Monday, August 24, 2009

Cyanogen's Android Mod on Australian Vodafone HTC Magic

On the xda developers forum there's a lack of direct confirmation that the Vodafone Australia's version of the HTC Magic (aka Sapphire, myTouch) is rootable and upgradeable.

I bought my Magic on plan with Vodafone Oz. Its the 32B hardware version with 2.22.19.26I baseband. These are the resources I used to get root access, and then to install the latest CyanogenMod v4.0.2. Download all the files first, verify their md5sum's and copy them onto the SD card:
  1. Get root access using method 1 from this wiki.
  2. Install Cyanogen's pimped out recovery image from here. Cyanogen's recovery image allows updates to be applied from any zip file on the SD card.
  3. Boot the recovery image by hold home while powering on. From the menu perform a nandroid backup and then a factory reset.
  4. Install the latest CyanogenMod from here.
  5. Optionally repartition the SD card with a 512MB ext2/3/4 partition. Apps2SD will automatically move installed apps onto the SD card.
The Cyanogen build is noticeably faster, and includes many neat features the Vodafone ROM didn't. So far I haven't found any missing functionality. Push gmail notifications, market etc work fine.

7 comments:

  1. I know this is a fairly old post but I'm just wondering if 5-6 months later things are still going okay with the CyanogenMod.

    I'm thinking about getting a HTC Magic with Vodafone Australia but want to make sure I can update the Android version etc.

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  2. Not sure how easy it is to root the more recently shipped HTC Magic/Sapphire. The wiki page listed above would be a good start.

    The Cyanogenmod ROM's have just kept getting better/faster since the initial release. The roms can now be found: http://www.cyanogenmod.com/downloads/rom I'm on update-cm-4.2.14.1-signed.zip and it works perfectly on Vodafone AU.

    Check http://www.androidguys.com/ before you buy... there are many new/better/faster android phones on the market now. The Nexus One is my next choice once it hits oz.

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  3. Cheers Rob - thanks for getting back to me.

    I'm tempted by the Magic mostly because it seems fairly affordable through Vodafone. If I can run different roms on it then that'd seal the deal.

    But maybe I'll wait for a while in the hope that the Nexus One comes soon...

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  4. Thanks for posting this. For other Aussie users who find this post, the instructions don't work with 1.6 phones . Use the instructions at this link (with the usual disclaimers that I won't be responsible for anything you do to your phone), which I succesfully used to install cyanogen on my 1.6 Vodafone 32G (bought early Feb): http://wiki.cyanogenmod.com/index.php/Full_Update_Guide_-_MT3G/Magic_Firmware_to_CyanogenMod. Use the 'Non-TMobile 32B Magics' instructions.

    A few notes -
    (1) The instructions are stand-alone from the rest of the document (except the part about backing up first).
    (2) Where it says 'Put the Defanged base and the newest CyanogenMod ROM on your SD card' you simply copy over the zip files - ie don't unzip them first (or after).
    (3) Before "Installation" step 1 - Turn off the phone (since you need to boot it in step 1).
    (4) Where it says 'you can now boot into it by holding Home while powering on the device' - I couldn't (and still can't even after installing cyanogen) and simply got an exlamation mark screen which was scarry - but the phone restarted normally after removing the battery. On my second try I simply left the phone usb'd to the computer and continued with the instructions, without trying to unplug or reboot it.
    (5) Your phone will tell you its a T-Mobile phone on startup. Don't worry about that. You can also skip the google account login at startup if you want to or are not online.
    (6) With xp you need to point windows to the drivers and let it install them. In ubuntu I sudo copied the adb and fastboot binaries to /usr/bin and made them sudo chmod +x as they wouldn't execute from the install path.

    Good luck.

    Once you've installed sdk (I worked on both an xp and ubuntu machine) and downloaded the necessary packages it is a pretty quick exercise. I spent hours and hours trying to find the right method and checking to ensure I wasn't going to brick the phone - so hopefully this confirmation saves others time.

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  5. A couple of points to add to my post to save you from wondering about things you may have read -

    1. I found the 1-click method did not work for this phone/ build. ie Use the suggested approach instead and don't bother wasting your time trying the 1-click.

    2. You don't need to use the 'gold card' method if you use these instructions. (I don't know if the gold card method works with this phone/ build anyway).

    3. RUU's are not relevant to this method.

    4. You don't need to downgrade to 1.5. The downgrade is built into the process.

    5. The google apps are automatically installed as part of the process.

    6. Google around for suggested swap and ext2 filesizes before starting. (Cyanogen automaticaly detects your ext2 and installs/ saves apps there, improving system performance). Some posts recomemnd 32mb and 512mb respectively. I'm trying 96mb and 512mb.

    7. After creating your nandroid backup, copy it to an external safe location (ie your computer).

    8. I didn't upgrade the ext2 to ext3 or 4 but it seems recommended as they are more robust filesystems. Do it straight after creating the ext2 partition.

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  6. Hi Ben, thanks for documenting that. Regarding your private message, this is blogger and i cant actually edit your comments. So i'll just point out here that you meant to say your phone is a Vodafone HTC Magic 32B (not 32G). Can email/repost if you want to email me privately. Cheers.

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  7. Rob

    Hope you don't mind me posting all this to your blog. If you do just let me know and I'll put it all on Whirlpool or something.

    Just an update to say I put the Amon-RA recovery image on my phone using the (first of 4 alternate) instructions on this page -

    http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=530492

    So now I can boot into the recovery, which I couldn't do before (as mentioned above). (There must have been something wrong with the original instructions or the way I followed them.)

    The reason I wanted to boot into Amon-RA was to easily tak nandroid backups/ images of my phone without using a computer, since I have now spent some time installing apps and configuring the phone since installing cyanogen.

    Once you've installed (or flashed) the Amon-RA recovery, you boot into it by pressing the on button and home button together.

    The first (simple reboot) method was easiest for me and gave me an opportunity to issue a few commands as root (superuser) on the terminal application that comes with cyanogen.

    Downloading and the rest could be done using the phone alone, without a computer, but I used my ubuntu machine to check the md5 checksum and then copied the Amon-RA to my phone's sd card (simply mounting the sd card to the computer as usual - ie no adb, fastboot or anything) and then used the terminal to move the file to the /data directory.

    I've elaborated, but the process is pretty quick and simple.

    Note - if you are using the 'touch' onscreen keyboard and the default cyanogen terminal app, you need to press the scrollwheel and m (or j) instead of the enter button (which does nothing).

    Note also, for the Vodafone (ie google branded) device, you need Amon-RA v1.5.2G and not H.

    As an aside, there are some good references below explaining what recovery rom, bootloader, flashboot etc are - including some reassuring words about the circumstances in which you aren't at risk of bricking your phone.

    Have fun.

    http://news.nexus-one.co.uk/post/405264785/how-to-rooting-your-nexus-one-a-definitive-guide-to

    (but don't follow the instructions on how to root)

    and

    http://forum.xda-developers.com /showthread.php?t=619153

    and

    http://elinux.org/Android_Fastboot

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