Database Develop

This can't be happening... [SOLVED]

So today i finally get the gusto mod my phone Android Dev 1. After downloading all the files and following the instructions here i can't get past the black g1 screen (#8). note i can also get the the rgb screen. thats it, but with so many different posts with similar issues, my brain is pounding. At this point if i can get beack to factory, ill live. what i'll hate is the fact that bricked my phone. i'll most likely get screamed on for not searching, but i think i may be searched out. any help would be appreciated.
thanks.
docfu.

first of all dont freak out lol. Download the dreaming.nbh or w/e file from the rooting instructions and place it at the root of the sdcard. Then get into the rgb screen (Camera + Power) and flash it. That should get you back to factory settings. If not, download the update.zip for w/e region you are in place it on your sd card. Enter recovery (Home + Power) and flash the update.

ok...so i tried the DREAMING file and it kept turning up no image found, alternatively i'm not sure what you mean by w/e region update. i ihavent come across that in my searches.

ok dreaming file did infact work. i feel better knowing that the phone isnt bricked. however after running the update when it prompts for action, i hit the trackball and i'm right back at the rgb screen..AGGGHHHH! sorry. i've been at this since 3pm this afternoon.

Chill. Don't freak. You can't just jump in and do something as soon as your read it. Read the whole thing and if you don't have the patients for this work on that before you work on this. bbreath.

I must say start by saying thanks guys. i stepped back, and actually took my [email protected]@ to bed. Rest does wonders. That said. I've accomplished the factory reset. so i back to a stock g1, and boy does it suck. As stated my phone WAS a dev 1. i've already started the upgrade process, my question at this point is where do you recommend i go from here. back to dev 1 or try one of the other roms. i've already installed the spl, and right now im stuck at the telnetd part of the root process. and this too may have me screaming by the end of the day...
any thoughts would be appreciated.

After the recovery image is installed you need to update the radio if you want to install a cupcake 1.5 ROM. You can get it here, rename 'update.zip', place on the SD card and boot in to recovery and flash. Then flash a ROM of your choice. You should be able to do that on RC 30, but I'm not sure if you need to install a rooted image first, so I'd wait for someone else's input before trying that.

I played it extra safe and used the rc29. as far as i know the proper radio is installed. i'll wait around before i do something stupid. thanks for the input tho. i'm trying to learn everything.

ok...so i went back to the original method for obtaining root. i was so frustrated last nite that i ended up trying to combine 2 slightly diff methods. at this point i call them the telnetd method and root.apk method. correct me if im wrong but niether one mentions the other. so i make it to the bootloader running the root.apk it runs thru the list and the fails at radio_v2. now im on the white screen wuth the skateboarders, the radio #says 1.22.12.29. so i run it again i
now im on the rgb screen at proceeds to attept the update again. this time the dreaimg.nbh fails. i'm not freaking out. im good. because i know im almost there. feedback appreciated. thanks in advance.
y'know i never thought about this..but if i reverted a dev phone to factory settings...did i relock everything? and for the record, i only have a mac. if that matters at all.

Future reference ^-^
In case you encounter this problem in the future, cause it can happen with flashing new roms if you skip a step:
You're only bricked if you are stuck at the G1 boot screen but can't get into recovery or fastboot, adb or anything. In cases where you can still get to other phone options to start over, rest assured your phone does still work, just need to step back and figure it out, which you did in this case with a little help ^-^ First few times doing anything to my phone, I went into panic mode a couple of times thinking I bricked until I read around and found out otherwise.
Just in case you didn't know these things, if you did, well, hope it was a nice read? ^-^

