How To: Load a Custom ROM on the HTC Evo (OLD METHOD)

THIS PROCEDURE IS OBSOLETE, PLEASE HEAD TO OUR EVO HOW TOS AND USE A NEW ONE.

I. Before You Begin

1. This will wipe all of your data so at least sync your contacts with Google before you begin.

II. Setup ADB

1. Do our How To Setup ADB procedure until you can see a serial number for your phone while it is plugged in and you type adb devices in the command prompt then come back to this procedure.

III. Flashing an Engineering SPL and Permanent Recovery Image

1. Download the following files:

Evo Recovery Files
Engineering Image
Flash_Image
Evo Recovery Image
Evo Rooted ROM

2. Plug the phone in via USB cable,  and mount the sd card so we can transfer files to it.

3. Copy the flash_image, the mtd-eng.img, the recovery.img, and the PC36IMG.zip (do not extract the .zip leave it as it is) to the root of your SD card (NOT in any folders, just on the SD card itself).

4. Once it is done transferring, unplug the phone from the computer then plug it back in. This time DO NOT MOUNT THE SD CARD. (Also make sure that USB Debugging is checked ON from the how to setup adb procedure).

5. Open the command prompt by clicking on the Start menu and typing cmd and hitting enter in the search box.

6. In the command prompt on the computer, type the following with hitting enter at the end of each line:

cd\
cd c:\AndroidSDK\tools\
adb reboot recovery

7. The phone will reboot into recovery mode. Now unzip the Evo Recovery tools .zip we downloaded earlier and look inside the folder for recovery-windows.bat. Right click it and choose Run as Administrator (for Windows XP just double click it). This should open a command prompt and then the phone should boot into a custom recovery image.

8. Select Nandroid backup and wait for it to finish backing up (we will use this later).

9. Once the backup is done, in the command prompt on the computer, type the following with hitting enter at the end of each line:

adb shell
cat /sdcard/flash_image > /data/flash_image
chmod 755 /data/flash_image
/data/flash_image misc /sdcard/mtd-eng.img

10. Once it is done, turn off the phone. Then turn it back on by holding down Volume Down and Power until the white bootloader screen comes up.

11. It should automatically find the PC36IMG.zip and ask if you want to update. Click yes and wait for it to finish updating.

12. It will then ask you if you want to reboot, click yes and wait for it to reboot.

13. Once it reboots (it should still be plugged into the computer and the command prompt should still be open on the computer), in the command prompt on the computer, type the following with hitting enter at the end of each line:

adb shell
cat /sdcard/flash_image > /data/flash_image
chmod 755 /data/flash_image
/data/flash_image recovery /sdcard/recovery.img
reboot recovery

14. The phone should reboot into the permanent custom recovery image. Select Wipe Data /Factory Reset, then Wipe Dalvik Cache. Then select Nandroid Restore and wait for it to restore the backup we made earlier. Done! You can now load any custom ROM!

IV. Loading a Custom ROM

1. Head over to our HTC Evo ROMs section and choose a ROM you want to try. Download it and save it to your computer (do NOT extract it, leave it as a .zip)

2. Plug the phone in via USB cable and mount the sd card so we can transfer files to it.

3. Copy the ROM .zip file and save it to the root of the sd card (NOT in any folders just on the sd card itself). Once it is done copying, unplug the phone from the usb cable.

4. Turn off the phone, then turn it back on by holding down Volume Down and Power until the white bootloader screen comes up (if it finds the PC36IMG.zip on your sd because you didn’t delete it, just say NO when it asks you if you want to update). Now using the volume buttons select Fastboot, then select Recovery and wait for the phone to boot into recovery mode.

5. Scroll to Wipe Data, select wipe data/factory reset and then select wipe dalvik cache.

6. Now scroll to Apply .zip from sd card and select the ROM .zip file we saved to the sdcard and wait for it to finish flashing. Once it is done, hit reboot and you are all set! Enjoy!

7. IF YOU EVER WANT TO FLASH A NEW ROM, NO NEED TO DO SECTIONS I – III. JUST DO SECTION IV AGAIN FOR EACH NEW ROM, THAT’S IT!