Custom recovery plays a major part in any hacking activity that we do on our Android devices. It is our last hope when things fail during our modding endeavors. It gives us the ability to restore a backup copy of our ROMs if the last one we installed did not work.

If you are into modding or hacking, for sure you have already run into ClockworkMod, which is a popular recovery tool. For most of you who are fond of installing custom ROMs to your Android gadgets, this should be a typical tool.

The developer of ClockworkMod Recovery just released a touch-enabled version for the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. This version puts four capacitive buttons at the bottom of the screen, which will allow users to navigate through the options in ClockworkMod Recovery. If using the physical buttons (e.g., the Power and Volume buttons) are cumbersome for you, this touch-enabled version will be a convenient alternative. Despite the touch-enabled capability, you will still have the option to use those physical buttons if you like.

If you own a Samsung Galaxy Nexus and you want to try this new version of ClockworkMod Recovery, you can follow the instructions in this guide for installing the touch-based version to your device.

Checklist

• You need to have a Windows PC.
• The Android SDK needs to be installed on your PC.
• Your Samsung Galaxy Nexus needs to be rooted. You can try the guide here.
• The device needs to be fully charged.
• You need the USB cable for the Galaxy Nexus.

Installation Steps

1. Download the ClockworkMod recovery image. For the GSM variant of the Galaxy Nexus, get the image from here. For the CDMA/LTE variant, get the image from here.
2. Rename the downloaded file to recovery.img.
3. Copy recovery.img to the folder where fastboot.exe is located. It would typically be under the /tools or /platform-tools folder in the Android SDK installation folder.
4. Turn off your phone.
5. Reboot the device into fastboot mode by holding down the Volume Up and Volume Down keys, then pressing the Power button.
6. Open a command prompt on your computer.
7. Change directory to the directory where fastboot.exe and recovery.img are located. (Or, from within the fastboot.exe folder, Shift+Right-click and choose “Open command window here” from the popup menu.)
8. Flash recovery.img to your phone by issuing this command at the command prompt: “fastboot flash recovery recovery.img” (without the quotes).
9. Reboot the device and after it completely reboots, you should already have the touch-based version of ClockworkMod.

Accessing Touch-based ClockworkMod Recovery

1. Reboot the device into fastboot mode by holding down the Volume Up and Volume Down keys, then pressing the Power button.
2. Press the Volume Up button twice.
3. Press the Power button to choose recovery mode.

This version of ClockworkMod is still a beta version, so don't be surprised if you run into bugs or other issues.

The touch-enabled version of ClockworkMod is indeed an improvement over previous versions. We hope that this raises the bar a bit higher for this popular utility so it can compete with the more enhanced TWRP 2.0 utility which is all touch-enabled.

Have you tried the new touch-based ClockworkMod Recovery? Is it easier to use than the non-touch version?