android, part 3: Upgrading my Motorola Defy

This is part 3 of three posts:

NB: doing these operations will invalidate your warranty & may brick your phone. I take no responsibility & you proceed at your own risk. Saying that it worked for me so I am alright jack.

• Part 1 describes how to root your phone
• Part 2 describes how to back up your data

This third & final part describes how to upgrade your phone. NB: You must have done parts 1 & 2 first.

There are lots of different versions that people have created for you to use to upgrade your phone. After a good ammount of research I went with CynagenMod. However the problem I had was that they had not fully automated the process for the Motorola Defy.

I suspect some of the steps I have done here were not necessary but anyway this is what I did.

First off here are some useful links:

• Cynagen Mod Update guide
• The essential guide to the whole process
• Another guide
• This is the one that actually kicked me in to doing this process.
• Cynagen Mod Builds
• The android builds
• I downloaded the latest build available to me - CM9-NIGHTLY-121116-Defy.zip
• Google GAPPS
• This is a zip of all the main google apps. Again I downloaded the latest.
• Boot menu info

NB: For anything you download it is wize to also check the checksum of the file as well. There are various MD5 check sum tools on the web.

1. NB: You must have done Part 1 first & I strongly reccomend that you do Part 2 as well.
3. installed RomManager on to the phone from marketPlace
1. NB: I think this was one of the unnessary steps for me, as cynagen Mod do not have a fully automated Defy build
4. Install Bootmenu
1. To do this you need ADT. This is a tool that gives you command line access to the phone from your PC. The instructions imply you need eclipse (which I already have) however I do not believe you do. 
2. Just down load this & then navigate to adt-bundle-windows\sdk\platform-tools to find adb.exe
3. The rooting instructions are here but here they are anyway:
4. adb shell
   su
   cp -R /sdcard/bootmenu /data/bootmenu
   cd /data/bootmenu
   chmod 755 *
   ./install.sh
   rm -R /data/bootmenu
5. Bootmenu instructions are here.
5. Boot the phone in to the bootmenu as described here
1. for the defy that means:
1. power off
2. power on
3. when the little LED comes on & turns blue press the down volume button.
4. you should now be in the boot menu
5. navigation is done by the volume buttons & selection via the power button.
6. Take a ROM backup from with in the bootmenu of your current android version.
1. This will take quite a while
2. Copy it off the phone - you will need to fully boot the phone again to get the back up off
3. It can be found on the sd card in /clockworkmod/backup
7. Now for the exciting part. So far everything you have done is safe. This is the big one & there are plenty of warnings along the way.
8. download your chosen android ROM. Mine was an ICS version - CM9-NIGHTLY-121116-Defy.zip
9. download GAPPS.
1. I did install GAPPS as described below however it failed (I know not why). I simply installed all the google apps I wanted by hand & so far to no detrimental effect.
11. copy both these to the root of your SD card.
12. Boot back in to the bootmenu
13. The flashing of the new version of android is described here.
14. The menu options required for all the below are under the tab [Recovery Mode]
1. Wipe data/factory reset
2. Wipe cache partition
3. choose android zip & install
1. takes a few minutes
4. choose gapps & install
1. again takes a few minutes
2. I guess I had the wrong version as this said it was done but after reboot I found I had no google apps so I decided just to install them by hand from the play store.
5. Reboot the phone from the boot menu
15. The reboot process this first time will take a good few minutes so do NOT PANIC.
16. After rebooting you are lead through the usual initialisation options and then install the apps you want.
17. Any apps you have bought & paid for are know by the play store so you will not be charged again.

Good luck