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Root A few questions about Rooting!

M

Michelle666

Well-Known Member
I would like to root in order to get more space, for more apps!!!

I have read through a few threads about Rooting and I'm still quite confused and a little worried about it!

Firstly (and I apologise if these are stupid questions), but what does Flashing mean? and what are Roms?

Someone posted on another thread a list of roms, but I don't know what to use and what they are!!!
 
I would HIGHLY suggest that you read A LOT more if you still don't know what flashing means!
 
A ROM is a collection of software - operating system and apps. The main types are:

* Sense-based: similar to stock firmware, just rooted and usually with some extra apps and tweaks

* AOSP: "Android Open Source Project", android without Sense. May be 2.2 or 2.3.

* Sense HD: with the enhanced Sense from the Desire HD

* MIUI: AOSP-based but with a rather different user interface.

"Flashing" is the process of loading the software into the flash memory of the phone. Basically once you've rooted (see SUroot's FAQ) you can copy a zip file containing the ROM of your choice onto your SD card and then install it from there.

There's no rush - one step at a time is best, and make sure you know what you are doing before each step. So just rooting is enough for one day IMO. After that you need to prepare your SD card (the apps2sd faq). Then you can worry about choosing a suitable ROM. Once you know how to do that it's rather easy to change ROMs and see what you actually like, but there are a few things you need to understand before doing that (it's much less hassle to get it right the first time than to have to fix things afterwards).
 
Oh ok, this makes much more sense now... so don't have to do everything at once! good to know. Thanks!

Think ill keep reading some more threada first before I do anything
 
Think of the rom as the bit you see working when you use your phone. Rooting allows you to flash (load) another rom making your phone look and behave differently.
 
Sorry for a couple other, possibly dumb questions people. I also am considering rooting so I can have more space on my phone, but I am completely happy with 2.2 and sense and dont want to flash custom ROMs, at least for now.

My questions then are:

After rooting, can I still keep my current HTC sense as it is? I had a look at LECTER's method in his sig, and it said flash a custom recovery...does that mean I lose sense as it is?

And will rooting mean I lose all the apps/info on my SD card?

Thanks
 
Wait, in order to use apps2sd+ its a lot harder than flashing a custom Rom.

Custom just means its been tinkered with. There is a plethora of HTC sense based custom roms out there and many are very close to stock.

Link to 1 such example in my app2sd+ faq by teppic74
 
I'm not sure whether your comment was directed at me there SU? But yes, I'm basically wanting to root so I can save more/all apps on my SD card, not that bothered about ROMs at the moment as I am happy with my current sense set up.

So are you saying that doing apps2sd is a lot harder than just doing it for a custom Rom?

What I want to know basically is when I root, for instance using the method in LECTER's sig, will my phone essentially be reset to 'factory settings' with all my stuff wiped, or will everything still be the same, just with the ability to access more parts of the phone and subsequently set up apps2sd. And then if I want I can flash custom Roms?

Another point of confusion for me is what a custom recovery image is.

THanks
 
Yes I was talking to you.

If you root, nothing is reset

If you root and take a titanium.backup and flash teppic74 Rom, you probably won't even have to do a factory reset

Read my rooting faq. It answers lots of questions including recovery
 
eteyen1 said:
Sorry for a couple other, possibly dumb questions people. I also am considering rooting so I can have more space on my phone, but I am completely happy with 2.2 and sense and dont want to flash custom ROMs, at least for now.

My questions then are:

After rooting, can I still keep my current HTC sense as it is? I had a look at LECTER's method in his sig, and it said flash a custom recovery...does that mean I lose sense as it is?

And will rooting mean I lose all the apps/info on my SD card?

Thanks
Click to expand...

This is exactly what I want to do...for the moment!

Keep me posted, and let me know how you get on if you root!
 
If the rooting process goes as planned, after you root, all that should happen is that you have one extra app on your system called SU (Super User). Until you flash another rom or start tinkering (and you will once you've decided you have the confidence), that's all the difference you should notice.
 
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