Last Updated on March 31, 2017 by Mathew Diekhake

ClockworkMod recovery was the originally custom recovery. Philz touch recovery is an off-shooting of that same original CWM recovery, only with a new touch feature that lets you tap the display. The touch feature first came with Team Win’s TWRP recovery and was such a hit that people were flocking to use TWRP over CWM. Once you have installed a custom recovery on your Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone, you can take a NANDroid backup. You won’t notice the word NANDroid, but you will automatically be taking a NANDroid when you click the backup option available from inside that recovery.

Samsung Galaxy S5

The Files You Need

  1. Download the CWM recovery file from the host site here.
  2. Download the Odin version 3.07 or 3.09 from here.
  3. Download the Samsung USB Drivers for mobile phones for your Windows computer from here.
  4. As mentioned above, you must have a Windows computer to follow this guide. The Odin tool doesn’t work for any other operating system. Further, this won’t work for some version of Windows RT on the Microsoft Surface tablets.
  5. Installing a custom recovery on the Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone does void the warranty. That means no more sending it away for free to get repaired. You can, however, still find people willing to fix for devices for money. It just won’t be anyone from Samsung doing that anymore.

Installing the CWM recovery on the Samsung Galaxy S4 by US Cellular (SCH-R970)

  1. Extract the Odin flashing tool and the custom recovery file. Do that by moving the files over to the desktop of your computer and then right-clicking over the files and selecting the extract here option.
  2. Installing the Samsung USB drivers on the computer so your smartphone has no worries talking to your computer.
  3. Reboot the Galaxy S4 in download mode. Do that by turning it off, rebooting by holding the Volume Down + Home + Power keys.
  4. Connect the Galaxy S4 to the computer using the USB cable.
  5. Click the AP or PDA button found from the Odin user-interface and browse the desktop for the CWM recovery file. make sure it’s the extracted file and not the zipped file.
  6. Click the Start button and that custom recovery will now flash onto your device.
  7. Do not touch nay buttons on your smartphone to the computer until your device reboots and you see the pass message on the Odin user-interface.