Saturday 17 August 2013

Xperia Ray Modding Experience

I have been tinkering with my Xperia Ray lately. I have read several posts on forums on the internet about the superior performance of Android mobile phones with one custom ROM or the other installed in place of the Stock ROM (ROM that came installed on the mobile phone at the time of purchase).
I always kept my Xperia Ray up to date. I bought it running Gingerbread, updated it to Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0. then to last update released officially by Sony for the Xperia Ray 4.0.4.
Then came the news from Sony: Xperia 2011 devices will not have official software updates anymore, the company will rather focus on its new line of devices.
The end of official software update for the Xperia Ray got me ready to try my hands on actually installing a custom ROM on my phone. I rooted the phone already, but was earlier reluctant to install a custom ROM. I read about Super Jelly Bean released by an xda developer named harsh586 then all coulda, woulda, shoulda went puff.
I unlocked the bootloader using s1tool, testpoint method see link http://androidflip.com/unlock-xperia-phones-bootloader-without-losing-drm-data-track-id-working/ , installed fusion kernel 5.5 for Ray, tried to install the superjelly bean.zip and gapps.zip see instructions: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2135918 , I got stuck. My Xperia Ray remained a mobile phone that only boots to fusion kernel! I copied the superjelly bean.zip and gapps.zip afresh from PC to SD card, no show. I flashed the ST18i kernel, powered up I was only getting SONY staring at me!
But that was just for a night.
The following day I connected my phone to PC ran PC Companion, no phone detected. I ran the Sony Update Software programme, my Xperia Ray was detected! Several prompts came up which included automatic fresh download of official ICS 4.0.4 after which the installation process completed. At the prompt to disconnect USB from phone and power on, I kept my fingers crossed. The phone booted up to Official Sony Android Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0.4! That was great!
I wouldn’t give up on installing the Super Jelly Bean custom ROM, I downloaded the files afresh, this time on PC, the initial download was done on my phone. I have to root again, installing ICS using Sony's SUS already blocked my root access. This time around I decided to go for software root tool from the website: http://1clickroot.com/, I also downloaded Eroot_V1.3.4


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