doctorfugazi said:
ok...so i went back to the original method for obtaining root. i was so frustrated last nite that i ended up trying to combine 2 slightly diff methods. at this point i call them the telnetd method and root.apk method. correct me if im wrong but niether one mentions the other. so i make it to the bootloader running the root.apk it runs thru the list and the fails at radio_v2. now im on the white screen wuth the skateboarders, the radio #says 1.22.12.29. so i run it again i
now im on the rgb screen at proceeds to attept the update again. this time the dreaimg.nbh fails. i'm not freaking out. im good. because i know im almost there. feedback appreciated. thanks in advance.
y'know i never thought about this..but if i reverted a dev phone to factory settings...did i relock everything? and for the record, i only have a mac. if that matters at all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well... if you actually purchased a dev phone it should not be sim locked.
Technically... after the rooting process, we all have dev phones with the exception of the sim lock.
So... what SPL are you using?
What ROM are you trying to install? Some roms you should consider partitioning your sdcard.
What radio do you have?
First thing is first.
Get the 1.4 recovery if you haven't done so already. 1.4 Recovery
Because this allows you to select any .zip file without having to rename it to update.zip. This saves on confusion so you don't try flashing a spl (like danger spl )before a radio (could brick your phone).
Second
You need the 1.5 radio to use cupcake. 2.22.19.26I
Third
Consider an spl. You have 4 choices. HARDSPL (Recommended), Eng SPL (what the dev phone defaults with.. skateboarding androids), the standard spl (nondev) and Danger SPL (risk bricking but worth it because you have more memory for your ROMs and can try HERO builds).
Fouth
Find your rom. NOTE: Read each post carefully! If it says you need a specific spl then get it! Otherwise it won't work. Some require the Danger SPL. If you chose a JF rom then you should be alright and don't even need to partition your card and it will work just like the OTA release. Some (such as Cyanogens 3.9.7) are experiemental and are not recommended for noobs.
Fifth (and probably the most important)
ALWAYS BACKUP WITH NANDROID!!!
In the event that you think that you've bricked your phone. I would say that there is a 90% chance that you didn't. As long as you have a nandroid backup and can get to the bootloader then you still have a phone. Just make sure the fastboot.exe file is in your sytem32 directory of your computer. Open CMD and cd to your fastboot backups saved on your computer. Simply
fastboot flash boot boot.img <enter>,
fastboot flash system system.img <enter>,
fastboot flash userdata data.img <enter>
fastboot reboot <enter>
and you should be back to where you were immediately after the point you backed up. Think of it as a system restore for Windows. It couldn't hurt to have a few backups stored.
If you have any questions or problems include information for us to read in a single post and edit as necessary.
Example:
AT&T
Cyanogen 3.9.7 Rom
Recovery 1.4
HARD SPL
Radio 2.22.19.26l
8GB class 4 sd card (7gb fat32/900mb ext3/100mb swap)
Theme version if any.
That way we know what we are working with.
Happy flashing.

rest assured i was in panic mode yesterday. but honestly the only thing i could really do was just step back for a while, meaning get some rest tackle it with a clean head. its frustrating for sure. this one guy tho who posted in the brick think tank thread...just cuz he couldnt figure things out in an hour he got pissed and started screaming waste of time this that and the other. total BI$CH! I was like whoa. I was at that point too. but Im not tryna be that guy.
Now, if could just figure out if i have to start from scratch, i just might be able to get my phone working again in time fro me to go to work tmrw morning.

So... what SPL are you using?
the hard SPL found here
What ROM are you trying to install?
Well i was trying to follow suggestion on something simple, like one of the early jesusfreke's. if i can step it up sure why not. but i'll pass on the partitioned sdcard setup for now.
actually I'll run with JesusFreke JFv1.51 US CRB43
What radio do you have?
radio number listed in my previous post.
Hey thanks by the way for taking the time out of your day to respond to this. i know u guys get your fair share of spazmiesters, so i appreciate it totally.

after doing research it seems that all the current roms require partitioning. or is that optional just for running apps to sd?

partitioning is optional of apps2sd for preformance. some like myself have three partitions, the third being for a linux swap

Ok ive final decided on the dudes cupcake 101. the ? i have now is do i start from scratch. im kind of in limbo as i'm stuck on the bootloader. if remember correctly i got half way thru the root process and it went down hill from there.
TMobile
RC29 / previously Dev 1
Recovery 1.4
HARD SPL
Radio currently 1.22.12.29 / trying to get to 2.22.19.26l
4gb card
(hope i did that right)

