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How to Install Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich on the Motorola Droid 2 Global

By
January 4, 2012

Proud owners of the Motorola DROID 2 are in for an awesome New Year’s treat, as a team of Android developers is  working on bringing the Ice Cream Sandwich update to the DROID 2. As of today, the early build of the popular CyanogenMod 9 (based on Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich) has been released for the Motorola DROID 2 Global.

Featuring a 1.2 GHz Cortex A9 processor, the Droid 2 Global definitely cements the rumor that even older single-core devices can keep up with Android’s latest version. Released way back in late 2010, the Droid 2 Global is a decent device with a physical keyboard and scratch-resistant display (thanks to the Corning Gorilla Glass that it features).

The news of the alpha build of the ICS upgrade for the Droid 2 Global comes straight from the guys at XDA Developers. Since the ROM is still in its early stages, we could expect to see some bugs and non-functional features. Disabled features include camera, Android Market, and data connectivity with EDGE/3G. Hopefully, in the coming weeks, we can expect the developers to continue working on and fine-tuning the custom ROM for the DROID 2. But for now, CyanogenMod 9 will serve as our first taste of what Ice Cream Sandwich can do on the Droid 2 Global.

In this tutorial, we are going to show you how to install the alpha build of ICS on your Motorola Droid 2 Global.

DISCLAIMER: Android Authority will not be held responsible if you brick your device. Proceed at your own risk.

Requirements

The step-by-step guide further down below will only work on the Motorola DROID 2 Global, which should be rooted and which should have ClockworkMod Recovery installed on it.

Optionally, install the ROM Manager app so you can easily reboot your phone into recovery mode. Get it here.

Steps for Flashing CyanogenMod 9 onto the DROID 2 Global

  1. Download the CyangogenMod 9 for the Motorola Droid 2 Global (get it from here) and its corresponding Google Apps (get the package from here). Save both files to your computer.
  2. Copy the two files to the root of your phone’s SD card. To be able to do this, you need to connect your phone to your PC using the USB cable that comes with your device.
  3. Reboot your phone and enter ClockworkMod Recovery. You can do this by using ROM Manager and selecting “Reboot into Recovery” or by rebooting to ClockworkMod Recovery manually.
  4. Once inside ClockWorkmod, make a nandroid backup of your phone. Better safe than sorry. The backup will come in handy if every you need to revert to an earlier setup after a failed installation.
  5. Select “Wipe data/ factory reset” from the options in the main menu. After which, select “Wipe Dalvik Cache” and “Wipe Cache” under the Advanced Settings menu. This is to ensure that you have a completely clean cache for the new ROM to use.
  6. To flash CyanogenMod 9 onto your Droid 2, select “Install zip from SD card”.
  7. Then select “Choose zip from SD card”.
  8. Browse the contents of your SD card and locate the CyanogenMod 9 ZIP file that you have copied (that is, “N.HA D2G CM9-ICS 4.0.3 Alpha 1.zip”). After flashing the ROM, be sure to also install the Google Apps zip file in the same manner.
  9. Wait for the installation to finish. Once done, simply reboot your device.

Congratulations! You have successfully installed the alpha version of Ice Cream Sandwich (via CyanogenMod 9) to your Motorola Droid 2 Global.