HTC Explorer Pico Development: Rooting and Recoveries

HTC Explorer (Pico)

The HTC Explorer was never one of the most popular smartphones to grace the pages of XDA. The Explorer is a low end device that was released in late 2011. With only a 600 MHz processor and 512 MB RAM, it was never going to grab any headlines. This is what makes the recent high level of development activity on the device all the more impressive.

First up, XDA Senior Member oblikas brings us TWRP. The popular touchscreen driven recovery system allows you to do much more than flash a ROM. While it does work as intended, at version 2.2.2.0, it’s not updated to the latest version at the time of writing.

Next up, XDA Senior Member derefas has managed to port HTC Sense 4.0 to the Explorer. Given that the device originally shipped with Sense 3.5, this is an exciting port for Explorer owners, giving their device a complete refresh. The only listed known issues with the ROM are occasional USB issues, Bluetooth, Wifi and Superuser, though these last three issues have been fixed by the dev and will be working in the next ROM update.

Further to this, XDA Senior Member sam_0829 has impressively ported Sense 4.1 to the device, using the HTC Desire HD as a donor. The main functional parts of the device such as radio, sound and camera are all working, but as the Desire HD has a much higher screen resolution, a large amount of the ROM needs to be re-sized to fit the Explorer’s 320 × 480 screen. The dev has created a thread in the hope that others will be able to provide help in re-sizing, so that a usable ROM can be put together.

If Sense isn’t your cup of tea, and you prefer a more true Android experience, there are a number of ROMs available that are more suited.

XDA Senior Member sakindia123 has been busy, and brings us unofficial builds of both Cyanogenmod 9.1 and 10. The Ice Cream Sandwich based Cyanogenmod 9.1 ROM is fully functional with no known issues. The Cyanogenmod 10 ROM is almost completely working, with the only issues being with video decoding and voice search.

Another non Sense option is an unofficial AOKP ROM, built from source by XDA Recognized Developer flowish. This ROM has no known issues and of course has all the standard AOKP features.

Finally, if you haven’t been hiding under that rock of late, you’ll no doubt have heard of PACman ROM, an amalgamation of the best features from Paranoid Android, AOKP and Cyanogenmod 10. This port of PACman ROM is brought to us, again, by XDA Senior Member oblikas. Given the ROM has only just been released and is in an alpha stage, there are a few issues at present, including the camera, audio and USB mass storage.

There are of course many other custom ROMs available in the HTC Explorer Development forum. This article is just intended to highlight some of the more recent development taking place.

If you want to try out any of these ROMs, check out the relevant ROM thread:

TWRP can be found in the TWRP development thread.

Unlocking and Rooting HTC Explorer (Pico)

*****Follow this guide to root your htc pico.*****

1.Install HTC Sync on your PC(Not needed on Mac and Linux)

Download HTC sync from www.htc.com/www/help/htc-explorer/#download

PS: If you dont want to download htc sync, download drivers from http://binary100100.googlecode.com/files/HTCDriver3.0.0.007.exe (Link by Hasoon2000 (XDA) ]

2. Unlock your phone's bootloader-THIS VOIDS YOUR DEVICE WARRANTY!!

- Follow the steps in www.htcdev.com/bootloader after settings up ADB

Note: HTC Explorer isn´t listed as a working device yet but it has been tested and works perfectly. Choose "all other supported models" when selecting device.

3. Add a recovery

That will allow you to install .zip ROMs. You can access to it in the menu android phones have when booting the phone after removing-inserting the battery and pressing "volume down" and "power" buttons simultaneously. (Other phones have different button combinations).

- Download A310E Recovery.zip- http://forum.xda-developers.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=913094&d=1329843100

- extract it in any window on your PC (ie: C:\HTC)

- run the recovery.bat with phone in fastboot mode (first option in the "3 android menu" ) and connected with usb.

4. ROOT the device

- Place this Superuser.zip( http://forum.xda-developers.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=832400&d=1325076959 ) file somewhere in your microSD first.

- Go into Recovery mode ("volume down" + "power")

- install Superuser.zip with the option "install .zip from sd" from the recovery menu.

''''''''''''''''''''::::::::::NOW YOUR DEVICE IS ROOTED::::::::::''''''''''''''''''''

Note: after rooting dont restore to factory setting if you don´t want to end up in a bootloop, if this or similar happens the only solution yet (fully functional) is installing this Asian rom( https://rapidshare.com/files/248493406/pico_ax918_11161_anzhi.zip ) or any Custom rom . Make a backup first and wipe cache and rom partition with the option in the recovery menu.

Done!!

ALL IN ONE TOOLKIT BY HASOON 2000

Thread link: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2093137Brief How to use (Look in thread for more info):

1. Download the toolkit DO NOT RENAME THE FOLDER

2. Download Winrar. Install it after you download it

3. Extract the folder anywhere.

4. Run the program.

5. Its pretty simple, you will understand it well after launching app, It has all instructions.