doctorfugazi said:
Ok ive final decided on the dudes cupcake 101. the ? i have now is do i start from scratch. im kind of in limbo as i'm stuck on the bootloader. if remember correctly i got half way thru the root process and it went down hill from there.
TMobile
RC29 / previously Dev 1
Recovery 1.4
HARD SPL
Radio currently 1.22.12.29 / trying to get to 2.22.19.26l
4gb card
(hope i did that right)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay... you have the recommended recovery and spl.
So all you need to do is get your rom and radio and store the zip files to the root of your sdcard. You don't need to rename them.
Just boot in recovery (power+home) and scroll down to:
[Alt+A] apply any zip from sd
And then you should see the zip files.
Upgrade your radio first.
Then your rom.
Another note... make sure you have a data plan once you've installed your rom. Depending on your rom version, you may not be able to sign in without one. If you can't sign in, you can't use your phone which is why most would recommend a custom rom or an adp rom.
Now... if I'm not mistaken... you do NOT have to partition your sdcard to install a rom (unless it's a HERO rom).
You may want to consider doing so however.
The advantages are that you can have virtually unlimited storage for apps and it's much easier to restore them after a wipe because they are still on your sdcard. Some apps will recognize the partitioned sdcard and automatically do all the apps2sd work for you by default. It is also recommended that you use at least a 2gb class4 card at MINIMUM. Any slower then a class 4 may result in system crashes and errors. Any less then a 2gb card is almost not worth all the effort since you'll likely be using at least a quarter of it for the apps2sd. I would suggest buying at least a 8gb class 6 card for less then $50 online. It's both fast and plenty of storage. With apps to sd, if you do need to wipe you still have all of your apps installed. A great advantage of having apps2sd.
Also... try different roms! There are DOZENS out there! Some have the htc music installed, some have myfaves, some have special cameras, etc. Don't be afraid to experiment. As long as you have a backup and can get to the bootloader (skateboarding androids) and a pc, you can't go wrong! If fact... with the 1.4 recovery you can store several different roms on your sdcard, backup your current rom, wipe, flash a new rom to try it, wipe, flash a different rom to try that one, etc. If you decide that you didn't like any of those... just restore back to your previous backup. Simple as that. No pc needed. However having a pc is handy to get logcat information if it's not booting for some reason.
Speaking of roms not booting... while your experimenting with various roms... you MUST have patience. Sometimes (based on my personal experience with about 10+ different roms) they can take up to 15 minutes to boot up. You can literally be staring at the ANDROID or HTC logo this entire time. Unless you are using ddms.bat or adb shell logcat, you will be clueless of whats going on. DO NOT do anything unless you get the infamous "boot loop". This will be obvious. It will stick at the ANDROID or HTC screen for a while and then blink and go back to the logo. If you see it blink and go back to the logo then try pressing power + talk + menu to restart it and then immediately press the home button to bo back to recovery. Wipe... try again. This time it should work. If it doesn't then restore your backup while you research on that partitcular rom. You may have skipped a step or not have the proper requirements (partitioned card, spl, etc).
With all of that said... good luck and you'll be posting help to other users like yourself before you know it.

Hey Doc, if I'm not mistaken (other guys correct me if I'm wrong), if all, and I mean ALL you have is a boot loader (AKA SPL. ie// skating androids or colored bars) you need to reflash dreaimg.nbh to get a system back.
This ALSO flashes your SPL and RADIO back to default so reflash your radio and SPL afterward. (IN THAT ORDER I HOPE)

Binary100100 is a gentleman and a scholar
nicely written response binary.
I can't stress enough how helpful it is to have the sdk working on a computer when flashing new roms. Get ADB working, it'll save you a ton of headaches.

innerspace said:
nicely written response binary.
I can't stress enough how helpful it is to have the sdk working on a computer when flashing new roms. Get ADB working, it'll save you a ton of headaches.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you! I do what I can.

Hero Install Question

Every time I try to flash a Hero ROM, I get an error of sorts during the copy file portion saying that a "xbin" file of sorts is missing. I had JACxROM on the phone, and tried to go from that to a Hero ROM, with no avail. I just flashed to the newest CyanogenMOD no problem(I did flash the HTC ADP 1.6 recovery img first)
I have the newest radio, deathSPL, as well I have the RA1.2.3 recovery image. Is there something I am missing here?
Do I need to downgrade to 1.5, since as it stands I am running 1.6 ROMs?
Or is it likely something else was a "bad flash" and I should just go back to R29, and work my way forward from there?

are you sure you have the "death/danger" spl installed on your phone? make sure, but even if you don't, why not just install it again, it repartitions the phone memory, and makes it clean when you flash things on top of it.
that's the most common problem for xbin errors when flashing a hero rom , it's too big to fit in the stock system memory alone. Try re-doing everything. Make sure your ext partition is clean (format that) , do a wipe to clear cache/data, repair ext partition,
and if all else fails, maybe you might just wanna repartition your sd card, might have broken/corrupted partitions.
maybe you might even have a broken sd card. and you might have to get a new one
lotta maybe's , but try trouble shooting random things.
hope you can find your answer, noone can exactly help you with this one with any sorta direct guide or how two since they're not there to deal with your phone on site
goodluck flashing!

