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  • How To Unlock & Root HTC Sensation,Sensation 4G,SensationXe and Install Custom Roms on S-on

How To Unlock & Root HTC Sensation,Sensation 4G,SensationXe and Install Custom Roms on S-on

Unknown On Monday 6 January 2014

                                                                           

Being a newcomer to the Sensation myself it took me some time to figure out how to get everything how I wanted it. 
I can now flash custom roms without trouble.
1. Unlock your phone
Unlocking your phone is really easy, all you have to do is go to the HTC Dev website, select your device and follow the steps. (If your version of the HTC Sensation is not in the list you can select "All other Supported devices)
HTC has done a great job putting together guides for every device.
WARNING: This will factory reset your phone, so you will loose your applications, sms's...
After doing this you should have a folder on your C:\ drive called Android containing the following: adb.exe, AdbWinApi.dll, fastboot.exe, Unlock_code.bin
If you have this folder you can move to step 2. If however you do NOT have this folder Then download the Following Download kit and unlock boot loader through it Thanks to Hasoon2000 for making this kit 
2. Flashing a recovery
We will be using 4EXT recovery for reasons I will later explain. To do the following steps you have to have your phone plugged in and have USB Debugging enabled. (Settings - Develop Option - USB debugging)
  1. Download 4EXT recovery (1.0.0.5!): Here
  2. Put the file (recovery.img) in C:\Android (or wherever your adb and fastboot are located)
  3. Shift right click in the white space on that folder
  4. Select "Open command window here"
    • If you can boot into your phone, do the following
      • Type in: adb
      • Type in: adb devices (This will give you a list of devices attached to your computer, so if your phone is correctly attached it should show up.)
      • Type in: adb reboot-bootloader
    • If you cannot boot your phone, do the following
      • Disconnect your phone from your pc
      • Power off your phone
      • Remove the battery
      • Insert the battery back in
      • Turn on your phone while holding BOTH the POWER ON and VOLUME DOWN button
      • Connect your phone to your pc again
  6. Your phone will (re)boot, wait until you see a white screen which says "FASTBOOT USB"
  7. Type in: fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
  8. Wait until the flashing is finished
  9. Type in: fastboot reboot   
You have now flashed the 4EXT recovery, through which you later will be flashing custom Rom's. 
The newest version (1.0.0.5 and up) of 4EXT has the ability to flash the "boot.img" for you, so you don't have to do it yourself after every new kernel and rom flash! 
You do have to enable it thought, which I will explain in the next step.

3. Enable 4EXT smartflash
This step is extremely important, because we are not s-off and there is a problem with creating the "boot.img". T-Macgnolia explained it nicely:
When you use HTC Dev to unlock your bootloader it does unlock the Recovery, System, and Boot partitions to allow your device to write to those partitions and not just read those partitions. But there is a catch, if you want to flash a custom recovery you have to use ABD fastoot commands to flash it. When you flash as ROM in a .zip file via Recovery, it only flashes the System partition. You then have to open the .zip file and extract the boot.img and then use ADB fastboot commands to flash the boot.img to your boot partition. If you do not you will still have the boot.img of the ROM you was using before you flashed the New ROM.

Now let me explain the boot.img a little so you know why it is so important. The boot.img does just what thee name implies, it is what boots the Android ROM on your device. Now let me explain this a little further, the Android OS runs on top of something called a Linux kernel. This means that your bootloader boots the Linux kernel and the hardware of the device. The Linux kernel then boots the Android OS. The kernel is also the connection between the hardware and the Android OS. So you see if the kernel is not compatible with the system that is on the system partition you will have troubles like Wifi not working or other I hardware reliant functions. So when you flash a new ROM and you are HTC Dev unlocked you will have to flash the boot.img for the ROM or you will more than likely have troubles.
There are 2 ways to enable smartflash, one is a temporary way inside the 4EXT recovery itself (only for first time!) and the second way is permanent, through the 4EXT application. 
The permanent way can only be enabled if your phone has ROOT! It's impossible to do it when you are going to flash a ROM for the first time. 
Once you have flashed your ROM you have to install the 4EXT application and enable smartflash through it, which is explained in Step 5.
3A. Enable 4EXT Temporary smartflash
Enabling this is as simple is getting into the recovery and enabling it as an option. 

