Some people have asked me how to actually get rid of the Vodafone Nexus One firmware EPF30 and upgrade their device to Froyo (Android 2.2) pretty much now.
Note: the only known way of doing this is by unlocking the boot loader of your Nexus One and that will void any warranty you might have on the phone. I just didn’t care because I planned to hack and play around with this phone anyway right away when I purchased it. So be warned: if you decide to go ahead it’s your own risk – if your phone breaks within the warranty period, you’ll be on your own.
Also: unlocking your boot loader and installing custom firmware on your phone is in principle not without risks. You might brick your phone, you might experience weird effects with a different firmware, the universe might collapse all of a sudden – tons of stuff could go wrong. For the vast majority of most of the people this method works just fine and it doesn’t seem to be illegal to go with this approach in most countries.
Still: If you decide to try any of the explanations I’m providing here, it’s your own choice and by your own free will. Don’t ask me for support, I’m also not liable for any damage you inflict on your device, other hardware, yourself or other living creatures of any species. Make sure to check if the authorities of the country you live and reside in don’t think it’s an illegal act of espionage and computer hacking to modify the boot loader of you own phone that you most likely have purchased for a few hundred dollars/euros etc.
This process will also most likely wipe your phone a few times during the process. Make sure you have backups of everything on the phone or can easily restore it. Don’t blame anyone but yourself if you haven’t. If you have all the files ready, the acutal updating will take about 15 minutes. Ready?
Step 1: Unlock the boot loader of your Google Nexus One
You need:
– Fastboot (zip contains Win/Mac/Linux versions)
– Your Nexus One connected to your computer via the USB cable (best is to never unplug it during the whole process)
Actions:
[Update: I forgot to mention one step here: Go to the settings screen of the phone, select “Applications” – “Development” and enable USB debugging]
– Switch off your phone.
– Push and hold the trackball, switch on phone while doing that -> you end up in the boot loader of the phone. Don’t do anything yet.
– Take the Fastboot download and unzip it into any folder you like. Open a command prompt and run the executable that matches your platform. I’m on OS X, so I did: ./fastboot-mac oem unlock
– That will trigger a new screen on your phone, and you have to confirm that you really want to unlock the boot loader. If you still think that’s a good idea, confirm and your phone will do a few things, it might go through one or two restart-like procedures and finally it will restart and boot into the operating system. Notice that from now on you have a little unlocked padlock icon below the Nexus Icon when you start up the phone.
Result:
Unlocked boot loader on your Nexus One, still on EPF30 though.
Step 2: Downgrade the Nexus One to firmware ERD79
You need:
– Firmware image: PASSIMG_Passion_Google_WWE_1.01.1700.1_ERD79_release_signed.zip (google for it, I’m not linking to it from here)
– Your Nexus One connected to your computer via the USB cable
Actions:
– Take the downloaded firmware and for ease of use unzip the file into the same folder as you’ve put Fastboot into
– Switch off your phone
– Push and hold the trackball, switch on phone while doing that -> you end up in the boot loader of the phone. Don’t do anything yet.
– Run the command: ./fastboot-mac devices
– It should list a device serial number, mine started with HT followed by lots of digits. That means your phone has been recognised. Good.
– Now we flash the ERD79 image on the phone. You need to run a series of commands in your command prompt:
./fastboot-mac erase cache
./fastboot-mac flash userdata userdata.img
./fastboot-mac flash boot boot.img
./fastboot-mac flash system system.img
./fastboot-mac flash recovery recovery.img
./fastboot-mac reboot
Result:
Now your phone will reboot – don’t panic, it might just take a while. After it has come up (again wiped), it will be on ERD79. That’s a win because from here we can easily get to Froyo in two more steps.
Step 3: Upgrade to ERE27
You need:
– Firmware image: signed-passion-ERE27-from-ERD79.a487b405.zip (google for it, I’m not linking to it from here)
– Your Nexus One connected to your computer via the USB cable
Actions:
– Take the downloaded firmware and rename it to update.zip (nothing else, all lowercase, no update.zip.zip etc)
– Mount the Nexus One as a USB drive and copy update.zip on the SD memory card
– Switch off your phone
– Push and hold the trackball, switch on phone while doing that -> you end up in the boot loader of the phone.
