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A guide on how I debranded my Vodafone Desire to get 2.2 quicker.

I feel extremely lucky and pi$$ed off at the same time for those who may not be able to debrand after installing Vodafones laest update.

I only decided to debrand at lunchtime today. Only yesterday I checked whether there were any updates available for my handset, had I done the same this morning and been prompted with the latest update I would have definitely installed it.

A very sneaky move by Vodafone me thinks. They will know that a lot of people are constantly checking their handsets for updates.
 
Bully74uk, thanks for posting your guide, but are you sure you were on 1.24.161? I ask because that is the version i am on and i have tried so every guide i can find and it is impossible to flash any rom to my handset!

Its odd that you lot have bootloader 0.80, mine is 0.83!
 
mine is still 0.80 after the voda update today, but like the others i can't de-brand it after following this guide due to error 140, wrong boot loader

so gutted :(
 
glenmcfar said:
It looks like the update has buggered me, but for the record my bootloader is STILL 0.80...

Thanks for all the help guys. Never had this problem when reflashing my Storm :D

Glen.
Click to expand...

Same for me, now won't boot. Any ideas as to what I can do to get it working again? Really hope I haven't bricked my phone :eek:
 
Hi,

Thanks a lot for this post, luckily I saw it before I installed the vodafone update today.
Have followed the instructions (which were surprisingly easy!) and now running 2.2 :D
As you said took me about an hour all up with reconfiguration/backups etc.
 
NorthernNoel said:
Same for me, now won't boot. Any ideas as to what I can do to get it working again? Really hope I haven't bricked my phone :eek:
Click to expand...

At what point did the procedure fail ?

Did you create the gold card ok (did you get the message box saying 'you have now created a gold card' ?

Did it fail during the reflash procedure ? if so did you follow the procedure exactly ie switching off auto standby or hibernate on your PC (if it was switched on) ?

What OS is your PC ? Win 7, Vista ?
 
STANNY said:
Bully74uk, thanks for posting your guide, but are you sure you were on 1.24.161? I ask because that is the version i am on and i have tried so every guide i can find and it is impossible to flash any rom to my handset!

Its odd that you lot have bootloader 0.80, mine is 0.83!
Click to expand...

Hi Stanny

My software version was 2.1 update 1 - 1.19.161.5

Bootloader was 0.80

Looks like you have a later version installed, is your phone extremely new or did you install an update ?

Most Vodafone branded handsets were shipped with 0.80 I believe but maybe yours was supplied with the newer one thats currently not debrandable !
 
Hi guys,
I got the nasty new firmware from Voda (1.24.161.3) and am on bootloader 0.80.000

When trying the debrand i got as far as the:
You are on firmware 1.24.161.3
New firmware will be x.xx.xxx.x (whatever it was)
Are you sure you wish to continue......

I clicked out of it at this point as I had to go out. Will the reflash then fail at this point?
 
That is the exact point where I got to then it came back that it could not be updated to the new software. I don't know how to fix it.
 
japester said:
Hi guys,
I got the nasty new firmware from Voda (1.24.161.3) and am on bootloader 0.80.000

When trying the debrand i got as far as the:
You are on firmware 1.24.161.3
New firmware will be x.xx.xxx.x (whatever it was)
Are you sure you wish to continue......

I clicked out of it at this point as I had to go out. Will the reflash then fail at this point?
Click to expand...

I would imagine that it won't install the update however there seems to be some confusion as to whether vodafones sneaky update changes the bootloader or not. In your case it seems it hasn't but even so im sure there are others with the same level of firmware and bootloader as you who have not been able to reflash.
 
Thanks for this!

I was just gonna wait till Vodafone released 2.2, but when I saw they'd made the latest update shove their branding all over the Desire they forced my hand.

Very happy, everything went smoothly and now I have 2.2 :)
 
I bought my HTC Desire factory sealed/new on Ebay a few months back and it was unlocked, I knew it was an unwanted contract upgrade. But there was no real evidence of it being bought from Vodafone - apart from one option: there was a "Vodafone" option the themes - not so bad I thought.
So yesterday I saw the ~19Mb update and thought it can't be Froyo at that small size. The blurb was a load of bs: "system stability and performance improvements" - I checked here and XDA (and luckily I did) and saw people said VF added all their branding to it and it can't be removed - hell, I'm using this phone on T-Mobile too :P

I should point out people are very angry, and rightly so. I am disgusted with VF for stating from the start that the Desire was coming out through them brand-free "just what the consumer wants"
VF Forums said:
I too liked the idea of the non-branded handset, and it was one of the draws to me getting it from Vodafone.
Click to expand...
^HTC Desire - Android 2.2 Coming Soon... - Vodafone eForum - Page 17

So Froyo has no chance of coming through from VF without going through their official bloatware route. More so, I am on T-Mobile so I don't want to update and have my phone locked to VF, so this guide is just what I need! Thanks very much!

I have a couple of questions prior to the debranding process:
1) What advantage is using mybackup pro to just copying the contents of SD card to the PC and then moving them back?
2) Do I keep all contacts (+info), sms messages if I take a full copy of my SD card? Or are they on internal phone memory? If so, how do I keep these?
3) After loading the new ROM, will all future updates be the vanilla/stock updates, regardless of the network?

