How to update an HTC Desire to Froyo Manually (No root required)

[alt146]

These instructions have been posted in bits and pieces across various threads, but there isn't a nicely laid out instruction set, so people still seem to be getting confused.

This should work on any Desire, from any service provider. The 1.21 and 2.2 updates are both generic stock ROMs, so you will debrand your phone if it has any branding. You may lose apps and settings during the 1.21 update. Back up all your settings and use appbrain to sync your apps before you begin.

1) Check your phone's current version in Settings>About Phone>Software Information

If your software version is 1.21 skip to step 3

2) Download the 1.21 update available here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=684259

You can choose to either update using the .exe or the .zip

.exe:
Updates over a USB cable. HTC Sync must be installed on the computer and the phone must be plugged in.
Run the executable and follow the onscreen prompts
.zip: Rename the update update.zip and copy it to the root directory of your SD Card. If it is in a folder this will not work.
Power off your phone, then turn it back on holding the volume down button in.
When a menu appears, scroll using the volume buttons and select recovery using the power button.
When a power icon appears, hold down power and volume up. It may say something about being unable to initialise something, this is not a problem.
When a dialog box appears at the top of the screen, select 'apply sdcard:update.zip'
Once it is complete select 'reboot now' and wait for it to power up. This may take a while.

3) Once you are at 1.21, download the 2.2 manual update found here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=741518

Follow the same set of instructions as are used to apply the 1.21 .zip update - they are also in the linked thread.

WELCOME TO FROYO!

If your phone goes into a force close loop after the 2.2 update complaining that HTC Sense has encountered an error, this is what you do to fix it:

Press the search key
Search for 'Settings' and open it.
Select Application>Manage Applications>All>HTC Sense>Clear Data
Problem solved :D

Just a note, you will want to do this with a full battery, or plugged into a charger - an update can brick your phone if the phone loses power at the wrong time. The chances of this are very, very rare; but it pays to play it safe. Also note that the phones take a long time to initialise after the update is complete, this is normal.

[Mr Feesh]

Thanks hopefully this will stop all the noobs in the "Official HTC Desire" thread repeating questions.

[DJNgoma]

Thanks hopefully this will stop all the noobs in the "Official HTC Desire" thread repeating questions.

+1

[alt146]

Thanks hopefully this will stop all the noobs in the "Official HTC Desire" thread repeating questions.

No problem, that is half the point :P

[ravage]

Will this work on a Desire obtained through getting a Vodacom contract?

*EDIT* Will look thru the official htc desire thread, if i find the answer there before a reply is posted here i will delete this post but that thread is huge :/

[alt146]

This should work on any desire. I got mine on a Vodacom contract and it worked fine.

[Mr Feesh]

yup it will work

[ravage]

Thanks guys

[ravage]

I keep getting e:signature verification :( after some quick googling it appears i need to use a gold card, is there any way to do it without gold card or rooting? Thanks

[Vegeta]

For the record it works on ANY unbranded Desire

[masasmal]

hi there

i've been unable to get htc froyo download. says the webpage is unavailable and the download does,t proceed. anyone with any ideas?

[mjwitter]

Looks like HTC have pulled the download down. Their Twitter feed just said the following
A small reminder that when official SW updates are ready, HTC or your carrier will notify you. Unofficial software can create future issues

[Shah33m]

I keep getting e:signature verification :( after some quick googling it appears i need to use a gold card, is there any way to do it without gold card or rooting? Thanks

this was part of an error i got while trying to update make sure the update is not in a folder on your sd, after taking mine out the folder and moving it to the root it went smoothly

[masasmal]

Bugger... anyone here got a RapidShare or mediafire link for froyo? Or even willing to post me a cd with the files? Lol... please...

[lanman]

Those of you with branded vodacom desires, use a goldcard to update...

[ColinR]

This should work on any desire. I got mine on a Vodacom contract and it worked fine.

Ditto - My Desire had Vodacom Scene on it - but this method worked for me..

[ravage]

this was part of an error i got while trying to update make sure the update is not in a folder on your sd, after taking mine out the folder and moving it to the root it went smoothly

I had it in root but it didnt work, looks like if i want to do it i will have to use a gold card like lanman suggests

EDIT: Updating to 1.21 worked using a goldcard, trying to update to froyo now

EDIT AGAIN: woo it worked, running froyo with sense :) thanks everyone

[drukkie]

eish it gets too 45% and then freezes...it's 20 mins now....too scared to pull the usb cable out...
dammit!


sjoe did a recovery and now it works....that was close :)

success...thanks that was too easy:)

[dotnerd]

For those that need to know how to make a gold card, here you go.

