Develop Bugs

[Q] HTC Desire HD stuck in bootloop. Will not go past htc logo, total inactivity

My DHD is stuck on HTC logo. Happened after trying to flash leedroid from cyanogenmod 7. previous flashes were successful. Now when i turn it on, the only thing it can do is show htc logo screen.
- The screen wont turn off
- None of the buttons do anything when pressed (including power off)
- Cannot go to recovery, bootloader or use fastboot
- Cannot access SDCard when plugged in the phone to my laptop (recognises a device connected though!)
Going to send it back to the network provider for fixing but i'm sure it is not covered warranty.
Please help me with things I can try to somehow get it anywhere besides the blank htc screen (white background with green htc).....
Much appreciated

With the USB connected there should be a split second where you can type adb reboot recovery to get back into recovery...
You could also try removing the battery and then replacing the battery while to have your finger on the vol- key. That might get you into the boot loader...

yea, like the 'Drew442' said, take the battery out, hold vol down and press power for 1-2 secs. That will take u to bootloader. Select Recovery and that'll take you to CWM Recovery. Then you can restore a nandroid, or flash a new ROM.
I've done this ALOT, once i did it approx 10-15 times in one day (lots of experimenting )!!! dont worry,

CodeNameUnknown1 said:
yea, like the 'Drew442' said, take the battery out, hold vol down and press power for 1-2 secs. That will take u to bootloader. Select Recovery and that'll take you to CWM Recovery. Then you can restore a nandroid, or flash a new ROM.
I've done this ALOT, once i did it approx 10-15 times in one day (lots of experimenting )!!! dont worry,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Last night I done that 10+ times after my touch screen was toty unresponsive due to flashing a mod. I suggest what the two posters suggested. I don't it will be wise sending it back.
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App

similar issue - but can't get to cwm
Hi,
I have a similar issue produced by similar circumstances. Mine was during switch from regular ext3 ROMs to an ext-4 CM7 based ROM. To be precise, it was during my attempted flash of an ext-4 friendly version of CWM 3.0.2.8
Now I can get to HBOOT menu by pulling the battery and booting with volume "-" , but when I select "recovery" I can NOT get to CWM recovery very worried. selecting recovery sends me to the white screen with the green HTC logo indefinitely, until battery pull.
What can I do? I have years of *nix use, but this is my first Android smartphone (well i had an HD2 for a couple weeks, and LOVED android so bought the inspire / desire hd) and I've had no problems following tutorials, and experimenting. But I am new, so maybe I'm not trying something that's obvious to all ofyou
is there ANY way to manually flash a bootable ROM to my phone? or force install CWM?
I need help.. so sad.. no phone at all now, as I got rid of my iphone 4 after loving this phone so much!

You can flash a cwm 3...... Recovery from Fastboot then load cm7 rom. As long as you can access the bootloader you're ok, the phone isn't bricked. Download a cwm recovery 3 series and put the .img file in the tools folder of your sdk then turn the phone on in fastboot bootloader mode then open a command prompt on your pc. Navigate to your tools folder then type...... fastboot flash recovery nameofrecovery.img
Then fastboot reboot-bootloader
That ought to do it.
Sent from my Motorola Startac running Atari 2600 software!

Well, if you have ENG S-OFF, then you can flash CWM recovery manually .. LINK
IF you dont have ENG S-OFF, or if it fails again, then i suggest trying to put the official 1.32 FW ROM - LINK
flashing 1.32 would be more productive in that case that flashing CWM fails, since its easily rootable (Visionary+)

thanks! will try~
@CodeNameUnknown1 - i do have s-off, but I tried running "install-recovery-windows.bat" with cwm 3.2.0.0, to no avail.
For the brief moment the batch file is running, the terminal window says something about not being able to write the file. It is so fast I can't read it properly.
@pwraggcan - I will give the sdk method a shot. didn't know about it, since I used a "one-click" method initially to root my device and proceeded with rom manager from inside...
thanks! I hope it works!!

Google search for guidance on installing sdk or search within the xda forum. There will be plenty of guides.
Sent from my Motorola Startac running Atari 2600 software!

thanks
hey guys.
in the end i loaded stock rom (1.32) and went from there. worked perfectly.
was trying to do the sdk method (seemed similar to how I rooted my asus transformer - abd etc..) but I keep getting a missing dll error. followed all kinds of guides on rectifying it, but no dice.
anyway, stock rom was faster fix in the end.. lol.
thanks again!!!

