December 25, 2009 at 8:45 pm

Hard root or how to get a full-fledged Russified HTC Hero with Google applications from the "cropped"


    Many stare toward the phone on the Android OS.
    And, among the available options, it is HTC Hero for many that is a cherished dream.
    Unfortunately, for some reason Google does not like Ukrainian citizens and does not allow officially selling phones with Android Market in Ukraine - even with its free version ...
    And besides, there are many phones from other countries that do not have Russian or are also missing on the gray market market.
    But, the charm of OS Android is in its openness ... So, under the cut, I’ll try to tell how you can reflash the phone with full firmware with a full Android Market, Russification and the ability to buy paid programs.
    This manual is especially relevant for the official Ukrainian HTC Hero, but is suitable for owners of any Hero who want to change the firmware of their phone or open access to additional features of their phone.

    • The update will reset all settings and personal data on the phone so sync contacts with gmail!
    • All that you do, you do at your own peril and risk and no one will be liable if something you do wrong and your Hero turn into a brick (the probability is minimal, but you never know who have any crooked hands


    The whole process of unlocking and flashing the phone can be divided into 2 main stages:
    1. Flashing a modified Recovery- a special menu for restoring and flashing phones that will allow you to flash third-party firmware (not from HTC)
    2. Directly flash third-party firmware.

    1. Firmware for a modified Recovery
    You should start by checking the firmware version of your phone. It depends on how difficult the process of “breaking” the firmware will be. After flashing version 411.5 in Hero, some holes were closed and unlocking the phone became much more difficult. To check the version, go to Phone settings- About phone and look at the firmware version:
    • If you have firmware 411.5 or earlier, I congratulate you. Unlocking your phone will not be difficult - for you Option No. 1 :
    • If you have newer firmware, but the phone is official Russian (PCT sticker) - for you Option No. 2
    • If you have an official Ukrainian telephone, or a telephone from countries farther away, and they have new firmware, you are out of luck, the most difficult Option No. 3 awaits you

    Option number 1 (the easiest) Suitable for phones with old firmware.
    Installing third-party recovery - It will allow you to install updates without a digital signature. So let's go:
    You should have Internet connection on your phone, preferably Wi-Fi, as download will have about 5 megabytes.
    • We go into the phone’s settings and in the “Applications” menu put a tick in front of “Unknown sources”. We respond to the warning in the affirmative.
    • We open the browser and enter r.androidfan.ru/flashrec.apk (~ 83 Kb) in the address bar. Then we press Enter, download the application and install it. You can install flashrec without internet, then you need to put flashrec.apk in the root of the SD card. Then open the browser and enter the following perverted address:
      content: //com.android.htmlfileprovider/sdcard/flashrec.apk
    • We launch Recovery Flasher, it should be the first in the list of applications.
      In the input field there should be a link to r.androidfan.ru/recovery-hero.img (~ 3.5 Mb) Click "Download Recovery Image" and wait for it to download. Alternatively, if wi-fi is not at hand and it’s a pity to waste precious traffic, then you can put recovery-hero.img on a USB flash drive, and in the address bar type /sdcard/recovery-hero.img in the address bar.
      We backup the old Recovery to a memory card , for this, click "Create a backup of Recovery".
      Click "flash Recovery", if everything goes well, then the message "Firmware is completed" should appear. Congratulations, you received a pass to the world of third-party firmware

    Option # 2 (more complicated)
    You are out of luck, and your firmware version is Higher than 411.5 - you have to go through the “humiliating” downgrade procedure - downgrading the firmware to open “closed holes”. You will need the official older HTC Hero firmware

    And then - look and do Option No. 1

    Option No. 3 (the most difficult)
    If you do not have a Ukrainian (Chinese, Vietnamese, etc.) phone or option No. 2 issued Wrong CID, then only the creation of GoldCard will save you , which will allow you to flash your phone official firmware from any other regions.
    For this you need:
    • Computer with SD card reader + Sd-MicroSd adapter
    • Program HxD Hex Editor
    • A microSD card with a capacity of 128 MB to 2GB (the native card from the camplet is not always suitable for operation) SanDisk flash drives often do not work with this method, my method worked only with transend microSD to 2GB

    Step 1. Find out the unique serial number of the card. To do this, set the phone terminal Emulator (http://r.androidfan.ru/terminal.apk), run it and type the following command:
    ls /sys/class/mmc_host/mmc1/
    get the kind of response: device mmc1: XXXX (XXXX- unique number),
    then give the command:
    cat /sys/class/mmc_host/mmc1/mmc1:XXXX/cid
    Do for example, my number turned out to be: 1b534d303030303010b1de9d11008860
    upd: As prompted, we turn the code: download QMAT from here. Removing the demo version only works for 10 minutes. Select Cryptoanalysis Tools then Crypto Toolbox. At the bottom of the form there is a text box, enter your sid there, click Reverse String. In the received number, the first two characters replace 00 - for example 12345678910 will become 00345678910
    Step 2. Go here revskills.de/pages/goldcard.htmland enter your email and the number received, you will receive a file (goldcard.img) to your mail that you need to write to the beginning of the flash drive.
    Step No. 3 Through the card reader and adapter, insert the card into the computer, format the flash drive cleanly in fat32
    Copy the file to it from here: files.androidfan.ru/flash/hero/RUU_Hero_HTC_RUS_2.73.411.5.rom.zip , after renaming it to heroimg.zip
    Step number 4. Launch the HxD Hex Editor. In it, in the upper bar, select Extra> Open Disk. In the column Physical disk, select Removable Disk (Fascha stick), uncheck "Open as Readonly), and click OK.
    image
    Go to Extra - Open Disk Image, and select the goldcard.img, which we received by mail (when opening, select "Sector Size" 512 (Hard disks / Floppy disks), and click OK.
    image
    Next, from the goldcard.img file, copy all the items from 00000000 to 00000170 and paste it with a replacement into the Removable Disk (your stick). Then click on save and vaula - your GoldCard is ready!
    And then - look and do Option No. 2 , then - Option No. 1
    As a result of all these simple transformations, we get a cyclopentane perhydrofinant phone, ready for any adventure. THOSE. to any third-party firmware.
    And now the second stage, which is much simpler than the first
    2. Directly flashing the phone
    Firmware for HTC Hero there are many, most of them you can find here
    Here is a small selection with comments lelvisl

    For flashing any of them, you will need to download the firmware file, rename it to update.zip, put in the root of the sd card.
    After that, go into the recovery phone (when you turn on, press the Home button)
    - Make a factory reset - wipe (delete the old firmware data)
    - Apply update - reflash the phone with modified firmware

    If you managed to do all of the above, I congratulate you on successfully breaking your phone!

    And the last, if you want to officially buy paid programs in the Android Market (while this is not available for the CIS countries) - download and install the Market Enabler program .
    It will allow you to replace the code of the cellular network, introducing you as a user of mobile networks of the countries of the "first world" according to Google - those where purchase of programs is allowed.
    PS: In preparing the material, the materials of the AndroidFan forum were used , and especially the users of hobbit19 , tamerlan311 , lelvisl.
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