How To Install / Flash Firmware on Samsung Galaxy S 2 GT i9100

This Tutorial is about flashing firmware on your Samsung Galaxy S2 GT i9100. I posted a step by and easy tutorials , please read complete guide once and then apply , if you skip any step then it can cause of bricked phone.

Disclaimer: Follow this Guide on your risk and if your device gets damaged or bricked during the process, AndroidFlip.com is not responsible. Please read all warnings and notes and follow steps carefully

(I) Know about everything

There are some things that you may know before flashing firmware on your phone , little bit huge so we separated it here – FAQ about firmware flashing on Samsung androids

(II) Preparing Your phone

1. Go to settings>>applications>>development and enable usb debugging

2. Follow this guide – Preparing your Android phone before upgrading / installing firmware 

If you have rooted phone or using any custom ROM Then you will have to clear cache and wipe data which can done by booting your phone in recovery mode and select Wipe data/factory reset and also select wipe cache partition

(III) Download required things

1. Download ODIN3 V1.83 – it is a tool that is used to flash firmware on your phone
2. Drivers – Download and install drivers that are required to detect your phone by pc
3. Download Firmware for your phone
4. Download  .PIT File
5. An Archive (.zip / .rar) file extractor, usually all pc owners have this tool . In case you don’t have any use 7zip archive extractor

(IV) Instructions to Install Firmware

1. First extract SAMSUNG_USB.rar and install drivers on pc
2. Extract Firmware files on safe place, you will get some .tar file so please don’t extract .tar files [Password= samfirmware.com]
3. Run Odin3 v1.83.exe by right click and select run as admin  
   
   
4. After extracting Firmware 
   
   =>(A)  If you got three or more files then Select Re-Partition , Auto Reboot andF.Reset Time  
   
   
     
   =>(B) If you got only single file then select Auto Reboot and F.Reset Time  
   
5. Now its time to Select .tar files from firmware folder,   
   
   =>(A)  If you got three or more files then 
   Click on PIT and Select .pit file 
   Click on PDA and Select .tar file with CODE / PDA in the name 
   Click on PHONE and Select .tar file with MODEM in the name 
   Click on CSC and Select .tar file csc / csc-multi in the name 
   (See Image below carefully to understand which files to select)  
   
   
   =>(B)  If you got only single files , then 
   
   Click on PDA and select single .tar file 
   
   
6. Switch off your phone
7. Now boot it in download mode , to do that press & hold volume down and middle keyand while holding both press power on key  
   
   
   
   if your phone is unable to boot in download mode don’t proceed to next step ,please try again until it boot in download mode 
   
   
8. When entered in download mode connect your phone to pc with the help of usb cable
9. You will see ID:COM section turn yellow and in message boxes “ADDED” appears, that means your phone is ready to start flashing process 
   
   
10. Now Click on “START” Button 
    
    
11. Do not disconnect the cable or turn off the device, it will reboot when it finishes.

Congratulations you have successfully installed firmware on your Samsung Galaxy S 2, Now last step left is clearing cache data.

1. boot your phone in recovery mode ,to do that  press and hold VOLUME UP andMIDDLE KEY ,while holding both press POWER ON
2. you will see your phone booted in recovery mode , in recovery mode touch screen will not work so use volume UP and Down navigate through options and MIDDLE KEY to confirm
3. choose “wipe cache partition” from menu
4. it will clear the cache data
5. now select reboot system now 

[Source]

Read more »

Preparing your Android Phone Before Upgrading Firmware

Upgrading your phones firmware and getting bunch of new features is really exited thing but new firmware comes with many problem.

You will lost your almost important data, settings and applications. so before upgrading we have to create complete backup of our data and some other task like -preparing pc. below you can see complete guide of preparing phone before upgrading.

Please follow all steps of this guide , because it is essential for every android phone before upgrading / installing firmware. 

(1)  Check your phone compatibility

The first and most important thing is to check your phone’s current firmware version and status of sim to ensure that you can update your phone or not . you can check firmware version by going to settings > about phone .

