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

Nickynick said:
well i couldnt get the camera to startup ever since an update from htc it worked after one factory restore but only worked for a few photos... im convinced its a firmware issue not hardware but you never know.

i hate to be a pest but im not 100% sure on the way to go about flashing the lib files ...in hboot? or just with superuser access while its on?
Click to expand...
the easiest thing to do would be to re-install cm7. just wipe cache and dalvik cache and reflash. if that doesnt work,you may need to wipe all data. with newer phones we are finding that the stock recovery seems to be able to wipe areas of the phone that a custom recovery doesnt,so if the "dirty flash" of cm7 doesnt bring the camera back,heres what id do:
-make sure youre s-off
-run the newest gingerbread ruu to get you on the latest firmware and stock recovery
-factory reset in hboot
-reinstall clockwork as a PB31IMG( http://androidforums.com/incredible...egain-root-s-off-htc-unlocked-bootloader.html )
-full wipe,reinstall cm7

if that does not bring the camera back,you may want to post the question as its own thread here,or on xda,where more folks will see it.

Ebenezum said:
Since you're the one who knows most about my phone's properties right now, I just wanted to ask; A couple of the things I'd like to do with my rooted phone is give it a new boot animation and lock screen. Is there any reason why I shouldn't be able to do that as is?
Click to expand...

nope,no reason at all. as sdraw said,you are s-off,wich is the whole point of this thread.

install recovery and flash a rom and install the newst radio,or run the latest ruu and root it(install recovery,flash root files http://androidforums.com/incredible...egain-root-s-off-htc-unlocked-bootloader.html )

you can then change your boot animation and lock screen if you wish. :)
 
"-run the newest gingerbread ruu to get you on the latest firmware and stock recovery"

link pretty please?:D i can do it as a PB31img file right? thank thanks thanks
 
Once again Thanks Scotty.

I got my new bootscreen, it's the one for evo on this page:

http://androidforums.com/ascend-all-things-root/347609-new-lcars-boot-animation.html

For reasons I don't quite understand, and don't bother me TOO much, the animation stops animating a moment after starting. what does bother me though is that I can't get the sound to work. I started a new thread here:

http://androidforums.com/incredible...c-incredible-boot-sound-help.html#post4713632

...because I wasn't sure this was the right thread to continue this conversation.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with the results. Once again, thanks Scotty. You're VERY helpful.
 
Nickynick said:
"-run the newest gingerbread ruu to get you on the latest firmware and stock recovery"

link pretty please?:D i can do it as a PB31img file right? thank thanks thanks
Click to expand...
Stock Images | PvilleComp's
an RUU is a utility run on your PC with the phone plugged in. there is an older PB31IMG download,or you can easily extract rom.zip from the ruu and rename it PB31IMG

just start the .exe utility,click yes i understand,then search your C drive for "rom.zip". it will be in a temp folder,and it will be in a different place every time :eek:

Ebenezum said:
Once again Thanks Scotty.

I got my new bootscreen, it's the one for evo on this page:

http://androidforums.com/ascend-all-things-root/347609-new-lcars-boot-animation.html

For reasons I don't quite understand, and don't bother me TOO much, the animation stops animating a moment after starting. what does bother me though is that I can't get the sound to work. I started a new thread here:

http://androidforums.com/incredible...c-incredible-boot-sound-help.html#post4713632

...because I wasn't sure this was the right thread to continue this conversation.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with the results. Once again, thanks Scotty. You're VERY helpful.
Click to expand...
youre welcome. glad you were able to accomplish what you wanted to do :cool:
 
Hello scotty, My name is Robert.

I just tried to type this on the incredible and fatfingered the back key and lost the post so on pc now. spelling and puncuation will be off...sorry in advance :/

Firstly I personally want to say thanks. You help others and that speaks volumes about you character.

Let me begin...
I have searched for days now on updating GB 2.3.4. Have been looking for a more one step simple process to no avail. I have rooted a triumph but it was a onstep process so it was easy. I just read thru this entire thread and know for certin this is my choice to root the inc1

Now i want to root my Incredible.
Why you ask....
Firstly...yesterday afternoon i started getting the low memory notiify...so did the OTA to GB to fix it. Phone good right...sadly no, last night It began the 2am rebooting. so after reasearchin the issue i seen that clearing data and cache in hboot would fix it. well after loading into hboot to do that i found that no matter what option i select or button i press it dose an auto reset of my phone. so it wiped it clean, which stinks cause a cache/data wipe fixes alot it seems and i am screwed if it resets phone no matter what.

