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Root [CDMA] Hboot Rollback if on 1.58

T

TurboS81

Well-Known Member
Two weeks ago I created a post requesting information on how I could get my rooted/s-off 3VO from hboot 1.5 to 1.58. Mission was successful, but I now I pose a different question. Is it possible to rollback hboot versions? for example, if I wanted to rollback to 1.5, or even down to 1.4, can it be done? And if so, how?

I've searched, and can't really find the exact answer. It seems all I find are way to downgrade from 1.5 to 1.4. Do I just run a lesser RUU? Should I run Revolutionary (temporary brick)? Trying to gain more information to have a better understanding for the future.

Steve
 
I went from 1.5 to 1.58 and then back to 1.5. I did this by running an RUU. They have ruu's for older versions as well but I've never ran those so I don't know if it works for them... It seems odd that there are instructions for temp bricking to downgrade to 1.4 if it was as simple as running an RUU. It makes me think it won't work but you could most likely just try it.

Why do you want to go to 1.4 anyway? If you are s-off you should be able to just run an RUU. You should be able to do anything you want. There might be an easier way by flashing older firmware but I'm not familiar with that.

You don't need to run revolutionary because you are already s-off. When s-off it I my understanding that you can downgrade to whatever you want.

Eta: here is the 1.13 ruu which should put your on hboot 1.4...

Just note that running an RUU will wipe all data so make backups if you wish. Also you can flash the 1.4 bootloader using the PG86IMG method which won't wipe your phone.
I don't have a link to that atm though.
 
Running RUU...that's what I was thinking had to be done to achieve this, but wanted to make sure. It seems that easy, since, like you said, I'm s-off. As for going to 1.4, I don't WANT to go, just wondering if it was possible, and if so, how? Not only that, but I've noticed some ROMs, mention making sure you're on hboot 1.5 or 1.4. I know 1.58 is based on the most recent radio update, and that it will take some time before devs begin using this as a base for their future builds.
 
TurboS81 said:
Running RUU...that's what I was thinking had to be done to achieve this, but wanted to make sure. It seems that easy, since, like you said, I'm s-off. As for going to 1.4, I don't WANT to go, just wondering if it was possible, and if so, how? Not only that, but I've noticed some ROMs, mention making sure you're on hboot 1.5 or 1.4. I know 1.58 is based on the most recent radio update, and that it will take some time before devs begin using this as a base for their future builds.
Click to expand...

Ahhh - No.....Don't Run the RUU - That is Way to much -
All you need to do is flash the Hboot through the boot loader

Give me a second and I will link you ....
 
MahaloCat said:
Ahhh - No.....Don't Run the RUU - That is Way to much -
All you need to do is flash the Hboot through the boot loader

Give me a second and I will link you ....
Click to expand...

Thank you. I mentioned this in my post but could not find the file needed.
 
If u want to downgrade you'll need to use the revolution method, which you need to temporarily brick your phone. IDK how hard it is, but you can find the tutorial on xda.
 
Hockey16 said:
If u want to downgrade you'll need to use the revolution method, which you need to temporarily brick your phone. IDK how hard it is, but you can find the tutorial on xda.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry but this isn't true. The method you are describing is one of the methods used to gain s-off when you are hboot 1.5. The other method is juopunutbear wire trick method. His phone is already s-off so he can downgrade to whatever version he wants by flashing it through the bootloader or by running an ruu.

I just don't want op to be bricking his phone unnecessarily. ;)
 
Brian706 said:
I'm sorry but this isn't true. The method you are describing is one of the methods used to gain s-off when you are hboot 1.5. The other method is juopunutbear wire trick method. His phone is already s-off so he can downgrade to whatever version he wants by flashing it through the bootloader or by running an ruu.

I just don't want op to be bricking his phone unnecessarily. ;)
Click to expand...

My bad if you're already s-off it's easy then. I didn't know if J-bear had a s-off method for 1.58 yet or not.
 
Thanks everyone! MahaloCat, when you have a chance, can you post the link? Also, I think this has been covered before, but I'll ask anyway. After I ran the last RUU to get me to hboot 1.58, when you go into bootloader, the phone now says "Locked" instead of "Unlocked". Does this affect root access in any way? I have the DroidSail Super app, and one an app that I downloaded cannot be moved to the SD card. It gives me a msg. that read "Make sure you have ROOT access and USB debugging enabled". USB debugging is enabled, but I can't figure out why it's telling me that I need ROOT access. I thought I did.
 
