Howto: HTC Droid Incredible Leaked Froyo 2.2 Update

This post references an early leak of the 2.2 update for the HTC Droid Incredible. Visit my new post about the HTC Droid Incredible, Froyo 2.2, and root.

Files get updated often – the files linked on this post aren’t necessarily the most recent! I recommend you check various sources for updated files.

If you haven’t already heard, it is now incredibly easy to root the HTC Droid Incredible. Even better, there’s a leaked version of the soon to be release over the air (OTA) update to Android 2.2, a.k.a. “Froyo.” With this leaked update you can have your Froyo and root as well. Fantastic.

If you’ve already rooted your phone, you’ll need to return to stock (better get that Titanium Backup ready). You’ll also have to apply the leaked OTA radio antenna update – which some may find to be too risky. However, for the fearless I’ve outlined the steps below.

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The update to Froyo gives the phone a number of goodies – new applications, Wireless-N (without a custom kernel), 720p video recording, and a much faster operating system. However, to get everything to work you need to apply a leaked OTA firmware and antenna update. There is some concern that when the official OTA update is released it will be a newer version than the leaked one, and the two won’t play nicely together. Some figure there is a 50/50 chance that applying the leak, and then applying the final OTA update will brick your phone – making it completely useless.

It’s not hopeless – there are steps to undo the leaked OTA firmware and antenna update – but it’s a complicated process. These things are definitely not for the inexperienced or timid.

Warning: proceed with caution.

Installing the antenna update

If you want everything to work properly with the leaked Froyo update, you may need to install the leaked antenna update as well. To check which version of the antenna you currently have go to Settings > About phone > Software information and look at the Baseband version.

If it says 2.05.00.06.11 you can skip to installing the ROM
If its 1.00.03.04.06 then you need to update your antenna.

If Rooted

  1. Make sure you have a recent Titanium Bakcup
  2. Download the file PB31IMG.zip and place it in the root of you SD card
  3. Power off the phone and then press and hold power + volume down to boot into the boot loader
  4. Press and hold volume down and the power button to boot into HBoot
  5. The phone will find, load, and check PB31IMG.zip. It will then ask you if you would like to update using the file
  6. Press volume up to update the phone
  7. Reboot the phone – you are now back to stock
  8. Boot the phone, go through the setup (but don’t bother to set anything) and remove PB31IMG.zip from your SD card.
  9. Download the file dinc_ota.zip, rename it to update.zip and place it in the root of your SD card.
  10. Reboot into recovery (turn on USB debugging and run “adb reboot recovery” or power down the phone and then press and hold power and volume down)
  11. Press volume down once, then press the power button to select Recovery
  12. Press power and volume up to bring up the recovery menu.
  13. Use the volume rocker to highlight apply update.zip, then power to run it
  14. Reboot the phone when prompted.
  15. Go to Settings > About phone > Software information > Baseband version and verify that it’s 2.05.00.06.11.
  16. You can now re-root your phone by running Unrevoked 3 and make a new Stock + OTA Antenna backup in nandroid.

If not rooted

  1. Backup your apps using a backup tool, like Astro File Manager
  2. Download the file dinc_ota.zip, rename it to update.zip and place it in the root of your SD card.
  3. Reboot into recovery (turn on USB debugging and run “adb reboot recovery” or power down the phone and then press and hold power and volume down)
  4. Press volume down once, then press the power button to select Recovery
  5. Press power and volume up to bring up the recovery menu.
  6. Use the volume rocker to highlight apply update.zip, then power to run it
  7. Reboot the phone when prompted.
  8. Go to Settings > About phone > Software information > Baseband version and verify that it’s 2.05.00.06.11.
  9. You can now re-root your phone by running Unrevoked 3 and make a new Stock + OTA Antenna backup in nandroid.

Installing the ROM

You can find a number of ROMs based on the leaked 2.2, as well as the 2.2 leak itself on Android Forums. Do the research and find the ROM that sounds the most appealing. Download and save the ROM to your SD card.

Installing the ROM is easy as pie. If you’ve paid for the full version of Rom Manager (well worth it) you can simply select “install ROM from SD card.” Check the option to make a nandroid backup (if you haven’t already made one) and wipe data and cache. This last part is essential, if you don’t wipe your data and cache, the update will have major issues. The phone will reboot and flash the new ROM and you’ll soon boot into 2.2. Watch out for that new boot animation!

Otherwise, boot into clockwork recovery, wipe the data and cache, and then select the option to install an update to the phone. Select the file from your SD card and install it.

Patches

No, not the dog. If your going with the stock Froyo leak you’ll need to download the market and audio patch. ROMs based off the Froyo leak will (typically) have the patch installed.

Restore your apps

You can now reinstall Titanium Backup and run a batch restore from your latest backup. Only restore user apps, not system apps. The system apps you now have are NEWER than the ones in the backup – restoring them would defeat the purpose of flashing your phone with the new apps. You can run the batch program “Reinstall missing apps with data,” but you’re still going to have to go through the list and uncheck system apps. If it looks like a system app, says HTC, Google, or 2.1 in the title, then don’t reinstall it. If in doubt, leave it out. You’ll have to reconfigure your screens and accounts by hand.

If you weren’t rooted to start with, and used a program like Astro File Manager to backup your apps, you can restore them now. Astro won’t backup system apps, so you don’t need to worry about restoring the wrong thing.

The downside to Titanium backup is that you have to be careful not to restore system apps, which makes restoring apps through a program like Astro much easier. However, Titanium gets the user data as well, while Astro just gets the app file. This means if you use Titanium all your programs will be restored AND setup – no configuration and no lost data. Astro just reinstalls the applications.

If you plan on going back to 2.1 at some point, you may want to offload this set of backups to your computer so that you can use them at a later point to restore. Once you’ve copied all the files you can create a new backup of all user and system files.

More bloat

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Here are two more programs to add to the list of bloat that can be removed. See link for full instructions.

mv /system/app/AppSharing* /system/app.disabled/
App Sharing

mv /system/app/VzNav.apk /system/app.disabled
Verizon’s GPS Navigation – seriously, why pay $10/mo when Google Navigation is free?

Speed

Here are benchmark screen shots of before and after – much faster!:

Before
  Before
After
After