Downloading Android Versions For Nook Color

Posted : admin On 9/20/2019

Nov 11, 2019  If your Nook freezes, crashes, or otherwise does not work reliably, resetting it is the place to start with troubleshooting the issue. A soft reset, or reboot, will fix most problems; this will simply restart your Nook without deleting any of your saved data. It seems that the newer nook color doesn’t like this auto nooter method. I just wound up with the unit rebooting and stuck at the grey n screen totally unresponsive. Wound up having to do a image restore to like it was out of the box. I guess the newer software versions don’t like being nootered!!

I wrote previously about how much Iwas using and enjoying my 9-inch Barnes and Noble Nook HD+. I’m still using andenjoying it, but a few of the things I mentioned in that article—the useless homescreen, the schizophrenic updates from two app stores at once, and soon—started to annoy me. I started to fantasize about installing a clean,uncluttered Android operating system on it instead of using the Nook operatingsystem. The best-known general-purpose Android OS is CyanogenMod, and that’swhat I was thinking about.

Last time I did this, I didn’t like the result. I’ll explain why, then move onto show you how to install CyanogenMod easily on the Nook HD+ and talk about theresults. (I’m very happy thus far).

Android Image For Nook Color

It Didn’t End Well Last Time

I never wrote about this, but when I previously had a 7-inch NookColor,and installed CyanogenMod on it, I was happy at first but after a while itwasn’t what I wanted anymore.

I had a number of issues with things like Netflix not working, exiting with anerror about being unsupported on this device (though clearly it wasn’t thedevice, since the stock Nook OS had Netflix), various apps not working well, andso on. The base OS seemed to work well enough, but after trying to install somemore apps, I found some problems. Combine that with the not-large-enough sizeand the short battery life, and I just eventually sold it on eBay. I triedwiping it and reinstalling stock Nook OS, but for some reason I must have notbacked up the stock ROM correctly, and it didn’t really function right.

So I was very hesitant to go through the same experience again with my new Nook.I like the hardware and user experience of the new one. It’s light, it’s a goodsize, it has great battery life, and it’s powerful enough (mostly). What if Iended up with a glitchy OS again, or problems with apps?

Trying Less Drastic Measures

To mitigate this risk, first I tried a couple of alternatives. One was toinstall a custom home screen via the Nova Launcher app, instead of the Nook homescreen. This let me get rid of the large, ugly area where Nook wanted to show methings I didn’t want to buy. Combined with a nice sharp Zen-rocks-and-a-flowerwallpaper, it felt like a much nicer user experience.

The lock screen was still ugly, though. I tried disabling that and replacing itwith another one from the app store, but that never worked very well; I wasunable to really disable the Nook’s lock screen, and the new lock screen didn’twork right. The default Nook lock screen is really pretty embarrassing. There’sa high-resolution screen on the device and the lock screen looks like it wasmade for a low-res device. I’m nitpicking, but my point is you can skin some ofthe Nook, but not all of it, so the user interface still feels cheap.

There were other minor problems—clearly the Nook OS is based on an old versionof Android. Fast task switching (and task killing) aren’t possible. There’salso lots of little annoyances like having apps pop up messages “Syncing YourLibrary” while watching a movie.

Two major problems remained. One was the bloatware installed on the Nook,including the Nook app store that irritatingly kept overwriting versions of appsinstalled from the Google Play store. More serious, though, was the appinstability. Gmail was unusable for a couple of weeks while some bug worked itsway through the release process. Gmail is a big part of why I have the tablet tobegin with. And even after it became usable again, it would crash at randomtimes. I’d be watching a movie and see a pop-up, “Unfortunately, Gmail hasstopped.” I’d open the Chrome browser and it would lock up the tablet for 30seconds and then kill itself. I am not sure if I’m right, but I blame this onthe Nook app store and/or the ancient Nook OS, not on Gmail.

Another problem was performance. I installed MonumentValley and I love, love, love it. It’sjust amazing. But the Nook didn’t seem quite fast enough. Graphicsstuttered, and there were visual glitches and other artifacts.

Nook color upgrade to android

There were some other things—inability to encrypt the whole device, forexample.

So although the skinned device was a lot nicer, it was still starting to wear onme. And I read online that CyanogenMod solved these problems: clean,uncluttered; latest version of Android; lots of performance improvements; safetyand privacy improvements over and above even Google’s open-source Androidreleases; ability to encrypt the whole device.

