How to install CyanogenMod 9 on Motorola Milestone 2 / Droid 2 / A935

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EVERYTHING WILL BE DELETED FROM YOUR PHONE as we are doing a factory reset. Also, your warranty will be gone, do this at your own risk, etc.

I have written this howto step-by-step as I was doing this for the 5-6th time (hacking the boot partition too much without fastboot, huh?!), I’d consider this a working and safe method (as far as it can be), but this is just my opinion. Again: do this at your own risk, “if it breaks you get to keep both pieces”.

You will need… a USB cable, a Micro SD card, Motorola RSD Lite firmware manager (tested with v4.9), an SBF image for your phone, the ability to gain root access on your phone (“root” it) – I can’t help with these, but Google is your friend. Also you will need the CyanogenMod 9 and about one hour of your time.

I recommend using a newly formatted SD card – no data can be lost from an empty card.

  1. Backup all your data. You will not be able to restore all your data automatically from this backup as CM9 is not compatible with these data – you have to restore them manually! (And the method is not in scope of this howto, and I’ve never tried to do this.)
  2. Check your backup.
  3. Charge battery to 100%
  4. Prepare the phone: shut down your phone, disconnect from charger/USB, remove the battery, SD card and SIM card.
  5. Take a deep breath, realize you’ll lose your warranty if you proceed, check your backup again and turn back if you’re not sure about this.
  6. Restore RSD/SBF image (version 4.1 or above! Downgrade will not be possible later!): put your battery back, start up your phone while holding CAMERA and VOL UP. A recovery screen should appear saying “Bootloader”, “Battery OK”, “OK to Program” connect USB to your computer, open RSD Lite, select the device and start the flashing.
    (If the RSD Lite is unable to reboot your phone, it’s not a problem. We only need to have a successful flashing and checksumming.)
  7. Enter “Android system recovery”: remove from USB (necessary?), remove battery, press and hold X, insert battery, power on, wait for the recovery screen (a droid with a warning sign), release X.
  8. Do a factory reset: after the screen appears: press VOL UP + VOL DOWN to show the menu, select “wipe data/factory reset” (using VOL UP/DOWN and POWER keys) (this will FORMAT the partition of /data and /cache).
  9. Reboot your phone: from the “Android system recovery” menu select “reboot system now”.
    As this is the first boot it will take a long time (about 2-3 minutes).
  10. Skip the Motoblur account setup: press MENU, select “skip”, and so on…
  11. Enable USB debugging: Settings / Applications / Development / USB debugging.
  12. Connect USB cable
  13. Select “None” for USB connection: pull the drawer, select “USB connection”, select “None”.
  14. Initiate the zerg rush (install su, Superuser).
  15. Insert Micro SD card: Shutdown your phone, insert SD card with CyanogenMod update zip file (CM9-NIGHTLY-120815-milestone2-eu.zip is working for me).
  16. Install Droid 2 Recovery Bootstrap and ROM Manager (ClockworkMod) over Wi-Fi/mobile network/USB/from SD card.
  17. Start Droid 2 Bootstrapper, select “Bootstrap Recovery”. Allow superuser access if asked.
  18. Reboot into recovery mode: Open ROM Manager, select “Reboot into Recovery”. Allow superuser access if asked.
  19. Install CyanogenMod 9 (at last!): in the “ClockworkMod Recovery” menu select (using OK not POWER) “install zip from sdcard”, “choose zip from sdcard”, find your .zip file, select it, and select “Yes” to install it.
    Wait until it is being installed… Yes, from now on CM9 will boot on your phone.
    Note: As CM9 is incomaptible with previous /data and /cache partitions you have to do the reset again (see in next steps). Unless you do so CM9 will not boot properly, you’ll see the CM9 boot logo stuck forever, looping again and again.
  20. Bonus point: Restoring a backup? Now this is where you can reboot your phone and restore a previous backup of your CM9 system if you’d like to. In this case, after that this was your last step.
  21. Bonus point: Install more packages? If you’d like to install more packages (for example the Google Apps), install them using the same way as you have done with CM9 in the previous step.
  22. Remove the SD card before the next factory reset/data wipe (optional, but I recommend just to be on the safe side): Select reboot and during the first Motorola logo remove the battery and then remove the SD card, put the battery back, power up and wait until the blue LED blinks (about 30 seconds). Press VOLUME DOWN to enter recovery menu. Select “Recovery”, “Stable recovery”.
  23. Wipe /data and /cache: In “CyanogenDefy Recovery” select “Wipe data/factory reset” to start with an empty /data and /cache.
  24. Reboot: select “Reboot system now”. It can take while (2-3 minutes) as this is the first boot of CM9.
  25. Congrats, you’re all done!

Tested with the following files/packages/applications:

  • RSD Lite 4.9.msi
    SHA: 0ec1694f9d216a4d10d5eca9c6fb1647e1274094, MD5: a80071b4cb507b060c84c94ef8f543fb
  • MILS2_U6_4.1-22_SIGNED_UCAMILESTONE2B1B80E1014.0R_USXMILE2GBRTDACH_P013_A007_HWp2a_Service1FF.sbf.gz
    SHA: cb1da3a34a421339f5e3d4c04cabd5416f3b4444, MD5: 25c1dea5ebfe6db46936cb1331929ef4
  • CM9-20120305-NIGHTLY-milestone2-eu.zip
    SHA: ee6f72be91c38c95a4bb2ca0ff863045a8accecf, MD5: 918d6ab960f581c84dc4892d1641647e
  • CM9-NIGHTLY-120815-milestone2-eu.zip
    SHA: 6c07c54f159ad6c95b7faf5363d26d1881861b78, MD5: ab5d5dea7da4361b6f2a509d83b22769
  • gapps-ics-20120304-signed.zip
    SHA: 8ca91d3d00964d94218fa096f3e1f95811423867, MD5: f171a647fcf8a0aae926006b90a78935
  • Droid 2 Recovery Bootstrap by ClockworkMod
    Version: 1.0.0.5
  • ROM Manager by ClockworkMod
    Version: 5.0.1.5

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