After being sick and tired of inconsistent performance of Samsung Galaxy Grand Duos, yesterday I decided to go ahead and install a custom ROM (firmware) on my phone. Since then, a few of my friends have shown interest in learning how to do that. Since majority of threads in XDA forums do not have a step by step procedure on how to install custom ROM on Galaxy Grand Duos, so I decided to write this blog post.
Please remember to back up all essential data from your phone to Google Drive or your PC, before installing a custom ROM. Also make sure you are running 4.2.2 firmware, in order to install Cosmic ROM, which is based on CyanogenMod 11 and supports dual SIM. This process also requires a windows PC for the initial step, so make sure you have that as well, along with MicroSD card installed in your phone with at least 300mb free space.
Files you will need
ClockworkMod recovery with SELinux support
Cosmic CM 11 ROM for Galaxy Grand Duos
Copy files to SD card
Copy the zip file for Cosmic ROM and Google Apps into your phone’s external SD card (do not copy it to internal storage of your phone).
Install ClockworkMod Recovery with SELinux support
Now you need to install ClockworkMod Recovery on your phone, so boot into Odin mode by pressing Power + Volume Down + Home button. Once you are in Odin mode, let go of the keys and connect the phone to your PC.
Open Odin on your PC, make sure only Auto Reboot and F. Reset Time options are checked.
Under Files, click on AP and choose ClockworkMod zip file. Once Odin has done checking the file, click on start. After Odin is finished installing ClockworkMod, it will reboot the phone.
Install Custom ROM from ClockworkMod Recovery
Now you will need to boot into recovery mode by pressing Power + Volume Up + Home Button, once you are in recovery mode, let go of those buttons.
Use volume up and down key to scroll up and down. Choose “install zip option” and then press power button.
Now choose zip from /storage/sdcard1 and press power button again.
Now choose Cosmic ROM zip file and press power button and then press yes to install custom ROM.
Within few minutes, Cosmic ROM should be installed on your phone.
After the phone is done rebooting, go to Settings – Backup and reset – Factory data reset. This step is essential if you were using Samsung firmware before installing this ROM.
Enable Dual SIM Support
Go to app list and open Terminal Emulator.
Type SU and press enter.
Type setprop persist.radio.multisim.config dsds and press enter again.
Once done, reboot the phone and you should be able to use dual SIMs again.
Install Google Apps
After doing all this, you would have noticed that none of Google’s Apps are installed in your phone, including Play Store. To install the bare basics, reboot the phone into recovery mode by pressing Power + Volume Up + Home button.
Again choose to install from SD card and this time, choose the Google Apps zip file.
Once installed, reboot the phone and you will have Play store along with Gmail and a few other apps installed on your phone. Rest of the apps you can download from the Play Store and now you can start using your phone.
Disclaimer: There is always a chance that while flashing your firmware, you can cause damage to your phone’s firmware and end up bricking it. So make sure to proceed with caution and follow all the above listed steps. Also make sure to read everything that is written on Cosmic ROM thread on XDA, including existing issues you can possibly face.
18 Comments
Wow!! That was quick!!
I thought of asking you to ‘blog’ about it a week or so down the line ;-)/
Thanks for the step by step guide 🙂
Haha I too had thought about posting this later, after having some experience with the custom ROM, but a few people wanted this soon, so posted this.
That’s great, only thing is, its now more tempting for me, to get rid of what I have!!
I will still hold myself back, until you have used it for a few weeks 🙂
Thanks Rajiv, will surely let you know how this goes.
Will wait for that. Good luck 😉
Great detailing.
Few questions.
Terminal Emulator will be seen as an application when we have to open it?
Also we have to type “setprop persist.radio.multisim.config dsds” in this same manner?
Thanks
Yes, it is listed there like an app. It is just like CMD (command prompt) in Windows.
Yes, you have type that command, exactly like that. However before you do that, you have to execute SU command, as mentioned above.
Dear Yogesh I have flashed CM11 ,4.4.2 on my grand duos i9802 but wanted to see how cosmic by k2wl runs and different but couldnt flash it…can you help wht went wrong….or do i have to go back to stock rom 4.2.2 like we have to do it before installing cm 11…..also what diff u find in both the roms…cm11 by pawit (which is flawless/smooth) and this cosmic by k2wl…google now works in k2wl…can we swap memory without any problem from internal to external….can we have other tweeks /Mods which are not there in CM11….can u mail,me on [email protected]
Kunal, frankly speaking, I didn’t compare Pawit and k2wl releases thoroughly. Both I believe are equally good, I just went with k2wl release for some reason.
Flashing to Cosmic from recovery should work, I don’t think there is any need to go back to 4.2.
I haven’t used CM11 or any other custom ROM apart from Cosmic, so once again, I cannot compare.
I don’t use Google Now and I do not think it is installed, at least in my phone (I didn’t install it.)
As far as storage goes, both are working seamlessly. I use SD card for camera images and internal for apps, and there doesn’t seem to be any issue. Internal storage space is up from 3.99GB in the original to 4.04 in Cosmic.
its stable or not?
HI Yogesh,
After upgrading to Cosmic ROM, i have restarted my device, it is stopped in samsung galaxy grand duos screen only. What might be the problem.
how can i fix this. Please help me regarding this.
Thank you.
I’ve typed the command for dual sim as shown above but I get the following message stating “setprop persist.radio.multisim.config dsds could not set property”….please help…tku
Please contact the ROM developer, since newer version of ROM has come out. Also I am no longer using Galaxy Grand, hence won’t be able to help you troubleshoot.
will all these above steps work for the CosmicCM_4.6.0_20140612_i9082.zip. Its the latest release. Is there any precautions I must take like take off the sim from mobile & etc..?
In all likelihood, it will work, unless developer has changed something drastically. I am no longer using Galaxy Grand (switched to Moto G), so cannot confirm for sure.
Make sure your data is backed up and you understand the risk of flashing the phone with custom ROM (it can brick your phone in some cases). Apart from that, just make sure battery is around 70-80% and you are good to go.
After doing all this steps then also my dual sim feature is not enabled………Please help me………
How i can install lollipop in my samsung grand i9082
Please check XDA forum for that.