Help How does a novice 'tinker' safely

[littler20]

Just got an Orange San Francicso. Would like to personalise it and have seen lots of talk about Root and unlocking but am scared of making changes and ending up with an expensive dead phone.
What

 

[De@n]

Just got an Orange San Francicso. Would like to personalise it and have seen lots of talk about Root and unlocking but am scared of making changes and ending up with an expensive dead phone.
What’s the easiest AND SAFEST way to start taking control of the phone and getting rid of the Orange stuff.
Regards

Safest way is Gen1 to Gen2 TPT upgrade

 

[littler20]

Thanks. That looks a bit scary to me. Will have to work up some courage before I start doing any of that, but thanks for the info.

 

[lfc4ever]

I would start by just rooting, getting to know why you would root and how it can help you with rooting enabling you to do other things and what apps require root and why.

Rooting does not harm your phone.

Then my next step would be installing clockworkmod, getting to know clockworkmod, create backup & restore points, copying the contents of the OSF internal sd card to your PC, then do a restore from all that, learn the file structure of what is what on your internal sd card, what goes where.

Install Titanium Backup (Pro if you can), backup all your apps & data to the sd card, again copy the contents of the sd card to your PC, see the contents - learn it.

Once you are happy & familiar with all that - you are now ready for a rom of your choice. If it all goes wrong (it normally doesn't - but we have now covered all that), you can always restore to what you had working beforehand.

We have a rooting forum here as a sub forum - All things root, have a read round there too on how & why. And read this thread before anything else http://androidforums.com/san-franci...updated-how-install-custom-rom-zte-blade.html

GL

 

[littler20]

Now that looks like an answer that suits me better. I wanted a safe way to proceed (so I don’t make the phone unuseable) and your post seems to give me just that.
I will follow your instructions slowly and carefully and see what happens.
Many thanks for your help.
Best Regards

 

[funkylogik]

an easy less scary way to get rid of the orange stuff is to get Universal Androot + SystemApp Remover apps from the market.
UA will root the phone temporalily+SAR can remove the orange apps.
just make sure u only remove the orange apps+use the backup option just incase.
ur far better flashing a new rom though as the others have said 1ce ur confident.
it totaly transforms the phone into something more expensive

 

[littler20]

Thanks. I think I’ll try a few simple things to build up my confidence before I get round to ‘flashing a new rom’.
Best Regards