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Gingerbread Update for Dummies: Root not required

Nurseferatu

Nurseferatu

Member
I'm a novice--I was wary of rooting my phone, but I was tired of waiting for Gingerbread. When I found out the stock OTA file was available, I followed trparky's excellent tips and am now running Gingerbread 2.3.6.

I decided to put all the detailed steps in one place for other newbies like me.
(Today trparky said my instructions were good enough to quote on his page. I regard that as an endorsement.)

Disclaimer: This worked for ME. But your phone has different stuff on it and possibly different configurations. If you do this, something COULD happen to brick your phone. Only do this if you are prepared to take responsibility for whatever happens.

Here's how I did it.

Before you begin


  • I used my PC to put the update file on the SD card in my Charge. If you don't know how use your PC to open your Charge's SD card, this won't work for you.
  • Make sure you have a fully-charged bat
    tery.

GET THE NEW GINGERBREAD FILE AND PUT IT ON YOUR CHARGE'S SD CARD

1. On your PC, go here and follow the link to download the new Gingerbread file:

GB OTA manual update.zip-leaked! - xda-developers

2. Rename the file to update.zip. Don't unzip it.

3. Connect your Charge to your PC and open the SD card.

4. Move the update.zip file to the SD card but make sure it isn't any of the folders.

START THE INSTALLATION

1. Disconnect your phone from the PC and power it down. Don't connect it to AC power (my Charge kept wanting to recharge).

2. Simultaneously press and hold Volume Up rocker and Home button. As soon as you you have them down securely, press Power at the same time.

3. When SAMSUNG appears, continue to hold Volume Up rocker and Home button but let go of the Power button.

4. A new screen appears with a little menu. You can let go of the Volume and Home buttons.

5. In the menu, select "apply sdcard:update.zip." To move to the selection, use the Volume rocker (up or down) to highlight apply sdcard:update.zip and then press the Home button to confirm your selection (it's like pressing Enter).

Installation starts, indicated by a progress bar. Be patient. DO NOT touch the phone because anything you do at this point could brick it. It took my charge about 25 minutes; your mileage may vary.

If the installation is successful, the Charge reboots on its own.

CONFIRM INSTALLATION

To confirm installation, go to Menu > Settings > About Phone and look for 2.3.6 in the Firmware Version entry. Beauty!

I'm finding that everything is more wonderful, although the Charge still can't microwave my coffee.

ALL PRAISE to trparky!
 
Is the file download on trparky's page the file we need? Did he already rename it and host it? Just don't want to download it if it is not the correct file.
 
The link that is in my instructions came from trparky. After you download it, it's called "update_EE4B_to_EP4D.zip". You have to delete the stuff between "update" and ".zip" because when you install, your phone looks for a file named "update."
Make sense?
 
You need to unroot the device, you need to go back to stock EE4 before you do this. If you don't... kittens get killed.

But in all seriousness, get back to EE4 or it will bootloop your phone.
 
Instead of restoring to my rooted phone to EE4 with ODIN is it possible to go directly to EPD4 using ODIN using all-in_one_epd4.tar.md5 or debloated_deodexed_ep4d.tar.md5 or similar?

What about backing up data and applications prior to using ODIN? What is the best method?

Sorry I'm such a nubie... Thanks for all the help.
 
We also have an untouched EP4D ODIN image too for those people who don't want root or anything like that. It's a clean, untouched ROM dump image.
 
Hmm. Followed the directions and the status bar came up briefly after selecting the update file, and I saw some progress, then the screen changed to the green android with an exclamation mark. guess i'll let it sit for a while although it doesn't appear that anything is happening.

update: Left it sit a few hours and nothing. Rebooted without any problems. The only thing I can see that is different for my phone than in the original post is that apply sdcard:update.zip wasn't an option when I booted into startup. Apply sdcsard(or something similar) was there, and I clicked on that, which brought up a list of files where I could then select update.zip. The original post makes it sound like that should just be one step? apply sdcard: update.zip?

When I use My Files to find the update.zip file, I see /mnt/sdcard, which seems like that is the right place.
 
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