Root [HOW TO](gaining root)unlock,downgrade,and achieve s-off with htcDev

[scotty85]

i did that but same thing... is there any other way around this i realy need to used the phone but. i cannot get off the problem with activation screen and it is lock to verizon and i dont have a verizon account becouse i dont life in the us.. its the droid incredible

just try and let it update or activate 3 times and it will fail and let you past. there is also a thing where you touch all 4 corners,you could google "bypass activation screen on droid in credible" on youtube and find it.

so were you just having issues above,becasue you were on the activation screen?

if your prollem is not fixed once you get into the OS where you can use the menu try a factory reset from hboot(assuming you havent reinstalled cw recovery yet)

 

[brian63]

Hi All - Have really appreciated all of the great input regarding this thread. I have a recently rooted DInc (long story) using the steps illustrated and am currently in Step 4. Running Windows 7 and on Verizon if that helps. I appear to be rooted, but am having an issue with access being denied when flashing the mtd0.img to SD during my downgrade to FroYo. I can provide additional information as necessary. Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated. I'm also searching through the 16 pages of this post for additional clues in the meantime. Thanks!

 

[sdrawkcab25]

Hi All - Have really appreciated all of the great input regarding this thread. I have a recently rooted DInc (long story) using the steps illustrated and am currently in Step 4. Running Windows 7 and on Verizon if that helps. I appear to be rooted, but am having an issue with access being denied when flashing the mtd0.img to SD during my downgrade to FroYo. I can provide additional information as necessary. Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated. I'm also searching through the 16 pages of this post for additional clues in the meantime. Thanks!

we'll definitely need more details, the best thing to do is copy and paste your entire command prompt session here. Put it between [code]paste session here[/code]

 

[scotty85]

yup... the session will help us quite a bit. off the top of my head,make sure the sd is in the phone,and not mounted as a disc drive.

you have a root prompt,correct? ( # )

 

[brian63]

sdrawkcab25, scotty85: First of all thanks SO MUCH, you guys are amazing! Just to clarify in case it is not already very evident I am a root newbie. I have experience in earlier days with command prompt programming, but dare I say in the days of BASIC, COBOL and FORTRAN ( LOL!)

I've copied my command prompt session that I tried again and was able to push mtd0.img to the sdcard (I was connected as disk, not charge only - thanks gain scotty58! Did I mention I was a newbie? )

I have been having something funky going on with adb as you can see, "adb server is out of date. killing...", but everything seems to be going as expected. My new issue is now moving on to the # prompt, adb shell seems to be the latest hang-up. Anything you can offer would be greatly appreciated. You guys are the best! Thanks!

we'll definitely need more details, the best thing to do is copy and paste your entire command prompt session here. Put it between [code]
Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Users\Brian>cd c:\miniadb_inc

c:\miniadb_inc>adb devices
adb server is out of date. killing...
ADB server didn't ACK
* failed to start daemon *
error:

c:\miniadb_inc>adb devices
adb server is out of date. killing...
ADB server didn't ACK
* failed to start daemon *
error:

c:\miniadb_inc>adb devices
adb server is out of date. killing...
* daemon started successfully *
List of devices attached
HT11BHJ03727 device


c:\miniadb_inc>md5sums mtd0.img

MD5sums 1.2 freeware for Win9x/ME/NT/2000/XP+
Copyright (C) 2001-2005 Jem Berkes - http://www.pc-tools.net/
Type md5sums -h for help

[Path] / filename MD5 sum
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[c:\miniadb_inc\]
mtd0.img 34307be744275f1db1dd16af04c37839

c:\miniadb_inc>md5sums flash_image

MD5sums 1.2 freeware for Win9x/ME/NT/2000/XP+
Copyright (C) 2001-2005 Jem Berkes - http://www.pc-tools.net/
Type md5sums -h for help

