# Band Unlocking on D2G Sys 4.5.629 with Android 2.3.4 ?



## Ojelola

*My phone is already SIM unlocked and rooted, with System Version 4.5.629 and Android Version 2.3.4 (Gingerbread). I am looking for a band unlock method that does not require downgrading or bricking my phone in the process. Does such a method exist yet?*[background=rgb(245, 245, 245)][background=rgb(51, 51, 51)] [/background][/background]


----------



## Gasai Yuno

No.

And don't expect it to ever come into existence as the phone is EOL and blindly hacking baseband NVRAM is a huge PITA.


----------



## beh

This can now be done in fewer steps, but still requires bricking the phone once.
You can flash 2.4.330 with rsdlite, then immediately flash and root .629 with the ezsbf style cd (link is in my signature).
This gets the correct radio there, and there is no way to flash the hackable radio without bricking the phone temporarily.
You would then need bootstrap, and the unlock zip, which would be flashed from bootstrap recovery.


----------



## Ojelola

beh said:


> _This can now be done in fewer steps, but still requires bricking the phone once.
> You can flash 2.4.330 with rsdlite, then immediately flash and root .629 with the ezsbf style cd (link is in my signature).
> This gets the correct radio there, and there is no way to flash the hackable radio without bricking the phone temporarily.
> You would then need bootstrap, and the unlock zip, which would be flashed from bootstrap recovery._


I'm still a bit fuzzy here. Pardon my newbieness. I already used the Root CD to root my phone.
http://rootzwiki.com...to-brick-phone/

So, are you saying that I now have to go back and flash to an earlier Sys Ver (2.4.330), then immediately apply the Root CD again, followed by the Unlock.zip? When it's all done, will my D2G be at Sys Ver 4.5.629 with Android 2.3.4? Will a future system upgrade lock the radio band again? Also, where can I find the Unlock.zip file?


----------



## Morlok8k

everything you need is here:
http://rootzwiki.com...l-with-629-rom/

Its what I did!


----------



## Ojelola

Morlok8k said:


> everything you need is here:
> http://rootzwiki.com...l-with-629-rom/
> Its what I did!


Thanks, Morlok8k. However, that method seems far more complex than the one presented by BEH.
I am trying to understand the difference and the need for such a complex process. Is there an advantage to this method?


----------



## Morlok8k

this method was written before that root method was created. (and verified to work when followed exactly.)

the new root cd does take fewer steps, by skipping the flashing of 608 and the 608 patch.
so you can go from 330 to 629 instantly.
(and you skip the requirement of the 629 nandroid backup - but you should make one just in case! - The nandroid backup was previously the only way of keeping your root.)

otherwise, its the same method.


----------



## beh

Ojelola said:


> I'm still a bit fuzzy here. Pardon my newbieness. I already used the Root CD to root my phone.
> http://rootzwiki.com...to-brick-phone/
> 
> So, are you saying that I now have to go back and flash to an earlier Sys Ver (2.4.330), then immediately apply the Root CD again, followed by the Unlock.zip? When it's all done, will my D2G be at Sys Ver 4.5.629 with Android 2.3.4? Will a future system upgrade lock the radio band again? Also, where can I find the Unlock.zip file?


Ok, there are two CD's available at that link. One CD is just for rooting, the other is the recovery and root CD. I will give a little explanation of what has to be done, and why.
The radio baseband included with Gingerbread is not able to be unlocked, so the only way to use the phone on AT&T or Tmobile is to get the phone on an old baseband. Unfortunately, the only way to get that old baseband on the phone, is to flash the complete sbf with rsdlite, which bricks a phone on the .629 update. However, though bricked, the baseband is flashed.
Now, we have to flash 629, without flashing the gingerbread radio. One of the positive/negative things about sbf flashing with linux, is that the radio baseband isn't flashed.( In this case, positive) So, we use the ezsbf linux CD to flash .629, and then the same CD (or the other one) to root. Using this CD, we get back on 629, while leaving the Froyo radio intact.
Previously, there was no root method for 629, so we had to update with a nandroid backup, or protect root with rootkeeper and take the ota update. Since we needed root to make a nandroid, and then we needed to avoid the ota update in order to not flash the radio, there was a lot of repetitive flashing. However, now that 629 is directly rootable, we don't need to do most of those steps.
So, once we have 629 with the 2.4.330 radio, and have it rooted, you can install droid 2 bootstrap, and flash the unlock zip from recovery.
Hope this helps explain what is going on, and why the weird steps.


----------



## Ojelola

BEH and Morlok8k,
My thanks to both of you for explaining these processes. I now have a much better understanding, and will probably attempt the CD method before the weekend is over.

BEH,
From the description you gave, I'm assuming I will need to use the Recovery & Root CD, rather than just the one for rooting. Correct? I am downloading the Rcovery & Root CD now. It seems this is going to take forever. Apparently, RapidShare isn't rapid without a RapidPro account.

Now, a question for either or both of you: Can you please explain this step?
"[background=rgb(245, 245, 245)]Flash 330 SBF using RSDLite ([/background]VRZ_A956_2.4.33_1FF_01.sbf[background=rgb(245, 245, 245)])[/background]"
I am not at all familiar with RSDLite. Exactly how is this done? Is RSDLite a separate utility that I need to download from somewhere? I already downloaded the .sbf listed here. Should I copy that in to the phone's internal storage?

Again, please pardon my newbieness. I am fairly new to Android, and completely new to hacking my phone.