Thank you! I figured it could be one of many things... I am starting fresh, doing RC29 forward.
I am certain I had death, et al, I have been a bit of a lurker for a while on the Android end, and finally got a G1 about a week ago, so I don't have a lot of experience with it, but I have over a year with a Kaiser, and for several months I ran Android on it.
I tried a couple differnt SD cards, and unless both are dead, I think it is just a bad flash somewhere along the way that didn't show up until that broken file system got tested with a Hero flash.
Anyways, I am confident I will get it sorted out eventually. I am smart enough to not brick the damn thing...fingers crossed... not really, I should be all good.

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
I think my first time through I didn't wipe at some point I should have.

I need some help please

I've been on XDA today for atleast 3 hours and havent gotten anywhere, I have owned my G1 since dec. 08, rooted it, and kept the firmware at 1.1. I have jesus freak recovery 1.41.
Like I said, I've been on XDA forums for 3 hours already and haven't had any clarity what so ever and am just frustrated right now. Without being 100% I managed to upgrade to 1.6 withy cyanogen 4.2.15.1 I lost everything that was on my phone, it hurts but I'm just frustrated to the point right now that the phone is functioning slower than before and theres lag between the screens and functions. With the upgrade, all of the phones original fucntions "contacts, alarm clock, calculator, etc." force closed and nothing worked, i tried to factory reset and because of the stupid sync issue from the begining skrewed me and about half of my info saved to my google account. I'm so frustrated right now.
I need to know how to install the newest recovery to hopefully work with Nand because I had to Manually rename the DRC83_base_defanged to update.zip and then had to manually rename update-cm-4.2.15.1-signed to update.zip to install each one at a time without having the ability to freely choose what zip i wanted to install.
I haven't been able to find what issues there are with using another phones firmware on the G1, i've seen the Hero firmware, the home screen looks gorgeous and runs like a dream, but I haven't been able to find anything saying that it is okay or a BAD idea to attempt to install it, also I havent been able to find any info on finding the newest g1 firmware or any mods to be able to make the g1 firmware look like the hero, or any other android platforms. I have just found constant cooked firmware after firmware with a hard time decyphering why one may be better than the other. If someone could help me, I would GREATLY appreciate it.
I continute to run into threads "how to root" or "down load this, and download this, and assuming you have something with options you dont have, make it work like this"
Please someone help.

First you need to upgrade your recovery b/c the one you have is very very Ancient with a capital A....You have to wipe before you flash the defanged then flash cyan w/o rebooting.

I want to upgrade my recovery, but I haven't found anything that can help me upgrade the thing. any links to tell me how to do it? and is there no order that I have to install the firmware? instead of having to go from 1.1 to 1.5 to 1.6, can i just go from 1.1 to 1.6 in one hit?

step 1: search the development forum for amon ra's recovery. read the instructions to flash it.
step 2: go to cyanogenmod.com and read the instructions for upgrading from scratch.
once you've done those two things, you'll be much happier.

maniacallyhappy said:
I want to upgrade my recovery, but I haven't found anything that can help me upgrade the thing. any links to tell me how to do it? and is there no order that I have to install the firmware? instead of having to go from 1.1 to 1.5 to 1.6, can i just go from 1.1 to 1.6 in one hit?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You don't re-root when you need to change roms you just wipe in recovery mode
You need amon_ra
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=4647751#post4647751

