Guide to rooting, installing a custom ROM and recovery to virgin mobile intercept 2.1 on windows 7 and getting wifi tether to work.First, make sure your computer can connect to the phone via USB.
To do so, follow this guide:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS6Hkdow2Hk#If this goes down for some reason, basically you:
Enable USB debugging, connect the phone, go to device manager, install driver from disk by browsing to ssadadb2.inf and using that on "other devices , SAMSUNG_Android" then the same for "Other devices, S3C6410 Android ADB", then the same for "USB controllers, SAMSUNG Android Composite USB Device" then the same for "Other devices, CDC Abstract Control Model". Now go to see if it worked, go to notifications USB connected, mount. If it mounts, it worked.
If you can mount it via USB, it is working. If for some reason it stopped working and you see "unknown device" in device manager, restart your phone into recovery mode (power, call, volume down). The phone should then show up on device manager, so that you can then use the above method to get the USB working.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12095484/Samsung.Moment.USB.Drivers.Windows.zip(
http://randomtechinfo.com/Moment/Samsung.Moment.USB.Drivers.Windows.zip)
Next, temp root your phone. (Rooting is effectively removing the restrictions placed on what you can do in your phone's operating system. An unrooted phone has the user basically logged in to a non administrator account- such an account is unable to take all actions which are possible within the OS, which an administrator account could. This is not to be confused with "unlocking" which typically means to provide a code to the networking chip on your phone that will allow it to be used with other service providers. This is easy to do with GSM phones, it typically involves spending 10$ on a website who will give you a code to enter to unlock your phone. It is harder to do on CDMA phones, such as Virgin Mobile ones, and is known as flashing the phone.)
To do so, use this, "SuperOneClick":
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12095484/SuperOneClickv1.7-ShortFuse.zip
(
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=803682)
Choose option 2, rageinthecage, and click root. Click through the process and see if it is successfully rooted.
Now download flash_image , which is a program used to flash kernel images and recovery images to the boot and recovery partitions on your phones internal memory, respectively (this is the flash image from samsung moment, which works for intercept):
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12095484/flash_image
(
http://samsungmoment.googlecode.com/files/eclair_moment.zip)
Now download inxanes custom recovery. This will let you install the rom automatically from a zip file stored on your SDCard, in addition to making backups and doing other miscellaneous tasks.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12095484/recovery.rfs (
http://forum.sdx-developers.com/intercept-development/intercept-recovery-(important-features-working!)-(updated-11311)/msg91881/#msg91881)
Now download a kernel. (A kernel is the fundemental core software of operating systems which effects everything that a device is inherently capable of doing with hardware and software. Operating systems are built up around the kernel with higher level software and a user interface. A ROM, which is an operating system, is an example of this. ROM stands for read only memory, which is a loose term as applied to OS's for phones, because it is loaded into the Read Only Memory of such phones. Regular Android is of the same basic nature as any ROM you will find in the forums. ROMs from the forums, and from certain phone makers are simply modded versions of Android.)
Here is the kernel I used, vampirefo's kernel:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12095484/zImage.img
(
http://forum.sdx-developers.com/intercept-development/vampirefo-kernel/)
Now download a custom ROM. I used CuteROM. It will be applied to your phone from the custom recovery. With regular recovery you cannot apply a custom ROM to your phone.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12095484/CuteRomX.zip
(
http://forum.sdx-developers.com/intercept-development/(virgin-mobile)-cute-rom/)
Now mount your phone via usb and make a folder called sdx if it is not already there. Put CuteRomX.zip inside of this folder.
Now in the folder which contains SuperOneClick, there is a program called ADB. You will use this to log in to your phone from the computer and issue commands as root.
If your phone is mounted unmount it. In your phone, go to settings, applications, development and check enable USB debugging.
Open up command prompt on your PC, (run, cmd) cd to the SuperOneClick folder, and type adb devices. If you see one line of numbers, then adb successfully recognized your phone.
