How to Root and Install Custom Rom on Motorola Milestone A853

Hello Readers!

This tutorial is about how to root and install Custom Rom on Motorola Milestone A853 running on Android 2.2.1(Indian Users, GSM Mobile).

This Milestone is an excellent device (compared to other devices released at the time of its release). But with the increase in demand of performance and development of apps which require high space and RAM, this phone fell way beyond in performance. This mobile also comes with low internal storage. Installing new apps which specifically need phone memory has become a quite a hastle.

So rooting the mobile and installing a custom rom will specifically increase the phones performance since you can move some immovable apps to sd card and many custom roms specifically occupy very low internal memory giving you lots of internal memory. This will decrease the load on the phone's CPU. 



So lets get started.

First root your phone with super one click. There are several other  methods for rooting milestone but super one click is preferably used because of its simplicity and no developer knowledge is needed. No need to follow complicated steps to root your milestone.

Rooting:
1) Enable USB debugging on your mobile by accessing through settings - applications - development.

2) Download super one click from here

3) Download Motorola USB drivers for PC and install on your system.

4) Now connect your mobile to PC and execute super one click.

5)Click on root and wait for the process to finish. After the rooting is done a pop-up message will come "success" or "finished rooting" depending upon the version of the super one click you have downloaded.

6)Now check your mobile and you will see the super user app installed on your mobile.

7) If you still have a doubt whether your mobile is rooted or not, download root checker app from Google Play store. Run the app and it will verify whether your phone has root access or not.

8) Super one click will root your mobile for sure.


Now let us know how to install a custom ROM using open recovery.

First things first, backup all your data using any backup app from Google Play store. Preferably use Titanium Backup to backup all user apps along with data to your sd card. After backing up your data to sd card save the backup file to your PC.

Installing Open recovery

1) Download Open Recovery apk from here and install it. Reboot the mobile after installing the apk.


2) You will see "System Recovery" app on your mobile. Run the app (allow super user request) and you will see the first option "Install Recovery System". Tap on it and install the recovery. This will install recovery files on your sd card.

3) Now download this open recovery zip file from here. Extract the contents of the zip file and copy the contents to the sd card. You have to replace already existing files and folders by the downloaded files. Don't worry and proceed by replacing all the files.


That's it. Now you have installed open recovery on your mobile. To check it open system recovery app you have just installed and select "Recovery Boot". You will the following boot screen.

Installing Custom Rom

There are many custom roms available for milestone but the most stable and faster rom according to my experience is Cyanogen Mod 6.1.2

So the guide will be about installing this mod only.

1) Download cyanogen mod from here. Also download the Google apps from here since cyanogen mod does not provide google apps by default and you have to flash them manually.

2) Copy the downloaded zip file (don't extract anything) to the updates folder present in open recovery folder in the sd card. (sd card -> open recovery -> updates).

3) Now boot into recovery through the system recovery app or manually. To boot into recovery manually power off your mobile. Open the slider key pad. Hold X key on the keypad and power button together. Hold until you see Motorola logo during start up. Release the buttons and the mobile will boot into recovery mode.

4) Use the D pad to scroll up and down in the recovery menu. Now scroll down and wipe Dalvik cache, wipe data/factory reset and wipe external partition cache.

5) Now select apply update, select the copied cyanogen mod file.

6) Sit back and relax until the ROM is installed.

7) After installing the ROM again select the apply update option and flash google apps you have downloaded before.

NOTE: Wipe again the dalvik cache and wipe external cache after installing the ROM to avoid boot loop.

If you got struck in boot loop, remove the battery and enter recovery by pressing x and power button together. Clear dalvic cache, factory reset and wipe external cache.


8) Now reboot your mobile and wait for the first reboot. It will take a little longer time than normal. After completing the reboot you will be on new ROM.

That's it about rooting and installing custom rom on Motorola milestone. If you have any doubts or if you got struck fell free to ask me.

UPDATE:
Cyanogenmod 7 is also stable and woks absolutely fine and has many tweaks than previous ROM. Follow the same procedure described above to install Cyanogenmod 7 on your device.

UPDATE: 11th September 2013
The open recovery app has been modified and the interface in recovery menu may not be similar to screenshots shown above.
Cyanogen mod 9 and 10 are released for milestone but they are not much handy for day to day use. These ROMS are built based on JellyBean 4.1.2. They consume lot of RAM and memory. With these ROMS don't expect any miracles in your phone's speed and performance.

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