Other factor is if your phone is locked with network like T-Mobile , AT&T or any of your area. Then it is Probably possible  that you can’t update your phone with the firmware of unlocked and international version phone. check your phone network lock status by following this very basic guide –

1. Did your phone have any company logo on it ?
2. Do you purchased your phone from a mobile operator store ?
3. Do you got your phone under contract with any sim provider ?
4. Does your phone blocks when you insert another operators sim ?
5. Do you see mobile operators logo when you switch on/off your phone ?

If any one or more question’s answer is "YES" then it is confirmed your phone is locked with network and you need to skip normal update process . Wait for particular network firmware update

(2)  Backup things

Note: While upgrading phone manually or installing any leaked/beta/unofficial firmware , please make backup with the methods below. pc suite software for your phone will not recognize your phone after upgrade and you will not able to restore your backup created by your phone’s pc suite (e.g. for Samsung KIES)

I). Backing up phone data

Updating firmware process will delete all data from your phone like – message,contacts,calendar . So we have to make backup on sd card or on pc or on online backup service. You can follow this Guide to Know about backing up your phone data before upgrading.

How to Backup Android Phone data before Upgrading Firmware

II). Making phone apps backup

Upgrading firmware will also delete your pre-installed and purchased apps , to get these apps back you can make your apps backup. Please note that you need to root your phone to make this backup and restore it. Follow this article below –

How to Make Full Android Backup with Titanium Backup, and How to Restore it

III). Backing up APN settings

Updating firmware also restores MMS and APN settings of your mobile operator. To backup these settings you can go to Applications > Settings > Wireless and Network > Mobile Networks > Access Point Names and write down these settings on paper , after upgrade reconfigure them manually  OR use this recommended site to get settings in seconds

(3)  Charge your phone

This is the most essential thing while upgrading firmware , before doing anything with your phone please charge your phone battery at least 75% .

if your phone switched off during update process then you will have a nice brick (dead phone)

(4)  Preparing Your PC

1. Very important thing, remove / completely disable all software that are used with your phone, on PC . This will prevent other softwares to interfere in firmware flashing
2. Install all needed drivers of your phone to work updater software properly (For samsung android phones you can use these drivers)
3. Check that you have right updater software version, before following the updating guide
4. Make sure you have administrator permission on pc in order to work updater software properly
5. Also Stop any antivirus , firewall software on your computer

(5) Remove SIM and SD card

Many people don’t follow this step and it can cause many problems , so I highly recommend to remove memory card and SIM[Source]

Read more »

How to Make Full Android Backup via Titanium Backup, and How to Restore

Backup and restore in android phones is now necessity of users. In this modern age there were many devices out there especially Android OS phones used like a PC. According to using there were lots of activities are done on a single phone. And suddenly all created data crashed cause of mistaken or need of custom settings of older phone in new phone is being a headache for users.

As in android phones there were a inbuilt feature is also come with the phone for creating backup. But they were not much fine and ease like. So there is great news for android users related to this subject. There is third party backup application for android users namedTitanium Backup

Key feature of “Titanium Backup”

• Backup of every app with its associated data.
• Backup of every app with its system settings.
• Contacts and card backup.
• Schedule Backup.

Required Things

1. Titanium backup. Grab it here.
2. Android phone with rooting ability, Grab rooting guide for your phone
3. After rooting install Superuser app. Grab it here. (After rooting will see this app in applications folder)

Instructions to Install Titanium Backup app in your rooted android device.

1) Installing Titanium backup

First enable unknown source in application settings (settings>applications). After that root your phone and now you can install titanium backup on your device via android market

When you will run it , allow root permissions to it via superuser.

2) Creating first Titanium backup

1. Open Titanium backup app.
2. Tap on the Backup/Restore tab in home screen of “Titanium Backup-All”.
   
3. In this portion press menu button of phone. Now a slide pop -up menu is appear, select batch from this.
   
4. The batch menu is appearing. Now choose “[RUN] Backup all users apps+ system data”.
   
5. Above menu is appear where we have two option one is “Exclude active apps” where we can uncheck to particular apps which apps data is not needed for creating backup. And other is “Kill active apps” which select all of them.
   
