Upgrading Samsung Galaxy S from Telcel to Darky’s Rom v10.1 with Android Gingerbread

This upgrade took my whole Saturday so this post might save you a lot of time searching through forums to get the Darky ROM 10.1 on the Samsung Galaxy S. My phone came originally with a ripped off version of Samsung’s official 2.1 Eclair Android release, since Telcel, the main carrier in Mexico, removed all the google apps and replaced them with Yahoo! and Bing alternatives. So I’ve been using Darky Rom which is based on the 2.2.1 Froyo release. Now that Darky has recently released its 10.1 version, based on the 2.3 Android release, Gingerbread, I wanted to give it a try and do my upgrade.

So to install this version of Darky ROM, you need to have Ficeto’s JVH base ROM installed first. If you already have that, you can then follow the simple step by step guide. If not, like me, you’ll need to flash Ficeto’s JVH using Odin (MS Windows only) or Heimdall.

In the case of my phone, turns out that my carrier Telcel has modified the Sbl.bin file (secondary boot loader) and I cannot install this as easily since Odin will stop flashing at Sbl.bin and will not continue any progress. If this is your case, the way I solved it was using Darky’s ROM Resurrection edition. Flash it using Odin or Heimdall, then flash Ficeto’s JVH base ROM, finally follow the step by step guide to install Darky’s ROM 10.1 using ClockworkMod’s Rom Manager or the Darky ROM Configurator app.

Another tip: Even the guide says you don’t need to wipe the cache or data, I always find it better to do so. When I don’t, I get either lots of apps crashing upon booting the phone, or I can’t make any calls; they get cut off (hang up) before I get the first ring. So backup your apps and data with apps like Titanum Backup and do a wipe of both data and cache. Also remember to do wipe battery stats and flash the new rom with a full charge for better battery life.