Glad it worked for you. I actually prepared a zip file to upload for you with the necessary drivers and files if you needed it but hey.... you're sorted now, so all good.
Sent from my Motorola Startac running Atari 2600 software!

i got a problem here..
my friend recently update his unroot phone to GB with OTA update.. but after the update finished,his phone restarted and got into infinite bootloop..
in this thread,someone said that it can be solved by using stock pd98img.zip
can anyone help me how to do it? because the OP at http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=905003 said to use the visionary+ first.. but the problem is his phone can't past the bootloop. is there any solution to manually install the stock 1.32 ROM?
thanks

Follow the downgrade guide in the development section. That will sort you out. Make a gold card then flash the pd98img.zip. That will reinstall the stock rom.
Sent from my Motorola Startac running Atari 2600 software!

pwraggcan said:
Follow the downgrade guide in the development section. That will sort you out. Make a gold card then flash the pd98img.zip. That will reinstall the stock rom.
Sent from my Motorola Startac running Atari 2600 software!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
why i must make a goldcard first? my friend's phone isn't a branded one..
and what about the version number? does it matter?
i kind of lost here..
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App

Just flash a version which match yr country version or a wwe will do too. Mine also isnt a branded phone, but i also have to do a goldcard too, kinda weird, lol...

sneef said:
hey guys.
in the end i loaded stock rom (1.32) and went from there. worked perfectly.
was trying to do the sdk method (seemed similar to how I rooted my asus transformer - abd etc..) but I keep getting a missing dll error. followed all kinds of guides on rectifying it, but no dice.
anyway, stock rom was faster fix in the end.. lol.
thanks again!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think that missing dll is located in the platform-tools folder and you could copy it to the tools folder (at least in my case with a similar error). Or you could use adb from the platform-tools folder. Works for me.

sneef said:
hey guys.
in the end i loaded stock rom (1.32) and went from there. worked perfectly.
was trying to do the sdk method (seemed similar to how I rooted my asus transformer - abd etc..) but I keep getting a missing dll error. followed all kinds of guides on rectifying it, but no dice.
anyway, stock rom was faster fix in the end.. lol.
thanks again!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hi ! , i'm an xda noob....
cant get past the htc screen ....
i tried the install-recovery-bat but to no avail..
dint quite get how you loaded the stock rom (1.32) ... can you please post a link to some guide.. i will be greatful.. thanks

hi,
having same problem as sneef there,
only can go to bootloader, can get into recovery
but then i flash recovery using the eng s-off guide and now i can go to recovery (cwm)
but still it cant boot to the rom, i have tried to flash 3 4 roms with no avail.. all stucked in the htc boot logo
this happened to me after flashing superwipe.zip
any solution please?
nb: i have already format and repartition my sd card

interqd said:
hi,
having same problem as sneef there,
only can go to bootloader, can get into recovery
but then i flash recovery using the eng s-off guide and now i can go to recovery (cwm)
but still it cant boot to the rom, i have tried to flash 3 4 roms with no avail.. all stucked in the htc boot logo
this happened to me after flashing superwipe.zip
any solution please?
nb: i have already format and repartition my sd card
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried the stock ROM?

sneef said:
Hi,
I have a similar issue produced by similar circumstances. Mine was during switch from regular ext3 ROMs to an ext-4 CM7 based ROM. To be precise, it was during my attempted flash of an ext-4 friendly version of CWM 3.0.2.8
Now I can get to HBOOT menu by pulling the battery and booting with volume "-" , but when I select "recovery" I can NOT get to CWM recovery very worried. selecting recovery sends me to the white screen with the green HTC logo indefinitely, until battery pull.
What can I do? I have years of *nix use, but this is my first Android smartphone (well i had an HD2 for a couple weeks, and LOVED android so bought the inspire / desire hd) and I've had no problems following tutorials, and experimenting. But I am new, so maybe I'm not trying something that's obvious to all ofyou
is there ANY way to manually flash a bootable ROM to my phone? or force install CWM?
I need help.. so sad.. no phone at all now, as I got rid of my iphone 4 after loving this phone so much!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have tried like you describe holding the volume down but nothing happens. I have earlier had problems with the volume down in bootloader, but it has worked in htc sense. you know what the volume down problem is about? how it could be fixed?

