How To: Load a Custom ROM on the Motorola Droid (Android 2.0.1 and Android 2.1)
I. Before You Begin
1. You MUST have done our How To Root the Motorola Droid procedure. If you haven’t use the previous link to do it then come back to this one once you are done.
2. THIS WILL ERASE YOUR DATA AND YOU MAY NEED TO REACTIVATE THE DROID TO LOGIN.
II. Flashing the Custom Recovery Image
1. Search for ROM Manager by ClockworkMod in the Market on your phone. Then download and install it.
2. Open the app, and choose Flash ClockworkMod Recovery
3. Click on your device “Droid (CDMA)”. If it asks for permissions, select Remember then Allow.
4. Once it is done flashing, a dialog box will pop up and tell you it was successful.
III. Flash a Custom ROM
1. Turn your phone on so you can get to the home screen.
2. Plug it in via the USB cable and then mount the sd card by pulling down on the notification bar and selecting the notification then clicking mount.
3. Download a custom ROM from our Motorola Droid ROMs section on our site and save it to your computer.
4. Copy the ROM’s .zip file you want to flash to the root of the SD card (not inside any folders on the sd card, just on the card itself). Do NOT extract the .zip file, leave it as it is.
5. Once that transfers to the sd card, unplug the phone from the computer.
6. Turn the phone off and then turn it back on by holding down the X button on the keyboard and Power at the same time until the recovery screen comes up.
7. Using the volume buttons to navigate the recovery menu, select Wipe data/factory reset and wait for it to finish.
8. Then select Wipe cache partition and wait for that to finish.
9. Now, select Install Zip from SDcard, and then select Choose Zip from SDCard and select the ROM you just saved to your SD card.
10. Once it is finished flashing, push Power to get back to the recovery main menu and select Reboot system now. Once it reboots, you are all set! Enjoy!
*If you ever want to load a different ROM, simply redo Section III with a different ROM file!
Thanks ClockWorkMod for his super simple recovery flashing app!
Thanks so much for this awesome tutorial. My DROID comes Tuesday, so I’ve been reading up on how to do the custom recovery file. This is by far the clearest and easiest explanation, because of the video, as well as mentioning ClockworkMod’s ROM manager.
THANKS! 🙂
im trying to install 2.2 froyo on my droid, i have completed the root and i am on 2.0.1 and kernel 2.6.29 when i download and install rom manager , and confirm motorola droid cdma i get an error message saying attemping to run privileged commands ? what douse this mean ? and what am i doing wrong ?
i had the same problem you have to root your phone again, and when you do, do not intall the update that comes up in the message when you turn your phone on just click download later and proceed to rom manager and create a custom recovery and your set. hope this helped
Nick,
Thanks!
man you rock, been trying to root my phone all day until i came across these videos. Piece of cake to root with your videos!!! thanks a ton! keep up the work!
Hey, I followed all your steps up until the Rom Manager app, when i open it and try to do the Clockwork mod Recovery it gets a error and it can’t do it, please help.
Hey figured it out just had to reboot phone works fine.
Well, I loaded the custom rom and now I am in a constant reboot, what should I do now?? HELP PLEASE
Hey sometimes if things go wrong with roms etc. try bringing your phone back to 2.0.1 with RSDlite, and re rooting and loading the rom.
i followed your instructions exactly unlockr and am now on 2.2 with flash at 1 ghz. however i can’t get 3G?! what do i need to do to get my data back!
I’ve been following your video up until the part where it goes to the motorola droid ROM’s page. When I click on ROM download link -ESE81V1.1 it sends me to the download site but the link doesn’t seem to be there anymore? Where do I get this?
Same issue no ROM at listed page… Help
I tried the the steps but when trying to reboot into recovery mode (by pressing power and x), it doesnt launch into recovery mode, it launches into a screen that has an exclamation mark inside a triangle. I cannot press any of the keys, no options are offered. Only thing I can do is to hold down the power button for it to reboot. Why do I get this screen?
I have rooted my moto droid but ROM manage gives me an error message of:”The applictaion Superuser Permissions(process com.noshufou.android.su) has stopped unexpectedly. Please try again.” but it only has Force Close and Report as an option. How can I fix this….FYI, i am not able to load any other ROMs other than Bugless Beast v4.0
Hi
I’ve followed every step and when I hold the power button and X it doesn’t load the Clockwork recovery menu. My Milestone is rooted. Can you help me?
Thanks!