How To Install A Custom Recovery Menu On A Rooted LG Optimus S

August 2, 2011 by

Custom LG Optimus S Recovery MenuThis is a tutorial on how to install a custom recovery menu on a rooted LG Optimus S. The process of installing a custom recovery menu is pretty easy since it only has a few steps. And having a custom recovery menu will allow you to do more than what you can do with the stock recovery menu. You can do things like backup your ROM onto your SD card as well as install custom ROMs and recover your old ROMs that you have backed up. So a custom recovery menu is a very nice thing to have and this is a tutorial on how to install one on your Optimus S.

The first step is to have a rooted LG Optimus S, if your smartphone isn’t already rooted you can root it by following this guide. Once it’s rooted you should have a superuser application on your smartphone. Then you will want to head on over to the Android Market on your phone and search for Terminal Emulator and install that application.

Then you will need to connect your LG Optimus S to your computer and mount the microSD card. And on the main root directory of the SD card you will need to copy a few files over. The files include the extracted flash_image file and then the recovery image file which you should rename to recovery.img, the links to both files are in the sidebar.

Once they have been copied unmount your smartphone and you can either use the Terminal Emulator application on your smartphone or ADB on your computer to run the following commands. I personally find the Terminal Emulator easier and that’s what I showed in the video tutorial. The commands are pretty simple, you enter them in by pressing menu and then pressing toggle soft keyboard. You just type in the following commands after each line hit enter.

$ su
# mount -o remount,rw -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock5 /system
# cat /sdcard/flash_image > /system/bin/flash_image
# chmod 755 /system/bin/flash_image
# mv /system/etc/install-recovery.sh /system/etc/install-recovery.sh.bak
# flash_image recovery /sdcard/recovery.img
# sync

Once you have finished entering in those commands you will need to shut down your smartphone. And then you will want to turn it back on, but before you do that hold the volume up and home button at the same time and hold the power button while you are doing that. Keep your fingers on the volume up and home button until you see the LG logo then you can remove the power button but keep the other buttons pressed. Then you should be booted into the recovery menu. The controls are simple volume up and down button to choose an item and then the menu button to select an item and the back arrow goes back.

Please also check out the video tutorial below before you try following the tutorial. And if you have any problems or issues please comment below and I’ll try to help you as best I can. And I’m not responsible if you do anything incorrect and damage your phone. But you shouldn’t have any problems if you follow this tutorial correctly.

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About William Quade

Hello, I’m William Quade. I’m a complete computer nerd. Whether it’s the latest Apple product, or this small new company just launched a product I should write about it on ZL Studios. I read all of the major tech blogs every day.

  • Mrnewspaper

    When I enter the line that says cat /sdcard/flash_image > /system/bin/ flash_image I get cannot create read only file system

    A little help please mrnewspaper@yahoo.com

  • Chris

    I am having the same problem. How were you able to fix it?

  • Chris

    Actually after # cat /sdcard/flash_image > /system/bin/flash_image I get “invalid length.”

  • Lukeout11

    i dont make it past the first line and i get ” not found” i tried spaces no spaces i moved the img files around in my phone cant get nothing to work plz help
    lukeout11@gmail.com thanks in advance

  • Blissful6393

    Please help I’m also getting the “cannot create read only file system” error.

  • Outbreak2005

    I have the same problem were u able to fix it?

  • Nate

    Help! I keep getting “unable to chmod /system/bin/flash_image: no such file or directory”. What should I do?

  • Christopher

    make sure under settings>applications> that unknown sources is checked, thats what i did and was able to get past the cat line. But then now i am running into problems with line “# mv /system/etc/install-recovery.sh /system/etc/install-recovery.sh.bak”. After putting that line in it tells me ‘/system/etc/install-recovery.sh’ – no such file or directory. I put all three files that were needed onto the sd card before entering into the emulator. =/

  • Alex Geller

    i just ignored it, moved on to the next step, and it worked!  Article on that here: http://androidforums.com/getitnowmarketing/221388-custom-recovery-optimus-one-p500-thunderg.html

  • Ltrell3

    file not found, or read-only

  • Ltrell3

    it said that it couldn’t open the recovery.img. need help. i tried another custom recovery but it wouldn’t install the cyanogenmod.

  • Bushitnerd

    Seem to be a bunch of Bullshit obvious this is not working !

  • Keido2211

    I am also having the same problem, please help as best as you can.
    keido2211@msn.com

  • Bosiname

    Can you please provide cmd prompts on how to use ADB instead of emulator

  • http://twitter.com/qikpass Novej McLatrie

    Having same issue.. any resolution?

  • Awhitham

    I was able to get this installed, however, the up button scrolls down, the down button does nothing, and there is no select button…..cant use :( anyone know how to correct this so i can install cm7?? please let me know!

  • Karen Molloy

    A solution for those who are having the “file not found” when you get to the recovery.img file. I didn’t realize that when I renamed the file, I wasn’t supposed to call it “recovery.img” but just “recovery” So when my computer geek hubby checked it out, he discovered that my file was actually called “recovery.img.img” 
    When we repeated the line and changed the file name: flash_image recovery /sdcard/recovery.img.img
    It works fine. :-)

  • Bridget Robinson

    For those of you receiving error messages:

    Use the cursor on your computer to determine the correct spacing in the code.  I received a few error messages and was having a hard time getting the code in correctly, until I used my mouse to highlight the areas before & after backslashes in the code posted in the tutorial.

  • Oscarquintela

    when i download the recovery.img file it downloads as a disc image file what am i doing wrong

  • Jsmith01312011

    i cant get the right recovery file can you help me out here jsmith0131211@GMAIL.com

  • Chris

    what version of windows do you have and if it is something earlier then windows 7 do you have any kind of cd/dvd image software on your computer

  • Crazytimmy96

    Where are the files??? I am unable to find them

  • Garethkhoo

    Yea nice ^^ finally ty

  • Milkshakewithfries

    when i install the recovery file its coming up as a disc image file as well. im on windows 7 and its doing this. does anyone know what i need to do to fix this so the recovery file does not save as a disc image file? :) im dying here

  • Michael_tucker1012

    I am getting an error, “cat/sdcard/flash_image: not found” I double checked my sdcard and the flash_image file is on it.