Unable to install any cutom ROM on rooted Samsung GS2 on 2.3.5

Hi,
I am admittedly new to this but have trawled the net for two days trying to find a solution to this problem. I've only had my GS2 for a month or so and it's my first Android phone.
Anyway - About Phone:
Samsung Galaxy S2 - Model GT-I9100 (UK)
Android v 2.3.5 (Upgraded by me)
Baseband - I9100xxki3
Kernel - 2.6.35.7-i9100xxki4-CL611039 [email protected] #2
Build - Gingerbread.XXKI3
I also have a 32gb external SD Card
So - got phone rooted, that was easy, using Odin. I also have the necessary files to get me back to Stock 2.3.5 via Odin as and when phone bricks (which it keeps doing, as I'll explain).
So - long and short, installed CWM and ROM Manager. First thing I noticed when trying to flash recovery with Clockwork was that it wouldn't stick, so I can't upgrade to CyanogenMod or any other modified ROM using ROM Manager. This is to do with signatures not being accepted as a result of the 3e stock recovery. i've read all around this and tried to find a replacement for the S2 to no avail, if someone can point me in the direction of that then much appreciated.
I can boot into Clockwork recovery using either of two methods:
1) The three button press on boot takes me straight there so it would appear that the ROM is correctly flashed
2) If I choose the "boot into Clockwork Recovery" method direct from CWM rather than ROM Manager that works fine too. SO - no problem, you might think.
I am under the impression that as long as you can get into Clockwork recovery then you should be able to flash a modified ROM by factory reset and then installing from .zip file on root of SD Card (internal, not external).
Anyway, I've tried Cyanogen, Oxygen, Cognition, Sensation and Villain. On every single one the same thing happens, all looks like it's going to plan and then phone either goes into endless reboot cycle or hangs on the startup screen.
Can anyone provide any advice as to where I go from here, I am getting very frustrated!
Cheers
Will

Galaxy Note II N7100 Not Booting

Hi All,
This is my first post here and I really would appreciate any help one of you experts here could give me.
So to cut a long story short, I purchased my shiny new Note II yesterday, today I tried to root it and install a custom ROM. The rooting part went fine however since trying to install a custom ROM the phone is now no longer turning on but instead is getting stuck at the loading screen.
The phone.....
The phone is a Vodafone UK handset however was unlocked and I've been using my o2 sim card in there since I got it yesterday.
What I did.....
The first thing I did was root it using Odin3 v1.85. This part went fine and I successfully installed SuperUser.
Next what I wanted to do was install Android Revolution HD Custom ROM so I took out the SD card, put it in the SD card reader on my laptop and copied over the "Android_Revolution_HD-Note2_4.2" and "Android_Revolution_HD_Super_Wipe_Note_2". I then went into the menu (holding down Vol Up, Home, Power) and first flashed the Super wipre then the ROM. The super wipe went fine but not the ROM. When I tried to install the rom I was given an error message. I then tried again with version 4.2 and it looked like it was going to work but didn't. My phone is now not booting.
Somebody PLEASE help, it would really mean a lot!
Thanks!
Tommy

tcorbyn said:
Hi All,
This is my first post here and I really would appreciate any help one of you experts here could give me.
So to cut a long story short, I purchased my shiny new Note II yesterday, today I tried to root it and install a custom ROM. The rooting part went fine however since trying to install a custom ROM the phone is now no longer turning on but instead is getting stuck at the loading screen.
The phone.....
The phone is a Vodafone UK handset however was unlocked and I've been using my o2 sim card in there since I got it yesterday.
What I did.....
The first thing I did was root it using Odin3 v1.85. This part went fine and I successfully installed SuperUser.
Next what I wanted to do was install Android Revolution HD Custom ROM so I took out the SD card, put it in the SD card reader on my laptop and copied over the "Android_Revolution_HD-Note2_4.2" and "Android_Revolution_HD_Super_Wipe_Note_2". I then went into the menu (holding down Vol Up, Home, Power) and first flashed the Super wipre then the ROM. The super wipe went fine but not the ROM. When I tried to install the rom I was given an error message. I then tried again with version 4.2 and it looked like it was going to work but didn't. My phone is now not booting.
Somebody PLEASE help, it would really mean a lot!
Thanks!
Tommy
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sounds like you placed the ROM on your external SD card and the phone cannot find it or you did not select it.
If CWM allows mount the phone in recovery and hope BOTH SD card are mounted. Move the ROM to the Internal SD card and flash from there. OR you can flash the zip from you Internal card. IF it will mount in recovery.
OR if you have a TAR file of the ROM use Odin to flash it.

