I rooted my hero! Now I have no clue...

[killtheaquitted]

Hi All,

So I rooted my 2.1 sprint hero phone without a hitch. I thought the hard work was over but apparently I was very wrong. I have a few questions before I go breaking things and I was hoping for some help here.

1. how do I actually flash a rom? I have done some reading and things seem really over my head. I was reading in xda about CID unlocking and making sure my radio matched the ROM. All of this was really confusing. do i have to run the CID thing or is rooting the same thing? Also, how do I make sure the radios match up? I was thinking about running the cyanogen froyo build. if i missed a good tutorial i apologize. i did some searching and hit a brick wall.

2. what are some good STABLE roms besides froyo? I rooted because I was tired of my phone taking 5 minutes to dial out and really just want a zippy stable phone with some cool widgets (tetherring won't be bad either thanks in advance all!

 

[toomuchgame441]

The hard part is over my friend even though that seems hard to believe. Flashing ROM(s) is generally simply. All your doing is taking the ROM (its zip file) saving it to your SD, booting in recovery and "installing zip from SD". Heres a great ROM that I've been running for the past few days, still has the Sense that you are use to with plenty of other goodies like Wireless Tether, Friendstream, Flash 10.1 etc...

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=731951

Its called ZenHeroFX 2.2

So again once you finish downloading this ROM.

1. Drag and drop it into your SD card when you mouth your Hero to ur PC
2. Turn off your Hero
3. hold down the DOWN volum button and the power button at the same time for over 3 seconds. You will see a white screen that will populate for 2 seconds, after its still again press the HOME button. You will see the black HTC screen for a few seconds and you will be on a green and black screen
4. Ours may be different but you should see something along the line of "flash zip from SD card" or "install from SD card" click it using your trackball.
5. You should see your saved zip that you just downloaded (I'm assuming that you have nothing nothing in your actual phone like installed apps etc... your phone should be clean from the root, if not DO A WIPE/FACTORY SETTINGS before installing zip from the SD card)
6. your ZIP should take several minutes to flash and be loaded on, at the end you should see something like "install complete" at the bottom of the screen
7. Press the back button which will take you back tothe screen where it has the very 1st option to "reboot device"
8. First boot take about 5-8 minutes, be patient (you didn't brick your Hero, lol)
9. When it comes up you have now flashed the ROM... enjoy!

 

[JD_from_da_80s]

Congrats Kill, the hard part is picking which of the great roms to flash. I finally rooted this morning too. Don't think I'm gonna flash a rom yet though. So far I only I deleted some bloat using Titanium Backup & I'm going to see if there's any performance improvement for the next week or two. Next I'm going to move my apps to my SD card.

Sorry Kill, didn't mean to steal your thunder.
Thanks for the tips Toomuch

 

[Thorin10]

Congrats Kill, the hard part is picking which of the great roms to flash. I finally rooted this morning too. Don't think I'm gonna flash a rom yet though. So far I only I deleted some bloat using Titanium Backup & I'm going to see if there's any performance improvement for the next week or two. Next I'm going to move my apps to my SD card.

Sorry Kill, didn't mean to steal your thunder.
Thanks for the tips Toomuch

Flash flash flash a rom! I waited almost a week before doing my first after rooting and now just kick myself for waiting as long as I did. The overall improvement is amazing!

 

[killtheaquitted]

Thanks for the comments guys. So what is this radio thing? I can find it on my phone but I can't figure out how to find it on the roms. I am really wanting to try froyo!

 

[treborcj]

The radio... is the part that gets the signal. Don't worry about updating unless you have problem with your signal. I tried updating once to see what would happen and it did not get better or worse so I never updated again. Sprint has very good coverage where I live.

 

[jjw14]

Hi (and please help),

First, many thanks to those who take the time to post detailed instructions (e.g. Toomuchgame441). I screwed this up, so I've only got myself to blame.

