Using a PC to install Honeycomb on the NOOK Color

In episode two of this series, we used a Mac to load Honeycomb onto a microSD card. In this episode, we'll be putting the Honeycomb image onto a microSD card using Windows. On the Mac, we were able to write the nookhoney image to our microSD card with a few Terminal commands. On Windows, we'll have to download some software in order to perform the same task. We're using Windows 7 here, but the process will be pretty much the same in any version of Windows.

Before we do anything else, we need to download nookhoney04.img.zip from http://bscotch.tv/nookhoney. The software we'll be using is WinImage which you can find at http://bscotch.tv/WinImage. WinImage is shareware and the trial period is good for 30 uses.

Now, install the software. In the Disk menu, choose "Restore Virtual Image to Physical Drive" and browse to the unzipped nookhoney.img file. You might have to change "file type" to display all files if you don't see your .img file. The write process should take about 10 minutes. Don't touch anything during this time. When the write is finished, WinImage will let you know.

Now, safely eject your microSD card and remove it from the computer. Ensure your NOOK Color is powered down and insert the microSD card into the slot at the bottom right of the device. Boot it up and, in about 45 seconds, you'll see that you're running Honeycomb on your NOOK Color.

One thing to note is that at first, you'll notice a distinct lack of Google apps like Gmail and, most notably, the Android Market. The legal terms of use for Android prohibit developers from packaging these apps into builds that haven't been specifically authorized by Google. In the next episode, we'll look at getting these important add-ons up and running on your NOOK Color running Honeycomb.