Why can't I boot into recovery mode?

Question

I think I'm actually missing something here still. Everything I read suggests I need to boot into recovery mode as a first step, and that I ought to be able to do that by holding down the "home" key while I'm starting up. Instead I get a bang (!) in a triangle icon with a phone next to it.

Have I skipped a step or is there something wrong with my phone? I know there's something wrong with my phone ... that's why I embarked on this project to begin with. But could that be some how preventing me from booting to recovery mode? Or is the problem a skipped step?

Answer 1

Edit: Apparently download and recovery modes are merged for the G1. Just press Alt-L on your physical keyboard while in Download mode, and Recovery will show up.

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What you're seeing is Download Mode. The key combination is usually subtly different. In the case of my phone, it's just a matter of having the phone connected to USB or not. You should try it with and without USB, as well as removing the battery and doing a fresh boot. (You can also remove the battery, plug into USB, and reinsert the battery and try). Also try other keys -- you already know using Back instead gets you to that device info screen.

Answer 2

Everything I read suggests I need to boot into recovery mode as a first step,

If you're using Samsung Spica (and probably most other Samsung phones, not sure about other phones), the general idea of rooting/installing-custom-rom is that the very first time you flash your ROM, you need to do it in Download Mode. This first flashing uses the system that Samsung itself uses.

This first flash will usually install ClockworkMod Custom Recovery, which will replace the phone's original Recovery Mode with a much more featureful version. Once you have ClockworkMod's Recovery, then you can install any ROM in the Clockwork's .zip file format; nearly all (or all?) modded Android are distributed as a Clockwork .zip format.