I was able to root my Sprint Hero with no problems following the instructions posted here: [GUIDE] How to Root Sprint 2.1 Release for CDMA Hero - xda-developers

Then I followed Toomuchgame441's instructions to flash the ZenHeroFx 2.2 ROM (now called NFX-Hero 2.2.1) exactly as described at:
[ROM] NFX-Hero 2.2.1, (9/04/2010) Friendstream+themed+Deodexed/ODEX+JIT & more - xda-developers

After the LONG reboot, I see the NFX-Hero splash screen and then the lock screen. I swipe down to see my home screen, but all I see is the row small icons in the top bar (data connection, battery life, time) and the rest of the home screen is just BLACK. Empty. No App icons at all. I've rebooted, taken the battery out and rebooted, but always come back to that screen. I do have a nandroid backup, but I'm wondering what I did wrong. Anyone who can help, I'd really appreciate it.

This is the name of the new ROM I was trying to flash:
Updated 9/04/2010 4:50PM,
NFX-Hero 2.2.1 ODEX
Formerly known as ZenHeroFX 2.2

 

[jwpilly]

Hi (and please help),

First, many thanks to those who take the time to post detailed instructions (e.g. Toomuchgame441). I screwed this up, so I've only got myself to blame.

I was able to root my Sprint Hero with no problems following the instructions posted here: [GUIDE] How to Root Sprint 2.1 Release for CDMA Hero - xda-developers

Then I followed Toomuchgame441's instructions to flash the ZenHeroFx 2.2 ROM (now called NFX-Hero 2.2.1) exactly as described at:
[ROM] NFX-Hero 2.2.1, (9/04/2010) Friendstream+themed+Deodexed/ODEX+JIT & more - xda-developers

After the LONG reboot, I see the NFX-Hero splash screen and then the lock screen. I swipe down to see my home screen, but all I see is the row small icons in the top bar (data connection, battery life, time) and the rest of the home screen is just BLACK. Empty. No App icons at all. I've rebooted, taken the battery out and rebooted, but always come back to that screen. I do have a nandroid backup, but I'm wondering what I did wrong. Anyone who can help, I'd really appreciate it.

This is the name of the new ROM I was trying to flash:
Updated 9/04/2010 4:50PM,
NFX-Hero 2.2.1 ODEX
Formerly known as ZenHeroFX 2.2

I haven't taken the time to read through all of ZenFx's instructions, so I don't know if this step was in there, but did you do a full wipe of your data, cache, and dalvik? This is a must when switching between Roms. Have you tried redownloading the rom and reflashing it? Sometimes they don't flash right and sometimes you get a bad download. Just some thoughts, let us know if any of them work or not. Btw - I have never used a zen rom, so I wouldn't know if there is some other extra step I'm not thinking of, but if you didn't have to go through introductory process again, like you did when you first got your phone, then you probably didn't to a full wipe.

 

[jjw14]

Thanks for the response. I did not wipe the data, cache,etc. I have restored the previous ROM and will try again tomorrow. I'll post my steps,.too

Much appreciated!

 

[jjw14]

@jwpilly: You were exactly right, and the instructions from "toomuchgame441" state in step 5, "DO A WIPE/FACTORY SETTINGS".

I just didn't know how to do that (guess that's why I'm a "junior member")

Thanks very much for your advice. NFX-Hero 2.2.1 is working perfectly on my phone now. It's a really great ROM. As I said in my OP, the instructions were clear - I just messed up by not reading.

-----
If it helps anyone, here are the steps I took after my Hero wouldn't boot up properly after flashing the NFX-Hero 2.2.1 ROM.

1. Powered down the Hero, then held down the "down-volume" and "power button" for 3 seconds to get to the custom recovery screen, then pressed HOME to get to Android system recovery.

2. Selected "Backup/Restore" and restored my old ROM. I was glad that everyone stressed making a Nandroid backup!

3. After a reboot, I repeated step 1, then I selected WIPE, then "Wipe data/factory reset"

4. Next, I selected WIPE, then "Wipe Dalvik-cache".

5. Finally, I selected "Flash zip from sdcard" and chose the NFX-Hero 2.2.1 zipped ROM.

After that, the phone rebooted and in about 5 min all was running smooth. Much appreciated!
jjw

P.S. I also found good instructions with photos on this page: Gogibyte's Place Blog Archive How to flash new ROM on HTC HERO?

 

[jwpilly]

Glad it worked. We were all new at this before and wouldn't have gotten where we are without the help of others on this forum.