ClockworkMod Recovery 6.0.1.2 for Huawei U8185

I built an early version of ClockworkMod Recovery for the Huawei U8185, but it was ugly and not very user friendly. Now I’ve finally gotten around to making a more functional version, which has the “Go back” menu item as well as a more-appropriate font size for our low-resolution display.

Download

At the time of writing there are binaries available at the following locations:

  • clockworkmod_6.0.1.2_u8185.img: goo.im / MediaFire (md5: ef6b56fb417de13952936e0c18b89014)

Flash

Put your phone in bootloader mode (yank battery, then start your phone while holding Volume Down for ~5 seconds). Connect your phone to the computer with USB and flash with fastboot1:

fastboot flash recovery clockworkmod_6.0.1.2_u8185.img

Boot into recovery

If you want to boot into recovery mode you can do it at boot, by holding Volume Up for ~5 seconds as you power the device on (make sure you’ve removed the battery first), or you can simply reboot directly to recovery mode using adb:

adb reboot recovery

Source

The source code for ClockworkMod Recovery is open source as part of the CyanogenMod source tree. This recovery was built using a custom device tree I wrote for CyanogenMod 9; you can find the source code here: github.com/alanorth/android_device_huawei_u8185

Happy hacking!

1 I’ve uploaded a copy of fastboot for convenience, but you should be able to find a copy somewhere if you just search. It’s an open source tool.

Related posts (automagically generated):

  1. ClockworkMod Recovery for Huawei U8185
  2. Does your Huawei U8150 support multi-touch gestures?
  3. Compiling custom kernels for the Huawei U8150
  4. Compiling CyanogenMod 9 for the Huawei U8185
  5. Huawei U8185 “Rooted”

25 thoughts on “ClockworkMod Recovery 6.0.1.2 for Huawei U8185”

  1. I just flashed it and it works, the “go back” is really useful, thank you for this version of cwm recovery!

  4. Hi Alan, really pleased to see you’ve picked this up again. It will be fantastic if we can get a version of CM working for our devices. Its a great phone but the limited memory and system bloat are a pain!

  5. Got a u8185 from Safaricom and flashed the clockworkmod you built, works great….but long story short, just got a notification that there is an OTA firmware update and since I cant update the OTA with clockworkmod I was wondering if you happened to have a stock recovery file you could hook me up with. pretty much just wanted to root the phone so I could get all the bloatware off of it but since there aren’t a lot of people working on this phone yet figured I would flash back to stock and get the OTA updates then root again.

    Thanks for any help you can give me,

    Henry
    US Peace Corps Volunteer, Western Kenya

  6. Hello,
    I just cant seem to understand this whole process, i’m trying to root my Ascend but it seems too complicated.
    I would really appreciate it if you took me step by step.

    Steve, Programmer

    1. It’s simple really. “rooting” means copying Superuser.apk and su to the system partition. Permissions don’t allow you to do this… so you need to do it from recovery mode. Huawei’s stock recovery is limited, so we can’t do it there… that’s why we use the enhanced recovery, ClockworkMod Recovery.

      Long story short: flash ClockworkMod Recovery, then install the Superuser zip file.

  7. Hey Alan,

    Well, my Huawei is giving me loads of problems.
    My phone memory is down to 4Mb. Gmail and Gtalk dont work coz of this.
    Now i have downloaded all the files possible including the CMW 6 folder u supplied and the new clockworkmod_6.0.1.2_u8185.img file u provided.
    I still dont know how to root the phone.
    I have seen your instructions and am drawing blank.

    Do i have to copy the clockworkmod_6.0.1.2_u8185.img file into my sd card and run it?
    I have already copied the Superuser-3.0.7-efghi-signed zip file into sd card

    And another thing, whenever i try to boot into bootloader, nothing seems to happen. The phone just starts up.
    I press the volume down+power button (whith the battery still in the phone)
    is this the correct process.
    Please let me know asap.

    Thanksssss

    1. You need to flash the recovery partition using fastboot; you don’t “run” it. Your phone must be in bootloader mode to access the recovery partition…

      1. well, i try to boot into bootloader…. i just get stuck at the huawei logo… and it stays there till i have to switch it off by removing the battery…. i left it there for 40 min and it stayed there….
        is that how its supposed to work….>
        while at the huawei logo, i insert the cable ama?

