Thursday, April 07, 2011

How to Use Droid X Bootstrap

Note: I've been experimenting with alternate ROMs for my Droid X, as I've been unhappy with the support Motorola has offered in regards to new releases, performance, Motoblur bloat, etc. Hence, I'm posting the following primarily for myself as reference information so I can find it easily later. The following information was taken from a forum post found on www.android.net.

Requirements


  1. Get root
  2. Droid X Bootstrap- $2 on Market or free from Koush's website

Once app is installed, go to your app drawer and click on it. It will ask for Super User permissions, press yes/ok. This will stop it from booting into clockwork after every manual reboot.

How to Backup Your System

A backup is a snapshot of your system at that moment. This will be vital should you experience any issues modifying your phone.

  1. Click on Droid X Bootstrap app
  2. Click Bootstrap Recovery, then click OK when it says Success
  3. Click Reboot Recovery, phone will automatically reboot
  4. Once in the black screen with green writing, you will use the side volume rockers to move up and down and then the camera hard key to select.
  5. Move down to backup/restore and select it.
  6. Move to Backup and select it
  7. The phone will begin to create a full backup (nandroid) of your system, data, and cache. This will take about 5 minutes to generate. After it is finished it will take you back to the main screen. If you want to move back to previous screens use the back hard key.
  8. Select reboot system now.
  9. You can view your backups in your file manager. There will be a clockworkmod folder where the backups reside. You can change the name of the file, but do not use spaces or odd characters. For example, use a dash - rather than a backslash / for dates.

How to Restore a Backup

If you have issues with your setup after a ROM or theme install, you can restore a backup made when the system was running correctly.

  1. Click on Droid X Bootstrap app
  2. Click Bootstrap Recovery, then OK when it says Success
  3. Click Reboot Recovery and phone will automatically reboot.
  4. When black screen with green writing appears, select backup/restore.
  5. Then select Restore.
  6. Choose the backup you want to restore. If you don't change the name of the file, they have the date and time stamp as the file name.
  7. Select backup and then the phone will begin restoring the backup.
  8. When its finished, it will take you to main screen, select reboot system now.

How to Install a Rom

  1. Click Droid X Bootstrap app, hit bootstrap recovery, click ok, then reboot recovery.
  2. Go to mounts. (Optional, read instructions on ROM install) Mount system. If system is mounted, prompt will read "unmount system"
  3. Format data, click yes
  4. Format cache, click yes
  5. Back arrow
  6. Install zip from sd card
  7. Go to folder where zip is. If you downloaded zip from stock browser and didn't move it, it will be in the DOWNLOAD folder.
  8. Click on the zip you want to install, then yes.
  9. Once install is finished, back arrow, and reboot.

FAQ

  1. You can have as many backups as you'd like
  2. If you get and md5 sum error, its probably bacause you renamed the file with unrecognized characters.
  3. Yes, when you manually reboot it will always go to bootstrap recovery unless you do the very first step after installing. Just select reboot system now.
  4. If it does not boot into bootstrap recovery, and you need it to, you can boot into stock recovery and do a factory reset and then restore a backup.

How to Boot Into Stock Recovery

  1. Hold power button and and home hard key.
  2. When M screen appears, release home key.
  3. A screen with a small green Droid and an ! will appear. Push search hard key.
  4. Use volume rocker to select wipe data/cache then factory reset.