Install CWM or TWRP

ClockworkMod (shortened to CWM) and Team Win’s Recovery Project (commonly referred to as TWRP) are the two most popular solutions, and while the two differ slightly, they both have the essential features you need.

Pre-requisites:

• USB drivers for your phone must be installed on a computer. You can grab them from the official website of the company that made the phone. Get the latest:

Samsung Android USB drivers here
HTC Android USB drivers (included in HTC Sync) here
LG Android USB drivers here (go to “Software updates” > Select your phone > Click on “Install USB Drivers”)
Sony Android USB drivers here
Motorola Android USB drivers (included in Motorola Device Manager) here

• Android SDK must be installed on your computer. You can download from the official Android developer portal.

• Download the latest version of either CWM or TWRP (we prefer CWM, but both work equally well). For CWM go to this website, find your device, and download the image for it:

Download CWM here
For TWRP go to this website, click on “Get TWRP for your device” and type you device's name to download the image for it:

Download TWRP here

• Your phone must be connected to your computer via USB. If you get stuck at some point in the tutorial, a common fix is to try disconnecting the phone and re-connecting it again.

1. Allow USB Debugging on your device.

2. Terminal

To open the terminal in Windows 7, hit the ‘Windows’ key, type ‘cmd’, and hit Enter; in Windows 8, you’d need to navigate to the new Modern UI home panel, and just type in ‘cmd’ there.

Once you open the terminal, you need to change the folder to Platform Tools in the Android SDK. Typically, it looks something like this, but you have to find the exact path where you installed the Android SDK on your computer:
C:/Android SDK/adt-bundle-windows-x86_64-20131030/sdk/platform-tools/
To change the folder you just copy the above path (as it is on your computer) and put ‘cd’ in front of it, so the whole command would look like so:
cd C:/Android SDK/adt-bundle-windows-x86_64-20131030/sdk/platform-tools/

3. In the Terminal

Enter the following:
adb devices
Make sure your device is listed.

Next, type in:
adb reboot bootloader
Wait for the phone to reboot in bootloader mode.

4. Now, go to the platform-tools directory (a sub-directory of the Android SDK), and open Command Prompt there (you can do so by Shift + Right-click > Open Command Prompt).

In the command line, enter the following:
fastboot devices
Make sure that your device is listed.

Finally, type in:
fastboot flash recovery FILE.IMG

Replace ‘FILE.IMG’ with the recovery you want to flash. We have given you links for CWM and TWRP at the beginning of the article, but if you've missed them, you would need to download them now from the following links:
Download CWM here

Download TWRP here
Here’s how that recovery file name typically looks (this is the image for a Moto G): 
cwm-6.0.4.6-MotoG4.4.img
cwm-6.0.4.7-MotoG-GPE-4.4.img

twrp-2.6.3.1-MotoG4.4.img

5. After you have flashed the recovery, it is crucial that you you don't just reboot your device. Go to ‘Recovery’ by using volume down to scroll. Don’t scroll using the Volume Up button! In this case, Volume Up serves as the ‘Select’ button. Once you have gone to ‘Recovery’, only then press the Volume Up to boot in recovery mode. 

If you don't follow these instructions, your device will simply re-flash the stock recovery, and you’d have to start all over with the custom recovery flash process.