1. Format your spare microSD card to FAT32 format.
2. Put the microSD card in your phone and turn it on, once turned on attach your phone to your PC.
3. Download the Android SDK here.
4. Unzip the sdk to any folder you like (eg My Documents).
5. Go to start menu > select run and type 'cmd' followed by pressing Enter.
6. Replacing <address> with the address you unzipped the file to, type cd <address>\android-sdk-windows\tools. eg cd C:\Users\Home\Documents\android-sdk-windows\tools
7. Type 'adb shell cat /sys/class/mmc_host/mmc1/mmc1:*/cid' and press Enter. You should get a very long number which looks like this: 532600bd227d9c0347329407514d5402.
8. Go to this page, paste in your number and click Submit. Copy this new number.
9. Visit this page this page, enter the new copied number and create your goldcard image, which will be e-mailed to you. Save the file attached in the email to your PC.
10. Download and open the HxD Hex Editor, available for download here ("Run as Administrator" under Vista and win 7).
11. Go to the 'Extra' menu and select 'Open Disk'. Under physical disk, select Removable Disk (your microSD card), uncheck 'Open as Readonly' and click OK. Note that you should select physical disk NOT the logical disk. This is important!
12. Go to the 'Extra' menu again and select 'Open Disk Image'. Open the goldcard image that you received by email.
13. Press OK when prompted for 'Sector Size' (selecting 512 (Hard disks/Floppy disks)) and click OK.
14. You should now have two tabs - one is your removable disk, the other is your goldcard image.
15. Click on the goldcard image tab. Go to the 'Edit' menu, choose 'Select All' then select the 'Edit' menu again and select 'Copy'.
16. Click on the 'Removable Disk' tab. Highlight offset (line) 00000000 to offset (line) 00000170 (including the 00000170 line), then click on the 'Edit' menu and select 'Paste Write'.
17. Click on the 'File' menu and select 'Save', accepting the warning.

And there you have your new GoldCard.


:-)

[poffle]

This guide worked great except for the looping htc sense ui error. I just had to do "Clear user data" in the boot settings

[alt146]

This guide worked great except for the looping htc sense ui error. I just had to do "Clear user data" in the boot settings

To be fair, I did explain how to that too... And the way that I explained only clears the HTC Sense data, rather than ALL the settings on the phone.

[dotnerd]

ran the EXE update, copied froyo as update.zip and voila welcome to FroYo :-)

[poffle]

To be fair, I did explain how to that too... And the way that I explained only clears the HTC Sense data, rather than ALL the settings on the phone.

Yeah but i couldnt get into settings. My search thing only wanted to do voice search in google ^_^, it wasnt your fault though, i think when i first pressed settings it asked where i want to search and i just clicked yes or something.

[Kuga]

Thanks guys. This really helped me updating my phone. Didn't run into any problems at all :D *strokes my Desire while whispering, "Myyyyyy preccccioussssss"*

[SlowInternet]

Which one of the 4 files on the page should I download to update the software to 1.21 ?

[alt146]

Which one of the 4 files on the page should I download to update the software to 1.21 ?

Either of the first two. The .zip is smaller, but more work on your part and slightly more likely to bomb out. Considering you will go through the same steps with the 1.21 .zip as you will with the 2.2 .zip you might as well save yourself some bandwidth and get the .zip.

[SlowInternet]

Either of the first two. The .zip is smaller, but more work on your part and slightly more likely to bomb out. Considering you will go through the same steps with the 1.21 .zip as you will with the 2.2 .zip you might as well save yourself some bandwidth and get the .zip.

Thank you will try it

[SlowInternet]

Seems like I will have to go the goldcard way. Mine doesn't want to update.

[AndroidGuy]

+1

u still have it on sale ?

[DJNgoma]

u still have it on sale ?

I'll send you message as this thread ain't Galaxy S related.

[stefan.wiswedel]

I also keep getting the e:signature verification error. I have already made my SD card into a gold card, rooted my phone and installed a custom 2.1 rom and I am thinking this might be the problem. Any ideas? Busy downloading the 2.1 .exe installer so that I can maybe switch over to a version of 2.1, which will be happier to update to 2.2.

If anyone has any other ideas, please let me know :)

[stefan.wiswedel]

OK. So I got the 2.1 update and updates with the .exe and it worked perfectly. I then tried to redo the froyo update but got a different error. I redownloaded the froyo update and tried again and got the same error. The error is quite long so wont re-write the whole thing unless someone thinks it will help. It starts ....

assert failed: file_getprop("/system ..........

and ends

E:Error in /sdcard/update.zip
(status 7)
Installation Aborted


Any ideas? please

[Roger Muller]

OK. So I got the 2.1 update and updates with the .exe and it worked perfectly. I then tried to redo the froyo update but got a different error. I redownloaded the froyo update and tried again and got the same error. The error is quite long so wont re-write the whole thing unless someone thinks it will help. It starts ....

assert failed: file_getprop("/system ..........

and ends

E:Error in /sdcard/update.zip
(status 7)
Installation Aborted


Any ideas? please

Hi there! I'm getting the same error when updating from 2.1 to 2.2. I'm not using HTC sync as described in the process. Please help.