[Path] / filename MD5 sum
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[c:\miniadb_inc\]
flash_image 0098a7dd6600b55fac34fc6645be5d7a

c:\miniadb_inc>md5sums PB31IMG.zip

MD5sums 1.2 freeware for Win9x/ME/NT/2000/XP+
Copyright (C) 2001-2005 Jem Berkes - http://www.pc-tools.net/
Type md5sums -h for help

[Path] / filename MD5 sum
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[c:\miniadb_inc\]
PB31IMG.zip 100% 31bb1611a0fa8197d447c0438426717e

c:\miniadb_inc>adb push flash_image /data/local/
adb server is out of date. killing...
ADB server didn't ACK
* failed to start daemon *
error:

c:\miniadb_inc>adb push flash_image /data/local/
adb server is out of date. killing...
* daemon started successfully *
1954 KB/s (76044 bytes in 0.038s)

c:\miniadb_inc>adb push mtd0.img /sdcard/
adb server is out of date. killing...
* daemon started successfully *
2352 KB/s (655360 bytes in 0.272s)

c:\miniadb_inc>adb shell
adb server is out of date. killing...
ADB server didn't ACK
* failed to start daemon *
error:

c:\miniadb_inc>adb shell
adb server is out of date. killing...
* daemon started successfully *
error: device offline

c:\miniadb_inc>adb shell
error: device offline

c:\miniadb_inc>[/code]

 

[scotty85]

looks to me like you are having some sort of intermittent connection issue. possibly a bad cable or usb port,or something running on the PC.

try these things:

troubleshooting connectivity issues:
*make sure you have changed to your adb/fastboot directory!
-try a reboot of the PC
-try different usb cables and ports
-dont use a usb hub
-dont use usb 3.0
-make sure nothing capable of comunicating with the phone is enabled and running. htc sync,pdanet,easy tether,and even itunes have all been known to cause issues.
-windows 8 has been known to have issues. try a windows 7 or older machine

failing the above,
-i use these drivers for fastboot and adb(donwload and run as admin): http://downloads.unrevoked.com/HTCDriver3.0.0.007.exe (mirror)

failing that,try manually updating the drivers in the following manner:
-put the phone in fastboot mode(select fastboot from the hboot menu)
-open device manager on the PC
-plug in phone,watch for it to pop up in device manager.
-update drivers with device manager,pointing the wizard to the extracted
driver download folder from above

note that you can check the connectivity of the phone,and make sure drivers are working by in the following manner:
-open cmd window. change to directory containing adb/fastboot utilities

-adb with the phone in the booted OS,usb debug enabled,enter:
adb devices in a cmd window

-fastboot with phone in fastboot,enter:
fastboot devices in cmd window

in either case,a properly connected phone with working drivers installed should report back the phones serial number.

 

[brian63]

Scotty85 - thanks again. I'm going to be troubleshooting the connectivity as you suggested tonight and see what I can accomplish. A couple of things I wanted to clarify based upon your comments, in case it changes your suggestions:
1) I'm running Windows 7; not using a usb hub or 3.0
2) Based upon the cmd I sent you, the device is being recognized and the s/n is being sent back, the connectivity is just sporadic.

I'll get back to you later tonight once I have gone through the connectivity debugging.

Thanks again!

 

[brian63]

scotty85 - I've been able to successfully work through steps 4-6 after some usb cable & driver changes along with many reboots, but am now hanging up on step 7: the superuser root and forever patch. I'm running Froyo, unlocked and have rebooted into hboot. When I run Recovery from hboot, I get a locked up screen with a picture of a phone, triangle and exclamation point. I can't do anything from there and need to pull the battery to get it to reboot. I've double checked to make sure I have both of the zipped files as well as clockwork on my sd and have rerun factory reset to make sure things were clean before I proceeded. Any suggestions from here? Thanks!

looks to me like you are having some sort of intermittent connection issue. possibly a bad cable or usb port,or something running on the PC.

try these things:

 

