Hawker
Android Expert
I've noticed quite a few people struggling with this lately, so I thought I would create a quick guide to hopefully avoid future confusion.
Download Mode
This is NOT Recovery mode. It is totally different. Download mode has the sole purpose of putting your phone into a state to be able to download a file (or files) via the USB cable. To get this mode fully operational you will need to have Samsung Kies installed which installs the necessary USB drivers, along with Odin 1.85, which transfers the file(s) to the appropriate area of the GS2.
How do I get my phone into Download Mode?
The following instructions assumes you have installed Kies+Odin, and that you are able to successfully connect your GS2 to your PC using Samsung Kies.
1. Ensure your GS2 has USB Debugging enabled. This is done by Menu>Settings>Applications>Development>USB Debugging
2. Switch off your phone
3. Ensure you do NOT have your USB cable connected to your GS2, and ensure you do NOT have Kies running on your PC
4. Press Vol-Down+Home+Power (in that order)
5. Keep all 3 buttons pressed until you see something come up onto the screen. As soon as you see something, release all three buttons
6. You should see a warning asking you to press volume up if you want to continue or volume down to cancel. Press Volume-Up
7. Start Odin on your PC
8. For a standard flash, ensure Auto Reboot and F.Reset Time are the ONLY options ticked.
9. Click on the PDA button and browse to the file you want to flash. This is usually in .TAR format
10. Connect the USB cable to PC+GS2 and wait for the ID:COM section to turn yellow
11. Click Start to flash
12. Do not disconnect the cable or turn off the device, it will reboot when it finishes
Recovery Mode
CWM Recovery mode (ie. Upload mode) boots up your phone into the recovery system of your phone. This is essentially a bootable filesystem stored on your phone that gets invoked instead of your GS2's normal bootup procedure. With this recovery system running you can do all manner of flashing, formatting, backups, restores etc.
How do I get my phone into Recovery Mode?
1. Ensure your phone is switched off.
2. Press Vol-Up+Home+Power (in that order)
3. Keep all 3 buttons pressed until you see something come up onto the screen. As soon as you see something, release all three buttons.
4. After the initial logo, you should then see the home menu of your Recovery system. The system that is actually presented to you will depend on if you are rooted or not, and what kernel you are running. For example, if you are not rooted, you will see the standard Nandroid Recovery. For rooted users you will see a ClockWorkMod Recovery system (or a variant thereof)
You are now in Recovery mode. You should now be able to do a variety of functions such as flashing a new ROMs/firmwares, kernels, modems, take a full backups of your system (known as a Nandroid or CWM backup), restore to a previous backup, Format filesystems etc. etc. Just follow the menus.
Links
Samsung Kies software+manuals
Problems connecting to Kies
Download Odin here
Download Mode
This is NOT Recovery mode. It is totally different. Download mode has the sole purpose of putting your phone into a state to be able to download a file (or files) via the USB cable. To get this mode fully operational you will need to have Samsung Kies installed which installs the necessary USB drivers, along with Odin 1.85, which transfers the file(s) to the appropriate area of the GS2.
How do I get my phone into Download Mode?
The following instructions assumes you have installed Kies+Odin, and that you are able to successfully connect your GS2 to your PC using Samsung Kies.
1. Ensure your GS2 has USB Debugging enabled. This is done by Menu>Settings>Applications>Development>USB Debugging
2. Switch off your phone
3. Ensure you do NOT have your USB cable connected to your GS2, and ensure you do NOT have Kies running on your PC
4. Press Vol-Down+Home+Power (in that order)
5. Keep all 3 buttons pressed until you see something come up onto the screen. As soon as you see something, release all three buttons
6. You should see a warning asking you to press volume up if you want to continue or volume down to cancel. Press Volume-Up
7. Start Odin on your PC
8. For a standard flash, ensure Auto Reboot and F.Reset Time are the ONLY options ticked.
9. Click on the PDA button and browse to the file you want to flash. This is usually in .TAR format
10. Connect the USB cable to PC+GS2 and wait for the ID:COM section to turn yellow
11. Click Start to flash
12. Do not disconnect the cable or turn off the device, it will reboot when it finishes
Recovery Mode
CWM Recovery mode (ie. Upload mode) boots up your phone into the recovery system of your phone. This is essentially a bootable filesystem stored on your phone that gets invoked instead of your GS2's normal bootup procedure. With this recovery system running you can do all manner of flashing, formatting, backups, restores etc.
How do I get my phone into Recovery Mode?
1. Ensure your phone is switched off.
2. Press Vol-Up+Home+Power (in that order)
3. Keep all 3 buttons pressed until you see something come up onto the screen. As soon as you see something, release all three buttons.
4. After the initial logo, you should then see the home menu of your Recovery system. The system that is actually presented to you will depend on if you are rooted or not, and what kernel you are running. For example, if you are not rooted, you will see the standard Nandroid Recovery. For rooted users you will see a ClockWorkMod Recovery system (or a variant thereof)
You are now in Recovery mode. You should now be able to do a variety of functions such as flashing a new ROMs/firmwares, kernels, modems, take a full backups of your system (known as a Nandroid or CWM backup), restore to a previous backup, Format filesystems etc. etc. Just follow the menus.
Links
Samsung Kies software+manuals
Problems connecting to Kies
Download Odin here