General Information

General information that is useful for you to know. Please read everything.

• ROM post will usually mention which type of package they are. If they do not just extract it. When the .zip is extracted if you see a payload.bin that means it isna recovery package and it is flashed with adb. And if you see a a load of .img that means it is a fastboot package and it is flashed with fastboot. You can also check the filename for the following:

Fastboot / IMG = Fastboot

Recovery / OTA = ADB

• To flash any individual .img to both slots you add --slot all to the fastboot command:

fastboot flash --slot all bootloader bootloader.img

fastboot flash --slot all radio radio.img

• Before proceeding with flashing a custom ROM ( for the first time ) I strongly advise flashing the following images from the latest stock factory images to both slots and keeping them updated at least quarterly. This is not essential but it is good practice and could potentially save your device from a brick.

The --slot all part of the command flashes to both slots.

fastboot flash --slot all bootloader bootloader.img

fastboot flash --slot all radio radio.img

fastboot flash --slot all boot boot.img

fastboot flash --slot all dtbo dtbo.img

fastboot flash --slot all vendor_kernel_boot vendor_kernel_boot.img

fastboot flash --slot all vendor_boot.img vendor_boot.img

**Please note vendor_kernel_boot is not a partition on all devices so you can ignore this if it doesn't exist for your device**

• Pixel flasher and Android Flash Tool are two different things. They are both used to flash stock.

• Stock factory images are fastboot packages and stock ota images are recovery packages. Both include firmware but factory images have separate bootloader and radio images that are only flashed automatically with the flash-all.bat ( or .sh ) but you can also flash these manually. It is a good idea to keep the latest stock downloaded on a PC because you never know when you might need it, or parts of it.

• When sideloading with adb it may stop at 47%. This is normal and it has still flashed successfully.

• When flashing with fastboot with v34.x.x or later you will need to flash like this to ensure data is wiped:

fastboot -w && fastboot update rom.zip