Motorola Charm ( MB502 ): Rooting and upgrading to Android Gingerbread (2.3.7)

    After a long time I'm writing a new post. Its regarding Android. I have a Motorola Charm which is a Android(2.1 Eclair) phone. As Motorola has not giving any upgrade for this phone and the phone having less internal memory and has no option to save the application to SD card makes the phone a bad one. So I was looking for a way to upgrade android version to 2.3. Last year I found the way to upgrade my phone, but I was afraid of taking risk as there is a change of getting it brick. So I didn't tried. As time passes a part of my phone's touch screen is dead. Now the Home, settings and back buttons are not working. So I searched everywhere for an App which give a virtual buttons to home,settings and back button. I found  an app called Virtual Button for root. So I dont have any other option but root the phone.

Flashing

Flashing is the fist process for rooting. As the default software in our phone is locked(with Blur) and rooting on this will make the phone brick. So first we have to flash it with deblur stack ROM sbf file. So we need to first download the sbf file.

click here to choose and download the SBF files. Select accordingly to your provider and build number. If you are using MB502 of indian/Asian version, then click here to download the sbf file. You can find it in the above link also.

Flashing In windows

For flashing in windows, you need the RSD Lite(click to download). Download it and install it. Get into bootloader mode by holding the up-arrow-key on the keyboard while powering on the phone. A black screen with white letters should show after a couple of seconds. Connect with USB. Specify the downloaded sbf file and click on  start button in the RSD Lite window. Don't disconnect USB until the result in RSD Lite shows Finished.

Flashing In Linux

Get into bootloader mode by holding the up-arrow-key on the keyboard while powering on the phone.

* open Terminal
* wget http://dl.opticaldelusion.org/sbf_flash
* chmod +x sbf_flash
* sbf_flash T-mo.sbf
* reboot your phone

Rooting

After flashing rooting can be done using SuperOneClick software in windows.As I haven't tried in linux and this is the best way I found, I prefer to use SuperOneClickSuperOneClick download link. Download it run it which will download another compressed file. Extract it and run the exe file.

Refer:http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=887416

• Install the Motorola drivers
• in the phone go to Settings > Applications > Development
• select USB Debugging
• connect USB cable
• set USB mode to "Portal & Tools" or "PC mode"
• run SuperOneClick
• click Root
• Done!

Now your Phone is rooted. It time to upgrade it to  higher versions of android. 2.3.7 is the one I got.

Upgrading

After rooting we can go for upgrading. Rooting is an important process for upgrading.

• First download and install FlipOut Recovery in your phone.
• Download the ROM and Google Apps and motorola charm patch. 
• Any of the following are the ROMs you can use.
• update-cm-7-20130626-UNOFFICIAL-ruth-signed-RC(v0.7.0).zip(didn't check)
• update-cm-7-20130703-UNOFFICIAL-ruth-signed-RC2(v0.7.1).zip(Works fine)
• Boo-CM-7-20130711.zip(Works great!!)
• Boo-CM-7-20130930-RC4 (v0.7.3). Zip(Works. but no network.Extracting password: ohq4 )
• google apps
• charm patch
• Put in the root of sdcard.
• Open the application FlipOutRecovery give root permissions, then click the "Install Recovery" button. After installing click the "Reboot Recovery" button. The system will reboot with ClockworkMod menu.
•  First Wipe data then  wipe cache then go to advanced  and wipe Dalvik cache. Use Vol + and Vol - to move up and down and click 'ok' in the phone keyboard to select.
• After wiping, Select "install zip from sdcard" then "choose zip from sdcard" then Select the ROM(ROM you want to use) and go to - yes - and wait until you finish installation, 
• Now select "install zip from sdcard" - "choose zip from sdcard" - select Google Apps and go up - yes - and wait until finish installation.
• Now select "install zip from sdcard" - "choose zip from sdcard" - select charm patch and go up - yes - and wait until finish installation.
• Then go back and again wipe data, cache and advanced / Dalvik cache.
• Reboot

 Now enjoy CM7. Check the version. Install the Apps you want!!

References:

1. http://forum.xda-developers.com/wiki/Motorola_Charm
2. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=887416
3. https://otimizandosmartphone.wordpress.com/
4. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2238740
5. http://iboos.lofter.com/post/967c4_74285a