Downloading Android Versions For Nook Color 2

So I decided to go for it and install CyanogenMod! But not on my device. Ididn’t want to take the chance of wiping it and ending up wishing I hadn’t.When I bought my first Nook HD+ 9-inch tablet, they were selling for $175 or so,and $100 or so refurbished on eBay. Now they’re discontinued, and eBay is thebest place to buy one. I got a practically brand-new one for $109 includingshipping. This device would be my sandbox. And if I liked it, well, I have agift idea for what to do with the extra one.

Installing CyanogenMod On The Nook HD+ 9-Inch

Installing CyanogenMod is really quite easy. The online forums aresuper-confusing, though. That’s the hard part. All the instructions seem tocater to someone who already knows what they’re doing, or they’re written in aspastic style that is impossible to understand. In many cases they just plaindon’t work; they are written by people who are speculating/extrapolating andhaven’t done it themselves.

So I’m going to walk you through it plain and simple. I’ll follow theinstructions on the CyanogenMod Wiki for the NookHD+ and the correspondinginstallationinstructions with someclarifications and extra details. A lot is missing or assumed there.

What To Know

Some terminology, in case you encounter it on the Internet:

  • CM = CyanogenMod, the operating system you’ll install on the tablet
  • CWM = ClockworkMod, a “recovery” system for installing new software
  • Gapps = Google Apps, the Google-branded Android ecosystem apps including the Google Play store (not at all related to Google’s office and productivity suite for businesses)
  • adb = the Android debug bridge, software you’ll use to communicate with the Nook when it is booted into recovery mode

What You’ll Do

You’re going to follow these steps:

  • Download CyanogenMod, Google Apps, and adb
  • Download ClockworkMod and make a bootable SD card with it
  • Boot the Nook to the ClockworkMod recovery operating system
  • Use the Android Debugger to transfer CyanogenMod and Google Apps to the Nook
  • Use ClockworkMod to install these two onto the Nook
  • You’re done

What You’ll Need

  • A computer with USB and an SD card reader
  • A micro-SD card and an adapter for using it in a full-size SD card reader. Mine is 2GB, but you won’t go wrong if you use a larger one
  • A fully charged Nook

What To Download

You need to download some things before you start. Don’t unzip these files, justdownload them. Don’t put them onto the SD card. Just keep them on your computer.

CyanogenMod: the Nook HD+ is code-named “ovation”. Get the latest ovationsnapshot buildand download it to your computer. Make a note of the CyanogenMod version youdownload. I downloaded the following file just now:

This is CyanogenMod version 11.

Google Apps: you’ll want the proprietary Google Apps, which will give you accessto the Google Play store and so on. Download them from this link:http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Gapps Choose the correct version of them for yourOS, in my case for CyanogenMod (CM) version 11. I downloaded this file:

ClockworkMod: any version that is built for the Nook HD+. This is the sketchiestpart of the process, because you typically have to hunt around for somethingbuilt by someone and just linked into a forum thread. You don’t need the latestand greatest, you just need something that’ll boot up from a micro SD card. Idownloaded NookHDplus-CWM-6046-for-internal-memory-rev0-(07-13-14).zip fromthis XDAthread andfound it to work fine. Download this to your computer as well.

Making A Bootable Micro SD Card

For some reason, the online instructions all do this simple task in bizarreways. I think a part of that may be due to people using Windows, which doesn’thave the dd command. If you use Windows, you may need to download a bunch ofstuff as instructed on the XDA thread I just linked to. But if you use aUnix-based OS, you can just put your SD card into your computer and copy therecovery image onto it with dd.

You’ll need to make sure the SD card device is unmounted, and figure out what thedevice’s Unix path is. I assume you can do that without my help. On my Mac, thedevice was /dev/disk2.

Then, unzip the ClockworkMod file, and dd the recovery.img onto the device, e.g.

This will take a few minutes to complete.

Now you have a card that you can put into the Nook’s card reader and boot it up.Instead of booting up to the Nook OS, it will boot up to the “recovery mode”operating system on the card. Try it. You should see the Nook splash screen fora second or two, then a Cyanoboot logo will appear:

A moment later you should see a menu with options to do some basic operations—reboot,install, backup, and so on. If this doesn’t work, you’ll need tore-read, perhaps read online info… keep working until you get it. It workedthe first time for me.

Use the volume keys to highlight the desired menu item, the Nook’s home button (theN button) to select/OK the highlighted item, and the power button to go back.

Note that, instead of following the confused and contradictory instructionsonline about copying various files to this bootable SD card, and whether thatwill or won’t work and in what order you have to do it, we are only putting therecovery.img file onto it.

Make A Backup

Once you have the Nook booted into recovery mode on the SD card, you need tomake a backup. Use the volume keys to go to “backup and restore” and choose“backup to /sdcard” and let this run. It may take a while. This will be yourbackup in case you want to restore the stock Nook OS and all your data.

