About 6 months ago I set out on a quest to root my Droid X (running FroYo) in order to remove/disable unwanted apps like CityID, BlockBuster, VZ Navigator, etc. While that was very successful, it did impede my ability to update to the much desired Gingerbread. While I consider myself smart and quite educated in the ways of technology (I’ve made a decent living in the IT field for 20 years) I have really struggled to figure this out & it’s frustrated me greatly. There are a number of forums which discuss what to do and how to do it, but they almost always throw out terms which the lay person (with respect to Android OS in particular) won’t understand or instructions that are written in short hand. While this may be fine for those “in the know,” it’s not fine for the rest of us. So after pulling my hair out several evenings and weekends recently and reading a ton of stuff, I believed I finally stitched it all together enough to have upgraded my rooted Droid X to Gingerbread – but wait, there was a problem…..
I’ll address that problem later (perhaps even in another post), but suffice it to say that although my Droid X reported it was on the latest and greatest Android OS, Gingerbread (AKA 4.5.596) it would often tell me there was an update available, and display the message, “Info. Download of update failed.” This has finally gotten to me and I’m in the process of correcting it, writing this as I progress with correcting this.
Here are the basic steps, then I’ll expound on each.
- Backup data (and apps)
- SBF back to stock FroYo
- Verizon OTA update to Gingerbread
- Restore data (and apps)
NOTE: There are a few gotcha’s and things to watch out for, so please read and follow these instructions carefully. For example at various points your phone may not start or the battery won’t charge, but these things are addressed in the instructions.
NOTE: Make sure your battery is full or as close as possible before proceeding as it can take a while (30 minutes or more) and the battery doesn’t charge during most of these steps.
- Connect your Droid via USB cable.
- Launch RSD Lite.
- Reboot Droid into Boot Loader (pull battery, or use power button to turn off; hold volume down and camera buttons, and press & release power button – continue holding volume down and camera buttons until triangle with exclamation point icon appears). Once Droid is in boot loader it should be listed as an available device in RSD Lite. The Droid’s bootloader screen looks something like this:
Bootloader
2C.5CBattery OK
OK to Program
Transfer Mode:
USB
- In RSD Lite select the device (Droid) and browse to the SBF file downloaded previously, then press Start.
- Sit back and let RSD Lite do it’s thing.
After RSD Lite is done the Droid will restart, however you will likely just get to the animated red Droid Eye, sit there for a couple minutes & reboot over and over again. At this point you need to wipe the phone, and since you have a good backup it shouldn’t be too painful… Right.!? To wipe the phone power it off (have to pull the battery), then press and hold the home button and power button (you can let the power button go after a couple seconds, but must continue to hold the home button). This will take you to the Android system recovery utility. Next, press both up/down volume buttons at the same time to display the menu, then press the down volume button to select “wipe data/factory reset” and press the camera button. You will be presented with at least one warning that you will lose all data, but since you have it backed up you should feel pretty good about proceeding.
NOTE: While in the Android system recovery utility you will also want to “wipe cache partition” as not doing so may cause your battery not to charge after completing these steps.
Finally, reboot the system.
After the phone boots you will have to follow the prompts to activate the phone with Verizon.
Step 3 – Droid X OTA Update
This is perhaps the easiest part – doing a standard OTA update. On the phone go to Setting, About Phone, System Updates and download the Gingerbread (4.5.596) update. Once downloaded install it.
And, success….
Step 4 – Restore Data & Apps
Go to the Android Market and install your backup software (in my case it’s MyBackup), then restore your data and apps.
NOTE: after the OTA update to Gingerbread my Droid wouldn’t actually charge, although it said it was charging. In an earlier step I addressed wiping the cache partition – which did the trick when I had this problem previously. At this point I was a bit concerned, but a simple battery pull corrected the issue and it’s working great now.
Happy Androiding with Gingerbread on your Droid X…. Oh, and stay tuned as I will definitely post detailed instructions on how to remove the crapware (CityID, Blockbuster, VZ Navigator, etc.) from Gingerbread soon as I figure it out.
Your instructions are the most clear I have found, thank you!. The only thing you may want to add is after this line…"must continue to hold the home button).", we have to release all buttons then hit the search button to get to the menu. Delete my comment if I sound ungrateful- I do appreciate these instructions!
Used your original root post, now this one. Thanks doubly. I had a problem using RSD lite on Win7x64 that took me quite a while to find a solution to, but another set of great instructions finally did the trick: http://bit.ly/nvfHvt
After RSDlite finished, my phone successfully booted up, but still needed to be wiped, so I do so via settings–>privacy–>factory reset and it worked fine.
Thanks!
Amazing clarity on all your instructions. Lord knows I've spent many hours online pulling my hair out before I found your site,many many thanks.
Thanks for great instructions. Please note bootloader is not Home+Power, but Camera+VolDown+Power. Otherwise worked GREAT.