Tired of waiting for the over-the-air Android 2.2 update to hit your Droid X?  Take a number.  But if you’re willing to do a little work, you can have your sexy-Xey up and running with Froyo in under thirty minutes.

Interested?

Some devoted geeks at MyDroidWorld have gotten their fast-moving fingers on the Droid X Android 2.2 “Froyo” update – and they’ve posted it as a ready-to-install .ZIP file.  Anyone with a Droid X can install it; all you need is a USB cable, openness to some very low-level geekery, and a few minutes of free time.

We’ll walk you through the process step-by-step.

First, you’ll need to download the 68MB update file – update.zip – and store it on your Droid’s microSD card.  We’ve posted the file for download here, but you can also download it from the MyDroidWorld page.  Be sure the file is stored in the root directory of the SD card (in the main directory and not a subfolder).

Next, you’ll need to restore your Droid X to factory specs.  This will erase all third-party apps and any data not stored on the microSD memory card.  Doing a hard wipe is not absolutely necessary to install this update, but without letting the built-in wiper do the wiping, you’ll have more work to do.  And, even with that, it’s always better to start clean to avoid troubles. 

We highly recommend the clean slate approach, but if you’re interested, you can read a more detailed list of what must be done before starting the upgrade at the main MyDroidWorld article.  You’ll also find information there related to rooting your Droid X and upgrading already-rooted handsets if such things interest you.

To restore your Droid X to factory specs, navigate to Menu > Settings > Privacy, then select Factory Data Reset.

Once your phone is back to its pristine, out-of-the-box state (which can take up to 10 minutes), power your phone off.  Then hold the Home and Power buttons down at the same time.  This will boot the phone into Recovery Mode.  When you see the green android beside an exclamation triangle icon, press the Search hardware button below the screen on your Droid.  This will display a list of options, one of which is apply sdcard:update.zip.  Use the volume-down button to select this option and the camera button (right side red button) to execute it.

The files stored in the update.zip file will work their magic and upgrade the OS of the Droid X to Android OS 2.2.  This will take five to ten minutes.  When complete, you’ll see a message stating that the upgrade completed.  Press the Menu hardware button below the OK label. 

You’re done.  Froyo at last.

After the upgrade (or any factory reset), you’ll have to activate your phone again with the built-in utility.  This takes a couple of minutes.

We’ve installed the update to our Droid X as described above and everything went off without a hitch.  But, as is always the case with non-official upgrade procedures, be careful.   If you turn your Droid into a sleek paper weight, don’t blame MyDroidWorld (or us).  Try at your own risk.

Many thanks to everyone at MyDroidWorld.