        1. Purav,
          the huawei logo stays there because it IS in boot mood, it’s how it’s supposed to work. You have to connect the USB cable and type in commands on your computer

          First you need to install adb and fastboot on your computer (i assume it is windows). I followed these guides to do that:

          http://dottech.org/21534/how-to-install-adb-and-fastboot-on-your-windows-computer-for-use-with-your-android-phone/
          http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1955627

          Once you have adb and so on installed, while the phone is in boot mode (with the huawei logo) plug in the USB cable to a computer.
          On your computer click start, click “run…”, type “cmd”, click ok to open up a command prompt

          into the Command Prompt, type

          fastboot devices

          refer to this earlier comment by Alan:
          https://mjanja.ch/2012/07/clockworkmod-recovery-for-huawei-u8185/#comment-3852

          If fastboot devices returns nothing, then you might have to install USB drivers for the huawei U8185. At first i didn’t have to on windows 7,

          IF fastboot lists your phone ( as “MSM7627A ” or whatever), in the command prompt type:

          fastboot flash recovery ***\clockworkmod_6.0.1.2_u8185.img

          but where i put *** you should put the full path to wherever you’ve saved the clockworkmod_6.0.1.2_u8185.img file, like c:\users\yourname\downloads\clockworkmod_6.0.1.2_u8185.img

          if it works it will tell you it’s copied the file. The rest is as Alan said above.

          To root the phone, i copied a superuser.zip (google it) to my sdcard and then used the CWM recovery program to install it, then i had root access to files next time i turned my phone on.

  8. Alan,

    Thanks for the ClockworkMod version 6.0.1.2 for u8185, with it i flashed a SuperUser.zip and now can “su” my way around the filesystem with a terminal emulator, my phone is now rooted 🙂

    originally i just wanted to delete bloatware, found out i had to root the phone to do that. This was the easiest guide to rooting the huawei ascend y100 on the net. I think the only one.

    Thanks again!

    quantim

  9. hi Alan , i want to ask, does your cwm can work for other device that have the same chipset? i have a china android with spec looks like this huawei and it has msm7627 a chipset too…
    thanks before

    1. No, this CWM won’t work on any other devices. The difference is in the partition numbers, names, sizes, and the kernel. Try uploading your stock recovery.img to the CWM recovery builder[1] and it will extract the necessary parts and put them into a CWM Recovery image. If that works, then you could build your own recovery by creating a CyanogenMod device tree based on my U8185 one[2], then compile your own recovery.

      [1] http://builder.clockworkmod.com/
      [2] https://github.com/alanorth/android_device_huawei_u8185

  10. Hi,
    Is there any way to stop CWM booting when USB power is applied?
    I want to use the device hidden in a car, and expect it to boot to Android when USB power is inserted rather than CWM/Bluescreen as its doing now?
    Many Thanks,
    Gavin

    1. Sounds kinda shady… 🙂

      But yeah, we just have to fix off-mode charging (also known as “low-power” mode). I haven’t fixed that yet… slowly slowly. 😀

  11. hellow i have installed all the applications as u have instruct but when i reboot my huawei it stuck on booting.. just a android logo on screen and nothing going on..
    What could be da problem???
    Thanx…

      1. android logo.. I have installed it and its now working but problem is it didnt change from 2.3.6 to 4 its still on version 2.3.6

  12. Hey Alan. I rooted my huawei u8185 a while back using ur method but been havin a problem since. Whenever i try to charge my phone while its off i get flashes of blue and white on the screen and it never stops until i remove tha battery. At that moment it never charges a bit infact it discharges more than its charging. Plus it takes a while to boot…Pliz help What can i do to stop that?

    1. Sorry, that sounds like a software or hardware bug; nothing to do with rooting. All we did by rooting was copy a binary and an Android APK to /system. 🙂

  13. android logo.. I have installed it and its now working but problem is it didnt change from 2.3.6 to 4 its still on version 2.3.6

  14. I tried running CW 7 on U8150 and it works just fine..but when I try it on huawei U8185( Y100) my screen becomes distorted, does Y100 really run CW 7 ??

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