[Q] Recovery is corrupt and stalls at 'waiting' - Can't flash

I have been trying to root my incredible 2 ver 2.3.4 and managed to get it unlocked so I could change carriers. However, in the process of trying to also root the phone using adb I seem to have flashed improperly somehow and corrupted the recovery image instead of replacing it. Maybe I got hold of a corrupt TWC_recovery image and that is the problem. I was trying to flash TWC and it claimed to work but upon trying to reboot into recovery it simply sits at the white HTC screen and stalls.
When I use the cable and ADB to tryi and flash clockwork instead of TWC it apparently is not communicating with the phone. I used adb devices and the list is empty.
Incidentally the phone still boots up good and works fine as a phone but recovery mode using the phone menu is also history. Is there anyway to fix this. It seems like a catch 22 and I am stumped. At any rate, not being able to flash eithere using the phone itself or adb and the laptop has me stymied. Anyone have any ideas. I want to root also and it seems I have to get back to 2.3.3 in order to do that.
My experience is limited. I have successfully rooted my Hero (previous phone) and my Toshiba Thrive in the past though. All went well with them.
Any and all help will be greatly appreciated with proper thanks.

bushpilot444 said:
I have been trying to root my incredible 2 ver 2.3.4 and managed to get it unlocked so I could change carriers. However, in the process of trying to also root the phone using adb I seem to have flashed improperly somehow and corrupted the recovery image instead of replacing it. Maybe I got hold of a corrupt TWC_recovery image and that is the problem. I was trying to flash TWC and it claimed to work but upon trying to reboot into recovery it simply sits at the white HTC screen and stalls.
When I use the cable and ADB to tryi and flash clockwork instead of TWC it apparently is not communicating with the phone. I used adb devices and the list is empty.
Incidentally the phone still boots up good and works fine as a phone but recovery mode using the phone menu is also history. Is there anyway to fix this. It seems like a catch 22 and I am stumped. At any rate, not being able to flash eithere using the phone itself or adb and the laptop has me stymied. Anyone have any ideas. I want to root also and it seems I have to get back to 2.3.3 in order to do that.
My experience is limited. I have successfully rooted my Hero (previous phone) and my Toshiba Thrive in the past though. All went well with them.
Any and all help will be greatly appreciated with proper thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
download a recovery then rename it to recovery.img then boot your phone to fastboot and connect it to pc put the recovery into your fastboot folder then run this command
fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
this should fix your recovery NOTE ADB commands doesn't work until your phone boots up completely hence recovery is always flashed using fastboot commands

Or better yet, install rom manager and click install recovery
Sent from my ADR6350 using Tapatalk

An error occurred while flashing your recovery
weldawadyathink said:
Or better yet, install rom manager and click install recovery
Sent from my ADR6350 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When I try to install clockworkMod Recovery via Rom Mgr it downloads ok and then as it tries to install it dies with the error 'An error occurred while flashing your recovery.'
As I said earlier, when I try using the pc and cable it stalls on 'waiting' because it can't communicate with the phone.
The phone no longer goes into USB Boot like it did earlier..... it did though prior to the corruption.
Any other ideas? Thanks for the help.

Soft Bricked Help?
First of all, my inc2 is unlocked but is NOT rooted.
It has hboot-0.98.0000
radio-1.09.01.0312
rMMC-boot
July 18 2011, 12:39:36
Ver 2.3.4
I tried each of the methods in the earlier posts in the thread and neither worked for me. In the process, I have screwed something and now my phone will not boot into normal phone mode either.
Somehow I have corrupted something that is preventing my flashing a new recovery. Since it is not rooted, I am not sure what I can adb flash and what I can't. I have tried flashing both Clockwork recovery and TWP and although adb reports success the phone will not go into recovery. It simply displays stuck on the white screen with the HTC logo. I also tried flashing by zipping up a rom and clockwork recovery and renaming the zip PG32IMG.zip, loading it onto the sdcard, and loading it at bootup of hboot. It shows loading, then I select reboot bootloader, then try loading recovery and the same thing. Stuck on the HTC white screen. Now, the phone will not boot into normal phone mode either but just sticks on the white screen. I am wondering..... do I need to do a wipe or anything else prior to flashing the recovery? Maybe partition is bad. I don't know the procedure for any of that. I appreciate any help I can get.