TurboS81 said:
Thanks everyone! MahaloCat, when you have a chance, can you post the link? Also, I think this has been covered before, but I'll ask anyway. After I ran the last RUU to get me to hboot 1.58, when you go into bootloader, the phone now says "Locked" instead of "Unlocked". Does this affect root access in any way? I have the DroidSail Super app, and one an app that I downloaded cannot be moved to the SD card. It gives me a msg. that read "Make sure you have ROOT access and USB debugging enabled". USB debugging is enabled, but I can't figure out why it's telling me that I need ROOT access. I thought I did.
Click to expand...

Your bootloader went back to "LOCKED" after you went s-off. This is actually a good thing in case you ever need to send your phone back. Being s-off means you don't need your bootloader unlocked because you can do anything you want now!

The reason you don't have root access is because when you ran the ruu, it returned you to stock/unrooted. No worries! You are s-off. All you need to do is flash superuser or supersu patch on your phone. You are s-off so you can write files to your phone but without superuser your phone isn't able to grant root permissions to apps. Your superuser was removed running the ruu. It put you to factory stock.


Download this: superSU

Place it on your sd card and go into recovery and choose install zip from sd card. Install that and you will be good to go!!

Being s-off you might be able to just download supersu from the play store... Haven't tried this myself yet because I haven't needed to. Try the play store first and see if that works. If not, flash the file I linked you to!
 
Makes sense now. So whether the bootloader is "Locked" or "Unlocked" doesn't make a difference in term of the phone being rooted, since I have S-off, right? In other words, re-unlocking the bootloader isn't gonna have any advantage over leaving it the way it is now. I had the SuperSU patch on the SD card up until the week. I removed it, not thinking what that would mean as far as root access was concerned. I have the SuperSU app on the phone, but I presume I need the supersu image file I deleted over the weekend. My 32gb sdcard arrives in a few days, so I'll likely wait on downloading that patch until then.
 
Brian, I didn't fully read your post; the part about SuperSU. I downloaded the paid version of the app from the Play Store. My root access might have changed once I took off that file from the sdcard. The SuperSU app runs without any issues. So, hopefully all it is is that missing file.
 
TurboS81 said:
Brian, I didn't fully read your post; the part about SuperSU. I downloaded the paid version of the app from the Play Store. My root access might have changed once I took off that file from the sdcard. The SuperSU app runs without any issues. So, hopefully all it is is that missing file.
Click to expand...


I'm probably not explaining this well enough. Sorry about that!! Having that zip file on your sd card doesn't actually give you root permissions. You have to flash the supersu patch just like you would flash a rom.

Basically when you ran the ruu it deleted supersu from your phone. Your phone now cant grant permissions to other apps. You simply just need to flash it and then you will be able to grant root permissions to other apps.

Once you flash it (install zip from sd through recovery) you can remove it from your sd card. You only need it there to flash through your recovery. I leave mine there just so it's handy if I ever need to flash it again. (It's super tiny, I mean it's only about a half a megabyte... It barely takes up any room at all. Especially compared to a stock rom which is probably about 1 GB.)

Think of it this way:
The ruu basically put your phone back to the way it was before you rooted it. In order to root you had to first unlock your bootloader. The unlocked bootloader allowed you to flash a custom recovery. Then you used your custom recovery to flash a rooted rom or the supersu patch which roots your stock rom. The ruu removed all of this. Removed your supersu patch, removed your custom recovery.
Now you are s-off so you will never have to unlock your bootloader again. This will allow you to redo everything. To get root access on your phone again after the ruu, all you have to do is flash a custom recovery and then a rom or the supersu patch. Any rom or patch has to be on your sd card so that your reccovery can find it and flash it. Then you can delete them if wanted or simply copy them to your computer to keep there. Your sd card doesn't need the file once it's been flashed to your phone.

I hope this clears it up for you!! I probably just confused you more...
 
TurboS81 said:
Makes sense now. So whether the bootloader is "Locked" or "Unlocked" doesn't make a difference in term of the phone being rooted, since I have S-off, right? In other words, re-unlocking the bootloader isn't gonna have any advantage over leaving it the way it is now.
Click to expand...

Correct. In a sense they are the same thing. The unlocked bootloader gives you some special permissions that allow you to flash files to your phone through fastboot.

S-off gives you the same special permissions or features plus even more on top of what your unlocked bootloader can do. So you are correct that unlocking your bootloader again would simply be overkill and unnecessary because you are s-off.

When you unlock your bootloader it voids your warranty. And they can see that it says "UNLOCKED". You can re-lock your bootloader but then it says "RE-LOCKED". This lets them know that you unlocked it at some point.

When you use the wire trick to gain s-off it locks your bootloader again and actually says "LOCKED". They cannot tell that you touched it this way.
It benefits you to leave it this way if you ever have to send your phone in.
You can run an ruu to return to stock then use the command to turn your phone from s-off to s-on and there is no way of knowing you ever rooted.
 
