Help me recover my Samsung Note (1) - which ROM to use?

April 1, 2015 5:46 PM

Samsung note, first model model number GT-N7000, Needs a new ROM but I'm not sure which one.

So I've got this phone sitting here for three years. For environmental reasons, I don't want to go buy a new phone and would like to finally get it working now my other phone is dying. It was repaired after the first three months but then reloaded with some suspect Chinese ROM that I was unwilling to use and lagged like hell, hence used only as an alarm. It's been my most expensive alarm clock ever. Over there air updates download but fail.

I've poked around for several hours on XDA developers enough to know there's enough warnings about bricking my device that I don't want to mess it up (The notorious "brick bug"). Someone here was nice enough to walk me through flashing a ROM and I think I can manage again, if I only knew which ROM to pick. There's not a matching ROM listed on the Sammobile website that matches my PDA. Can you help me out?

I guess I just want to be able to update it to whatever the latest supported ROM is. Unless you think it would run CM12.1? I just want to have access to the Google play store, have a secure phone, and use the normal pen functions. I would prefer the Hong Kong addition if I know anything because my experience has always been at Hong Kong additions have best English and Chinese support. But it doesn't really matter as long as I can have Chinese including Chinese voice recognition in the IME.

This is what I know:

Model:GT-N7000
Android 4.03
Baseband version: N7000 XXLPT
Kernel version: 3.0.36_Hydracore_V5.34
source_build #6
PDA: N7000XXLQ2
CSC: N7000XEULP4
CWM-based recovery V6.0.1.2

posted by chinabound to Technology (2 answers total)

If your phone is already rooted and flashed to custom roms, there is usually little risk of bricking, since that usually happens in the rooting process. I would just try out different roms and see what you like. It is pretty easy once you do it once or twice. If anything goes wrong, you just do a factory reset from the recovery. CM is usually a reliable choice. The Slim roms (e.g. Slimkat) are often recommended for older phones. MIUI is a commonly used one from China that would probably have good Chinese support. They should all be available via xda forums. Good luck.
posted by roaring beast at 3:04 PM on April 2, 2015

Response by poster: Maybe that's good advice generally, but I wanted to write an update for anyone visiting:
the brick bug is real. I used Cyanogen installer and it got stuck midway through, bricking it. Eventually I had to visit the Samsung store, and got 4.0.2 operating system from Hong Kong put on it. Subsequent attempts of rerooting CM eventually got me to CM 11 which it is now running. ( Based on kitkat 4.4) With Gapps added for google apps. (version for kitkat) Clockwork worked better than Odin and the CM install which would not work. CM 12 nightly as of this date had connectivity issues. Whole process took me 18 hours of messing about.
posted by chinabound at 7:14 PM on May 3, 2015