Thanks for your help and your patience.

PS: _I did find RSDLite 5.7, and I did see that it is a utility that runs on the PC. So, I now have that downloaded and ready. Now, I'm sure the information about where to put the .sbf file is somewhere in the forum discussions. I just haven't found it yet. The Recovery & Root CD is still downloading from RapidShare. Hopefully, I can begin the band unlock process, sometime tonight._


----------



## beh

Ok, rsdlite is the biggest pain of this whole process, as there are often driver issues. Before starting it, I would read
http://droid.koumakan.jp/wiki/SBF
I have used rsdlite 5.6 and 5.7 on windows xp, and both have worked fine.
I haven't tried with windows 7 (I use 7 64 bit, but have an xp laptop available), so someone who has will be more help there.
the recovery and root CD is what you need, and rapidshare can be a pain. But, mediafire doesn't allow files of that size, and rapidshare does. If anyone wants to upload the CD to an alternate site, I will be happy to include the link.
Regarding where to find rsdlite, it and other motorola related files are available at
http://1kds.tk/
Rsdlite is actual Motorola software (yes it is a separate utility), whereas the other files used for linux are not, so rsdlite flashes everything that is supposed to be flashed, and the linux version leaves the radio baseband out. When rsdlite goes to flash the baseband, it actually changes the phone into a different mode, needing different windows drivers. These drivers are included in the driver install files, but it seems that they often don't get installed properly. The first link I gave up above gives more info.
Hope this helps


----------



## Ojelola

BEH,

Excellent information. THANKS!
My Recovery & Root CD download has just two minutes remaining. Whew! I already downloaded RSDLite 5.7.
At some point this evening, I should have a band unlocked phone!


----------



## beh

Ojelola said:


> BEH,
> 
> Excellent information. THANKS!
> My Recovery & Root CD download has just two minutes remaining. Whew! I already downloaded RSDLite 5.7.
> At some point this evening, I should have a band unlocked phone!


No problem, hope it works for you


----------



## Gasai Yuno

Also beh thanks for posting the wiki link, about time I updated it a little since some articles got quite outdated.

(Will probably get to it tomorrow.)


----------



## beh

Gasai Yuno said:


> Also beh thanks for posting the wiki link, about time I updated it a little since some articles got quite outdated.
> 
> (Will probably get to it tomorrow.)


No problem, it is nice to have a concise reference site available to refer to, it saves some typing.


----------



## Ojelola

*SUCCESS! *Now I can use AT&T SIMs on my D2G.

Thank you, BEH! Thank you, Morlok8k!
I did not want to blindly follow a process. You guys explained everything very well. Now, I know it well enough to explain to other folks. And, yes, I do know other people who would like to have the same functionality on their own D2G.

This is great!


----------



## Jabberwockish

Ojelola said:


> Thank you, BEH! Thank you, Morlok8k!


I'm sure they appreciate your thanks, but you'll do them (and the larger community here) more good by clicking the "Like This" button on each of the posts you find most helpful. This increases the "Rep" shown with their post count. When you start reading a thread on an unfamiliar subject, the "rep" score can be a shortcut to figuring out which posters in the thread are more likely to know what they're talking about.


----------



## Ojelola

Okay, now that I have my phone band unlocked, the battery life seems to be really short.
Has anybody else experienced this? Is there a fix for it?


----------



## JakeRoxs

Ojelola said:


> Okay, now that I have my phone band unlocked, the battery life seems to be really short.
> Has anybody else experienced this? Is there a fix for it?


The battery has been good for me and I'm using a Band Unlocked D2G after I flashed CM9 it didn't last QUITE as long but it's average. Stock had good battery life for me though (around 16-18 hours with little to medium usage).


----------



## Morlok8k

When my D2G is not in Airplane mode (its usual status), battery life with GSM is about the same as CDMA.

Note: leaving it on global mode reduces the battery life. Set it to CDMA or GSM.

check your battery status menu. see what is using the most of your battery.

you may need to just restart your phone, or maybe even clear the cache (in recovery)


----------



## Ojelola

In all of my efforts to gain battery life, I did something (_not sure what, exactly)_. It seems my battery life is back to normal now.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure which step did it (_possibly, it was pulling the battery and waiting about ten minutes_). I was already avoiding "global" mode, as I knew that would drain the battery most quickly. Anyway, I'm a happy camper!


----------



## Morlok8k

edit: whoops... posted in wrong topic...


----------



## hgrimberg

Could this unlock band method improve gsm signal reception?

Sent from my DROID2 GLOBAL using Tapatalk 2


----------



## Jabberwockish

hgrimberg said:


> Could this unlock band method improve gsm signal reception?


Band unlocking should not impact your reception unless your carrier uses the same bands as AT&T or T-mobile USA.

And if I remember correctly, the N_01.80.00R baseband (included with 4.5.6xx firmware) is supposed to have better GSM performance than the older, band-unlockable baseband.


----------



## themib

thanks to bhigham, band unlocking just got easier, with a .33 radio-only sbf

new method (06/25/2013)
1-Root the phone "Super Easy Droid X, Droid 2 Rooting app" framaroot
2- Install Droid 2 Bootstrap
3- Flash 4.33 radio-only sbf to phone using RSD Lite (this step can be done at any time in this process, just has to be before applying the Band Unlock, I list it here since many band unlockers are likely already rooted and bootstrapped)
4-Bootstrap and reboot to recovery, and apply band unlock.

see http://forum.xda-dev....660713&page=17


----------