Like the other guys have said, upgrade to Amon_RA recovery. This allows you to flash updates from any filename, not just update.zip. The link is in my signature, or it's on the G1 Dev Forum in the sticky threads.
After that, boot into recovery and go to the Wipe section. Wipe all the things there, not just data. I never used to wipe everything either and I found that was the source of alot of my problems when changing ROMs. Obviously if you have your SD card partitioned and you choose to wipe your ext then you will lose what is on there.
Cyanogen has good instructions on his Wiki, but basically you want to flash DRC83_base_defanged, DO NOT reboot, and flash CM over the top straight away, then reboot your phone and you'll have a nice clean CM install.
This flashes the HTC Developer image which includes legal Google apps (Gmail, Maps, etc) and then flashes CM over the top which includes all his cool changes but does not delete the Google apps which we aren't supposed to distribute because it's illegal. Perhaps you are not aware, but Cyanogen got a Cease & Desist letter from Google, which is why we now do the defanged base method. More ROMs are moving to this method as time goes on, Pay's ROM and Super D are two which do this.
As an aside, I have found CM is not the fastest ROM. Some people have had better success with a ROM called Super D which is quite popular and includes many of the Eclair bits and pieces which CM does anyway. I personally use Dwang's ROM which is a much more plain Donut image however it absolutely flies. Both of these are linked in my sig, and are usually within the first few pages of the G1 Dev Forum anyway.

Thank you guys so much! I really appreciate how helpful the community has been. I've been having some issues with the the upgrading and maintaining because of my memory card slot dying out. A lot of the times the system will not register that I have my micro sd card in it or it'll say the sd card is blank. I just hope the phone lasts the extra 6 months till the end of my contract
Sent from my T-Mobile G1 using XDA App

maniacallyhappy said:
I've been having some issues with the the upgrading and maintaining because of my memory card slot dying out. A lot of the times the system will not register that I have my micro sd card in it or it'll say the sd card is blank.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I used to have this problem too, but it went away when I moved to 1.6 (coincidentally the same time I replaced the SD Card that came with my phone with a new Class 6 card). So either the upgrade of the OS or the SD Card fixed it.

In going to have to try the new men card cause the system is already at 1.6 but the phone is still trying to kill itself.
Sent from my T-Mobile G1 using XDA App

[Q] HTC Dream - Issues Moving to CM6

About a week ago I updated my post-911 fix Rogers HTC Dream to Cyanogenmod 4. It ran quite slowly, obviously, but it was much better than having Android 1.5 apps and a useless "smartphone". After just recently reading about Froyo and Cyanogenmod 6 I decided that the apparently streamlined update would be a good idea. I heard it was significantly faster. And then the trouble started.
I updated my recovery image to RA-dream-v1.7.0R (R because as I understand it the post-911 fix is EB1I) because the wiki said the cm recovery had troubles with CM6. After looking over the appropriate information that said I did have DangerSPL (fastboot says RADIO-3.22.26.17, and HBOOT-1.33.2005) and so on, I continued. I downloaded CM6 and the appropriate Google Apps package, moved them to the root directory of the SD Card, installed the zips (CM6 first) with Amon_RA and restarted the phone.
When I did so, the phone would not boot past the Rogers logo (which formerly appeared before the HTC and Cyanogen boot screens). After about 15 minutes I had to pull the battery. I went back into the recovery and enabled USB mass storage, when I looked at the SD Card it was completely empty.
Yeah.
So, I've put CM5 and CM6 as well as their corresponding Google Apps packages on the sdcard.
If I haven't bricked my (already useless Rogers Wireless 1.5 and not updating) phone, what should I do next?
Thanks for any help.

Flash CM6, Flash Gapps, Flash EBi1 port (you can get it from here http://briancrook.ca/android/cm-ports/bc-6.0.0-ebi1-signed.zip)
Official instructions found here
http://forum.cyanogenmod.com/topic/5286-cyanogenmod-6-for-ds-shoehorn-sledgehammer-v600-08272010/
Enjoy

Wow. So it was just the radio I misunderstood?
Given that this is my regular phone, you truly made my day. Thanks for taking the time, Sleeepy2.

you have to flash the ebi1 for every Rom

[Q] HTC Hero looping on the boot screen. How can this be fixed?

