However, after I flashed a nightly build of CyanogenMod 7, my device simply refused to start. It got stuck on the boot screen and never loaded Android. Earlier I had used the CWM Manager app to boot into ClockworkMod Recovery, but I couldn’t use it now since Android wouldn’t start. I needed to find out the hardware key combination to boot into recovery mode and restore my NANDroid backup, and luckily I found it.

How to start the Samsung Galaxy S2 recovery mode

To boot the Galaxy S2 into recovery mode, first turn off the device. Then simply press and hold the Volume up button, the Home button and the Power button at the same time. Keep holding the buttons until you have reached the recovery mode.

The procedure for starting the Galaxy S2 in Download Mode is very similar: turn off the phone and hold the Home button, the Volume down button and the Power button at the same time. This will start the Download Mode.

Footnote: Since CyanogenMod obviously didn’t work, I ended up flashing flashed a MIUI ROM instead. It looks really good on the SGS2.

1) Download Odin3-v1.85.zip from the xda-developers forum and extract it on your computer to the folder of your choice.

2) Now you need to grab the correct rooted kernel from the xda-developers from either this post or this one. The various kernels are named CF-Root-xxx-vX.X.zip and to figure out which one to download, go to Settings > About phone on your Samsung Galaxy S2 and check the “Kernel version” label. This is what it looked like on my phone.

It says “2.6.35.7-I19100XWKF3-CL276555”. I have made the essential part of the kernel version bold – look for that key among the available kernels on the XDA and you will have no trouble downloading the correct one. In my case, I downloaded CF-Root-SGS2_XW_CLK_KF3-v4.0-CWM4.zip. Extract the ZIP-file so you get a file with the .TAR extension.

3) Make sure your Galaxy SII isn’t connected to your computer and launch Odin3 v1.85.exe. This is what the interface looks like – the important parts are highlighted. Click on the image to see the full size version.

4) Click the PDA button and select the .TAR file you extracted earlier.

5) Turn off your Galaxy SII. Start it by pressing and holding the Home button, the Volume down button and the Power button at the same time. A warning message will be displayed – just press Volume up to continue. This will boot the device into Download Mode.

6) Connect your Galaxy S2 to your computer using a USB cable. Your operating system might install new drivers. Let it finish. Make sure the “Re-Partition” option in Odin 3 v1.85 is NOT selected. Both the “Auto Reboot” and “F. Reset Time” options should be selected, however. Click the Start button.

7) Let Odin do its thing and the device will soon reboot. Now you have a rooted Samsung Galaxy S2, congratulations! Please note that a yellow triangle with an exclamation mark will be displayed when you boot your Galaxy S2 from now on – this is normal.

Another thing worth mentioning is that this rooting method, CF-Root, includes ClockworkMod Recovery, but it isn’t compatible with the ROM Manager app. Because of this, the developer has included an app called CWM Manager that will be automatically installed on your device when using the guide above. It’s listed as CWM on your phone.

Visit the source for this guide at xda-developers for even more info, and if you have any questions – feel free to leave a comment and I’ll do my best to help!

The guide is based on instructions from an excellent thread on the xda-developers, but I’ve tried to make the directions more user-friendly and pedagogical. You should be able to easily root your HTC Sensation by following the steps in this tutorial, even if you lack previous experience. The method is safe, too. I just tried all this on my own HTC Sensation with superb results.

Please note that some people start the rooting process by applying S-OFF to the HTC Sensation. However, I did this step last and it worked like a charm. It’s your choice. Here we go.

Update: While this rooting method worked like a charm on the initial firmware on the HTC Sensation, it apparently isn’t compatible with Sensations running Android 2.3.4.

Install ClockworkMod Recovery

To be able to root your HTC Sensation, you first need to install ClockworkMod Recovery. As explained in TechCredo’s ROM & rooting dictionary, Recovery Mode is a boot menu that is shown without Android being loaded. It gives you access to certain features such as doing complete backups of your phone (Nandroid backups) and installing custom ROMs. ClockworkMod is the most popular Recovery Mode.

• Download Recovery v5.0.0.8 for the HTC Sensation.
• Copy the file PG58IMG.zip to the root of your Sensation’s memory card (in other words, it shouldn’t be copied to a folder).
• If you have HTCs Fast boot option enabled, you need to disable it from Settings > Power > Fast boot. You can also take out the battery and put it back in again if you prefer that.
• Turn off your HTC Sensation completely and then start HBOOT by pressing and holding both the hardware Volume down button and the Power button at the same time.
• From the HBOOT menu, press Volume up to select the option that will install the update.
• When the update has been applied, press the Power button to reboot your sensation and get back into Android. ClockworkMod Recovery has been installed.
• Delete the file PG58IMG.zip on your SD card.

