How to flash a custom recovery (like CWM or TWRP) on Android

If you have decided to take a trip to the land of
custom ROMs and Android hacking in general,
you’d need to take one first step - flash (install)
a custom recovery. In this article, we explain
what exactly is a ‘custom recovery’, how you
install it, and what are some popular solutions.
Let’s start with the fact that every phone ships
with stock recovery software. Stock recoveries
vary slightly between phone makers, but they are
identical in their essence - they allow you to
manually flash official updates and clear your
phone’s cache. Sounds limited? It is, and that’s
why custom recoveries exist.

Custom recoveries that we’ll flash here replace
the limited stock ones, adding all sorts of
functionality to your phone. Flashing a custom
recovery is often a key part of the rooting
process, but that is not its only use. Here is a
short summary of all that you can do with a
custom recovery:

Create and restore a backup image - A

backup image makes a copy of all your

phone settings, application and app data.

Such a backup copy is crucial if your hacking

experiments fail - in such cases, you can use

the created backup image to restore your

phone to a fully functional earlier state

without losing any data.

Flash custom ROMs - custom ROMs can
completely overhaul the looks and
functionality of an Android smartphone, and
usually they are the main reason for first
flashing a custom recovery.

Important: You have to unlock the bootloader on
your phone before flashing a custom recovery!
Here’s how to do it on Motorola phones.

How to flash a custom recovery

Now that you know what a custom recovery is
and what it does, it’s time to go through some
popular names of recovery software.
ClockworkMod (shortened to CWM) and Team
Win’s Recovery Project (commonly referred to as
TWRP) are the two most popular solutions, and
while the two differ slightly, they both have the
essential features you need.

Pre-requisites:
USB drivers for your phone must be installed
on a computer. You can grab them from the
official website of the company that made
the phone. Get the latest:

Samsung Android USB drivers here
HTC Android USB drivers (included in HTC Sync)
here
LG Android USB drivers here (go to “Software
updates” > Select your phone > Click on “Install
USB Drivers”)
Sony Android USB drivers here
Motorola Android USB drivers (included in
Motorola Device Manager) here

Android SDK must be installed on your
computer. You can download from the official
Android developer portal.

Download the latest version of either CWM or
TWRP (we prefer CWM, but both work equally
well). For CWM go to this website, find your
device, and download the image for it:


Download CWM here
For TWRP go to this website, click on “Get TWRP
for your device” and type you device's name to
download the image for it:
Download TWRP here

Your phone must be connected to your
computer via USB. If you get stuck at some
point in the tutorial, a common fix is to try
disconnecting the phone and re-connecting it
again.

How to flash a custom recovery (like
CWM or TWRP) on Android

1. Enable USB debugging on your Android device.
Connect your phone to a computer via USB.
Here is how to enable USB debugging on Android

Note: You can use this how-to tutorial guide to

install custom recovery on phones like the

Samsung Galaxy S5, Galaxy S4, Galaxy S III, Galaxy

Note 3, Galaxy Note 2, HTC One (M8), LG G3, LG

G2, Moto X, Moto G, Sony Xperia Z2, Xperia Z1,