Use revolutionary if its unlocked already it'll flash su n cwm
Sent from my ADR6350 using xda app-developers app

Anyone I can mail this phone to that will fix it and root it for $$?
chillybean said:
Use revolutionary if its unlocked already it'll flash su n cwm
Sent from my ADR6350 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have tried that but it won't work because my phone is has hboot-0.98.0000 and when I follow the exact described procedure to change back to 97 it fails.
Is there some guru that fixes these for a living I can send the phone to? Anyone know? :crying:

What carrier are you planning to switch to? On the GSM side, you will most likely get no faster than 2G or 2.5G / Edge speed on data, depending on the radio band used by your provider. It is reliable & dependable for voice and/or WiFi calling with excellent battery life.
SInce you've tried to fixed it a number of ways with limited luck, you should consider flashing one of the factory/VZW's RUU file to restore it back to stock condition, unrooted - then, start the process over. The tacoroot method is what I've used last year to fixed one that appeared to be 100% brick.
PM me if you have trouble locating and want to use the RUU files as I believed that are no longer on the server - see what I can come up with from offline storage.

Letitride said:
What carrier are you planning to switch to? On the GSM side, you will most likely get no faster than 2G or 2.5G / Edge speed on data, depending on the radio band used by your provider. It is reliable & dependable for voice and/or WiFi calling with excellent battery life.
SInce you've tried to fixed it a number of ways with limited luck, you should consider flashing one of the factory/VZW's RUU file to restore it back to stock condition, unrooted - then, start the process over. The tacoroot method is what I've used last year to fixed one that appeared to be 100% brick.
PM me if you have trouble locating and want to use the RUU files as I believed that are no longer on the server - see what I can come up with from offline storage.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have droid Incredible 2 by verizone. I got it unlocked and S-OFF to use custom rom.
During the process, SD card is not detecting any more. Also, USB debugging is not functioning. Therefore, I cannot use any custom ROM now.
I have flashed Chinese 3.07.1401.3 as S710D. Because any of original Vrizone rom are not loading. The current situation is that all functions
are working except which are related to SD CARD, like photo/video, music, software download etc.
USB HOST CONTROLLER shown that S3C usb driver is missing. Please help.

farooq4u said:
I have droid Incredible 2 by verizone. I got it unlocked and S-OFF to use custom rom.
During the process, SD card is not detecting any more. Also, USB debugging is not functioning. Therefore, I cannot use any custom ROM now.
I have flashed Chinese 3.07.1401.3 as S710D. Because any of original Vrizone rom are not loading. The current situation is that all functions
are working except which are related to SD CARD, like photo/video, music, software download etc.
USB HOST CONTROLLER shown that S3C usb driver is missing. Please help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you confirm that you can boot into your bootloader - what are the statistics?
S-OFF ??
HBOOT-
Radio-
eMMC-boot
Apr 1 2001, 18:34:30 (or something similiar)
You are most likely missing the correct HTC drivers or have corrupted ones installed. Uninstall & clean it off your PC first, reboot & start over (or, use/borrow another computer to do this - look into the Control Panel ...)
Unless you are planning or using the DI2 on a Chinese carrier that support CDMA and/or GSM, you could run into issues - and, getting it to reset & work properly back on CDMA with VZW could be problematic too.
As for the SD card read error, have you checked its usability on the PC or another device directly, do you have another mSD card to check & verify that the slot ont the device isn't broken/damaged/dirty, etc. ?? Format it on a PC to FAT32 and copy a dummy file, re-insert to DI2 and see what happened ...

[Q] Unique Situation ATT Galaxy Note 2 Help

Ok, this is my first post so forgive if this is in the wrong section...
I have a friend's Galaxy Note 2 ATT that was stuck on the Galaxy Note 2 Boot screen, and it wouldn't go any further.
Because I work for Samsung at the Samsung Experience Shop, I tried running it through our smart reflash tool
-----> This didn't work because it would fully download it onto the phone, but when it got to the Android with the thing spinning in its chest, it would stop and ALWAYS freeze halfway.
Next step I tried doing was going through Samsung Kies and downloading the stock OS and load that, but the same Android with the spinning thing in its chest would show up and it would freeze.
Due to this guy being my friend I told him I would try anything to get his phone to work again (root, to custom recovery, to custom rom)
My steps so far:
1. I have successfully rooted my device via ODIN 1.85 by using CF-Auto-Root
2. Afterwards, I loaded on a custom recovery via ODIN 1.85 which now is philz_touch_6.07.9
Here is my problem now, I've tried searching everywhere and I can't really find the answer...
Whenever I try to side load a rom through ADB through Android tools (its in the right directory and everything because it transfers over), I keep getting an error message "E: Error in /tmp/update.zip (status 7) Installation Aborted."
Now before I get that error I get stuff like getprop("ro.product.device")==t0lte" ||getprop("ro.build.product").... etc. and it goes on and on.
So far the ROMs that I have tried were Cyanogenmod 10.1 and the Pacman Rom, and yes, both are for the correct device like the model name/number match up. And now how I said I thought I rooted the device, whenever I try to reboot into recovery via Philztouch, it says at the top Root Access is missing. Root device, and I click yes. When it reboots into recovery and I want to turn the phone off again, it still says Root Access is missing.
I am open for anything really. My friend just wants his phone to work again. and I've literally exhausted all of my ideas as I keep running into the same issue.
What am I doing wrong? and is something like this possible to fix? Or is my friend SOL?
Thanks for all the help. It's much appreciated.

