Help huge problems with Chinese bought HTC Desire S

[waterprism]

Hi guys,

Need your help, please.

I thought I'd be clever by getting an unlocked HTC Desire S from a Chinese wholesaler through a local middleman. It's really difficult to find this model in South Africa, and so I thought I'm sure the Chinese supplier will do a good job of setting it up for international use -- that's a part of their job, right?

But it's a mess. When I first started it and selected English during setup, it was ok-ish. A bit of Chinese left hanging around here and there, mainly in applications, but not too bad because I didn't use them. But then I had some difficulty getting it to sync with my computer (that old story). And in trying to fix that, the phone froze. I had no choice but to pull out the battery.

Now, since then, I've got all kinds of Chinese things going on! Chinese apps run from the start. There's Chinese stuff in the notification bar. Some Chinese app (I don't even know what app it is) runs just after the start-up screen, taking up the whole screen. I have to press 'home' to get past it. I can't seem to find any way to delete these apps either. And doing a factory reset, since pulling out the battery, doesn't make a difference.

Basically, I just want to get rid of all this Chinese stuff and get the phone to the state it would be if I had bought it from an American or British or South African retailer. How can I do that? It's a disaster like this. Is there some kind of reset or something I can do? I just want the stock United States or United Kingdom HTC Desire S setup, as though I'd bought it from the US or UK instead of these inept idiots I got it from.

Would appreciate your advice. Thanks.

 

[FoX777]

You going to need to give some more info on your phone, like the hboot details and maybe the fastboot command 'fastboot getvar all' and paste the outputs. If you search you'll find how to do those two things.

in the mean time I feel you have two options... 1. you can install a Europe unbranded RUU, but don't just do it, some other things you'll need first.

2. you can root the phone and then install a ROM of choice.

I got mine on contact from Vodacom, how much did you pay?

 

[waterprism]

Howzit, FoX. Thanks. Okay, lot's of stuff on the hboot screen. I'll just put it all here I guess:

SAGA PVT ENG S-OFF
HBOOT-0.98.2000 (PG8810000)
RADIO-3805.04.02.28_M
eMMC-boot

Couldn't figure out the 'getvar all' bit though. Under the bootloader menu I couldn't see a way to enter commands... or am I missing something there? Anyway, that's the hboot stuff above that I could see.

I got it for R4K.

edit: oh, is getvar done through the computer when synced? Don't think I'll be able to do that because it was the syncing problem that lead indirectly to this Chinese problem lol. I'll see if I can force it if you need it. For now I've just got it off and out of my sight because I'm gatvol...

 

[FoX777]

@waterprism

Looks like your phone is rooted/s-off already.

So you have a choice now, do you 1) want to get the phone to stock (and loose s-off and if later you decide to have custom roms that process will need to stat from scratch) or 2) want to install custom roms (which can have the same features as stock and better).

For the fastboot command you need to set up fastboot on the PC, then connect the phone and run the command in cmd (while phone is fastboot mode).

P.S. don't pull the battery!!!!!

 

[waterprism]

edit: Okay, see below...

 

[FoX777]

@waterprism

Hey, yeah I know its all pretty confusing, but its how we learn.

I suggest keeping it rooted (s-off), no point in re inventing the wheel

Okay so here's what you need to do!

1) If you have a spare memory card make a gold card from it (will help if you screw up your phone somehow). Download the market app "goldcard helper" to get the MEMORY CID, i.e. mmc2 okay. (will make sense when you go looking it up).
Now, that you have a goldcard made set it aside, keep it safe!!!!

2) For simplicity we are going to go with clockworkmod recovery (we will use this app tp install ROMS).

Next;
do the following
-Turn off fastboot menu/settings/power/fastboot (on the phone)
-Turn on USB debugging menu/Settings/Applications/Development/USB debugging (on the phone)

And follow Step 2 of Section 1 of ths guide http://androidforums.com/desire-s-all-things-root/438830-guide-how-root-desire-s.html, rather use the classic recovery and not the touch one.

3) Now you should have a custom recovery installed, to check boot into hboot and select recovery (use vol keys and power button to navigate and select) - If you arent booting into clorkworkmod STOP!!!!! and come for help.

4) Now your phone is ready for a new rom, if you want to stick with with stock roms then I suggest you look here [ROM] Shipped Pre-rooted Desire S stock roms - xda-developers (get the 1.47.401.4 if you want sense 2.1 and get 2.10.401.8 if you want sense 3.0).

How to install the ROM

1. Copy your custom ROM "zip" file to your SD card (Root directory). (copy to memory card)
2. Turn off your phone.
3. Turn on your phone by holding the power button and the volume down button together.
4. Once you see the white screen (hboot), choose "Recovery"
5. Make a full wipe/format and clear all cache.
6. Choose "install from sdcard/zip file" and then choose your Custom ROM zip file from your SD card to flash your Custom ROM.

From here, a thread with a lot of info


However you can now flash any rom you want i.e. Virtuous Quattro ,Runnymede, CyanogenMod, MIUI, Endymion (READ: A lot to choose from)
___________________________________

-If a ROM doesn't have something you want (they do have the normal stuff) you can just get an app with for it.
-I mean don't pull the battery out if the phone is stuck (try power up+down+power to switch off), the reason you need to pull the battery to get into hboot is because you have fastboot enabled in settings.

 

[waterprism]

Just an update. Okay, cool. Recovery and root done. Had to install Superuser from step 3 in your guide, but the Superuser icon is now also showing in apps. So, good stuff. Now I've got to decide on what rom to flash. Your guide is gold though, pure gold. I saw that thread, like I said, before you happened upon this thread , but I wasn't sure where to begin with it. I'm glad you saw this thread, because with your post above, it all clicked into place.

Yeah, so now, which rom... I really don't want to lose HTC's startup screen and stuff lol. I'm a real stickler for factory settings on all stuff I get. I don't know why. I've got a BMW 318i with stock everything. Is there anyone on the planet who hasn't pimped their box-shape bimmer? Probably only me . I don't know what comes with the HTC and what's stuff this supplier added.

But thanks again though for your help. It's appreciated.

 

[samoluwole]

please help my desire s is not responsive again i can't unlock it by swiping down and if i take the battery out and put it again is still thesame i can only receive call with the earpiece i can't go any where in the phone please help

 

[falanger]

I had exactly the same thing on my HTC Desire S bought in China. First few day it was fine, until Chinese programs started coming out of the blue and installing themselves, quite a few of which I couldn't remove.
My phone was locked, S-OFF, not rooted.
I managed to unlock it, and root it.
After rooting it I could remove the programs by connecting my HTC Desire S to my computer and using command prompt. However, the programs came back, and I removed them again, found some other places where they had left some stuff. Now they don't come back, but there is another peculiar thing happening: about once a day some script is running on my phone, opening programs, as if it were looking for something. On my locked phone screen it manifests itself in the unlock ring dancing up and down, and the icons on the screen dancing in turn towards the ring. I am also unable to enter my pin for unlocking the phone, numbers are filled out by themselves and something tries to unlock the phone by itself. This lasts a few minutes, after which I can find a scriptlog file in the root of my sdcard.
So now I installed bootmanager lite, and I am experimenting with a few roms that I can run from my sdcard (using bootmanager). So far there is always something not functioning as it should, so haven't found the right rom yet.
What I need is just a rom as close to stock as possible. And I want to be able to write and read Chinese with it. Operating system must be in English.

If you find anything like that on your search for a ROM, I would be thankful if you can let me know.