Clears things up a lot actually. When I first unlocked the bootloader, I downloaded TWRP as the recovery, but have since been using 4EXT to download any .zip files to the phone. I'm gonna download the supersu .zip file to the sdcard and flash using 4EXT. Hopefully, this solves the problem. Thanks Brian for the help.

BTW, I located the link on the forum with all the past RUUs. I'm gonna revert back to a GB-based RUU, mainly so that I can understand the process for future rooting opportunities.

One thing that has come to mind with these changes I've done with my phone, is how exactly it affects the phone. I feel like all this back and forth messing around with it is hurting it over the long term. I could be wrong, and frankly, if it is, oh well. It's not a big deal. Then again, because I have full access to the phone, then perhaps it doesn't hurt anything at all. I guess in the end there's always a chance I brick the phone by downloading a rogue file and such. Just a thought.
 
TurboS81 said:
Clears things up a lot actually. When I first unlocked the bootloader, I downloaded TWRP as the recovery, but have since been using 4EXT to download any .zip files to the phone. I'm gonna download the supersu .zip file to the sdcard and flash using 4EXT. Hopefully, this solves the problem. Thanks Brian for the help.
Click to expand...

This should definitely solve your problem!!


BTW, I located the link on the forum with all the past RUUs. I'm gonna revert back to a GB-based RUU, mainly so that I can understand the process for future rooting opportunities.
Click to expand...

Cool! I think that's an awesome idea. In my opinion this stuff can be difficult to explain. It's hard to really understand what people are saying until you just try it and see how it works first hand! Just make sure you know for sure that the ruu is for your phone!! It could be detrimental if you run the wrong ruu.


One thing that has come to mind with these changes I've done with my phone, is how exactly it affects the phone. I feel like all this back and forth messing around with it is hurting it over the long term. I could be wrong, and frankly, if it is, oh well. It's not a big deal. Then again, because I have full access to the phone, then perhaps it doesn't hurt anything at all. I guess in the end there's always a chance I brick the phone by downloading a rogue file and such. Just a thought.
Click to expand...

I honestly couldn't say if it is hard on the phone. I can't imagine it's too hard on it. Sort of like formatting an sd card or a flash drive and writing new data to it... I've never heard of anyone frying their phone flashing too many roms.

This is the first phone I've ever rooted so I'm pretty new to this as well.
I think it's pretty hard to permanently brick your phone. Most cases of flashing something incorrectly just cause boot loops or something minor. I think the real problem lies in flashing incorrect radios. If you are going to be changing radios via flashing them or running an RUU make sure you are positive you have the correct ones!
 
Well, I downloaded the ssu patch and was successful, however I'm still receiving the "must have ROOT access" message when I try to move this one particular app over to the SD card. It's not a big deal, just want to figure out why it's giving me this message, especially since other apps were moved effortlessly.
 
TurboS81 said:
Well, I downloaded the ssu patch and was successful, however I'm still receiving the "must have ROOT access" message when I try to move this one particular app over to the SD card. It's not a big deal, just want to figure out why it's giving me this message, especially since other apps were moved effortlessly.
Click to expand...

You downloaded it. Did you flash it? If yes when you start your app that requires root permission is supersu popping up asking you to grant permission? Open up your supersu app and see if it denied permission to that app.
 
Yeppers...flashed the zip and everything. Permission is being granted. I'm downloading the PG8 file now, and stepping down to hboot 1.4.
 
What?! PG86IMG? After updating via this method you need to immediately delete or rename that file when you boot back up or it will prevent you from entering recovery.
 
Right. I placed the file on the root of the sdcard and renamed it PG86IMG. It's updating now, and after reboot, I will remove that file. As of now, it is displaying my hboot version as 1.4.
 
For fun...I'm crazy. I prefer to try things out as trial and error until I get it right. I'm using it as a learning experience. Weird thing is I just "bricked" my phone. I think the file I had download to the card and was flashing, was a corrupt .zip. It kept giving me an "Unzip" error and on reboot would go directly to the HTC screen and stay there. The upzip error happened during the "system" portion of the update. It took me a, but I pulled the batter, pulled out the sdcard, and loaded it into my sdcard adapter. I linked it up to my laptop, removed the PG86IMG file that was messed, moved my TWRPIMG.zip over, reinstalled the card in the phone, and flashed in recovery. Then, I pulled the card again, placed my previous recovery.img file on the disk, put in back in the phone and launched into TWRP recovery. From here, I landed up using the opportunity to flash another ROM onto the phone. The 3VO is back up and running. I flashed MeanROM GB-based rom...latest version. Just logged back into bootloader and confirmed I am now on hboot 1.4. I might have left a step out along the way, but I got to where I needed to go.

Not bad considering I was going based on what I already learned about rooting and such.
 
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