Upgrading the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus to Ice Cream Sandwich [PART 2]

Part 1 of this post is found here. Make sure you read it first. Very important.

The Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus running Honeycomb. Photo courtesy of the Samsung website

Disclaimer

Neither I nor anyone affiliated to this blog will be responsible for any mishaps, device bricks or problems after the upgrade so do it at your own risk.

Procedure

1.  Make sure Samsung Kies is not running on your computer. Check your list of running tasks and active processes and disable/deactivate (do not uninstall, just disable it. How? Open Task Manager in Windows and view running processes, then stop the process associated with Kies) Kies. You only need its drivers.

2.  Run Odin muti-downloader.

3. Power off and boot your Galaxy Tab P6200 into download mode. (You do this by pressing the volume down button and the power button simultaneously until it displays “Samsung Galaxy tab 7.0 Plus”. Immediately that is displayed, release the power button but continue holding the volume down button. Your device will then enter into download mode. The device will prompt you that “installing custom ROMs …” just ignore the warning and press the volume down button (or otherwise instructed) to continue into download mode. That’s it!)

4. Connect your tablet to your computer using the USB cable (use a laptop with a reliable battery or a desktop machine that has a UPS so that your firmware update is not disrupted by an abrupt power outage. Should such a thing happen, a brick is imminent). Upon connection, it should load the Samsung USB drivers successfully. If they are not successfully installed then unplug and plug in again. If the drivers are still not being installed properly then do this (on a Windows machine):

• Right click the My Computer icon and select Manage.
•  Go to Device Drivers and look out for Samsung Android device or simply Android device. Right click it and select Update drivers or something like that.
• Let it search for drivers automatically by selecting that option (“search/scan and install drivers automatically” or something of the sort). If you have installed Kies or the standalone Samsung USB drivers then it will find them in less than 30 seconds. If not, check that you have all the requirements that are listed in the first part of this post.

[THE CRITICAL PART]

5.  Check that Odin multi-downloader is displaying a small yellow-filled bar in the ID:COM section. Check illustration below. If it is not displaying the yellow filled bar then something is wrong and it has everything to do with drivers not being detected. Just go back to previous steps (more so step 4) and install the drivers. If it has the yellow-filled bar then you are good to go.

6.  Do not change anything else i.e. leave all the options the way you found them. Only change the PDA section by selecting the PDA tab and browsing to where you downloaded your Android 4.0.4 firmware update file to. The file you are going to load into the PDA section must have a .tar.md5 extension and not anything else. (I am aware of the other way of having the separate files for each of the sections like CSC, PDA, MODEM and at times PIT but I have deliberately ignored that method of updating firmware because it may be very confusing to most of my readers here. That is the case why I am only advising that you just add the .tar.md5 file to the PDA section and leave every other option as you found it when you ran Odin. The Re-Partition option is only checked if you have specified a PIT file. In my case, I did not use any PIT file so you too should ignore it i.e don’t check it; leave it as it is).

7.  That is all. Click the Start button in the Control Panel section of Odin multi-downloader.

8.  Wait until the upgrade process is complete. Once complete, the yellow-filled bar will turn green or blue and display the word PASS. Make sure you see the word PASS. If the update failed then the bar will be in red and display FAIL. In the event your upgrade failed, redo the whole process once again. Otherwise, congratulations, you have just upgraded your Samsung Galaxy tab 7.0 Plus P6200 to Android 4.0.4, Ice Cream Sandwich using official Samsung firmware.

9.  Wait for the device to reboot. It should reboot automatically once Odin displays the PASS message. Do not disconnect the USB cable until the device has fully rebooted and you are on your new ICS (laced with Touchwiz) home screen.

If Odin displays the “PASS” message then your upgrade has been successful.

10.  While rebooting for the first time, ICS will automatically optimize all your applications for use in a new environment. You will realize that all applications function normally after the upgrade. However, I recommend that you do away with them. How?

• Power off the tablet.
• Boot into recovery (you do this by simultaneously pressing the power button and the volume up button. Once the tab displays “Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus” then release the power button but continue holding the volume up button. You will thus enter into stock recovery).
• In recovery, wipe the cache and also factory reset (use the volume up and volume down buttons to navigate. Use the power button as the “ok” button i.e for selecting highlighted options).
• Select reboot

One more thing:

• This process does not in any way void your device warranty since you are updating your device using original firmware and not a custom ROM.
• If your device had been rooted prior to installing this firmware update then you will have to root again since all superuser permissions are lost during the upgrade process (Details on how to root and install custom recoveries like ClockworkMod Recovery on the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus P6200 will be posted here later).

Enjoy ICS on your Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus P6200. Post any observations, questions and comments in the comments section below.

Check screenshots here.

**Update 1** – Tuesday, 4th September, 2012.

The firmware update for Hong Kong which can also be used to upgrade the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus to Ice Cream Sandwich has also been released and is available for download courtesy of samfirmware.com here. You can use it to upgrade your Galaxy Tab to ICS by using the same procedures outlined here. I however recommend the Open Austria update since it is the one that I have tested on multiple devices and continue to use daily on my tablet.

**Update 2** – Wednesday, 5th September, 2012.

Firmware updates for the Philipines (Smart, Sun, Globe), Vietnam, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia are now available. Follow the links for download. I still recommend the Open Austria update for users not from those countries/regions though.

**Update 3** – Thursday, 6th September, 2012.

I have written comprehensive step by step procedure on how to root the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus. Read it here.

**Update 4** – Saturday, 6th April, 2013. [JELLY BEAN!!!!]

Samsung has released the long awaited Android 4.1.2 update for the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus. Your tablet can now get all the Jelly Bean goodness it so deserves. The update is only available to P6200 owners in the Open Austria countries via kies. However, instead of waiting for your region-specific update which could delay for a while, why not download the Open Austria firmware and flash it on your own? If you can’t wait to get Jelly Bean goodness then hit this link and update your beloved tablet. Don’t forget to share the feedback. The procedure is the same as the above of updating to ICS so just substitute ICS with Jelly Bean and do the necessary.