A new official Android 5.0 Lollipop software update is rolling out to smartphone owners in the United Kingdom. Thankfully, the folks from Google are making the download file available, which means we can show you guys how to install it manually. The manual way is a great idea for people with root access and for people who want to jump the waiting line.
Before you apply the following steps, you should understand that the guides only for the Samsung galaxy S5 LTE G900F variant. You can check what model number comes with your device by stopping over at Settings > About Device. That’s the same Settings menu from the phone display.
We are listing some of the essentials so you know what you need in preparation, what the risks are involved and everything you should take into consideration before starting.
The official over the air update should automatically find all users with a notification alert. Once the alert arrives to the phone, you can tap the “download” and “install now” option from the display. Use the stable WiFi connection to avoid any unwanted data charges by the phone carrier network. You should only apply the manual steps if you don’t want to gamble on how long it is to wait. It may arrive today or it might not come until several weeks later.
As I mentioned before, the other reason is for those people with root access. You shouldn’t accept OTA notifications if you are running a custom ROM because it can soft-brick your device or create other software issues. It’s tricky because some of you might still see the official notifications come in over the air and think it’s fine to install.
- You won’t lose data if everything goes to plan. However, we still advise that you take care of backing up the data such as phone contacts, SMS texts, voice messages, pictures, music and video files so you don’t lose them. Sometimes we must apply a hard reset or a factory reset from recovery mode which wipes the ROM clean.
- You can backup the data to the internal storage on the device. You don’t need to backup the data to a computer or to the external SD card. When the phone is wiped and restored back to it’s factory settings, it only wipes the ROM. The internal memory keeps the data safe.
- You can use third-party applications available from the Google Play Store to help backup the data. Helium is still really popular among Android fans heading into 2015.
- Since this is a Samsung device, we recommend backing up the EFS folder. You can download the Samsung EFS backup application from the Google Play Store.
- Enable USB Debugging Mode fro the Developer Options menu.
- Download and install the up to date USB drivers.
- You must have a Windows computer to apply the following. The Odin app does not work on mac or Linux.
- Make sure you have at least 50% battery charge left on your smartphone if you don’t have the USB charging feature working. Check your battery levels by looking at the battery icon available from the status bar.
How to update the UK Samsung Galaxy S5 G900F With Android 5.0 Lollipop
- Download the official firmware file here.
– you will need to sign up to a Sam Mobile account before you can grab the file. - Download Odin 3.09 here.
- Boot the Galaxy S5 in Download Mode by pressing key commands.
- Connect the S5 to the PC with the USB cable.
- Click the AP button from inside Odin.
- Upload the G900FXXU1BOA3 firmware file
- Do not click any of the default boxes you see in Odin.
- Do not touch the re-partition box.
- Leave the Automatic reboot box.
- Click the start button for the flashing.
- Wait until the flashing finishes by itself.
- Wait for a “pass” message on the display and the ID: COM port from the app changing color.
- Disconnect the smartphone from the computer properly by stopping the USB mass Storage device.
Boot the device in recovery mode and apply a factory reset or a hard reset if you are getting stuck in a boot loop. Otherwise, you can try flushing the cache options from inside recovery mode. Remember that resets wipe the data so don’t click the button unless you have the data stored away.