– Select Bootloader
– Select Recovery, when the Android robot shows up (also an exclamation mark) press Power and Volume Up at the same time
– Select “Apply sdcard:update.zip” and the installation will start. This will take quite a while and you will get another Android robot screen but your phone WILL eventually come back on firmware ERE27 (wiped).
Result:
Your phone is on firmware ERE27.
Step 4: Upgrade to FRF85B (Froyo)
You need:
– Firmware image: signed-passion-ota-42745.dc39ca1f.zip
– Your Nexus One connected to your computer via the USB cable
Actions:
– Take the downloaded firmware and rename it to update.zip (nothing else, all lowercase, no update.zip.zip etc)
– Mount the Nexus One as a USB drive and copy update.zip on the SD memory card
– Switch off your phone
– Push and hold the trackball, switch on phone while doing that -> you end up in the boot loader of the phone.
– Select Bootloader
– Select Recovery, when the Android robot shows up (also an exclamation mark) press Power and Volume Up at the same time
– Select “Apply sdcard:update.zip” and the installation will start. This will take quite a while and MUCH LONGER than step 3 and you will get another Android robot screen but your phone WILL eventually come back on firmware FRF85B (wiped).
Result:
Your phone is on Froyo, Android 2.2
Next steps: Treat your Nexus One well, because your out of warranty now. Have fun with Android 2.2, Flash Player 10.1 beta and AIR 2 for Android!
Great Man!!! It works flawlesly!
Thx!!
Thanks for the really informative post. Worked perfectly but at first I couldn’t get it to work. I fell over at the first hurdle. Then I found out the first step was missing:
In Application settings => Development, enable ‘USB Debugging’ and power down your phone
Cheers
This is actually true, thx. I had done that step a while ago and forgot to mention it here. Post updated.
Thanks for the info!
I saw some discussion about rooting a froyo system without unlocking . It seems it works with all current FRF-versions, so does it mean that, when VF finally releases the froyo-update, say, after two weeks, we can easily re-flash the nexus one with the official ROM (or whatever other mods) without unlocking the phone?
@d6g – the problem is that the discussed approach there wouldn’t work with the VF EPF30 firmware. If you have another look at the post and the prerequisites you’ll find that you’d need a phone that is already on FRF72 at least. But to get there, you’d need to unlock the VF Nexus One in the first place, it’s a chicken-and-egg problem in this case. In general you’re right though. If you have a phone with an unlocked boot loader from T-Mobile or AT&T and manage to get the OTA Froyo then you’ll be able to root it without unlocking the boot loader from then on. Doesn’t help the EPF30-“victims” though 🙂
… it seems the url in the previous comment was escaped. here it is: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=710842
@kai, i am aware of that, surely its a no-go for us EPF30 🙁
but what i meant was, since it seems possible to root without unlock once you have froyo, if one really care about warranty, he can wait until vf release a froyo version and see if root+install Google’s version from there is doable. If it works you get rid of vf rom while keeping the warranty, if not it is still not too late to do the unlock and root i guess. However, this is gonna work only if the froyo update from vf is not much different from FRF83/FRF85B.
@dg6 Yes, you are right. You could in theory wait for the official VF froyo build and then try to apply the methodology to finally get rid of the Vodafone build for good without unlocking the boot loader. As you realise yourself – it might or might not work depending on VF’s modifications, but if one really worries about their warranty then it might be a way to go.
Thanks man, you rock.
Thnx, workt perfectly on my N1 from the netherlands.
Thnx man, it just worked perfect on my nexus one in nederland. No more vodafone.
Please help me out someone I am stuck since I cant find the ERD79 file anywwhere. Please send me one live link where I can find this one. Now am kionda stuck Urgent help with the website qud be truly appreciated
the link for signed-passion-ota-42745.dc39ca1f.zip no longer works for me and I cant seem to google it?
@leecasey Yeah, google seems to have taken the file off their servers. When I google it, I find plenty of links or 3rd party hosted sites though.
My search was brief admitidly but it appeared they all linked to the original. Ill search a bit harder. Thank-you.
