Just yesterday we brought you news of a final leaked build of Android 4.3 Jelly Bean for the Galaxy Note II GT-N7100. What if you want to update to the latest version of Android, 4.4 KitKat? We’ve got you covered there too. It’s going to be awhile before Samsung releases an official 4.4 KitKat update for the Note II. If you don’t want to wait, your best bet right now is to flash a custom ROM. The best build of 4.4 KitKat for the Note II right now is CM11, in our opinion.
Before we continue we need to make a few things clear:
- We are using an early, unofficial CM11 build for the purpose of this tutorial. CM11 is not officially available for the Note II yet. If you have issues, check the original thread for answers.
- You’ll need to have a rooted device with a customer recovery installed. If your Note II is not rooted, follow the instructions in this XDA thread. For custom recoveries, we recommend TWRP. You can find instructions for installing TWRP in this thread.
- Anytime you tinker with your device, you do so at your own risk. You will be voiding your warranty, etc.
Ready? Let’s jump in.
- Download the unofficial CM11 Android 4.4 build from here and download the 4.4 Google Apps package from here. Put the files in a folder on your device and remember where they are stored. GApps aren’t included with the firmware build so they will be flashed separately.
- Reboot your phone into recovery mode.
- Create a backup of your existing setup. This way if you don’t like the early build of CM11 you can go back.
- Perform a factory reset on your Note II. Wipe the System and Data partitions by selecting “Wipe Data Factory Reset.” We’ll be starting from scratch with this CM11 build.
- Return to the main recovery menu.
- Select “Install zip from SD card” and then “Choose zip from SD card.”
- Navigate to the folder where you downloaded the firmware and GApps zip files.
- TWRP will let you select multiple files to be flashed; ClockwordMod Recovery will make you select the files one at a time. Either way, flash the CM11 zip file before you flash GApps.
- Return to the main recovery menu and select “Reboot System now.” Once your device reboots, you are done!
Because this is an early, unofficial build of CM11, it may contain a few bugs. According to the original thread on XDA, this firmware build is working almost 100%. The only things still having issues are:
Not working/bugs:
-Sensors in call.
-Video play back from camera app (use galery or other video player and it works Ok)
-Mount point of external SDcard is in mnt/media_rw/sdcard1 but the files are in mnt/extsdcard/
-CM file explorer FCs in setting
Devs will continue to improve this and make it better. If you have any issues, be sure to report them in the original thread and help make this build better. If you decide that CM11 for your Note II is not ready to be your daily driver yet, just restore the backup that you created before you flashed CM11. Or you can fully restore your device using ODIN by downgrading back to Android 4.3 or 4.1 Jelly Bean.
Here’s a few more useful tips:
- Make sure to charge your phone to at least 50% before beginning this process. There’s nothing worse than your phone dying in the middle of an update and having to flash it back to stock using ODIN.
- This CM11 build is only for the GT-N7100 variant of the Galaxy Note II. If you have any other version of the device, don’t flash this CM11 build. The other instructions will be the same, but you need to find a CM11 version specific to your device.
- If your phone gets caught in a boot loop, where it just hangs on the boot screen and won’t fully power up, reboot into recovery and choose “Wipe data factory reset” and “Wipe cache partition” then reboot System again.
- Keep in mind that this is an early CM11 build. It’s not official and there will be bugs. If you have any issues, please comment in the original XDA thread. Don’t complain to CyanogenMod developers about any problems you may have. The CM team is working hard to get CM11 up and running on the Galaxy Note II and other devices.
This is currently the best way to get Android 4.4 KitKat running on your Note II. We’ll keep you posted as CM11 becomes official and Samsung releases official builds of 4.4 KitKat with TouchWiz. Enjoy!
Source:XDA Forums