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Root Basic root question from a noob

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petesamprs

Newbie
I rooted recently using the revolutionary method in the sticky. My main reason for rooting was to get wireless hotspot capabilities.

My other reason for rooting was to be able to delete some of the bloatware on the phone. Is there a way to easily do this with the stock ROM, or do I have to flash a new ROM that has the bloatware removed?

I'd prefer keeping stock ROM only because my phone has been very stable and I don't want to risk anything not working (eg, i read CM7 is having bluetooth issues), and I don't have time to backup/wipe/reflash ROMs whenever they break.

thanks.
 
the only prollem with running a stock rom is that it will still want to update. if you are running a custom recovery,then this is bad. you can not accept OTAs unless you reinstall the stock recovery.

for what you want to do,there are a couple of options:

1)re-install the stock recovery. since youre rooted,ill assume youve allready installed clockwork and flashed the superuser files. that way,if an OTA comes,your phone will harmlessly install it. after the OTA,youll have to re install clockwork,reflash superuser,then re-install the stock recovery. youll have to do this every time you recieve an OTA,as it will wipe out the root files in your stock rom. while this may sound like a pain,its an easy process to install the recoverys,and in all honesty i woudnt expect the updates to come very frequently from here out.this is the best route if you truly want to use the stock rom. you wont need clockwork to delete bloatware,and install a wireless tether app,or any other root only apps.

2)you can flash a rooted stock rom in recovery. this will get you the stock rom that youre used to,with a couple enhancements,not the least of wich is the updater scripts have been removed so it will never try and update.this is the best route if you want to keep clockwork,maybe so you can make occasional system backups. as i mentioned,taking an OTA while running clockwork(or ANY custom recovery) is bad. it can result in anything from a recoverable bootloop to an unrecoverable brick. :eek:

either way,the best way to remove bloat is to simply use titanium backup. get the paid version its well worth the $$. with it you can freeze apps first,to make sure they are not important to the operation of the phone,and it gives you the ability to do batch backup and restore of your user apps. well worth it,IMO.

a hotspot is achieved by simply installing barnacle,or wireless tether for root users. heres a lil hint: vzw has got it blocked so you cant see some apps on your phone market. use the online market to see all the options ;)

https://market.android.com/search?q=wireless+tether&so=1
 
If you want to keep your stock Rom like I did, but want to be able to have other roms as well, I suggest you look into getting an app called boot manager. It let's you have your phone Rom, which your stock rooted, and then an additional 4 roms that run off of your SD card. Some people say they had a bit of a lag while using one of the SD roms, but whenever I'm running one of my SD roms they run just as well as my stock rooted Rom that I kept.
 
petesamprs said:
I rooted recently using the revolutionary method in the sticky. My main reason for rooting was to get wireless hotspot capabilities.

My other reason for rooting was to be able to delete some of the bloatware on the phone. Is there a way to easily do this with the stock ROM, or do I have to flash a new ROM that has the bloatware removed?

I'd prefer keeping stock ROM only because my phone has been very stable and I don't want to risk anything not working (eg, i read CM7 is having bluetooth issues), and I don't have time to backup/wipe/reflash ROMs whenever they break.

thanks.
Click to expand...

id definitely say flash a custom rom! they are updated and have many more features.
 
Thanks for advice guys. I already have the wireless tether app and it works great.

For the bloatware, I like tensazan's idea of using boot manager to have custom ROMs off the SD card while still leaving the stock ROM intact. Are there any downsides to this method? How are OTAs handled if I went down this route?
 
petesamprs said:
Thanks for advice guys. I already have the wireless tether app and it works great.

For the bloatware, I like tensazan's idea of using boot manager to have custom ROMs off the SD card while still leaving the stock ROM intact. Are there any downsides to this method? How are OTAs handled if I went down this route?
Click to expand...

like rom manager,its an app that requires a working rom in order to be useful. id personally reccomend against its use,its just as easy to manually switch between your nandroid backups without haveing to partition your sd card for the other 4 roms.

if you do chose to try it,make sure you are comfortable with clockwork recovery,as this is how you will fix bootloops or other issues that prevent the use of boot manager.
 
Boot manager actually just stores the boot files in a folder on the SD card. But like scotty said, you do need a working Rom installed on the slot you want to boot to. While I haven't had any problems with boot manager, I have heard of a couple cases where people booted to a Rom they forgot to install gapps to ( though boot manager will usually tell you if gapps isn't installed on a rom) and had to use recovery to flash a backup. I've been using it for about a month and a half now, and I love it. Though don't get it just because someone says its great, do some looking into it and then decide.
 
Ok did some research and have decided to just try flashing a custom ROM.

Some more basic questions:
- Is CM7 is the most updated/stable custom ROM out there?
- Would a custom ROM like CM7 have the OTA updating scripts disabled?
- If i encounter problems with CM7 (eg, bluetooth problems) I could just flash back to stock right?
- Can I flash to CM7 without losing my data (downloaded apps, bookmarks, SMS, contact shortcuts, etc)

thanks
 
CM7 is stable, I can't say it is the most stable but I also can't tell you a specific rom which is the "most stable". Most devs will not put out a rom that is unsuitable to be a daily driver unless it is labeled alpha or beta.