Hi, in step 4, when the android robot comes up with an exclamation mark, after selecting Recovery. I’ve pressed volume up and power but the same screen has been there for around 10 minutes now. Is this normal? Should I just be patient?
@leecasey Hm, my best guess would be that you haven’t pressed the keys at the same time or something. I had that a few times that it didn’t respons instantly. It never took 10 minutes for me. From the exclamation mark droid to the screen where you can initiate the loading of the update.zip shouldn’t take more than max a few secs.
The third party links give corrupt files too…wud u mind answering me once (ever) directly Kai??
@Vivek123 if you give me your email address I will give you the links I used. Alternatively, just google the file names and look in the results for MediaFire. That’s what I used and it’s worked perfectly.
Yeah tnx m8!
Brilliant, works like a charm.
Thanks
Worked like charm. Many thanks! 🙂
I bought the N1in Vodafone Spain and my version is EPF21B. How should I proceed? Note: this is my first android device and I have never tried anything like rooting. A link to some “tutorial” or something would be appreciated 🙂 Thanks in advance.
Quick question 1. After the Froyo update do you think the phone then still receive normal OTA updates in the future? I’m guessing it would.
Quick question 2. I might as well root the thing too. At what stage would it be best to do that? I assume it’s done with another tool?
Step one – fine, phone is unlocked
Step 2 – When I run the first flash command, I get hte error “cannot determine image filename for ‘userdata.img’ and similar errors for the other flash commands. It is not installing the ERD79 at all
Any advice?
Sorry ignore my last.. realise my error and to embarrassed to admit it!
but new issue.. got to stage 3 and reboot but now it is constantly rebooting. Is that right?
All ignore last.
I did a downgrade again. This time, went to phone update and saw 2.2 ready! So now I have FRF91 installed. No need to stage 3!!
worked like a charm, just instead of following steps 3 and step 4 i upgraded to froyo ota
Cheers
worked well for me as well. Found a couple of things that may help others or maybe I’m just a bit slow! 🙂
1. ERD79 and ERE27 update DO NOT uncompress in Windows builtin zip or winzip. They do work in 7zip.
2. fastboot-windows.exe is missing some required dll’s to to run on windows. Download the android SDK and run fastboot in the tools directory.
3. I went straight to FRF91 which can be downloaded from googles website.
And a question. Will this phone now receive OTA updates or will I have to do an update.zip trick each time? If it will not receive OTA updates now, is it possible to reconfigure so it will?
@workalotdave
I think the tutorial assumes you have the andoid SDK installed. The DLL’s are you are talking about are in the tools directory, ideally you should add that tools directory to your PATH environment variable.
You will now receive OTA updates as soon as they are released from Google! 🙂
Download link for froyo not working 🙁
Update:
Use this to upgrade from ERE27: http://android.clients.google.com/packages/passion/signed-passion-FRF91-from-ERE27.e410116a.zip
Thanks for the guide, i was really tired of waiting for VF to release the 2.2 update – I tried to upgrade to ERE27(from ERD79), but it wouldn’t accept the signature (downloaded file from mediafire), so i connected to my wifi, and then i could install Andriod 2.2.(but remember to delete update.zip, on your sdcard, if you tried that way first) Hope this will help others out there
Great, works a treat with my Australia Vodafone N1 although I only had to go to Step 3 and then I got a message for the OTA froyo update.
Thanks a million
gracias, thanks
perfect. No hitches. vodafone UK. couldn’t have figured it myself not knowing much about mobile devices and such. as to voiding the warranty…I’m a ex iphone user, and an open source developer. So. It feels good. and it has flash. And I have control of it. I really like it a lot. When I get a mo I imagine it is straightforward to open a shell for it on my desktop, and I look forward to investigating what I own. Legally. Without fear of it breaking next time there is an OS upgrade.
Great, thank you! I’ve win7 on my pc so I got the android SDK to get a working fastboot.exe – after that it all went smoothly and I’m now up to date. thanks a lot!
Hi,
So got past step 1 all good. Downloaded PASSIMG_Passion_Google_WWE_1.01.1700.1_ERD79_release_signed.zip from the net but it would not unzip properly on my Mac and whilst ./fastboot-mac erase cache worked fine, ./fastboot-mac flash userdata userdata.img merely throws up an error.
