HTC Hero Updating / Custom Firmware

The reason behind adding new firmware to your HTC Hero is to speed up the operation of the phone, to give it a smooth interaction, faster load times for your apps and new 'custom' and firmware features.

You may have a branded Hero, such as the T-Mobile version (which they actually call the 'G2' instead of 'Hero') which comes loaded with an outdated firmware, which has also been tweaked to add the custom T-Mobile branding and features. (although, for most phone companies, this is usually only a branded start up screen and a web link to their home page, so losing these is not much, if any, sacrifice to gain the positives of the custom firmware.)

The only drawback to debranding is, of course, risk and the invalidating of your warrenty. Albeit you can safely restore a phone all the way back to its original firmware if you want to return it for warrenty reasons. All of the information given here is to be used at your own risk and I advise doing your own research before doing any modifications.

So to start using custom firmware, we need to do a few things,

1) Backing up any necessary data.

this means contacts, diary events, etc. make use sync software from the HTC site to automate this.

2) Enabling root access.

this means that the core phone will be open to accept custom firmwares. This also means that additional functions of the phone can be used, such as 'tethering' to a laptop.

3) Backing up your original firmware (i.e. T-mobile etc.)

4) Uploading custom firmware

once you have made a backup of your original firmware (from root access) you can overwrite it with custom firmware.

5) restore your backed-up data contacts, dates, etc.

done. now how to do it.........

1) use HTC sync from
http://www.htc.com/www/supportdownloadlist.aspx?p_id=283&act=sd&cat=all
install and backup data. you will also need to install sync so the phone can be rooted.

2) follow the instructions here to gain root access.

3) once this is done you can turn on the device while holding down the 'home' key to access the root menu. the first thing is to do a backup of your original firmware incase you want to go back to factory fresh. select nandroid backup from the menu, this will create a folder on your phone containing all the original firmware files. Back this up on your PC/Mac by rebooting and using the normal usb connection. copy the folder called 'nandroid'

4) now that you have the original firmware safe on your PC/Mac you can load a custom firmware. at the time of posting, this is the latest Modaco custom rom for a GSM Hero you are likely to have a GSM if you are in the uk and europe. if you are in america you are more likely to have a CDMA Hero. please understand what you have before you choose the custom rom suited for your phone.

you can check with modaco's site to see what the latest hero firmware is.

the custom file will be about 150-200mb in size and will be a zip file. copy this to the root of the phone and remember roughly what the file is called.

back in the root menu you will need to firstly choose 'wipe data/factory reset' and after that is done, go back to the root and select 'apply sdcard:choose zip' you will be presented with any zips on the root of your phone, there should probably be only one. choose the firmware zip.

it will ask to confirm etc as it then goes through replacing the original firmware.

follow instructions and reboot the phone to be use your new custom firmware.

5) nice. now that we are here, you should have a rooted, custom firmware phone. which you can 'tether', if you have a tethering plan with your phone company. apart from that it should be alot faster have the latest google apps, like the latest version of maps etc and will generally be alot quicker.

you can use HTC sync to restore your contacts/diary if you need to.

phew. I will write another post soon to explain how to return to your original firmware and how to remove the root access/root menu.

I wrote this from memory so any edits to this are welcome to make the guide clearer.

toodlepip.

Adaptech