[scotty85]

scotty85 - I've been able to successfully work through steps 4-6 after some usb cable & driver changes along with many reboots, but am now hanging up on step 7: the superuser root and forever patch. I'm running Froyo, unlocked and have rebooted into hboot. When I run Recovery from hboot, I get a locked up screen with a picture of a phone, triangle and exclamation point. I can't do anything from there and need to pull the battery to get it to reboot. I've double checked to make sure I have both of the zipped files as well as clockwork on my sd and have rerun factory reset to make sure things were clean before I proceeded. Any suggestions from here? Thanks!

what youre seeing is the stock recovery. sounds like youve forgoten step 6(or it was unsuccessful),wich is just like step 2

the hard part is over if your back on froyo you just need to flash recovery,then flash the files

 

[brian63]

what youre seeing is the stock recovery. sounds like youve forgoten step 6(or it was unsuccessful),wich is just like step 2

the hard part is over if your back on froyo you just need to flash recovery,then flash the files

You we're absolutely right, as usual . I did everything I needed to in step 6 except for one small thing, "fastboot flash recovery recovery-clockwork-5.0.2.0-inc.img" . I assume that would explain a lot!! I am now running Froyo, s-off and ready to try a new ROM . I'm assuming cyano 7.2 is still the best first choice, but what would you suggest regarding the that and the updated radios, etc.? If you could point me in the right direction I'd really appreciate that.

One more time I want to give a big shout out and THANK YOU to you and sdraw for all of your input and incredible help.

 

[scotty85]

unfortunately,im pretty out of touch with inc roms.been while since its been my daily driver speaking very generally,im not a fan at all of older sense versions,and prefer to run cm roms on those devices. cm 7 is definately well refined and stable by now,but you may find some useable ICS and JB roms as well. its all a matter of preference in having the latest and greatest,and what features you need or can live without.

if you prefer sense,im sure there are some good ones of those floating around as well,so pick out a few and try them all for a few days apiece and make your choice.

as for the radio and hboot,i would definately recomend updating those. youll only have to do it once,and it should give you better performance,even if its at a level you cant easily see

 

[brian63]

Thanks again scotty. I've actually been up and running CM7.2 for the last couple days and it's OK, but nothing over exciting. I'm most happy with the fact that it seems to be stable on this phone. I appreciate the other feedback on the ROM choices, are you aware of the best place to find comparisons of the features, looks, etc.? As far as hboot, I'm already running 1.07.0000, but will most likely upgrade my radio from 2.15.00.07.28 once I figure out the benefits. Thanks again for a great post and excellent responsiveness. You perform an Incredible (pun intended) service to the community!

One last newbie question, once everything is unzipped from the SD (CM7, new radio, unrevoked, suoeruser, etc.) I am assuming I can remove the original zip folders from the SD to gain additional space since the files should have been run and unzipped elsewhere. I just want to make sure before I brick this thing after all of the work. Please confirm. Thanks!

 

[switch81]

I want to first start off by saying what an incredible thread this is, and what an incredible job scotty has done to keep this device alive all the way till now (mid 2013!).

I recently brought out my old DINC and tried to boot it up for kicks, but it seems like something has happened in storage. I can boot into HBOOT and Fastboot fine, but when I try to go into recovery or boot the phone, I get the white HTC logo screen. I can use fastboot commands when in fastboot, however my computer does not detect the phone using adb commands in HBOOT. I've tried a variety of things such as following steps to flash a new recovery, flashing the stock ROM, flashing a new ROM (CM 7.2), but nothing is working!

So here is where I am:
- UNLOCKED
- S-OFF
- Can't access device using adb commands in HBOOT
- Can access device using fastboot commands in fastboot
- Booting gives me white logo screen
- Recovery gives me white logo screen
- I remember installing the EXT4ALL mod for this phone which I think rearrange the partitions a little bit... not sure.