While this is working, move on to the next step.

Install the Android Debug Bridge

The Android debug bridge (adb) software lets you connect your computer to the Nookwhen it’s booted into recovery mode. We’ll use it to copy the necessary files tothe Nook’s internal storage and then to install these.

Follow the instructions on the CyanogenModWiki to install adb. Please read theinstructions carefully. You basically need to download some software, unzip it,execute it, and in the menu that appears, select a fairly minimal set of toolsto install. The initial install isn’t the full suite of software, it’s just aninstaller you use to get the stuff you really need.

You don’t need to really “install” the software on your computer, it’s more amatter of downloading. For example,I did not modify my computer’s $PATH variable to put adb into my path. Ijust opened a terminal and executed ./platform-tools/adb <options> to do whatI needed. Afterwards I deleted the directory from my downloads folder and mycomputer is clean and unaltered, with nothing “installed.”

Wipe The Nook

Presumably your Nook’s backup has finished now. Next,you have to completely reset the Nook. You can’t install CyanogenMod onto a Nookthat hasn’t been reset. I don’t quite understand why, but the installationprocess failed for me (and others online) until a factory reset.

Update Nook Color To Android

Don’t use the factory reset in the Nook itself. Use the reset function builtinto your bootable ClockworkMod disk. Select wipe data/factory reset and letit run. It should only take a moment.

Mount The Nook’s Internal Storage

You have to mount the Nook’s internal storage (often referred to as “sdcard”although it is not really a card) so you can copy the files you’re going toinstall. Navigate back to the main menu and select mounts and storage, thenmount /data. For some reason ClockworkMod refers to it under differentnames, but this is the correct thing to mount on the Nook HD+.

Copy CyanogenMod and Google Apps to the Nook

There are a couple ways to install software onto the Nook. I tried the“sideload” method mentioned in the CyanogenMod wiki’s instructions, but itdidn’t work. The “push and install” method worked, so that’s what I’ll documenthere.

Remove the USB cable from the Nook power charger and plug it into your computer.Your computer is now connected via USB to the Nook.

Now you can use the adb push tool to copy the downloaded software from yourcomputer to the Nook, and tell the Nook to store the zip files in /sdcard/,which is the storage you just mounted on the Nook. In my case, it looked like this:

These take a few moments to transfer. When I did it, they took about 55 and 40 seconds,respectively.

Install The New Software

Now you’re ready to take the plunge! On the Nook, use the power button to returnto the main menu, and select install zip, then install zip from /sdcard.Select the CyanogenMod zip file and install it, then the Google Apps (gapps) zipfile and install that.

If you don’t see the files: reboot the Nook and try the transfer again. I havegone through this process a couple of times and had the transfer appear tosucceed (but the files never appeared in the ClockworkMod menu), then when Irebooted the Nook and tried again, it worked fine. I believe it was a problemmounting the /sdcard directory.

After installing: Reboot. You’re done. First boot will take a minute or two;you’ll be presented with a setup menu after that. Subsequent boots will take about 20 seconds in my experience.

Free Downloads For Nook Color

Results

The process of installing CyanogenMod onto an Android device is a bit likebuying a computer with Windows and replacing it with Linux.

Android

Downloading Android Versions For Nook Color Free

Thus far, I have noticed the following results from using my freshly installedCyanogenMod operating system:

Versions
  1. It is faster and graphics are noticeably better. No glitches or visualartifacts in Monument Valley, for example.
  2. All the Nook-specific annoyances are gone, naturally.
  3. Hulu’s app wouldn’t install, saying “Your device isn’t compatible with thisversion.” Too bad; with the stock Nook OS, it installed OK. Not that I everused it, but it installed.
  4. No problems with Netflix, Spotify, Pandora, and lots and lots of other apps.
  5. I discovered things I didn’t even know about my Nook’s hardware. For example,I thought it didn’t have a microphone. With the newer version of Androidthat’s installed now, the Google Now “OK Google…” instructions work fine.It hears and recognizes my voice! Mind blown!
  6. Having a clean, uncluttered tablet OS is so nice!
  7. Full-device encryption doesn’t do anything. It shows an Android logo, but noprogress bar or other feedback. I didn’t realize it was stuck until I gotsuspicious after 10 hours or so, checked online, and found that this isapparently a known problem. Alas, I still cannot take this device out of myhouse or put any sensitive data on it, because it is not secureenough for me.

In other words, I’m loving it as a tablet to use around the home.

Downloading Android Versions For Nook Color For Kids

I leave you with this precious gift from Ida, the protagonist in Monument Valley. You’re welcome.