[Roger Muller]

Had another go at it. Used the HTC sync method using the "Upgradesetup.apk file under System>app follow. Now I get a different error "cannot parse file". Please help:confused:

[stefan.wiswedel]

I couldn't fix it so just ended up loading a ROM from XDA instead (as I had rooted my phone already) although to get it working I went through the whole process again from start to finish. But now I am in Froyo and it's working like a dream :) also updated to the latest radio, which seems to have improved battery life somewhat.

[jhannbernas]

Hi all..

i have some questions before proceeding with the steps because i'm a little scared on this.

I have HTC Desire with Sense(Country - Philippines)
Unlocked(Any Sim card/network on Philippines is working)
Unbranded(No Brand/Logo appearing upon turning on my phone - Just HTC itself)

My current software info:
Firmware Version - 2.1-update1
Software number - 1.19.707.7

Do i need to do Step 2? which is installing 2.1 on my handset? before going to 2.2 update.

I'm having problem updating it on WiFi. It says my "No update available" but my software is still 2.1

EDIT: Can't even download the exe and the 2.2 update. it requires me a username and password upon clicking the link.. please help...

Kindly help me.. Thanks a lot!

[MolefeM]

DONE! Running froyo!

Downloaded the 1.21 firmaware, executable ("RUU_Bravo_HTC_WWE_1.21.405.2_Radio_32.36.00.28U_4. 06.00.02_2_release_126984_signed")
Downloaded the Android 2.2 file ("OTA_Bravo_Froyo_HTC_WWE_2.09.405.8-1.21.405.2_release4dua3bcrut4wrv30")
(power button is the "Enter" button, scroller and touch input do not function at this point)
(volume up & down are used as scrollers)
'it installed like a breeze

[Richard7]

Whats the best way to backup my phone's data before doing the 2.2 update? Am using AppBrain to sync apps.

[ACleric]

The first time that I clicked the link for the Froyo ROM I was bounced (broken link message). The second time it worked. No passwords, etc. required.

Thanks for the info!

[ACleric]

Sigh. So I'm running Android 2.1 on my Desire, but it's a Middle East Version. I'd like to update to Froyo (and lose the arabic), but I get an error message when I try and run the update according to the instructions above.

E: Error in /sdcard/update.zip

The crappy thing is that waiting for the official release on Vodacom is not going to help me either, according to the entirely unhelpful HTC support staff. Apparently I'd have to be in the Middle East to get the update. Dumb. Can anybody assist?

[alt146]

Sigh. So I'm running Android 2.1 on my Desire, but it's a Middle East Version. I'd like to update to Froyo (and lose the arabic), but I get an error message when I try and run the update according to the instructions above.

E: Error in /sdcard/update.zip

The crappy thing is that waiting for the official release on Vodacom is not going to help me either, according to the entirely unhelpful HTC support staff. Apparently I'd have to be in the Middle East to get the update. Dumb. Can anybody assist?

IIRC the link in the update is only for the generic international version that we have loaded on our phones, you will probably have to look around for similar files intended for the middle eastern rom. Maybe look the middle eastern equivalent of leaf's website. Or check XDA, maybe someone has put them up there.

[gregmcc]

Thanks - updated. Works great.

Update: Well almost....my market place icon is missing? :confused:

[Richard7]

The 2.2 download link (on liveimage.htc.com) for was down for me (hitting a 404), so I searched xda and found this post (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=7531169&postcount=66) which has a link to an (unofficial) mirror of the file:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=7YX2J4UP

[Richard7]

Update:
Did the upgrade sequence again, and this time I didn't get the force close error. But I did first 'clear storage' to try and fix it, so my phone memory was completely erased :\
--------------

Shattered!

Did the upgrade (from 1.21) but I'm getting the Force Close loop error. I did the Clear HTC Sense Data fix, but it hasn't worked :(

What can I do? My phone is teh broken lolz :/

[gregmcc]

Update: Well almost....my market place icon is missing? :confused:

Finally got it working. It's a very common problem. A bug in the upgrade.

To fix it you need to do a factory reset. Download mybackup, backup your data and apps, factory reset and then restore.

All working again. A bit of a pain but currently it's the only fix. :(

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Android+Market/thread?tid=6217f36133c5737a&hl=en

[SlowInternet]

I decided to do it now. Got tired of waiting for Vodacom. I phoned some Vodacare and Vodashops and asked them if they can do it for me but no luck. Some of them didn't even know what the Froyo update is. So I did it now myself and everything went smoothly. Will check how its doing over the next few days. Thanks for the instructions.