Recovering A Captivate From Near-Dead

A reader recently contacted me looking for advice with his new Captivate. He was concerned he’d bricked it, but the phone was getting as far as recovery mode, which meant that I was confident it could be saved. I met him at a coffee shop, and we spent some time recovering his phone. I learned some stuff, and have some thoughts that are worth sharing. But first, I’ll explain how to do this yourself.

First, we need to understand the difference between download mode and recovery mode. Download mode is used by ODIN to flash kernels or firmware to the phone. Recovery mode is to flash update.zip files, which can contain firmware and kernels, or just tweaks to the system.

There isn’t (to my knowledge) a working set of files to use ODIN to flash the stock Rogers ROM (if I’m wrong about this, please let me know). This means you have two choices: The leaked AT&T Froyo ROM, or Cognition. Current versions of Cognition aren’t being released as ODIN packages, so you’ll have to acquire Cognition 2.3b4. Feel free to suggest other ROMs that have ODIN versions, and I’ll create a list with links. Once you have your version of ODIN we’re ready to proceed (this post assumes you already have the drivers installed on your computer – if not they are linked in this post). Recovering a phone like this will wipe out your data. But at this point, you probably don’t care. The order of these steps is very important.

1. Turn phone off (if the phone is particularly sick, just pop the battery out briefly).
2. Open up ODIN (if it’s a one click version, then you’re set. If it’s not, then select the PIT and PDA files that were included with the version you downloaded).
3. Hold down the volume buttons on your phone.
4. Connect the USB cable from the phone to the computer. You should now see the Android robot inside a triangle with a shovel, and the device should appear in the ODIN application as well.
5. In ODIN, click start. The flashing process will take a few minutes.
6. Your phone should reboot into your new ROM.

From here, where you go is up to you. If you elected to use the Cognition ROM then I would highly recommend upgrading to the latest one (v2.3b6 at the time of this posting). If you elected to use the AT&T ROM, then frankly I think you made a mistake.

I’d said I learned some stuff and had some thoughts, so in no particular order here they are:

• SuperOneClickRoot doesn’t work well on the stock Rogers ROM. If you want to root your stock Rogers Captivate, follow these instructions.
• ClockworkMod Recovery doesn’t work well on the AT&T Froyo ROM. This is due to Froyo using the ‘Recovery 3e’ version, which requires a digitally signed update.zip, and ClockworkMod Recovery doesn’t use a signed update.zip.
• If you are looking to go from stock Rogers to Cognition, I’d recommend avoiding ODIN entirely. Root the phone using the manual method linked above, then install Rom Manager and ClockworkMod Recovery. This will work because the stock Rogers ROM (like all Eclaire based ROMs) uses ‘Recovery 2e’ which does not require a signed update.zip.

As always, this blog post was resented for information purposes only. I take no responsibility for the results of following these directions, including but not limited to: permanent damage to your phone, loss of important data stored on your phone or elsewhere, your girlfriend becoming pregnant, having your identity stolen, headaches, the birth defect known as hotdog fingers, your boyfriend becoming pregnant, etc.