Help Updating Android on my HD2 - Totally New to this whole thing

[sacousino]

Hi there! I hope someone can help educate me!

I bought a rooted smartphone from someone, and I believe it's needing an Android update.

The phone is an HTC HD2, originally a Windows Mobile phone, but it was rooted and Android 2.2 (Frankinstein) was installed on it, and that's how it was when I bought it (secondhand).

How can I go about updating it to the most recent version of Android, and/or how can I determine if it could even handle that version?

Much appreciated for some insight - Google searches have been, well, confusing.

 

[gamblor01]

You can definitely install a newer version of Android on there. The latest is Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS). I honestly don't know how smooth it will run on the HD2 (I own an Evo myself). Do you know how you are running Android? I helped a friend of mine install the "prj Clean Desire" ROM on his phone into nand. This means that when you boot up it runs Android directly out of the phone's memory. Apparently you can also dual boot (by running something called like haret.exe?) and then run from the sdcard.

Note that installing a new ROM is going to wipe EVERYTHING on the phone, so you will want to backup your contacts (unless they are already all stored in your google account), backup SMS (if you want them), etc.

If you have nand Android then you should have MAGLDR installed on your phone. Simply power it down, then press and hold the power button. If MAGLDR is installed it will load up into a black screen with white font that says MAGLDR at the top. From here you can just select the "USB Flasher" option, connect to a computer via USB, and then flash over a new ROM. Most of them are just a simple .exe file that guides you through the process.

You can always flash ROMs from ClockworkMod recovery, assuming that is installed on your phone. You can get to this by first booting into MAGLDR and then selecting the recovery option. I seem to remember there were 2 options that said something about recovery in MAGLDR, though I don't remember which one to select.


If you're wondering what ROM to get, just do some google searches for something like "htc hd2 ics". I'm not sure if there are any 100% working ICS ROMs, so if you want to try gingerbread you can always google for that instead.

Here is an ICS ROM that looks promising. It says the only thing that doesn't work is native USB tethering (though wireless tethering does):

[9.Mar.2012] NexusHD2-ICS-4.0.3-CM9 V1.5 - xda-developers



Any further questions just ask and I can try to help.

 

[sacousino]

Thanks. I did some google searching and thanks to your post, I now know what to look for!

I did find some sites that offer Ice Cream Sandwich and Gingerbread ROMS, but both of lose indicate the camera will no longer work on either. Sorry, but I'd like to keep that.

I suppose I'll wait until those issues are fixed, or if they never are, I can get an actual Android phone.

 

[gamblor01]

Well the one I posted above said the camcorder was still buggy. I'm not sure what that means but I assume it means that 720p recording does not work. The ROM I installed on my friend's phone (a froyo based ROM) had this same problem. It was able to record at lower quality settings but if you try in 720p it would lock up and get really hot. Otherwise, everything else worked.

You might want to check your existing ROM as it may have the same problem. If so, it's not a good reason to stay on the current ROM. But honestly, people get so caught up in the latest and greatest but whether it really makes a huge difference is questionable if you ask me.

 

[rush420]

Check out xda that's where most development is going on for the hd 2 I use ice cream tosti an have been using for three months now the camera is buggy but works an is getting better ics on the hd 2 works great there are a few bugs but all kinds of work arounds that make the rom so bad as no kidding I'm not going back to gingerbread that good this rom is check it out