Locked Verizon Galaxy S4 (VRUAME7) Gets SafeStrap Recovery

If you own a Verizon Samsung Galaxy S4 we have some good news for you, xda recognized developer @Hashcode has created Safestrap recovery for you peeps who are on the locked VRUAME7 update.

What does this mean?

Well simple put this means that you can now flash custom roms on your Verizon Samsung Galaxy S4. But, you would need to wait for developers to create Safestrap compatible roms before you start going on that flashing spree.

Below is a description of Safestrap given by the developer himself.

WHAT IS SAFESTRAP?

Safestrap is a Bootstrap / Recovery for locked bootloader phones. The goal is to avoid touching your primary system (I’ll call this “stock” system) and only flash or make large changes to another place on your phone that Safestrap treats as a “2nd system” (in this case, it’s a series of virtual ROM slots located on the internal emmc area: “/sdcard”). Once installed, you will see a “Splashscreen” giving you the option to hit “menu” to enter recovery. The recovery portion of Safestrap is now based on TWRP 2.6.1.0 (a touch based recovery) and you can perform .zip installs, backups and restores here. The additional features I’ve added to TWRP are mostly located under the “Boot Options” menu:

1. Here you can create virtual ROM-slots (2 on the S4 due to partition size and internal space) for flashing ROMs. These ROM-slots allow for 3 different sizes of /data partitions: 1GB, 2GB and 3GB. NOTE: The bigger you make the /data partition the less room you will have to make other ROM-slots.
2. You can activate a new ROM-slot by choosing the slot you wish to make active and then selecting the “Activate” button. Once active, you will see the “rom-slot#” up in the top of the screen shown in green. If you make the “stock” ROM active, then you can see it in the top shown in red.
3. Once a ROM-slot is active, all actions you would normally perform using TWRP are directed to that ROM-slot. For example, “Install” to flash a .zip, backup and restore.

Installation is as simple as installing an apk file. For detailed instructions and download links head over to the original thread over at xda.