I decided to write this post since I couldn’t find any single page that lists all the “secrets” you need to know when modding your Sony Xperia X Compact (XC) codenamed “Kugo” in a concise manner and in a single place. And after half a year when I last tinkered with my XC, I had forgotten about all the details again, so I had to research them again anyway…
I give credit to the following XDA people (but not limited to them, I apologize to those who I might have forgotten):
- ondrejvaroscak for how to boot into fastboot or bootloader modes
- eagleeyetom for his port of TWRP 3.1.1-0
- GadgetHacks for the explanation of fastboot
- nialv7 for his port of TWRP 3.2.1 for Oreo
General Approach
The general approach when modding your phone is the following:
- Flash custom recovery
- Backup current installation/data
- (Optionally: flash latest stock firmware)
- (Optionally: flash custom recovery that works with your new stock firmware)
- Root
- Flash other mods or use “root” apps
Custom Recovery
Fastboot Mode
First let’s explain what “fastboot mode” is: Fastboot is both a tool and a protocol for writing data directly to your phone’s flash memory. In practical use, it is used to flash images such as recoveries, bootloaders, and kernels to your Android device.
The “fastboot” tool (as well as “adb” which is also needed when tinkering with your Android smart phone) is part of the Android “platform tools,” which you can download directly from Google (roughly 4M only).
To bring your phone into fastboot mode, perform the following steps:
- Switch the phone off.
- Hold “Volume up” and connect your phone to the USB port of your PC. The notification LED should first light up in red, then blue, and provided you have correctly installed drivers, you will be able to use fastboot commands.
Note that the screen will remain black. You can check whether you are in fastboot mode with the following command:$ fastboot devices BH901XXXXX fastboot
If you see output similar to the above, you have successfully put your phone in fastboot mode.