6. Now choose kill active apps. And tap on the button “Run the batch operation”.
7. Now the Backup process is started and takes some time to complete.
   
8. When process is completed the Backup and Restore menu is again appear. Here some smiley faces, caution triangle and check marks are right after the apps appears. For more tap menu and click on legend from the pop-up window.
   
9. Except smiley faces and check marks there were caution triangles are the sign of missing backups so run the batch again until all becomes in smiley and checked.
10. Now it’s completed. We are suggested you to safe a copy of this backup in your PC by copying TitaniumBackup Folder from SD card to PC.

3) Scheduling Titanium backups

It’s happen by choosing the “Schedules” tab in Titanium home screen.

4) Restoring Titanium backups

1. Go to the batch menu in which we go earlier. Now select your suitable option from the “Restore” Header.
   
2. Like if we want to restore angry bird unlocked levels that have miss then for an individual app hit on the top option.
   

That’s all is about the use of Titanium Backup app in your android phone

Enjoy! Your android phone upgraded with Titanium Backup feature with the happy feelings of restoring every loss thing in your phone anytime, anywhere with the Titanium backup App. If you face any problem you can read Titanium Backup wiki here[Source]

Read more »

How To backup DATA before Upgrading Android phone

Open source makes android more flexible regarding to choosing the device, there is huge range of android phones are available in the market ,with different hardware capacities and different manufacturer . but Good thing always have its bad side - it is so hard to select right phone and settle on one.

and reason behind it is -every  week manufacturers are launching new devices with better hardware and look , obviously everyone want highest capabilities . So we upgrade our old device and while upgrading your phone main problem occurs “migrating your data to new one”

you need to backup all your contacts,sms,e-mail,notes and settings as well. today i am posting some useful ways to backup your android phone data and restore it anytime when you purchase a new phone OR exchange your phone with someone for a short period of time.

1. Android Cloud Storage:

This one is free and android’s native backup option provided by Google. this option is only available on android 2.2 or later. You can find it on your phone via going to settings>privacy. when you enable this option it will sync your installed applications, wi-fi settings and wallpapers. there is also an option available “automatic restore”. it backups saved application data, such as game progress or app settings.

when you sign in with your Google account on new device ,it automatically restore your data. it will apply all your settings and restores all installed applications.

but this default feature is not complete solution due to its limitations.

1. if you are running android 2.2 later version with manufacturer with custom shell , it is not possible to backup because manufacturer block permission for Google
2. it didn’t backup apps your all applications in attempt to thwart piracy
3. it will only back up apps whose developers have specifically enabled that capability

2. My Backup pro:

MyBackup Pro , this application is a premium solution . it is available for $4.60 from android market and it is one of the best. It will allow you to back up almost everything, such as your applications (also those that are not supported by Google’s backup ), contacts,  SMS/MMS messages, alarms,bookmarks, user dictionary. it can also backup homescreen widgets and shortcuts.

it is very simple to use , when you start this app it will ask you to backup application,other data. it has two option to store backup first is on SD card and second mybackuppro’s secure servers. it also let you schedule backups.

3. Titanium backup:

This application is available both free and paid versions ($US6.14). just unlike mybackup pro it requires root permissions and it can backup restricted application by system as well. in short it can backup absolutely everything. it is not only a backup application but also includes tools useful for rooted devices, such as file encryption, ROM management, application version freezing, and an experimental bloatware exterminator for uninstalling pre-installed softwares.

if you want to restore backup created but titanium backup then it is fine but if you have a new device to restore , then it can be problematic . because rooting method of different devices are different and can take long time to discover.

I advise you to always use backup solutions that not require root permisions[Source]

Read more »

Frequently Asked Questions About Installing Firmware on Samsung Androids

Q: What is Firmware and flashing ?
A:  This is little bit huge answer so we have separated it in this post – What is firmware, flashing ?

Q: Why We need to flash firmware ?
A:

• Usually latest updates are leaked and available before official updates so we have to flash them manually using a pc software
• To Downgrade Firmware
• To install another country firmware version

Q:   Will I need to root my phone?
A:   No.

