Mobile Product Support

[Hugo]

As you may have already heard, the new gingerbread update has caused so many issues on LG Optimus S phones that Sprint has pulled the OTA push for the update. Here are the steps for doing an OS downgrade for this device:

Before you start:

• Make sure contacts and other important data have been backed up.
• Make sure the phone has at least 80% battery charge as well as an SD card.
• Make sure debug mode is checked on the device. To do this go to Settings > Applications > Development > Debug Mode.

Now that you've checked all that, you can move on to the following:

• Go to this page and download the file “update.zip” to your PC desktop.
• If not already on the PC, go to this page and download the necessary LG drivers. (what follows are the steps for downloading and installing these drivers)

         -  Click on Mobile Drivers. 

         - Select the Sprint LGALS670.zip (Sprint Android Drivers for XP, Vista and Win7) package.

         - Select the LGLS670 folder.

         - Double click on "LGUnitedMobileDriver_S498CA21_WHQL_ML_Ver_2.1.exe"

         - Follow the onscreen setup wizard instructions.

Now that you have the proper drivers installed, lets continue:

• Connect the LG Optimus S to the PC via the micro USB cable, and select the option to “Turn on USB Storage.”
• Open the removable drive on the PC (found at My Computer under Removable Drives,) and copy the file “update.zip” (from step 3) onto the SD card.
• Making sure the file was successfully copied, turn off USB Storage, disconnect the device from the PC, and power off.
• Now press the Volume Down key, Home key (on the front of the device), and Power key simultaneously for 5-10 seconds until you see an Android recovery screen.
• Navigate on the screen with the Side Volume keys to highlight the second option, "apply sdcard:update.zip".
• Press the Menu key on the front of the device after highlighting that selection to begin the software installation.
• After 2-3 minutes, select "wipe data/factory reset" using the Side Volume keys and press the Menu key to select this option.
• Highlight the line "Yes -- delete all user data" by using the Side Volume keys and press the Menu key to select this option.
• Press the Volume Down key to highlight "reboot system now" and press the Menu key to select this option.
• The update process should automatically power cycle the device.

And thats all there is to it. Make sure to test the device to make sure the initial issue was resolved (in my case it was poor call quality, so I made a few test calls to make sure everything was working properly.)

Hope this helps you.

[ShannonM]

Cant you just do a hard reset and use the original zip on the phone to factory restore?

[RyanE-MPS]

If the downgrading update is not applied through the bootmenu, the phone will restore itself from a partition on the phone's memory.  in this case, the .zip file will not be referenced and the current OS will be re-applied, so the method described by Hugo must be followed to a tee to successfully downgrade the device.

[SergioG]

great info, I'm going to try this.

[Jarmars · Accepted solution]

Actually, Sergio, as of last month they have finished patching all of the issues with this phone's 2.3 update and re-released it, so instead of downgrading your LG Optimus S, just check for updates again and install the new much improved Gingerbread OS, which should work fine this time around.