"fastboot getvar all" gives me:
version: 0.5
version-bootloader: 1.02.0000
version-baseband: 2.15.00.07.28
version-cpld: None
version-microp: 0417
version-main: 4.08.605.2
serialno: HT0ANHJ05274
product: incrediblec
platform: HBOOT-8x50
modelid: PB3120000
cidnum: 11111111
battery-status: good
battery-voltage: 3904mV
partition-layout: Generic
security: off
build-mode: SHIP
boot-mode: FASTBOOT
commitno-bootloader: dirty-9ffebb6d
hbootpreupdate: 11

I can finish steps 1 & 2 just fine, but I cannot go onto step 3 because the phone won't boot to recovery.

And since I do not have adb access, I tried following these steps to sideload a ROM: http://androidforums.com/incredible-all-things-root/487280-easier-way-flash-pb31img-files.html

However this constantly fails with the follow error message at the end:
INFO[RUU]UZ,sp1,0
INFO[RUU]UZ,sp1,100
INFO[RUU]WP,sp1,0
INFO[RUU]WP,sp1,100
FAILED (remote: 51 partition update fail)
finished. total time: 131.457s

I'm about at my wits end trying to get this thing booted up, so any help you guys can give me would be HIGHLY appreciated!!!

 

[scotty85]

I tried following these steps to sideload a ROM:

i assume by rom you mean an ruu?

since you are s off,you dont need this guide. you need to run an ruu. just try flashing some different ones.

however its not a good sign to get partition update fail in any partition- could indicate you have too many bad blocks for that partition to update

 

[switch81]

i assume by rom you mean an ruu?

since you are s off,you dont need this guide. you need to run an ruu. just try flashing some different ones.

however its not a good sign to get partition update fail in any partition- could indicate you have too many bad blocks for that partition to update

Hmm, I'm not sure i'm understanding the difference between the RUU and the PB31IMG.zip file that you posted in the OP. But what I tried to do was a:

fastboot oem rebootRUU
fastboot flash zip PB31IMG.zip

should I do this with a RUU file instead?

Thanks!

 

[switch81]

Hmm, I'm not sure i'm understanding the difference between the RUU and the PB31IMG.zip file that you posted in the OP. But what I tried to do was a:

fastboot oem rebootRUU
fastboot flash zip PB31IMG.zip

should I do this with a RUU file instead?

Thanks!

OOps... I hard bricked my phone

I tired putting the PB31IMG.zip file on my sdcard and installed it via HBOOT. I got a "Radio_v2 Failed-PU" error and it wouldn't boot back up when I hit reboot. C'est la vie!

 

[scotty85]

thats a bummer. for what its worth,this isnt the first report ive heard of phones not booting/working after an extended storage period. apparently some part of the hardware deteriorates/ has some sort of issue.

a little more on the other question,and RUU technically is htcs Rom Updater Utility. it is a .exe file run on your PC with the phone plugged in.

however,the term "RUU" hAs come more commonly to mean "factory image" and the reference can be made to .zip or .exe type files,as log as they are official,signed by htc.

above,youd have to run .zip files(PB31IMG) in order to sideload from fastboot.

when i made the comment,i was refering to any type of file... .zip or .exe.

the .exe's can be run with the phone in fastboot. if the phone still boots to fastboot,give it a shot- run some other files and see if any of them run without error,tho i wouldnt get my hopes up too much. the radio does not live in flash memory so a failure there is usually pretty fatal.

you can find some more RUUs here: Shipped ROMs

 

[switch81]

thats a bummer. for what its worth,this isnt the first report ive heard of phones not booting/working after an extended storage period. apparently some part of the hardware deteriorates/ has some sort of issue.

a little more on the other question,and RUU technically is htcs Rom Updater Utility. it is a .exe file run on your PC with the phone plugged in.

however,the term "RUU" hAs come more commonly to mean "factory image" and the reference can be made to .zip or .exe type files,as log as they are official,signed by htc.