P.S: VF have lost one potential customer when I shop around (when my contract ends with T-Mobile) due to their sneaky tricks.
 
DroidPete said:
I bought my HTC Desire factory sealed/new on Ebay a few months back and it was unlocked, I knew it was an unwanted contract upgrade. But there was no real evidence of it being bought from Vodafone - apart from one option: there was a "Vodafone" option the themes - not so bad I thought.
So yesterday I saw the ~19Mb update and thought it can't be Froyo at that small size. The blurb was a load of bs: "system stability and performance improvements" - I checked here and XDA (and luckily I did) and saw people said VF added all their branding to it and it can't be removed - hell, I'm using this phone on T-Mobile too :P

I should point out people are very angry, and rightly so. I am disgusted with VF for stating from the start that the Desire was coming out through them brand-free "just what the consumer wants"

^HTC Desire - Android 2.2 Coming Soon... - Vodafone eForum - Page 17

So Froyo has no chance of coming through from VF without going through their official bloatware route. More so, I am on T-Mobile so I don't want to update and have my phone locked to VF, so this guide is just what I need! Thanks very much!

I have a couple of questions prior to the debranding process:
1) What advantage is using mybackup pro to just copying the contents of SD card to the PC and then moving them back?
2) Do I keep all contacts (+info), sms messages if I take a full copy of my SD card? Or are they on internal phone memory? If so, how do I keep these?
3) After loading the new ROM, will all future updates be the vanilla/stock updates, regardless of the network?

P.S: VF have lost one potential customer when I shop around (when my contract ends with T-Mobile) due to their sneaky tricks.
Click to expand...

1 + 2, I think question 2 answers question 1. MyBackup pro saves all the phone data, texts, conatcts etc and restores them accordingly. Im not sure whether or not you can achieve this by simply copying the contents of your SD Card. I did both but only ended up restoring through MyBackup.

If there is no trial option of MyBackup Pro on the Market give me a shout via PM.

3, I believe you will get the official non branded updates OTA from HTC as and when they appear.

Hope this helps.
 
I have followed this guide and it worked fine except I have no 2.2 update available.
I flashed my desire and I now have software 1.21.405.2 yet if I goto check for software updates it says "your phone is up to date"

Any ideas?
 
Bully74uk said:
1 + 2, I think question 2 answers question 1. MyBackup pro saves all the phone data, texts, conatcts etc and restores them accordingly. Im not sure whether or not you can achieve this by simply copying the contents of your SD Card. I did both but only ended up restoring through MyBackup.
Click to expand...

Ok, I see what you mean - I hadn't looked at it on the market but it's here and I see what you mean - a 'full' backup.

Will follow through your guide now. :)
Many thanks.
 
bozzer said:
I have followed this guide and it worked fine except I have no 2.2 update available.
I flashed my desire and I now have software 1.21.405.2 yet if I goto check for software updates it says "your phone is up to date"

Any ideas?
Click to expand...

Thats very strange. When I did it, and im sure others will have been the same, the update was there immediately upon the first check.

Maybe for some reason HTC have temporarily stopped rolling out the upgrade, server down maybe ? :confused:

I would keep trying, ive just checked over at XDA and can't see anything blatant in the forum to suggest there is a problem updating.

You did keep the gold card in to check for updates ?
 
DroidPete said:
Ok, I see what you mean - I hadn't looked at it on the market but it's here and I see what you mean - a 'full' backup.

Will follow through your guide now. :)
Many thanks.
Click to expand...

As your phone will be wiped after the reflash, If I remember correctly after you have installed the 2.2 update you need to go into the market, select downloads and you can re-install Mybackup pro. After that open it, select restore, click what you want restored and you should then be good to go. I had to re-launch certain programs that had widgets etc after the restore but soon had everything back to normal.

Oh and, when it restored all my contacts it saved them as google contacts where I previously had them as phone contacts so if you have the same set up as me then you will need to swap them back over by exporting them from google to SD card and then back from SD card to phone (deleting the google contacts after to save duplicates)

Good luck
 
Hi,

Great guide, just because I like to know how to reverse any changes I made, and in case the thing needs to go back to vodafone for some reason, how would I revert to a Vodafone ROM, and where would i get that ROM from?

Thanks
 
Bully74uk said:
Thats very strange. When I did it, and im sure others will have been the same, the update was there immediately upon the first check.

Maybe for some reason HTC have temporarily stopped rolling out the upgrade, server down maybe ? :confused:

I would keep trying, ive just checked over at XDA and can't see anything blatant in the forum to suggest there is a problem updating.

You did keep the gold card in to check for updates ?
Click to expand...

Still sat in there.

Just in case I ran through the process again taking the card out and formatting it and recreating a goldcard in case the SD card had be 'set up' by the Desire, but still no joy.

I'm at a loss :(
 
question, how big does a gold card micro usb card need to be, dont want to mess with my 16 gig card, and have several 64 meg ones kicking about, gave alot away ...doh !!!
 
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