe Battery Stats -> yes

Now go into backup and restore -> restore -> v4_stock

If it goes correctly, proceed to the next step. If it fails, you placed the files incorrectly. Reboot your phone and fix where you extracted v4_stock.zip to.

If all went well, go to install zip from sdcard -> choose zip from sdcard -> stock_recovery_restorer.zip -> yes.


V6:

http://androidfiles.massivefilehost.com/v6_stock_noroot/stock_recovery_restorer_v6.zip

http://androidfiles.massivefilehost.com/v6_stock_noroot/v6_stock_noroot.zip

Extract the contents of v6_stock_noroot.zip to the sd card of your phone so that the directory inside of your zip is at /sdcard/clockworkmod/backup/v6_stock_noroot/ . If you do it wrong and put it at /sdcard/clockworkmod/backup/v6_stock_noroot/v6_stock_noroot/ it will not work.

Copy stock_recovery_restorer.zip to the base directory of your sdcard so the end result should be /sdcard/stock_recovery_restorer_v6.zip


Next :

Now boot into recovery.

Make one final nandroid backup if you are so inclined.

Now at the root menu of CWM Recovery choose wipe data/factory reset , then yes.

Then go into advanced -> Wipe Dalvik Cache -> yes
and also advanced -> Wipe Battery Stats -> yes

Now go into backup and restore -> restore -> v6_stock_noroot

If it goes correctly, proceed to the next step. If it fails, you placed the files incorrectly. Reboot your phone and fix where you extracted v6_stock_noroot.zip to.

If all went well, go to install zip from sdcard -> choose zip from sdcard -> stock_recovery_restorer_v6.zip -> yes.


Final for both:


You are now back at pure stock with no data. Reboot your phone and it will be like nothing was every installed.

As always, let me know if you run into any issues not covered in the instructions.
 
New file uploaded with hopefully the correct recovery image. Let me know if you still have issues. There shouldn't be, but at this point anything seems possible. I may have to add a partition zero command if it doesn't work correctly this time.

Seems to work fine now. Boots into recovery and shows the little Android with an arrow coming out of the box then reboots again. I'd assume this is normal.
 
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Yeah, this all works as advertised. If you can follow instructions, which I did. Eventually.

It took me about an hour to go from rooted v4, to stock v4, to updated v6. But that's MY fault, not the fault of the guide or software.

Took me about a hour as well. I couldn't get the drivers to install so I just went to an area were I got 4g and downloaded the update over the network. When I went to root the correct driver.exe was in that folder. So, they finally installed the spectrum correctly.

Currently on stock V6, Rooted and Touch CWM.
 
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Just finished.. Worked BEAUTIFULLY! Just a couple of things for people to be aware of:
-When you restore v4_stock, the first step takes a little while, it probably isnt frozen
-Some people may not have the /sdcard/clockworkmod/backup/v4_stock/ so just create the directory, and it should work great.
-I also had a problem with the phone freezing during the activation step. Turned out the problem was either the SIM card wasnt inserted correctly, or the back of the case needed to be on for whatever reason.
 
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i was on brokenout rom then i wanted to go back to stock to get the v6 update. but when i use this method to go back to stock v4 it says im on v6 already but its still says 2.3.5????

I can't understand why this would have happened. I would try to run the process again. Maybe neph can shed some light on the situation but for me I think you must have done something wrong. Double and triple check everything and make sure you are following the instructions exactly. I have personally used this method at least 4 times and have never had one single issue.
 
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I can't see understand why this would have happened. I would try to run the process again. Maybe neph can shed some light on the situation but for me I think you must have done something wrong. Double and triple check everything and make sure you are following the instructions exactly. I have personally used this method at least 4 times and have never had one single issue.

i tried it again and it was still the same
 
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i was on brokenout rom then i wanted to go back to stock to get the v6 update. but when i use this method to go back to stock v4 it says im on v6 already but its still says 2.3.5????

Sounds like something didn't fully restore. V6 would mean that your kernel updated, but 2.3.5 would mean the framework files did not. Honestly, at this point thou, you're probably better of just flashing the V6 nandroid then trying to downgrade back to V4 just to go up to V6. Plus, the V6 nandroid is pre-rooted.
 
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