How to root the HTC Sensation

Now it’s time to actually give the HTC Sensation permanent root access.

Download the required file

• Download su-2.3.6.3-ef-signed.zip and copy it to the root of your HTC Sensation’s SD card.

Start ClockworkMod Recovery

• If you have HTCs Fast boot option enabled, you need to disable it from Settings > Power > Fast boot. You can also take out the battery and put it back in again if you prefer that.
• Turn off the HTC Sensation. Start Clockwork Recovery by simultaneously pressing and holding the Volume down button and the Power button. From the resulting HBOOT menu, press Volume down to select the Recovery option and press the Power button to activate it.

Make a backup of the stock firmware

• Now you’re in ClockworkMod Recovery. To be able to restore the stock firmware later, you should make a backup of your current system. Use the hardware Volume buttons to jump down to the backup and restore option and push the Power button to select it.
• Select the Backup option from the next menu to make a backup of the stock firmware. You will be able to restore it later from the same menu.

Root the Sensation

• Select the Go Back option from the bottom of the menu, then select “install zip from sdcard”.
• Select “choose zip from sdcard” and navigate to the file su-2.3.6.3-ef-signed.zip and press the Power button. Confirm your choice to apply the update.
• After the update has finished, choose to go back a step in the menu and select the “reboot system now” option.
• Now you have Superuser access and your Sensation has been rooted, congratulations!

How to S-OFF the Sensation

On the HTC Sensation and several other HTC Android phones, the company has implemented a form of “security.” It’s called @secuflag, and it controls whether your phone has its NAND or flash unlocked. S-ON (security on) will read-lock your /system and /recovery partitions, blocking you from performing certain root level actions directly from Android.

You can disable this security measure with S-OFF (security off). Why would you want this? Well, it seems like most custom ROMs for the HTC Sensation require S-OFF. So if you want to be able to flash them, you need S-OFF as well as root.

1) Visit revolutionary.io on your PC and download the Revolutionary: S-OFF & Recovery Tool for your operating system. Extract the ZIP-file to the folder of your choice.

2) Now you need to fill out the form on the revolutionary.io website to get a beta key. If you’re unsure of your HBOOT version, start HBOOT by turning off your HTC Sensation and start it by holding down both the Power button and the Volume down button. My HBOOT version was 1.17.0008.

3) Please note you shouldn’t enter your Sensation’s serial number in the serial number field on the website. It’s a number that the S-OFF tool will supply you with later on.

4) Make sure your HTC Sensation is turned on and Android is running. The USB debugging option should be enabled from Settings > Applications > Development > USB debugging. Connect your phone to your computer with a USB cable. Select the Charge only option and not the disk drive mode.

5) Launch revolutionary.exe on your computer. It should detect your device and the tool should state a serial number. Enter that number in the form on the website and press the Generate key button to get a beta key. Enter your beta key in the revolutionary.exe tool on your computer and press Enter.

6) Let the Revolutionary tool take care of business by itself. I didn’t have to do anything, but follow the prompts on the screen if the tool should ask you about anything.

That’s it! Good luck, and if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to leave a comment.

Dead Space™

The plugin can even show the app’s current rating, along with its title and official icon. When scanned, the QR codes naturally take you to the Market on your phone. The QR codes are also clickable, and if you click on the codes using a computer, you will be taken to the Web Market, but if you tap on them from an Android device, it will open the Market app on your mobile.

Latest version: v1.02 – April 12, 2011. Changelog.
Download: android-market-qr-codes-wp-plugin.zip
Installation: upload the folder in the ZIP-archive to the “wp-content/plugins” directory on your server, and activate the plugin in WordPress.
Tested with: WordPress 3.1

How to use the Android Market QR codes WP plugin

1. Visit either the Android Market on the web or the popular third-party site AppBrain.com, and locate the app you want to create a QR code for.
2. In your web browser, copy the entire URL from the address bar and paste it into a WordPress post or page. Paste the link where you want the QR code to appear.
3. Simply surround the link with “qr” “/qr” in brackets, and a QR code will be generated automatically by the plugin. You don’t have to use WordPress HTML mode. The appearance of the QR codes can be customized from WP Admin > Settings > Android Market QR Codes. Here are a few examples.

A regular link to an app in the Android Market on the web:

Sometimes the web Market adds redundant info at the end of the links. The WordPress plugin automatically excludes this info, so you don’t have to remove it yourself. Thus, this type of link will work as well.

AppBrain links are also supported:

The QR code generator even accepts just the name of the app, but the first two methods are definitely preferable since they extract the package name.

