Samsung I7500 :: Flashing And Rooting Overview

I've been a Galaxy owner since release day on O2 UK and have been following the forums here for a while. I've had all the usual problems (NPS being useless, etc) and found the forum to be invaluable, so thank you.

I wanted to update the firmware, but found there's almost too much information around. Lots of updated / contradictory information, and some of it requiring convoluted hacking of text files etc. I eventually took the plunge, and made notes as I went. Hopefully, this will be of help for other new users.

After reading, I decided there were two stages to this. First, back up the phone so if it all went west I could roll back. Second, get the firmware on it.

Booting in various modes:

With the phone off:

Fastboot mode - call + power
Recovery mode - vol-down + call + power (hold home + back to exit)
Download mode - vol-down + ok + power

To enable root and back up the phone: (update - this method appears to have been blocked as of firmware rev. II5, should still work for IH8 and earlier)

To enable root and back up the phone:

Get recovery image from http://www.megaupload.com/?d=8SAFKOIN see [url]

Get recovery flasher from Android Rooting in 1-click (limited time only... until it gets patched)

Copy recovery.img and rectools.tar.gz files to /sdcard
(tar.gz must be the root of /sdcard)

copy the recovery flasher .apk to /sdcard and install it

Run recovery flasher
Choose "backup recovery image" just in case

Enter sdcard/recovery.img as the path
Choose "install custom image"

Boot into recovery mode
Run a nandroid backup
Enable root if desired
Reboot

To flash the firmware:

Get Odin + H7 firmware from MEGAUPLOAD - The leading online storage and file delivery service

Get H8 firmware from RapidShare: 1-CLICK Web hosting - Easy Filehosting and unizp it to give you a .tar file. Alternatively, you can use the latest I5 firmware here, there's links to it elsewhere on the forum - I'm using H8 as an example as this was the latest when I wrote this.

Edit the .tar file with 7-zip to remove cache.img (to remove CSC branding) - 7-zip handles .tar files in a vaguely sensible manner, unlike things like WinRAR. 7-zip can be had from 7-Zip

Boot phone in Download mode
Run Odin
Follow instructions here The Chronicles of Cjeni a.k.a. Dejan Cencelj: Flash ROM Samsung I7500 Galaxy for dummies - essentially you're adding your freshly modified .tar as a one-file update, along with the orion.ops file supplied with Odin. The web page is nice and clear.