The fact that you will get a plethora of additional goodies and features right out of the box has always managed to grab all the headlines. But that isn’t the only reason out there. these custom ROMs also bless your device with the latest OS upgrades, even if the OEM’s official cycle has come to an end. So this brings us to the all-important question- how to install a custom ROM? Well, taking the help of a custom recovery like TWRP has always been the go-to choice for tech enthusiasts. All that you need to do is Factory Reset the device and then flash the ROM ZIP file. Unfortunately, not every device has a working custom recovery. To solve this major concern, various custom ROM developers like the ones from Lineage, Arrow, and Pixel Experience have started porting their own recovery along with the ROM. So you will have to first flash their custom recovery and then flash the ROM using that recovery. Following in that footsteps, this guide will show you the steps to install the Pixel Experience ROM onto your device. Follow along.
How to Install Pixel Experience without TWRP Recovery
The below instructions are listed under separate sections for ease of understanding. Make sure to follow the same sequence as mentioned. Droidwin and its members wouldn’t be held responsible in case of a thermonuclear war, your alarm doesn’t wake you up, or if anything happens to your device and data by performing the below steps.
STEP 1: Install Android SDK
First and foremost, you will have to install the Android SDK Platform Tools on your PC. This is the official ADB and Fastboot binary provided by Google and is the only recommended one. So download it and then extract it to any convenient location on your PC. Doing so will give you the platform-tools folder, which will be used throughout this guide.
STEP 2: Enable USB Debugging and OEM Unlocking
Next up, you will have to enable USB Debugging and OEM Unlocking on your device. The former will make your device recognizable by the PC in ADB mode. This will then allow you to boot your device to Fastboot Mode. On the other hand, OEM Unlocking is required to carry out the bootloader unlocking process.
So head over to Settings > About Phone > Tap on Build Number 7 times > Go back to Settings > System > Advanced > Developer Options > Enable USB Debugging and OEM Unlocking.
STEP 3: Unlock Bootloader
Next up, you will also have to unlock the device’s bootloader. Do keep in mind that doing so will wipe off all the data from your device and could nullify its warranty as well. So if that’s all well and good, then please refer to our detailed guide on How to Unlock the Bootloader of any Android Device.
STEP 4: Download Pixel Experience ROM and Recovery
STEP 5: Boot to Fastboot Mode
STEP 6: Flash Vendor Boot Partition
Some devices need to flash an additional Vendor Boot ZIP file in order for the custom recovery to work properly. So grab the file from below and refer to the instructions that follow.
STEP 7: Flash Pixel Experience Recovery
STEP 8: Copy Content of Slot A to Slot B
In order to maintain consistency of the firmware versions between the two partitions on your device, we will now be copying all the contents of Slot A to Slot B.
STEP 9: Factory Reset Device
STEP 10: Install Pixel Experience ROM
That’s it. These were the steps to install the Pixel Experience ROM without using TWRP Recovery. If you have any queries concerning the aforementioned steps, do let us know your doubt and the device that you are using in the comments. We will get back to you with a solution at the earliest. If you get one of the below error messages, then it signifies a successful installation and you could reboot the device to the OS without any issues:
Total xfer: 1.00xadb: failed to read command: Success/No erroradb: failed to read command: No error(~47%) adb: failed to read the command: No erroradb: failed to read command: Undefined error: 0
Boot Partition
Here’s the list of devices with boot partition. These devices should use the fastboot flash boot recovery.img command to flash the recovery file.
Recovery Partition
Given here is a list of devices with the recovery partition. These devices should use the fastboot flash recovery recovery.img command to flash the recovery file.