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I'm trying to switch from CWM recovery to TWRP, my phone is a LG Optimus 4X HD / LG P880. Using Simple Recovery Switcher, I tried to flash the TWRP image, but when I reboot into recovery, I get into the CWM recovery again. ADB fastboot told me "remote: bootloader is locked" when I tried to flash the recovery. So I figure the easiest way would be to install the recovery with CWM. Is that possible?

Thanks!

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    If you have a flashable ZIP of CWM, TWRP, PhilZ, or even stock recovery, you can flash that recovery from any working custom recovery. Recovery runs completely in RAM, so you write a new one from recovery. Verified through personal use on several Nexus, Moto, and HTC devices.
    – acejavelin
    May 21, 2016 at 13:43
  • From recovery mode, have you tried adb shell dd if=RECOVERY_IMAGE of=/dev/block/RECOVERY_DEVICE_FILE?
    – Firelord ♦
    May 21, 2016 at 16:47
  • @acejavelin: I can only find *.img's of TWRP, is there a way to make a flashable .zip out of that?
    – LimaKilo
    May 21, 2016 at 19:59
  • @Firelord: I guess RECOVERY_IMAGE is to be replaced by the image's file name, but what is RECOVERY_DEVICE_FILE?
    – LimaKilo
    May 21, 2016 at 20:01
  • You need to replace that with location of block device file. You can use Diskinfo app or the command adb shell su -c 'ls -l /dev/block/platform/*/by-name' to know the block device corresponding to recovery.
    – Firelord ♦
    May 21, 2016 at 20:04

1 Answer 1

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To install any custom recovery, you first must unlock the bootloader. There is an app for that at XDA which, other than the oem unlock method from fastboot, will allow you to unlock/relock several times.

Once unlocked, remaining steps are pretty easy:

installing CWM

The following works at least for "Open Euro" variants (I cannot tell for others):

  1. Download the image from the CWM page (they have the LG Optimus 4X HD listed there)
  2. give it a short name, for example recovery.img, and copy it to the root of your sdcard

  3. open a terminal app (or run adb shell from your computer), and then

    su
cat /mnt/sdcard/recovery.img >/dev/block/mmcblk0p1
sync

  4. power off the device and reboot into recovery to check if you succeeded.

Source: XDA

installing TWRP

TWRP images for the P880 you can e.g. find here. For original links and description, please refer to the TWRP page for the P880. According to the descriptions there:

  1. download the image file
  2. boot your device into fastboot/bootloader mode
  3. run fastboot flash recovery twrp.img to install the recovery image
  4. run fastboot reboot
  5. while the device reboots, hold power and vol- to boot once into recovery (TWRP will then run a patch to prevent your device from reverting to its stock recovery, which according to the details there some P880 do).

Also worth knowing

acejavelin correctly pointed out in a comment on the question:

If you have a flashable ZIP of CWM, TWRP, PhilZ, or even stock recovery, you can flash that recovery from any working custom recovery. Recovery runs completely in RAM, so you write a new one from recovery. Verified through personal use on several Nexus, Moto, and HTC devices.

I can confirm that with one exception: On most devices you cannot flash a custom recovery using the stock recovery, as the latter usually checks the signature. Exceptions exist, however.

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  • You misunderstood me, I already have CWM and want do switch to TWRP, but after every try, I come back to the CWM recovery screen.
    – LimaKilo
    May 21, 2016 at 12:55
  • Indeed I misunderstood you then. But still: check the last step of above TWRP instructions, maybe that's what's kicking in here somehow?
    – Izzy ♦
    May 21, 2016 at 12:56
  • @Izzy The bit acejavelin pointed out is correct. Do you plan to add it as an alternative method to install a recovery?
    – Grimoire
    May 21, 2016 at 13:58
  • @DeathMaskSalesman Thanks for pointing out! I didn't notice that. Done. Though it doesn't solve the OPs issue, it's good to have in this context.
    – Izzy ♦
    May 21, 2016 at 14:04

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