above,youd have to run .zip files(PB31IMG) in order to sideload from fastboot.

when i made the comment,i was refering to any type of file... .zip or .exe.

the .exe's can be run with the phone in fastboot. if the phone still boots to fastboot,give it a shot- run some other files and see if any of them run without error,tho i wouldnt get my hopes up too much. the radio does not live in flash memory so a failure there is usually pretty fatal.

you can find some more RUUs here: Shipped ROMs

The phone definitely does not boot at all anymore, so I'm guessing it's a complete goner. Aside from losing a "backup phone", it wasn't really a big loss. I did a quick search on ebay and it looks like the OG incredible goes for about $75-80 if I ever needed one again.

Thanks again scotty for taking the time to help diagnose my problems (as well as so many others). keep up the great work!

 

[scotty85]

your quite welcome. the og inc was second htc phone,coming from the droid eris it was quite an upgrade. i loved the rich,vivid display and had a bunch of fun flashing different roms on it. my GF still uses it to check email and FB.

watch local craiglists as well,ive seen them go for $50 or less pretty regularly.

 

[bobbie50]

Hey, so i think i may have soft bricked my device. I tried flashing the droid incredible MIUI rom and it didn't work, but i had forgotten that i had accidentally deleted the backup i had previously set of my stock rom. I tried the rom you listed in the first page and it worked (kinda). Initially i was getting the Status 7 error message on the recovery screen when i tried to install the .zip file, so i took the updater script and deleted the 'assert' lines of codes. I tried installing it again and it installed successfully, but when i rebooted the phone it booted into the "HTC Droid Incredible" white screen and just hung there forever. Any ideas? I'm at a complete loss

[EDIT] Tried several more ROMs, ended up using the odexed ROM of this: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=37808455#post37808455

Success

 

[scotty85]

awsome. glad you are sorted

 

[NickInSF]

OK, for starters, thanks to Scotty85 and sdrawkcab25 for the excellent and newbie-friendly advice.

A little background: I first decided to root about 6 months ago, for all the reasons shared here (bootloop, bloatware, VZW navigator, etc.), and the first time I very carefully followed Scotty85's excellent directions, and was able to achieve root.

Somehow (I'm not sure if I upgraded, or what), I lost root, and always meant to re-root, so I could gain my phone's full potential; I never did it until now because I'm not especially tech-savvy, so I never had the block of 6 hours or so that I found the minimum length of time for rooting for me.

Needing to get some saved information off of there, I started again today, only this time I'm stuck after step 4. When I tried to re-unlock, it was giving me the error saying it was a remote device. That was baffling. I then discovered that, somehow, I had dropped down into HBOOT .92 (which didn't happen the first time), and now I'm stuck; I can't start from the beginning because the RUU from HTC Dev won't go to my phone (although it finds it with HTC Sync, when I try to push the RUU, it says there's an error, and asks if my phone is connected).

I did check all of the md5 sums, and they matched, so I'm not sure what I did wrong; when trying to reboot into recovery, thinking I'd just restore the ROM back-up I made in step four, it just goes to the stupid picture of the phone with the red exclamation point.

Any help would be appreciated! I'm sorry if this is a dupe; I read the other posts, and couldn't find anyone else with my exact problem.

 

[scotty85]

Are you allready s-off?

 

[NickInSF]

Are you allready s-off?

I'm not quite sure how to answer that question... I followed all the steps, and got s-off, before downgrading and accidentally getting HBOOT .92, but now it says neither "locked" nor "unlocked". It doesn't say anything in pink at the top, where it usually does.

 

[sdrawkcab25]

I'm not quite sure how to answer that question... I followed all the steps, and got s-off, before downgrading and accidentally getting HBOOT .92, but now it says neither "locked" nor "unlocked". It doesn't say anything in pink at the top, where it usually does.

on the hboot screen, at the upper left, it should say "s-on" or "s-off"