tired of waiting for samsung and t-mobile to release android ice cream sandwich (4.0.3) for your UK t-mobile samsung galaxy s ii? i was. decided to take the plunge and upgrade with a non-UK ROM that has all the UK carrier settings.
please note that if anything happens to your phone then i am in no way responsible…you’re doing this at your own risk. it worked flawlessly for me. i upgraded from 2.3.6 and i didn’t need to wipe…i lost no data…all my apps were preserved…texts…wi-fi settings…etc…backup though. backup.
i used the Polish ROM. grab it from sammobile.com (you’ll need to register to download the ROM but it’s worth it). the one i chose is I9100OXALPQ which is near the bottom. after the download is complete extract the zip so that you have a file called I9100XXLPQ_I9100OXALPQ_I9100XXLPQ_HOME.tar.md5.
now you’ll need to download odin. there’s a link to it just under the screenshots in the first post. once you’ve downloaded the file extract it and run Odin3 v1.85.exe…you’ll get something that looks like this…
(if you want to try this under linux there’s heimdall…i didn’t use it as there isn’t a 64 bit binary and i was too lazy to compile it from source) check the box next to the ‘PDA’ button and then click the PDA button (don’t mess with any of the other settings) and browse to the firmware that you extracted earlier. now it’s time to turn off your phone and boot into download mode. switch off the handset and then press the ‘volume up’ ‘menu’, and ‘power’ buttons together. follow the prompts and you should be in download mode. connect the phone to your computer by usb and you should notice that odin ‘sees’ it. if you’re happy with all of the above click the ‘Start’ button in odin and the flashing will commence. it should take a few minutes and then your phone will reboot.
now all has hopefully gone to plan…you’ll want root, right? if you don’t then ignore the following. if you do proceed then note that this is rather frowned upon by samsung.
follow this link to grab the rooted kernel for the Polish ROM you’ve installed (if you used another ROM you’ll need another kernel…search the xda thread above). repeat the steps you followed for flashing the firmware except browse to the extracted kernel when you click the PDA button in odin.
and there you go…a rooted galaxy s ii with the latest firmware. if you’re worried about the yellow warning triangle on boot then i’d recommend triangle away but read the details first.
