Root [MOD] MultiROM

[Rxpert83]

This is a nice little feature that many of us have used in some form or another in the past. Go give tassadar a big thanks!

MultiROM allows you to boot different ROMS or kernels from your internal memory, or even a USB flash stick!

The dev explains it better than i do

MultiROM is one-of-a-kind multi-boot mod for Nexus 5. It can boot any Android ROM as well as other systems like Ubuntu Touch, once they are ported to that device. Besides booting from device's internal memory, MultiROM can boot from USB drive connected to the device via OTG cable. The main part of MultiROM is a boot manager, which appears every time your device starts and lets you choose ROM to boot. You can see how it looks on the left image below and in gallery. ROMs are installed and managed via modified TWRP recovery. You can use standard ZIP files to install secondary Android ROMs and MultiROM even has its own installer system, which can be used to ship other Linux-based systems.

Features:
* Multiboot any number of Android ROMs
* Restore nandroid backup as secondary ROM
* Boot from USB drive attached via OTG cable

He even uploaded a youtube video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDnDNxqfSaw

For more information & warnings, check out the first few posts of the thread here:
[MOD][DEC 15] MultiROM v19 - xda-developers

 

[Hook]

This is great stuff. He is thanked and will receive a donation when I get paid later this week.

 

[Brian706]

I used to use boot manager. Glad to see there's an alternative.

 

[morgankslade]

Do you have to use a OTG cable?
I just ordered a Meenova Mini MicroSD card reader for Android.
Can I boot from it?

 

[Hook]

Do you have to use a OTG cable?
I just ordered a Meenova Mini MicroSD card reader for Android.
Can I boot from it?

No, the Meenova has a microUSB connector. No cable needed. You will need something like stickmount to mount it (that's what I use). I haven't yet tried booting a ROM from it, but it should be no problem. With 32GB, my internal memory is not that crowded (at least once I offloaded all my nandroid backups ).

 

[Karmandk]

Thanks to multirom no more backups needed for me. If there is a problem I just reflash cataclysm to my old one, updating the rom and returning me back to the state before the problem such as bootloop. No more need to restore backups, unbrick, factory reset, etc.

 

[morgankslade]

Hmmm

 

[Hook]

I'm getting one odd behavior. Twice now, the boot menu countdown thingy has disappeared for when I reboot and it only loads the internal ROM. It is easily fixed by simply reflashing MultiRom, but it sort of would be nice if I knew why it was happening and could stop it from happening.

I did post at XDA and will let you know if I get an answer there.

 

[Hook]

I'm getting one odd behavior. Twice now, the boot menu countdown thingy has disappeared for when I reboot and it only loads the internal ROM. It is easily fixed by simply reflashing MultiRom, but it sort of would be nice if I knew why it was happening and could stop it from happening.

I did post at XDA and will let you know if I get an answer there.

Figured it out on my own, I think. Looks like, for whatever reason, updating Franco (at least using the auto-flash method provided by Franco Updater) seems to lose the boot menu. Reinstalling MultiROM using the MultiROM Manager returns the menu with the pointer to the second ROM still there.

 

[Karmandk]

Figured it out on my own, I think. Looks like, for whatever reason, updating Franco (at least using the auto-flash method provided by Franco Updater) seems to lose the boot menu. Reinstalling MultiROM using the MultiROM Manager returns the menu with the pointer to the second ROM still there.

There is another way. You can move your stock rom to a secondary rom so that there is no os installed in the primary rom this would force multirom to always show a menu as it wouldn't be able to boot into the internal rom and I recommend to change the default rom to whichever rom you want to use.

 

[OhSeven]

I can only hold out on rooting for so long. This changes things