AFAIK all custom roms that are currently still being worked on will not receive any OTA.

You can flash from any rom to any other rom without issues. If you make a backup in recovery of your current rom you can restore it without issues.

You can use apps like titanium backup to backup your user apps and their data so they can be restored. When you flash a rom you will need to do a factory reset in recovery so unless you have your apps backed up they will be lost. Contact shortcuts will be lost, I think your bookmarks will as well but may not be if you use a 3rd party browser. There are also apps out there that allow you to backup and restore your texts, if you don't use one of them they will be lost.
 
petesamprs said:
I rooted recently using the revolutionary method in the sticky. My main reason for rooting was to get wireless hotspot capabilities.

My other reason for rooting was to be able to delete some of the bloatware on the phone. Is there a way to easily do this with the stock ROM, or do I have to flash a new ROM that has the bloatware removed?

I'd prefer keeping stock ROM only because my phone has been very stable and I don't want to risk anything not working (eg, i read CM7 is having bluetooth issues), and I don't have time to backup/wipe/reflash ROMs whenever they break.

thanks.
Click to expand...

Likewise, I did the same and want the same. Not too savvy with the different procedures and maybe a lil weary of messing up the phone. My questions are 1) Can I just leave it with the stock ROM and just don't do the OTA update?( I've downloaded Titanium, but moved bloatware with Super Manager) 2) Can I use a battery Calibrator with this set up I have? Excuse my Royal Noobness..
 
shello007 said:
Likewise, I did the same and want the same. Not too savvy with the different procedures and maybe a lil weary of messing up the phone. My questions are 1) Can I just leave it with the stock ROM and just don't do the OTA update?( I've downloaded Titanium, but moved bloatware with Super Manager) 2) Can I use a battery Calibrator with this set up I have? Excuse my Royal Noobness..
Click to expand...

1. The last OTA didn't give many user the option to accept it or not. I would be weary of sticking on stock, you could try a very close to stock rom or just be prepared to have a soft bricked device if/when another OTA hits and know how to fix it.

2. IMO the easiest way to clear up your battery info is to boot into recovery and wipe the battery stats. I believe there are also apps available that will do it for you as well.
 
Just flashed CM7. Wow, has a very different feel to it than Sense, so takes a little getting used to. Has a lot more options/decisions so takes time setting it up to your liking.

I ended up doing a full app backup with Titanium prior to flashing, but ended up not using it since i) I use the Gmail app for email so didn't need to restore that, ii) my contacts sync w/ my gmail account, and iii) I used the opportunity to only reinstall the apps I actually use as opposed to the crap apps I had accumulated.

I really like the "Power manager" bar which lets me quickly on/off toggle mobile network/bluetooth/GPS/Wifi/3Gvs4G/Hotspot all from home screen.

What are the best weather and battery widgets to use?
 
scotty85 said:
the only prollem with running a stock rom is that it will still want to update. if you are running a custom recovery,then this is bad. you can not accept OTAs unless you reinstall the stock recovery.

for what you want to do,there are a couple of options:

1)re-install the stock recovery. since youre rooted,ill assume youve allready installed clockwork and flashed the superuser files. that way,if an OTA comes,your phone will harmlessly install it. after the OTA,youll have to re install clockwork,reflash superuser,then re-install the stock recovery. youll have to do this every time you recieve an OTA,as it will wipe out the root files in your stock rom. while this may sound like a pain,its an easy process to install the recoverys,and in all honesty i woudnt expect the updates to come very frequently from here out.this is the best route if you truly want to use the stock rom. you wont need clockwork to delete bloatware,and install a wireless tether app,or any other root only apps.
Click to expand...

I JUST finished rooting using Revolutionary, including downloading and flashing Clock Recovery. I haven't done anything else yet. How do I reflash the stock recovery so I don't have to worry about any future OTA's? I'm not interested in anything custom right now, I want to keep it stock. The only reason I rooted was to use a specific app with my new Transformer Prime when I get it. I'm tech savy enough just a total noob when it comes to rooting.

Thanks for any help.
 
download the stock recovery that matches your firmware version from here: http://androidforums.com/thunderbol...0-radios-recoveries-hboot-updated-9-24-a.html

rename it "PG05IMG" and flash it in hboot by powering on into hboot from a powered off state. it will find the file,and ask if you want to update.

there are some more specific directions to flash in hboot in post #3 of this thread: http://androidforums.com/thunderbolt-all-things-root/352729-how-some-root-terminology.html

let us know if you have any questions :)
 
Will this wipe any data? I'm assuming the one I need is GB 2.11.605.5(official OTA) Is this correct? I just read on the homepage there is an OTA coming soon so I want to figure this out asap.

Also that second link doesn't seem to be working.
 
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