Q:   Will I still get root permissions on new firmware ?
A:   No, it will unroot your phone so make sure there are rooting available for your new firmware

Q:   When i use one of your firmwares and i flash my phone, do i lose my guarantee?
A:   Yes and no, if you do it right there will be no problems about guarantee, but if phone get brick under flash you will lose it

Q:   How can i flash correct?
A:   Simple just follow our guides and take always your region software.

Q:   What could happen if i flash correct but use different region software.
A:   Your phone could stop working or Samsung’s own KIES program will not recognize your cellphone. also possible to lose 3G networks.

Q:   Samsung Mobile says i will lost my guarantee when i flash my phone.
A:  Yes that’s correct, but when you flash correct Samsung can’t see any problem there.

If you have any other questions please read F.A.Q on samfirmware.com

Read more »

What is Firmware, Rom and Firmware Flashing ?

In android world it is possible that (i am sure) many time you heard about firmwares, roms and flashing.

These strange words really annoys newbies , So i created a simple article on it. I hope this will help you to understand what is firmwares, roms and flashing process

What is Firmware ?

This is very comman question popups in mind that what the heck is this firmware. Defination of firmware is

Permanent software programmed into a read-only memory

In Simple words you can understand it like windows for pc , in case of android we are going to do same thing – installing firmware (Froyo,Gingerbread etc.) on your phone. All phones have their different firmwares and installing tools regard less to the Andriod version (Froyo,Gingerbred). So never think that we can install any firmware on any android phone like we do in PCs.

What is Flashing ?

Flashing stands for installing a firmware in ROM , in simple words flashing is called installing firmware on your phone.

What is ROM ?

This is also very interesting question to answer – ROM is the memory where firmware installs . It cannot be seen by connecting your phone to pc via usb cable either Browsing  in phone . You can see peoples are talking about ROMs  like

This is Gingerbread ROM or froyo ROM or miui ROM or blah blah ROM

Actually they are talking about firmware that is going to be installed on ROM .

How to install Firmware ?

Firmware installing is very simple like installing windows on pc , but in case of android we need to run a small software on pc and need to select which firmware to flash and that’s it, these small software and firmwares are different for every phone .

There are two methods of installing firmwares

1. Via  Phone Updating Software : While you update your phone , it is also a firmware installing – but you dont have any control on it , you can use this only when company launches firmware updates.
2. Manual installing method :  This is a little risky method and used by developers , using this method you have full control on installing firmwares. you can install any firmware you want[Source]

Read more »

How to ROOT Samsung Galaxy S 2 Using CF-ROOT Kernel [Easiest & Best Method]

Previously we learnt How to Flash Roms on Samsung Galaxy S 2 ,Now we will see how to change root and install the recovery. The process is extremely simple, but not without dangers, act only if you are conscious, what you are doing.

You have to flash a modified kernel, containing root, busybox, and ClockworkMod (CWM3) recovery.

The procedure is usually that we have seen Previously in Flashing ROM on Galaxy S2.

1. Go to settings>about and check your firmware version it is like XX*** format , note down last three alphabets . For example we have XXKG3 firmware then we have to download this file “CF-Root-SGS2_XX_OXA_KG3-v4.1-CWM4.zip”
2. You can Find and download CF ROOT Kernel file from here regarding to your firmware version,
3. Unzip it and you will see a .tar file, it is possible that your pc shows .tar file as extractable archive but dont extract it further. save this .tar file on safe place like desktop
4. Once done, download ODIN3-v1.85 from here  [use only this version otherwise it can bring serious problems]
5. Unzip it and you will see two files first is .exe and second .ini
6. launch ODIN by double clicking on Odin3 v1.85.exe, click on PDA button and select CF-Root-xxx-vX.X.tar file.
7. Check Auto Reboot ,F.Reset Time and leave Re-partition unchecked.
8. After this, put your Samsung Galaxy S 2 in download mode. to do that press and holdvolume down and middle key ,while holding both press power on key (dont leave until it boots in download mode)
9. Once your are done with putting your phone in download mode, connect your phone to the computer via USB.
10. Now in ODIN, click on the Start button and wait for the kernel flashing process to complete.
11. Once the process is over, your phone will automatically reboot.

