[Q] WHAT IS CWM (CLOCK WORK MODE RECOVERY)?

About Android Recovery

All Android devices ship with a recovery console that is basically a partition on the device’s internal memory and can be booted into. The stock recovery of almost all Android devices provides a few basic yet handy options that allow you to factory reset your device, clear its cache partition, and recover its operating system using an official ROM in zip format, but that’s all you can do with it. That’s where a custom recovery comes handy.
A custom Android recovery basically replaces the stock recovery with one that lets you do all you can do with the stock recovery, plus a plethora of more options to give you a lot more control on your device. With a custom recovery, you can install official and unofficial ROMs as well as other updates including hacks, themes, kernels etc. using zip files, wipe not just user data but pretty much every standard partition on your device, mount the storage card for USB mass storage access without leaving recovery, partition your SD card, wipe dalvik cache and battery stats, fix permissions, perform, manage and restore backups, and so on.

Introduction to ClockworkMod

ClockworkMod recovery is one of the most widely used custom Android recoveries that is available for most mainstream Android devices. It is our custom recovery of choice here at AddictiveTips and almost every custom ROM that we install on our devices is done using this recovery.
ClockworkMod recovery has been developed by Koushik Dutta (also known as Koush) – the same guy who brought us the Android ROM Manager. He can be found at his blog hacking away at Android devices, and at Twitter.

Booting into ClockworkMod

Once you have ClockworkMod recovery installed on your Android device, booting into it is quite simple. All you have to do is launch ROM Manager and tap ‘Reboot into Recovery’.
Also, if you have ADB installed on your computer, you can simply enable USB debugging mode on your device from Settings > Applications > Development, connect it to your computer via USB, launch a Command Prompt / Terminal window on your computer and enter this command:

adb reboot recovery

The above methods will not work in certain cases though, for instance if you can’t boot into Android in the first place due to some issue, or if you are using a device like the HTC HD2 that doesn’t natively support an Android recovery. Many solutions are available in these cases.

• Using hardware button combination on most Android devices:
  On most Android devices including ones by HTC, you can enter recovery by powering your device off and then powering it back on while keeping either the ‘Volume Down’ or the ‘Volume-Up’ button pressed, depending on the device. This will enter the bootloader from where you can select the ‘RECOVERY’ option by navigating to it with the Volume key and entering it with the ‘Power’ key.
  On most Samsung devices specifically Samsung Galaxy S series devices, you must keep both the ‘Volume-Up’ and ‘Home’ keys pressed while powering on the device, to directly enter recovery.
• Using MAGLDR on HTC HD2:
  Entering ClockworkMod recovery on the HTC HD2 can’t be done via ROM Manager or any hardware button combination but that doesn’t mean it is difficult in any way. All you have to do is power the device off, power it on by keeping the Power key pressed till you see the MAGLDR bootloader’s menu and finally selecting the ‘AD Recovery’ option.

BY.

SOMU MARADI (BLUE LEMON)