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Help Is it possible to reformat?

Essentially you want to do the equivalent of reformatting a PC and doing a clean format of windows, right?

It's not quite as straight forward with android phones. But you do have a few options:

- Reinstall the firmware that came with your phone, including any applications added by your network. You get a fresh start... but you keep the bloatware.
- Install the HTC unbranded release of the firmware. It will still come with a lot of stuff preinstalled, but none of the extra stuff branded firmware has.
- Root your phone, which allows you to uninstall anything on the phone.
- Switch to custom firmware. There are lots of different versions out there with lots of different features and UIs. They also all come pre-rooted.
 
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No matter what you decide to do, the issue you'll face is that your apps are tied to your gmail account. If you use the same gmail account to set up the phone, once you have the fresh OS on, your apps will start downloading themselves as soon as you sign in to that account again (providing they're installed via the market).

If you want to be free of the apps you've installed at the moment, you'll need to use/create another gmail account and associated it with the handset.
 
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No matter what you decide to do, the issue you'll face is that your apps are tied to your gmail account. If you use the same gmail account to set up the phone, once you have the fresh OS on, your apps will start downloading themselves as soon as you sign in to that account again (providing they're installed via the market).

If you want to be free of the apps you've installed at the moment, you'll need to use/create another gmail account and associated it with the handset.

Actually, if you skip adding a gmail account initially, you can go to Settings >> Privary, enable 'Backup My Data' and the disable 'Automatic Restore'. That will prevent it from reloading all of your apps.
 
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Essentially you want to do the equivalent of reformatting a PC and doing a clean format of windows, right?

It's not quite as straight forward with android phones. But you do have a few options:

- Reinstall the firmware that came with your phone, including any applications added by your network. You get a fresh start... but you keep the bloatware.
- Install the HTC unbranded release of the firmware. It will still come with a lot of stuff preinstalled, but none of the extra stuff branded firmware has.
- Root your phone, which allows you to uninstall anything on the phone.
- Switch to custom firmware. There are lots of different versions out there with lots of different features and UIs. They also all come pre-rooted.

Yea, I like the same as reformatting my PC. I want a fresh installation of android but in this case....

- Reinstall the firmware that came with your phone, including any applications added by your network. You get a fresh start... but you keep the bloatware. - If I want this option where I get the firmware and what application do i need to use to install that firmware?
- Install the HTC unbranded release of the firmware. It will still come with a lot of stuff preinstalled, but none of the extra stuff branded firmware has. - If I want this option, my previous is unbranded where I get the firmware for this?
- Root your phone, which allows you to uninstall anything on the phone.
- Switch to custom firmware. There are lots of different versions out there with lots of different features and UIs. They also all come pre-rooted.- If I want this option where I get the firmware that suit my phone and already rooted or firmware with the best UI and much faster than my previous version.

My phone specs now..
HTC DHD A9191
Android Version - 2.3.3
HTC Sense - 2.1
Baseband - 12.54.60.25U_26.09.04.11_M2
Kernel - 2.6.35.10-gd2564fb
Build no. - 2.50.405.2 CL87995 release-keys
Soft no. - 2.50.405.2

Thanks
Regards,
 
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- Reinstall the firmware that came with your phone, including any applications added by your network. You get a fresh start... but you keep the bloatware. - If I want this option where I get the firmware and what application do i need to use to install that firmware?

You can download it here. The 'useful links' sticky at the top of the forum has a link to lots of these RUU (ROM Update Utility) files, which are used to install firmware onto your phone via USB.

- Install the HTC unbranded release of the firmware. It will still come with a lot of stuff preinstalled, but none of the extra stuff branded firmware has. - If I want this option, my previous is unbranded where I get the firmware for this?

From the sticky I mentioned. However, it looks like you're running a 'WWE' (World Wide English) ROM, a.k.a. unbranded, already. So your phone came with the minimum level of bloatware, compared to the branded firmwares. I don't think you'll gain anything by switching to a different official ROM.

- Root your phone, which allows you to uninstall anything on the phone.
- Switch to custom firmware. There are lots of different versions out there with lots of different features and UIs. They also all come pre-rooted.- If I want this option where I get the firmware that suit my phone and already rooted or firmware with the best UI and much faster than my previous version.

Once you've rooted, there is an app from the market called ROM Manager that will allow you to download and install some of the best roms out there (it pays to try several, they can be very different to stock firmware).

However, you'll find pretty much all of the roms for our phone being posted here. It's a pretty daunting list (even if you're well versed in rooting) so I would recommend getting some recomendations from us to start you off :)

Hope that helps :)
 
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