Any help?
Essentially now have a Nexus One with and unlocked bootloader but can’t get any further.
Cheers!
I followed these instructions on my Australia EPF30 Nexus One, but the resulting 2.2 installation was very unstable. Has anyone had any luck?
I’ve done multiple 2.2 upgrades, including update.zip and the OTA; both with complete clearouts after as well.
Sorted it in the end. Cheers for such a detailed guide!
Thought i’d share the problem i encountered:
Firstly tried to mount the sd card on my debian box, but usb was playing up with “device not ready” .
So I moved to a windows box.
Installed SDK, make sure you do all the updates.. When I tried “fastboot oem unlock” the command would hang with “watitnig for device”…
This was a driver issue, – bascally on my windows2k box, I had to go to control panel, system, devices and find the andoird device which had a big exclamation mark. I then installed the usb driver that comes with the SDK.
Then I could unlock – did the downgrade, and then checked for updates. The phone then started downloading Android 2,2 quite happily – an 82mb download. Note i had previous ran *#*#checkin#*#* a few times on the phone.
Restored my apps via astro file manger, synced my contacts and mostly ready to go.
So no need for step 2 or 3
Thanks Martin. Very helpful info. I also just connected to wifi and downloaded android 22 after getting ERD79
I’m the same as Arivind
I get to ./fastboot-mac flash userdata userdata.img and it doesnt work and says ” error: cannot load ‘userdata.img’ “
Thanks for the guide, i did it successfully from the Vodafone uk firmware, although i had to repeat step 3 because i had the never ending animation on boot up, but all was ok after i re-flashed. I had no need to do step 4 as i got an OTA update straight away. All the files you will need for this upgrade are here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=LF6914QM
could you please send me the commands if i am using windows instead of mac.sorry if the questions sounds daft
by commands i meant command prompts to use if using windows thanks
@rayleee
I am stuck on step 2 getting cannot load userdata.img in your next post you said you sorted it out, but did nto say. Well I am stuck what did you do to get past this error? can anyone help me?
Can anyone help stuck on step2 can not get any command to run. please help!
my stock rom also is EPF21B if that helps am on Vodafone Spain
ummmmm sooo I’m not exactly sure what you mean
if your talking about the command line I would be using on windows i guess it would be close to this?
c:/ documentsandsettings/ users/ jessebox/ desktop/ androidsdk/ fastboot / fastboot-windows flash userdata userdata.img?
sorry if im sounding like a total noob haha
I’ve got a really shitty windows laptop around? could I do step 2 on a windows computer even though I did step 1 on mac?
Just a little tip for command prompt if you are running windows 7, open the folder with the files in it and within that folder hold the shift button down and then right click your mouse, within the pop up menu you will see ‘open command window here’. Then you just type in the various commands directly after the > as instructed (e.g: c:\ folder name>fastboot-windows.exe erase cache). And remember to unzip the Firmware image: PASSIMG_Passion_Google_WWE_1.01.1700.1_ERD79_release_signed.zip into the same folder as Fastboot. Hope i have helped.
@Padlad
Thanks for the tip I will give that a go now and let you know
@Padlad,
I tried this and I don’t see ‘open command window here’ in menu. I have a x64 win 7 edition is that makes a difference. Maybe that functionality your getting from another app on your system?
Andrew, Make sure you have not right clicked on top of any of the files in the folder and also make sure none of the files are hi-lighted when you do the shift/right click. Basically, nothing should be chosen in the folder and you should be doing the shift/right click in the empty space within the folder.
@padlad
YAHOOOOO thanks, I wonder why running cmd this way works and the other didn’t, maybe a x64 thing? well as reported by others I complete step2 and now I am getting the OTA update from our good friends Google. Padlad and bloginblack thank you very much, someone might wnat to update the guide to include these changes
@Padlad
Ahhh it did not work, I think I left the UPDATE.zip file in the SD card directory. the OTA update downloaded and it started doing it thing, then I got the android green man and also an exclamation mark. the install just did not go any further. Do I start the process again now, or have I missed the OTA now and have to manually go through the steps again….I know your thinking what a nob.
