Motorola XOOM

Update Motorola XOOM With Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0.3 Firmware

So this is the final post which lets you install Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0.3 on Motorola Xoom. Please note that to do this, you will need to root Motorola Xoom first and in order to root it, you need to unlock Motorola Xoom Bootloader. Only after you have completed the previous two, you can install ICS. Motorola has promised an ICS update for this tablet though we do not know when would it be official. So why not taste Ice Cream Sandwich before the official update? This method works only on Motorola Xoom 3G and not on Wi-Fi models.

This firmware has some bugs as it is in Beta stage right now. So let us see what works and what doesn’t on this firmware [As mentioned in Androidadvices].

What works

  1. Camera and HDMI is working flawlessly
  2. Rogue XM kernel, which features an overclocked CPU and GPU,
  3. Apps are allowed to write the SD Card,
  4. Disabled the Lock Screen rotation,
  5. Rogue XM kernel 2.0.1,
  6. Tweaked ICS Boot animation,
  7. Best battery backup compared to the stock firmware (observation),
  8. Smoother than all other custom ROM firmwares (observation),
  9. Battery life of 7 hours approximate,
  10. New added features in the Cyanogen MOD,
  11. Added launcher of CM9 can be installed separately.

What doesn’t work

  1. Face Unlock feature still doesn’t work,
  2. Google Apps needs to be installed separately

So if you can manage with the above features, you can proceed with the steps to update Motorola Xoom with ICS 4.0.3

Prerequisites

  1. Back up your current ROM using ROM manager.
  2. Backup all apps using Titanium Backup
  3. Backup contacts to SD Card.

Steps to Install Ice Cream Sandwich

  1. Boot into recovery as mentioned above and perform a Nandroid backup.
  2. Copy the images (system.img and boot.img) to where the fastboot.exe is located.
  3. Remove the SD card from the device.
  4. Boot your tablet into bootloader mode by pressing power button and Volume+ button till you see the bootloader screen.
  5. Open Command Prompt and navigate to the location where fastboot.exe is located. This can be done with the help of cd command.
  6. Enter the following commands in the Command Prompt: 
    fastboot flash boot boot.img
fastboot flash system system.img
fastboot erase cache
fastboot erase userdata
fastboot reboot
  7. Your device will reboot on success.

Steps to Install Ice Cream Sandwich Using Recovery Mode

  1. Download  ICS Android 4.0.3 Firmware Package on your PC and connect your tablet to the Computer using USB Cable in Debugging Mode.
  2. Move the zip file to the root of your SD Card without extracting its contents.
  3. Turn off your tablet.
  4. Boot into recovery. To do this, turn on your device and when you see the Motorola logo, press the volume down button unless you see the recovery screen. After that press the Volume up button to enter into recovery mode.
  5. In recovery mode, select “Flash Zip from SD Card” and select the zip file which you have downloaded.
  6. Repeat the same process by selecting the Google Apps zip file.
  7. Reboot your device.

In this way you can install ICS on your device easily. Let me know if you face any issues.

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