In this guide, we will show you the steps to install a custom rom when only the payload.bin file is available. One of the biggest perks of stepping into custom development is the ability to welcome abode customized firmware on your device. Not only do they bring in a slew of noteworthy features and some intriguing goodies, but they even let the device enjoy the latest OS even if the official support has ended long back [the Poco F1 is still boasting the latest Android 14, though it has received its last OS update way back with Android 10].
As far as flashing of these ROMs is concerned, there are various approaches that you can opt for. While the most common is still flashing it via a custom recovery like TWRP or OrangeFox, many developers are being inclined towards flashing it via their own AOSP Recovery. In the former case, you are just given a ROM that you can flash via TWRP, whereas, in the case of the latter, you are given a few partition IMG files as well, apart from the usual ROM ZIP file.
But there are a few instances wherein you are just given a payload.bin file [to be more precise, it is a ZIP file which upon extraction will give you apex_info.pb, care_map.pb, payload_properties.txt payload.bin, and a folder named META-INF]. And to make matters worse, those sets of devices don’t even have a TWRP Recovery to begin with. So how could one flash the ROM under such circumstances? Let’s find out.
How to Install Custom ROM via payload.bin file
Before starting. please take a backup of all the data on your device. Droidwin and its members wouldn’t be held responsible in case of a thermonuclear war, your alarm doesn’t wake you up, or if anything happens to your device and data by performing the below steps.
The Prerequisites
- To begin with, download and extract Android SDK Platform Tools on your PC.
- Then enable USB Debugging and connect your device to the PC via USB cable.
- Now unlock the bootloader on your device [it will wipe off all the data]
- Once done, type in the below command to boot the device to the Fastboot Mode
adb reboot bootloader
- Finally, download the ROM, rename it to rom.zip, and transfer it to platform tools.
That’s it. This was the setup process. Let’s now proceed ahead and make you aware of the flashing steps.
Installation Steps
- Download and extract the Fastboot Enhance Tool on your PC.
- Then download the desired ROM and extract it onto your PC.
- You’ll get a few files, one among which will be the payload.bin.
- Transfer it to the Fastboot Enhance Tool. Now launch the tool.
- Then head over to the Payload Dumper tab and click on Browse.
- Select the payload.bin file and click Open. It will now be loaded.
- Go to the Partitions tab and select boot, dtbo, and vendor_boot.
- Checkmark Allow Incremental and then click on Extract Image.
- Choose the platform-tools folder as the extraction location > OK.
- Once done, you may now flash each of these partition files using:
fastboot flash boot boot.img fastboot flash dtbo dtbo.img fastboot flash vendor_boot vendor_boot.img
- You may now reboot your device to the newly flashed recovery via
fastboot reboot recovery
- From there, do a Format Data/Factory Reset [it will wipe all the data]
- Once done, you may now start off with the sideloading of the ROM file
adb sideload rom.zip
- Once the flashing is complete, your device will automatically boot to OS.
That’s it. These were the steps to install a custom ROM via its payload.bin file. If you have any queries concerning the aforementioned steps, do let us know in the comments. We will get back to you with a solution at the earliest.