@Padlad
Ok I redone the steps and I have the OTA coming in again, this time I have deleted the UPDATE.zip in SD card. lets see what happens, fingers crossed.
@Padland
Ok all good Froyo 2.2 running, only issue is see is SD card is not getting picked up, any ideas, not done a search on google yet, but let me know if you have any ideas.
@padlad
Sorted SD card
Good to know, i was scratching my head on your last problem.
Hey guys, wondering if you could help. I’ve unlocked my bootloader just fine. But I can’t get “PASSIMG_Passion_Google_WWE_1.01.1700.1_ERD79_release_signed.zip” to unzip on my Mac. I’ve tried 4 different programs but all say it’s corrupt. I’ve also tried downloading it from 3 different places but no go.
@padlad
cheers mate
@Wez,
Im having the same problem. Fastboot cannot find the .img of any of ERD79. Some people have figured it out but didn’t share the “secret” to it. Im on a mac as well. Any help would greatly be appreciated.
Hey Wez found the solution. Download a program Untar for Mac which will unzip the file correctly. then extract all the images from the file and place in into your fastboot file that way the directory is the same per the instructions above. steps three and four might not be necessary as the update will automatically come after ERD79. Hope that helps
@Wez,
I got the same also and used 7zip and it worked. not sure if 7zip has a MAC version if not, send me your email and I will email you a new zip file.
@Andrew
Thanks! My email is theflossymonster@me.com.
@Wez,
File is on it’s way to you, you will get a download link for it, you will have 3 days to get the file, that should be enough time!!. Upload is at 10% so you should get email with link in about 30mins
@Andrew
Thanks so much for that!
Unzipped fine but I’m getting “error: cannot load ‘userdata.img'” when I get to that step, previous steps work fine.
I got that also, if you read a few posts above Padlad suggested another way see start of his solution on the 14th “Just a little tip for command prompt if you are running windows 7……” and then he added another post soon after.
Not sure if your on win7 or not, but his solution worked for me.
Is there any help for that userdata.img error for mac people because I got mac and xp
@Jesse Box
I still haven’t figured it out for Mac! Let me know if you find anything.
Australian with a Nexus 1 followed Step 1 & 2 and upon reboot I got the 2.2 OTA update.
Here’s the img I used :
PASSIMG_Passion_Google_WWE_1.01.1700.1_ERD79_release_signed.zip
http://www.mediafire.com/?nzezjuweimy
Cheers BIB!
@Andrew
cannot unzip PASSIMG_Passion_Google_WWE_1.01.1700.1_ERD79_release_signed.zip on windows i have tried quite a few different downloads but no luck
any chance of sending me a cleaner version as i get an error when i try to unzip it
my email is sammontet@gmail.com
Guys I would really appreciate if any of you would let me know to make windows command read the userdata.image file as it seems to fall over at this step.the previous steps worked fine.thanks my email is sammontet@Gmail.com
@Sam
file on its way sam Also to all windows users, when you unzip the file click each file once and then right click you will see a button bottom “Unlock” I have found in the past doing this with other IT work helps files install and run better.
Great! Works flawlessly and you only need Step 1 and 2 the rest is done by OTA update…
Thanks
@andrew
cheers
Just done the deed, thanks for your great instructions! 🙂
You might want to mention to mac users that the zip file won’t uncompress using the Mac OS decompresser. I found a mac equivalent of 7zip to do the job, it’s called Ez7z.
Being something of an Android newbie I do have another (probably stupid) question. Is my phone ‘rooted’ after all this or is there something else I need to do to get that facility?
Cheers Chris for the helpful info about the ez7z unzipper.
Im on mac as well and this process for me has been some what of a hardship and you just help solve one of my problems but I am still getting “error cannot load userdata.img”
What Directory did you use when you were doing step 2, did you just do it on the desktop? did you receive this message at all before you solved the issue? Thats where I am right now and I cant seem to get over this hump. I can erase the cache just fine.
If you have any info on this that would be great!