Now what you are going to do is transfer the files that you downloaded to your PC to your phone's internal memory.
To do this, do the following (if you have issues, try the files with and without the .extensions):
adb push C:\your\path\flash_image /data/local/tmp/
adb push C:\your\path\zImage.img /data/local/tmp/
adb push C:\your\path\recovery.rfs /data/local/tmp/
We need to give more universal permission to use the program flash_image (permissions is a big thing in linux, which is what android is based on).
We are going to log in to your phone's command line, or shell, to do this:
adb shell
You should see a #. (If you see a $ your phone isn't rooted.)
Now type:
chmod 755 /data/local/tmp/flash_image
Now we are going to overwrite the kernel in the boot partition of your phone with the one we downloaded, using flash_image, then we are going to do the same with the recovery file we downloaded and the recovery partition. Input these commands from within the shell (# prompt):
/data/local/tmp/flash_image boot /data/local/tmp/zImage.img
/data/local/tmp/flash_image recovery /data/local/tmp/recovery.rfs
You'll see a bunch of text and a block of numbers, if it says something to the effect of write and there are no egregious errors (even if there are it will probably work), you can assume it worked. You will probably not notice a difference with the new kernel other than perhaps speeds or compatibility. The recovery however, will look different.
Type exit exit to get out of the shell. Turn off your phone, boot into recovery. (hold power, phone, volumedown) (
http://forum.sdx-developers.com/intercept-development/(virgin-mobile)-cute-rom/)
Scroll to Wipe and wipe data/cache.
Press the return arrow and go to Advanced.
Select Filesystem Conversion. Apply the following settings:
CACHE: (ext4)
DATA: (ext4)
SYSTEM: (ext2)
Return to main menu.
Select Install zip from sd card.
Select Choose zip from sd card. Select SDX. Select roms. Select CuteRomX.zip. Press Home. Cute Rom X will install at this time.
Return to main menu and select Leave Recovery. Select Reboot to system.
Cute Rom X will boot up for the first time, this process can take a while.
Go to the app list and select Superuser. If it does not ask, to up go to Settings and select "Su binary v original" and allow it to update.
You now have a rooted Virgin Mobile Intercept based on Android 2.1, a custom recovery, custom OS, custom kernel.
Now we are going to get wifi tethering to work.
Download and install
http://code.google.com/p/android-wifi-tether/downloads/detail?name=wifi_tether_v3_0-pre12.apk&can=2&q= onto your phone. (The regular market app probably won't work.)
Now download the latest wifi drivers for your computer.
Now open up Wifi Tether on your phone and go to settings. Now, for optimal compatibility, change SSID to be named wifi, change channel to 06, and change LAN to 10.10.1.0/24.
Now go back, and tap - press to start wifi tethering -
It should go off without an error (if you do get one, just shut it down and and start it back up again.)
Now wait a bit on your computer, and you should see a wifi network with the SSID you put (wifi) on the network list. Connect to it. Wait a little bit.
Your PC is now tethered to your phone via wifi! It might be a tad slow, but hey.
*additional notes for bricked phone sufferers.*I will give some advice on getting out of the bricked phone state.
The main objective when you have a bricked phone is to shell into that phone via adb.
Once you have a shell into your phone via adb, you should be able to resolve the issue with standard rom/recovery/kernel installation instructions.
If you are having trouble getting your computer to recognize your phone via USB try these things:
Pray.
Restart phone in recovery mode, and check to see if it connects.
Restart phone in download mode.
Restore factory defaults.
If the above do not work, and you are unable to boot into the main OS try these things:
Keep restarting phone and waiting.
Keep restarting and pressing buttons.
Once you are finally in, and if it boot loops, try turning on and off USB debugging and try mounting it.
If it is still boot looping and it still doesn't recognize the phone, just wait. Let it boot loop several times, and it should eventually be recognized.