Phone: HTC Hero, CDMA
Carrier: Sprint
While others have reported of this problem, the solutions that worked for them dont work for me. Im really stuck.
I know, its an old and slow phone, but I was hoping to go to CM7 to get better performance out of it. Well, I must have done something wrong in the process. My current android version is 2.1-update1. I used z4root to root it and used the clockworkmod ROM manager to install a recent nightly after backing-up my current ROM. Installing the nightly failed, something to do with the zip, but my phone had already been wiped and rebooted in default factory mode. I tried doing the install again with the same nightly and a more recent one, but it kept failing due to a problem with the zips. After one of the reboots, the OS just wouldnt load; seems to be looping on the 'HTC quietly brilliant' screen. I am able to boot in recovery mode, but cant figure out how to get past this looping issue.
Ive tried booting using the back-up I created with no luck. Ive even tried going through the RUU process (cant post a link cause Im a new member here), which results in an error message stating that theres an incorrect bootloader.
I did figure out that I was trying to install CM7 using the wrong zip; had the GSM version. Ive tried installing CM7 with the correct zip, but, after reboot, it loops at the animation with the android on the skateboard and the blue arrow around it. Not sure what it means that the two different OSs loop at, what looks like, the same points.
I probably did something wrong, but Im hoping somebody with a better understanding of all thats involved can let me know if there is any way for me to fix this. Thanks in advance for the help.

grins1 said:
Phone: HTC Hero, CDMA
Carrier: Sprint
While others have reported of this problem, the solutions that worked for them dont work for me. Im really stuck.
I know, its an old and slow phone, but I was hoping to go to CM7 to get better performance out of it. Well, I must have done something wrong in the process. My current android version is 2.1-update1. I used z4root to root it and used the clockworkmod ROM manager to install a recent nightly after backing-up my current ROM. Installing the nightly failed, something to do with the zip, but my phone had already been wiped and rebooted in default factory mode. I tried doing the install again with the same nightly and a more recent one, but it kept failing due to a problem with the zips. After one of the reboots, the OS just wouldnt load; seems to be looping on the 'HTC quietly brilliant' screen. I am able to boot in recovery mode, but cant figure out how to get past this looping issue.
Ive tried booting using the back-up I created with no luck. Ive even tried going through the RUU process (cant post a link cause Im a new member here), which results in an error message stating that theres an incorrect bootloader.
I did figure out that I was trying to install CM7 using the wrong zip; had the GSM version. Ive tried installing CM7 with the correct zip, but, after reboot, it loops at the animation with the android on the skateboard and the blue arrow around it. Not sure what it means that the two different OSs loop at, what looks like, the same points.
I probably did something wrong, but Im hoping somebody with a better understanding of all thats involved can let me know if there is any way for me to fix this. Thanks in advance for the help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I *think* your error, in general, was using a bunch of "easy" one click methods and not properly learning (READING) about what the proper steps are. Here is my advice (assuming you are still rooted) -
1.boot into recovery (power off phone, hold home button, press power)
2.wipe data/factory reset
3.mounts/storage - wipe system and boot
4.restore nand backup OR flash ROM/gapps (from the same thread)
5.reboot, and be patient, bootup could take 5-10 minutes.
Good Luck.

You are the man (or woman)! I believe the formatting of system and boot is what did it. Really appreciate the help.

grins1 said:
You are the man (or woman)! I believe the formatting of system and boot is what did it. Really appreciate the help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is important, as Il Duce said, that you definitely do a good amount of reading when you want to get involved in rooting your phone. You are opening yourself up to some great innovation and fun, but you can also cause yourself a lot of headaches.
Recovery is your friend. If you can get into that, at least you know things are ok. I like to wipe (or format) system, data, cache, and boot 3x just to make sure that clockwork recovery cleaned everything and there are no dingleberries from the last rom I was using.
Flashing the correct type of rom is even more important. Don't flash a gsm rom to a cdma phone and NEVER flash a gsm radio to a cdma phone. Once you delve into the reading aspect of XDA, you will see that is the sure way to brick your phone.
Some roms take longer than others to boot up. Let it run its course. Sometimes it will reboot right after installing. At some point, you might want to make a nandroid of the new rom you are running and go back to your stock (2.1 update 1) and update your PRL, baseband, etc. (if you haven't done an update in a while).
Have fun, that is the most important part and we seem to have a lot of it here in HeroC XDA land.

You know, I put in a fair share of reading about how to update the ROM on my phone and I was under the impression that it would be fairly simple. I figured that since this has been done for quite a while and all these tools have been developed, I wouldnt need to know what happens on the back end during a root or ROM install.
But I did get myself into a bind that I wasnt able to figure out on my own. And with the help of this forum, I was able to get past my problem. Im glad to say I now have a phone that is functioning very smoothly with CM7 and the apps I need.
Next step for me is figuring out how to save my apps to the SD card so that I can install from there if/when I update my ROM in the future.
Thanks again for the help!

Get titanium backup FTW.
BANG! from my shooter...