I’m no expert but here’s what I did
1. Created a folder on my desktop called Fastboot
2. Downloaded Fastboot and unzipped it into my Fastboot folder.
3. Downloaded the ERD79 zip file and put it in my Fastboot folder.
4. Downloaded and installed Ez7z
5. Used Ez7z to unzip the ERD79 file into my Fastboot folder.
6. Opened the terminal application.
7. used cd Desktop/Fastboot to go to the correct location.
After that I just used the commands shown in the article to unlock the bootloader and install the ERD79 image
The really nice thing was, after I had put ERD79 on the phone, it automatically started downloading 2.2 so I didn’t have to do any of the other steps 🙂
Hi,
what if I want to switch to Cyanogenmod 6.0 from EPF30?
Bye,
Andrew
there is another way to get froyo without rooting instructions can be found at this link belwo .I have also copied the instruction below just incase you cant access it
http://forum.vodafone.co.uk/topic/61110-google-nexus-one-android-22-froyo/page__st__940
two things to be wary off before you go ahead
language screen, will be in Korean until you change it to English
ALSO, It does come with a new HBOOT that prevents downgrading apparently though.
This is the korean update gets Froyo with no rooting!
No, it does not require to root your phone and its quite easy actually:
1. download http://android.smart…ease_signed.zip
2. rename it to “passimg.zip”
3. copy it to your sd card in your N1
4. turn off the phone
5. turn on the phone again while holding the trackball, too
6. select Bootloader (control with volume up/down to go up/down and the on/off button to confirm)
7. the N1 will recognise the file as an update, it checks the file and will ask you whether you want to update or not
8. select update
9. wait until the update is completed
10. enjoy froyo
note: all of your data on the phone itself (not the sd card) will be deleted. so better backup before you install froyo.
Chris.
Worked!
Nice work anybody with a Mac is tearing there hair out check out Chris’s simple steps and you should get by fine
how come signed-passion-ota-42745.dc39ca1f.zip is only a few k in size, I thought it was supposed to be several Mb??
Hello could anyone help me!
I have done it till step 2 and now I am on ERD79 but when I try to execute step3. it says “E:signature verification failed” “Installation aborted” could any one help me please…?
Just to add, thanks for this, like others have reported after going to ERD79, I turned on wifi, checked for updates, and 2.2 was already downloading. That’s in an ex-Vodafone N1 without a SIM card in. So to recap:-
– install usb driver from android sdk on your pc
– unlock bootloader. At this point I had a disconcerting error message: FAILED (status read failed (Too many links)) but the handset appeared OK.
– followed instructions to get ERD79 flashed onto N1
– ensured WiFi was on, went to phone dialler and typed *#*#2432546#*#* -dont know if this step is essential
– went to check for updates.. N1 was already downloading 2.2
– followed on screen instructions, happy days
I followed Chris’s instructions just above this with the files I’d already downloaded. Worked great! Froyo is awesome. Thanks guys!
Hey guys, I’m on mac and still getting problems with the userdata.img. cannot load ‘userdata.img’
any help??
Sorry, scrap my last comment. Kept trying what chris had posted, eventually realised I hadn’t changed the cd properly. Downgraded and am currently downloading 2.2 OTA 🙂 brilliant
Is the dutch language optional in Froyo? thanks.
@Daniel
no sorry
Just to let people know, vodafone nexus ones now come with froyo pre-installed. I bought one a couple of weeks ago and tried to follow this guide to get rid of vodafones version of froyo and change to google’s standard version. I wanted to do this in order to recieve future over the air updates straight away from google, instead of waiting for vodafone to put out their own version.
HOWEVER, if you have a vodafone nexus one with froyo pre-installed out of the box, you will not be able to follow this guide fully until you change the HBOOT version of the phone from 0.35.0017 (vodafone’s) to 0.33.0012 (google’s). Guide here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=726258
It involves downloading the Android SDK development kit, using superboot to root to a insecure ROM, changing a few things, then finally going back to a completely stock ROM, HBOOT and Radio version using this guide. It may be a little complicated, but I have done it and it does work. I am now on google’s FRF91 froyo, and first in line for the next version of android. Thanks vodafone :-s
Thanks to the author for a great guide also thanks to Chris and his simple mac steps, took me a whilst to get that point but after reading his comment worked a treat, thanks
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