NOTE: You only need to do this right before flashing your first ROM, so you should skip this step and come back here when the guide tells you to.
  1. Disable "Fast Boot" on your phone.
    • Settings
    • Power
    • Untick "Fast boot"
  2. Turn off your phone
  3. Hold the Power AND Volume Down button until you see a white screen which says: "Fasboot".
  4. Navigate to "RECOVERY" and select it, you should now boot into the 4EXT recovery
  5. Select "Tools"
  6. Scroll Down and select "Enable 4EXT SmartFlash"

Again, you only need to do this ONCE, once you have flashed your first custom ROM and enabled permanent smartflash, you don't need to this any more!
4. Flashing Root
Flashing root is easy now you have 4EXT installed, I will explain in a few simple steps how to do it(Your phone doesnot need to be S-Off to do this you can also do this on S-On.
  1. Download the following zip: Here
  2. Put the zip on the root of your SD Card
  3. Reboot your phone into recovery (like we did in step 3)
    • Turn off fastboot and turn off your phone
    • Hold the Power AND Volume Down button until you see a white screen which says "FASTBOOT"
    • Navigate to RECOVERY and select it
  4. Select "Install from sdcard"
  5. Select "choose zip from sdcard"
  6. Navigate to where you previously but the zips and select the root one (Android_Revolution_HD_Root_and_BusyBox)
  7. Let it install
  8. Reboot
Your phone should now be rooted. You can now continue using your phone or install a custom rom but make sure your phone's CID Matches one of these CID numbers if Not Then You Must Use !!!Gold Card!!! Method To Remain S-on And To Be Able to Flash Custom Roms if You will not do this your phone will get stuck on bootloop You can check your CID By CID GETTER on google play after rooting your phone.
cidnum: HTC__001
cidnum: HTC__E11
cidnum: HTC__203
cidnum: HTC__102
cidnum: HTC__405
cidnum: HTC__Y13
cidnum: HTC__A07
cidnum: HTC__304
cidnum: HTC__M27
cidnum: HTC__032
cidnum: HTC__016
5.Enabling permanent smartflash(IMPORTANT MUST DO OTHER WISE YOU WILL RUN INTO PROBLEMS)!
Like I explained in Step 3 when you want to flash roms with S-ON you need to have smartflash enabled, and now we have a rooted phone you can enable permanent smartflash! Here's how.

Installing the 4EXT Recovery Updater
  1. Go to the 4EXT website and download the free 4EXT Recovery Updater.
  2. Put the .APK file on your SD card like we did before with the ROM zip
  3. Open your File Management application of choice (IO File Manager for example)
  4. Search for the .APK file you previously put on your SD card and click "Install"
  5. Open the 4EXT Recovery application
  6. Press "Online install | upgrade"
  7. The application should ask you to connect to 4EXT.Net servers to synchronise, press yes
  8. If you don't have the newest version of the 4EXT Recovery application the application will ask you to update, if not just continue
    • If you updated the application it will close, so re-open it

Now you have installed and updated the 4EXT Recovery Updater, next we'll be enabling permanent smartflash in the application. 
There are 2 ways to do this;
  • The first way is to upgrade your recovery (which is highly recommended), go to Step 5A.
  • The second way is through the settings menu, which will just enable smartflash, go to Step 5B.

5A. Enabling smartflash through updating recovery
  1. Open the 4EXT Recovery application
  2. Press "Online install | upgrade"
  3. The application should tell you your phone model (HTC Sensation /XE), if this is the case press "Yes" otherwise press "No"
  4. Now you will see a list of 4EXT recovery versions, simply press the top (should be in red) and press "Install"
  5. At the end of the installation the application should ask you: "Is your device S-ON? Answer yes if unsure.", press "Yes"

5B. Enabling smartflash through the settings menu
  1. Open the 4EXT Recovery application
  2. Press "Settings"
  3. Choose the tab "Recovery"
  4. Scroll down until you see; "S-ON: 4EXT SmartFlash, and tick the box next to it

You should now have permanent Smartflash, you no longer have to enable smartflash inside the recovery itself when you flash a new rom Go to this guide to know How to flash any custom rom on htc sensation (Rooted With S-on).


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