When you restart your ROM will remain intact, but you will have root permissions with the recovery .

Thanks to the recovery ,now you can make a full backup of your ROM and push towards the cooked ROM installation. The procedure is always the same for any firmware version  but you need to download CF-Root-xxx-vX.X.tar file according to your firmware version.

If you want to remove yellow warning triangle then

Download your firmware’s stock(original) kernel file, you can find it here. CF-root file was also a kernel but it was modified to root your phone.

When you flash your firmware’s original kernel after rooting it will remove yellow warning triangle. Whole Method is same , just download stock kernel file and flash it like we did above[Source]

Read more »

How To Increase Battery Life Of Android Phones

Android is the most popular and mostly used mobiles operating system around the world and the importance of android is increasing day by day. if you are a owner of any android smartphone than one problem is common and that is “Low Batter life of the device“. it happens with every single user of smartphone so not a new thing. in morning you have fully charged your devices and by coming to afternoon you noticed that hardly 20%-15% battery is remaining and that’s very annoying.

So i will explain you and provide you some basic and advance tips to improve the performance of battery life, so without talking much more about it lets straight away go to the main topic and discuss the various ways through which you can improve/increase the battery life of your android device.

Increase Battery Life Of Android

How To Increase Battery  Life of Android :

Follow the below mentioned steps and you will surely get some improvement in the battery life with effective performance.

• Reduce Screen Brightness :

Screen brightness is the main part which consumes lots of battery and due to this you face low battery life. by default the “Automatic Brightness” box is checked so first thing to do is un-check that box and reduce it to the lower level so the brightness consume not that much battery. you can do by going to Settings >> Display >> Brightness >> And Reduce it to the lower level.

• Power Saving Mode :

It’s always recommended to use power saving mode because this feature provides some excellent result in terms of increasing battery life. you can activate it by going to Settings >> Display >> Power Saving Mode >> Check it.

• Screen Timeout :

Another way you can save the batter is by reducing the screen timeout time. normally it comes by default with 15 Seconds which you can reduce it to 5 Seconds. so that much battery power will be saved. you can do this by going to Settings >> Display >> Screen Timeout.

• Don’t Use Live Wallpapers :

The greatest feature of android is it supports live wallpaper and the look of this wallpaper is just great to watch but this is one of the disadvantages also because it consumes lots of battery power due to its high graphics. so its always advisable to use normal wallpaper instead of live wallpaper.

• Connectivity :

Android has lots of connectivity options like Wi-Fi, Data Network, Bluetooth, GPRS and GPS. so due to high usage of this the battery gets drained. so its batter that you toggle off this option when its not required. also in Data Network select 2G instead of 3G. and when the its not required tunr it off.

• Home Screen and Widgets :

The android home screen has 4 to 7 screen and sometimes which are of no use to have that much home screen. so remove the unnecessary screens. another thing is if you place too many widgets on home screen it will reduces the battery power. so use less widget and remove unnecessary home screens.

• Background Data and Sync :

its Highly recommended that to turn off the background data and sync so it will reduces the load of direct connectivity. background data and sync required your device to be connected all the time to receive notifications and updates and due to this only the battery gets drain.

• Vibration Mode :

If possible only use vibration in silent mode. when you are using normal mode its advisable to not to activate vibration mode because it has also impact on the battery life.

• Some Apps which can help you :

In android market there are many apps available to solve this problem but i strongly recommends only two apps :

1. Juice Defender.
2. Easy Battery Saver + Task Killer.

Juice Defender is all time favorite and many people are using it. it has many battery saving mode which you can activate and see the improvement in the performance as on the other way Easy Task Killer has also modes that you can switch to and use it but along with that they provide task killer also so that you can close all unnecessary application which are running in background. but i recommend you to NOT to use and task killer apps because they them self contains lots of batter power.

These are the some basic tips that you can implement to improve or increase the battery performance of your android device and i have also tell you the apps which you can surely try out to see what you are getting from this apps.

If you have any suggestions or any issues do leave a comment below and i will be happy to help you all. do share this articles with your friends on Facebook and Twitter.[Source]

Read more »