Overall this won’t take us more than a few minutes.  The manual update process is relatively straightforward, but to keep you from becoming frustrated, however, make sure your computer has a way to read microSD cards.  If you aren’t sure if your computer can, see Step #3 of this How-to.

How To Manually Update Your Droid To Android 2.1

  1. Download the manual update from the Android site:  Direct Download Link This update is the signed update from both Google and Verizon.  Groovy!

  2. Rename the downloaded signed-voles-ESE81-from-ESD56.fa406da6.zip simply to update.zip. Note: You won’t see the .zip part unless file extensions are turned on. If they are not, then don’t include the .zip in the file name, otherwise, it will end up being called update.zip.zip, which won’t work.  

  3. Pop your MicroSD card out of your Droid phone and plug it into your computer.  You may need to make use of an SD adapter and SD reader. (See Step 5 for a picture of where your Droid’s MicroSD card is on the phone.)  

  4. Move update.zip onto your microSD card.  Make sure it is on the root of the drive – not placed into any folders.  

  5. Turn off your Droid phone and Reinsert the MicroSD card.

  6. On your Droid Keyboard Hold down the letter X.  Continue holding X and Power on the Droid.  This process will cause your Droid to start up without loading the OS.  You will see a “ ! “ exclamation mark if you do this correctly.

  7. Now Hold the Volume Up button and Press the Camera button simultaneously.  This action will start up the bootloader.  You may have to try pressing the button combination a few times if it seems like nothing is happening.

  8. Using the D-Pad on the right side of your keyboard, Navigate to apply update.zip and Select update.zip.

Just wait for the update to apply and presto, welcome to Android 2.1! Thoughts, questions?  Drop a comment below!   On the other hand you have Windows 7 Mobile platform being released this winter. If you want to go that route the HTC HD2 is a nice phone, but I wouldn’t buy anything else out for it. The thing is by the time Windows 7 Mobile comes out there might be a new phone that can run it even better. Also, for DEXT owners, to start without OS you must hold the cam btn and press power. To go to restore you gotta press volume down. After the “!” to go to menu, press Alt + L on your keyboard. That’s it :D And yeah.. I know it is easy to confuse Android with Droid. What phone model do you have? Maybe we can help! Comment

Δ