Your recovery is outdated. Status 7 error.
I use TWRP from the original development section.

rangercaptain said:
Your recovery is outdated. Status 7 error.
I use TWRP from the original development section.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 to this^^^^^
Look here»»» http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1981198
And why not give him something stock instead of a CM Rom??[emoji37]
Plenty of stock 4.3 Rom's in the development section...
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 using Tapatalk

Good advice ^^^^ for your friend.

Ok, thanks for the direct response. I've downloaded the latest TWRP recovery and when I try to push it through ODIN, I still have PhilZ Touch 6..? Sorry, I feel like I'm skipping something simple...
according to a guide, I have to make sure when I'm pushing a custom recovery through ODIN I have to leave Auto Reboot and F. Reset Time UNCHECKED. I made sure they were, and for some reason after it says PASS and thread successful 1 failed 0. When I disconnect the phone and turn it back on into recovery mode, I still has PhilZ Touch...

Use your recovery to flash TWRP. There's a zip version and an odin version.

Ok, I got stock recovery on there just by redoing the CF-Auto Root package through ODIN.
I figured well I can apply the ROM the adb through the stock recovery...
It was going well until I got this error. The last line before the error stated:
"Veryfying update package..."
Error:
E: failed to verify whole-file signature
E: signature verification failed
is that due to the fact that i'm using stock recovery?
In the mean time since that didn't work I'm going to flash TWRP and hopefully that fixes the issue.
I'm kinda just documenting my steps here in case anyone wants to follow and chime in if i'm doing something wrong.
Thanks for the help guys!
************3AM EDIT*****************
Ok so I managed to get TWRP 2.7 on the device as I needed the ability to adb sideload the update.zip to the phone since I can't boot into the phone's OS whatsoever.
This is the error I'm receiving now:
Checking for MD5 file...
Skipping Md5 check: no MD5 file found.
then it restarts and I'm stuck at the Samsung GALAXY Note II screen... what's my next step..? Find a different ROM?
**********Another Edit**************
It has just come to me, I shouldn't have to adb sideload the update.zip or the custom rom... even though I can't get into the phones OS and can't copy and paste to the root of the device. Can't I just copy and paste it to a micro SD card and mount that, and then apply the update from there? And as far as those errors I had earlier, I'm still not sure why I received them...
Again, thanks for all the help

Adb won't work if USB debugging wasn't enabled.
In TWRP you can disable md5 checking.
And you don't unzip the zip file.

Thanks for the reply. ADB didn't work because, in fact, since I haven't been able to turn the phone on, I know USB debugging isn't turned on.
And as far as having the MD5 check, it is unchecked.
I received a success message. However, when I try to boot the phone it still gets stuck at the Samsung Galaxy Note II screen.
******Edit******
Ok ended up using a different ROM, I think PacMan rom? It seemed to work until it got to extracting system files and then the phone sits for a couple minutes, screen turns black. And when I try to wake the screen, only the back and menu buttons come up...
Another thing, even though I've already rooted my device using CF-Auto-Root, When I reboot my device with TWRP I go to reboot and then recovery. Then it warns me saying no OS bla bla bla, and then it says it notices that my phone isn't rooted? And that SuperSU isn't on the device. It asks to install it by swiping. I swipe it starts to install, phone reboots. When I reboot it again, it still tells me that the phone isn't rooted. And with the phone not being rooted, I'm coming to the conclusion why I'm having trouble trying to flash Roms.. Is this a possibility?

Why are you using ADB? just drop the .zip for the ROM you wish to flash onto a micro SD card, and flash from within the TWRP. Don't try to extract the .zip whatsoever.