How I upgraded my HTC One M7 (EE) to Google Play Edition GPE 5.0.1 Lollipop

I’m going to try and summarise the painful process I’ve been through lately. I was sick of the sent UI on my HTC M7, it looks nice but it’s not intuitive enough. I wanted a clean stock build. After some searching I found that it is possible to convert your phone to the GPE edition.

This process is extremely confusing, there’s so much information out there it’s difficult to separate the good stuff from the rubbish. It’s taken me basically a week to trawl through and work it out.

It goes without saying that you should backup everything before you begin. Also there is a chance you could brick your device so take heed: on your head be it!

Here is a basic summary if you’re interested:

Root your device

Great guide here: http://htconeroot.com/htc-one-root/how-to-root-htc-one-windowsmaclinux/

In a nutshell:

Goto Settings > Developer options make sure USB Debugging is ON

Download and upzip HTCOneRoot.zip to a folder

Install the HTC USB drivers (HTCDriver_4.1.0.001.exe) in above zip if you don’t have them installed already

Open a command shell at the unzip folder and run the following commands:

cd Downloads

cd HTCOneRoot

adb backup -apk -all -f backup.ab

I think this backs up your apps

Turn off your HTC One. Then hold down Volume Down and Power buttons together for about 3-5 seconds until you see bootloader menu

Hit the Power button to enter Fastboot mode

Connect micro-USB cable from your HTC One to your computer

Type the following in your command prompt/terminal:

fastboot oem get_identifier_token

Copy the identifier token exactly

Go to HTCDev.com and log-in. If you don’t have an account, register then log-in

Follow the instructions to unlock the bootloader, when successful you will receive an Unlock_code.bin via email, when you have this move on…

Save your Unlock_code.bin to your unzip folder

Go back to your command shell and type:

fastboot flash unlocktoken Unlock_code.bin

Go to your phone and choose “Yes” using Volume Up button then hit the Power button. Your HTC One will reboot in about 5 seconds.

Once rebooted, your HTC One should be completely wiped and you should get Welcome message just like the day you got your phone. Sign in through the setup process then copy the CWM-SuperSU-v1.30.zip file in HTCOneRoot folder to anywhere on your HTC One’s internal storage.
*Note – For Android 4.3 or 4.4, please use the file “UPDATE-SuperSU-v1.65.zip” instead of v1.30.

Power off your phone then re-boot into bootloader menu to fastboot mode

Back to the command shell:

fastboot flash recovery openrecovery-twrp-2.6.3.0-m7.img

fastboot erase cache

Choose “Bootloader” and hit the Power button

Choose “Recovery” and hit the Power button

Once in TWRP recovery, choose “Install”

Choose the SuperSU.zip file you copied earlier

Swipe to flash this file. This will root your HTC One by installing SuperSU superuser app and SU binaries.

Choose “Reboot System” to reboot

That’s it, we are rooted with a TWRP custom recovery

Obtain S-OFF

What is S-OFF? Hey I don’t really know other than it’s a security thing that prevent important stuff being overwritten in your phone. If you boot to bootloader you’ll see the S-ON setting at the top.

To do good stuff you need to turn this to S-OFF. Finding out how to do this was near impossible as it seems that Firewater the most popular tool has been discontinued. After much searching I found rumrunner:

Download rumrunner from here: http://rumrunner.us/downloads-2/

Review the instructions, which are essentially: disable locks, use usb2 and be rooted

Unzip rumrunner into your unzip folder and run soju.exe

Watch the magic happen

There’s load of stuff online. Many have posted bad experiences with rumrunner, I wasn’t convinced it would work and it came as a pleasant surprise when it did. It took about 20 minutes to S-OFF my handset.

Install the Google Play Edition RUU

There’s a great guy out there called GraffixNYC, check out his video here that has everything you need: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7Izx7sLQgY

Download the appropriate RUU from here: http://www.graffixnyc.com/m7.php

Ensure your phone CID matches one in the list, if it doesn’t change is using command:

Fastboot oem writecid GOOGL001

You can check the CID by running

Fastboot oem readcid

Now do the following to copy the new RUU to your phone:

1. adb reboot bootloader

2. fastboot oem rebootRUU

3. fastboot flash zip RUU-HTC_One_GE-5.0.1-5.11.1700.3.zip (note your zip may be different)

4. You will get a FAILED message first time – this is normal

5. Redo the same command again

6. The process will run for about 10 minutes until if finishes wait until it finishes

7. fastboot reboot

done.

UPDATE:

Well I can safely say that Android 5 on an M7 is rubbish. The screen doesn’t lock consistently when holding the device to your ear, so you find yourself pressing  buttons with your ear! Not amusing.

So I figured I’d flash it back to Android 4.4.2: easier said than done. Although my handset was Unlocked with S-OFF it consistently refused to take any flash command with the following error:

FAILED (remote: not allowed)

Finally I found the following article:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2509195

It took me ages to find this but once I did it turns out the solution was the same as i’d already blogged above haha I should read my own stuff:

1. adb reboot bootloader
2. Fastboot oem rebootRUU
3. Fastboot flash zip nameofzip.zip
4. (redo above again, as it needs a second run at it)
5. Fastboot reboot-bootloader

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