Friday 19 October 2012

ICS for your Samsung Galaxy S II


Owners of the Samsung Galaxy S II (SGS II) have been eagerly waiting for the offi cial release of the latest Android version - Ice Cream Sandwich. The new OS brings a lot of eye-candy and additional features that can speed up the phone and ensure compatibility with newer app versions. Downloading the ICS update for your phone is no big task. There are two methods to implement the ICS update for the SGS II. Here’s how:Method 1: This method is applicable to those who have the offi cial Android Gingerbread OS that came along with the phone. It won't matter whether the phone was rooted or not as long as the firmware (OS) is the offi cial one. All you need to do is install the Samsung Kies utility on your PC, plug in the phone to your USB port and update. OTA updates are also available, but if you have brittle or slow wireless internet or 3G network, you could end up with retries and delays. The best
option is to do it via the PC as it will be safer and faster. Download Kies and install it on your PC. If you don’t have Kies, you can download it from the Samsung website. Once done, connect your SGS II to the PC’s USB port. Make sure you have your phone’s battery charged to at least 80 percent before attempting any updates. This will ensure your phone does not lose power while updating, and you don’t end up with a bricked device. On connecting to the PC, your phone’s notification bar will highlight: MTP connection enabled. This ensures that drivers are successfully installed and the phone is recognized by Kies. Once done, Kies will check the phone’s current firmware (OS) and display a message stating that a new firmware (ICS) is available for your phone and to start the update procedure. Before you move ahead,ensure a proper backup of all data on the
phone. Press the cancel button and then click on the ‘Back-up/Restore' tab in the Kies window. This will allow you to backup data before proceeding. Choose what you need to back up by checking the required fields (contacts, messages, memos, call logs, etc.) and hit the backup button. Once done, you are ready to install ICS on your phone. Head back to the ‘Basic Information’ tab in the Kies window and click on the ‘Firmware Upgrade’ button. Follow the on screen requirements and start the upgrade. The initial stage of the procedure involves downloading the necessary updates, which is around 350 MB. This will take some time depending on your Internet connection. Have patience and let the software do the necessary downloads. Once done, you will notice your SGS II automatically rebooting and going into download mode. Don’t worry, this is all automatically handled by Kies and you
don’t need to do anything at this stage. Just relax and let Kies handle everything. NOTE: If the SGS II was not completely updated with all the Android Gingerbread updates, then Kies will update them first before installing ICS. This is normal as the procedure involves a series of updates prior to getting the handset ready for the final update. After a while, you will notice that your phone automatically starts running a few scripts similar to the DOS command prompt. Don’t panic! The upgrade has been transferred to the phone and is being applied. This will take a while and your phone will restart with the new operating system—Android ICS version 4.x.x. You can now safely disconnect the phone and check out the new features of ICS. Your data will be completely wiped offand you will need to restore everything by connecting it back to the PC and running Kies. Head on to the Back-up/Restore section and restore your data. Method 2: The second method involves using a third-party utility called Odin. This utility is developed by open-source developers and helps flash the firmware directly to the phone without going through Kies. However, you will initially need to install Kies for the necessary drivers to be installed. Odin is strictly not for the faint-hearted. If you are using this method, do it with a lot of caution, and if you are doing it for the fi rst time, read up on related articles on the XDA forums before proceeding. Using Odin for flashing ICS is for those who have migrated from Samsung’s official firmware and are using third-party ROMs for their SGS IIs. Before you proceed, you will need: The Odin utility & The ICS fi rmware for SGS II . You can also hunt for diff erent versions on the XDA forums.Take all necessary backups of your data using the respective apps and utilities. Next, download the utility and firmware and save them on your desktop. Once you have the two files, create a folder and extract the downloaded files within that folder. You will be left with a few files, of which the most important are the Odin (.exe) and the firmware (.tar.md5) files. Next, you need to switch your phone into the download mode. To do this, switch offyour phone and then press following buttons—‘Volume_Down + Home + Power’; your phone will then go into download mode. Now connect the phone to your PC and let Windows install the necessary serial drivers for your phone. Once done, start the Odin utility. If your phone has successfully been detected by Odin, you will see the box with the header ‘ID:COM’ has turned yellow and is highlighting the phone connected via a COM port. This states that the phone is now ready to be flashed with new firmware. Next, go ahead and check the box next to ‘PDA’ and hit the ‘PDA’ button. Now, choose the ‘.tar.md5’ file you extracted from the downloaded firmware file. .
NOTE:Do not check any other boxes and leave all settings as they are. Once done, hit the ‘Start' button and your SGS II will be fl ashed with the new firmware. After a successful firmware flash, the phone will restart automatically. You are now ready to use your SGS II with ICS.














3 comments

  1. Great article.I just turned my s2 into ICS..thanks man.Thanks for the working direct links...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks. That’s what I was looking for.

    ReplyDelete
  3. If you have any doubts.Please contact me.

    ReplyDelete

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