How the Android Market QR code generator plugin works

• The WordPress plugin will display a QR code whenever you surround a link to an app in the Android Web Market or AppBrain with “qr” and “/qr” in brackets, like illustrated in the examples above. You don’t need to use WordPress HTML mode for this to work.
• Adding this to a WordPress post or page will automatically create a QR code that points to the specified app. By default, the QR code is right aligned and its size is 130x130px. Those values can easily be customized in the settings.
• The QR code is clickable: if you click it while using a computer, the link will open the app in the Web Market. If you browse the page with an Android device, pressing the QR code will take you to the app in the Market on your mobile instead.
• The plugin can also display the title and rating of the app along with its Android Market icon, next to the actual QR code. This feature is a bit experimental and relies on grabbing info directly from the Web Market, so Web Market links are required. If Google changes the structure of the info, this feature might not work until the plugin is updated. If the plugin fails to find the info, a regular QR code will be displayed instead – so it’s safe to use either way.
• If you accidentally add a blank space between “qr” and the actual link, the QR code should work anyway.
• If the link or application title you supply is less than 4 characters, the plugin will not create a QR code.
• The Android Market QR Code WP Plugin can be configured directly from the WordPress admin interface. See instructions below.
• The QR codes have been tested using Google Goggles and Barcode Scanner. More features and options will likely be added later on.

How to configure the QR code plugin in WordPress

Log in to WordPress as an administrator, and from the Dashboard, go to Settings > Android Market QR Codes. There are four options:

QR code alignment
This defines how the QR codes will be aligned. Supported values are “left”, “right”, “top” and “bottom” (without quotation marks). By default, the QR codes will appear to the right of the rest of the post contents, that will fold around it.

QR code size in pixels
This naturally decides the size of the QR codes, in pixels. It must be a square, for example: 150×150

QR code border
This setting lets you customize the border around the QR codes. It must be a valid single line CSS value, for example: 1px solid #dedcdc;. If you don’t want any borders at all, just leave this field blank.

QR code title
The text that is shown when you hover over the QR codes with a mouse cursor. By default, it’s “Scan or click to download”, but you can easily change it to anything you want.

Download icon for Android devices
If you want to display a custom icon on Android devices instead of a QR code, enter the full URL to that image here. All other options except title and alignment will be ignored for that image.

Show Android Market info box
Let the plugin grab the app title, rating and image directly from the Web Market. Requires Web Market links. You can have this option activated and still use AppBrain links and just app titles, although the plugin will then only show the QR code. To activate, simply enter “yes”. Anything else will turn the setting off.

Info box CSS
This setting lets you style the info box with regular CSS. Just enter the CSS like you would do in a normal style sheet, but without class names. For example, to format the text, just enter: “font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold;”. Please note that the box will inherit the alignment and height of the QR codes, but not the border value. Default setting: padding:7px; margin:10px; border:1px dotted #cccccc; text-align:right; font-size:12px; font-weight: bold;

App rating CSS
This is the CSS for the app’s Market rating, and it works just as the info box above. Default setting: float:left;font-size:12px;font-weight:bold;

Future enhancements

• Adding a button to the WordPress toolbar that will automatically enclose the selected text in the QR tag (if possible).
• Feature suggestions are appreciated (so are bug reports)! Please leave a comment if there is a feature you’d like to see.

About the plugin

I write about Android on several blogs, and whenever I make a post about an app, I usually just add a text link to the application in the Web Market – after all, Google’s Installation button that pushes apps directly to our phones is very convenient.

However, some people still prefer QR codes for various reasons. If they read the post away from home, for example, they’re probably not logged in to Web Market and thus the push feature won’t work. Another reason for visitors wanting QR codes might be that they rather not leave the page they’re currently viewing, or that they’re simply used to QR codes. And what if they view the page using an Android device instead of a computer?

My point is; I wanted a WordPress plugin that allowed me to easily add Android Market QR codes to a post or page – codes that acted differently depending on if they were viewed with an Android or a computer. I searched for such a plugin, but I couldn’t find one that worked the way I wanted. Hence, I spent a day making the Android Market QR Codes WP Plugin. Since it’s based on WordPress shortcodes feature, it requires WP 2.5 or above (which shouldn’t be a problem unless you don’t believe in updating stuff). If you mention or write about the plugin, please link back to this post.

Disclaimer

Spectral Souls (ENG)

An example of a QR code created with Android Market QR Codes WP Plugin can be seen to the right.

With this new musical backdrop, I felt the dance became an inspirational and heartfelt performance piece by a slightly bewildered Android that’s not shy anymore, that’s finally ready to face the world – that’s here to show us its love ;)

So I made a Cat Stevens remix of it. Hopefully the video still is funny, though. All credit for the actual footage goes to dark32, who uploaded the original video.