Next.. I have seen the joys of a rooted / overclocked phone. I love playing games and watching movies on my phone and all this darn stock OS bloat ware auto loading is eating up valuable ram and processor speed.

Also I just want the control i crave from an electronic. I have a awesome PC I built. It is a beast. I know this phone can be a beast as well with the right rom installed and possible some OCing from me.

Scotty, like i said, the last root i did was simple. no learning involved. I read this thread and half of it I do not understand. Can you link me to a site or pdf to better learn what i am about to try. I do not want to bork my phone because of verizons dang OTA errors. There is no warrenty, so if I brick it I am out the trade I just made for it. Traded the triumph becase my carrier(page plus) would not allow me to use the triumph.

Next Can you help me find a OS that gives me the power I crave while still using the phone as intended..IE camera, calls, texts, web...ect...

On a side note my hboot says locked at top, but other than that i am scared to look, rewiped phone 3 times today trying to fix the darn auto resettin thing it keeps doing. I know this process will wipe it again so when needed i will look to get you info needed.

Thanks for your time Scotty. I look foward to hearing from you. I am excited to get this phone rooted and operating/preforming the way i want it to.

PS i am sure i am forgetting something here but just want to begin touching base with you.
 
Robrooter said:
Hello scotty, My name is Robert.

I just tried to type this on the incredible and fatfingered the back key and lost the post so on pc now. spelling and puncuation will be off...sorry in advance :/

Firstly I personally want to say thanks. You help others and that speaks volumes about you character.

Let me begin...
I have searched for days now on updating GB 2.3.4. Have been looking for a more one step simple process to no avail. I have rooted a triumph but it was a onstep process so it was easy. I just read thru this entire thread and know for certin this is my choice to root the inc1

Now i want to root my Incredible.
Why you ask....
Firstly...yesterday afternoon i started getting the low memory notiify...so did the OTA to GB to fix it. Phone good right...sadly no, last night It began the 2am rebooting. so after reasearchin the issue i seen that clearing data and cache in hboot would fix it. well after loading into hboot to do that i found that no matter what option i select or button i press it dose an auto reset of my phone. so it wiped it clean, which stinks cause a cache/data wipe fixes alot it seems and i am screwed if it resets phone no matter what.

Next.. I have seen the joys of a rooted / overclocked phone. I love playing games and watching movies on my phone and all this darn stock OS bloat ware auto loading is eating up valuable ram and processor speed.

Also I just want the control i crave from an electronic. I have a awesome PC I built. It is a beast. I know this phone can be a beast as well with the right rom installed and possible some OCing from me.

Scotty, like i said, the last root i did was simple. no learning involved. I read this thread and half of it I do not understand. Can you link me to a site or pdf to better learn what i am about to try. I do not want to bork my phone because of verizons dang OTA errors. There is no warrenty, so if I brick it I am out the trade I just made for it. Traded the triumph becase my carrier(page plus) would not allow me to use the triumph.

Next Can you help me find a OS that gives me the power I crave while still using the phone as intended..IE camera, calls, texts, web...ect...

On a side note my hboot says locked at top, but other than that i am scared to look, rewiped phone 3 times today trying to fix the darn auto resettin thing it keeps doing. I know this process will wipe it again so when needed i will look to get you info needed.

Thanks for your time Scotty. I look foward to hearing from you. I am excited to get this phone rooted and operating/preforming the way i want it to.

PS i am sure i am forgetting something here but just want to begin touching base with you.
Click to expand...


The steps outlined in the first post are the best instructions you will find on how to root. Judging by how your hboot screen says "locked" , it sounds like you already updated your hboot. So you just need to start at the steps that tell you how to get your unlock token.

If you are looking to run a light, but powerful OS, you are going to want to try out cyanogenmod 7 (http://cyanogenmod.com). Its not worth it to bother overclocking the incredible, the processor is pretty much maxed out at the stock speed. You can only squeeze about another 100mhz out of it before you run into issues.
 
thanks sdraw,not much more to add. just download everything,get organized,and go slow with the steps. use the code boxes to verify the commands you input yield the correct responses.

read thru the directios carfully a couple times prior. holler if theres anything you dont understand or have questions about :)
 
Well scotty. I stumbled and bumbled my way through the instructions. Got hung up on step 3 but just used the adb command to flash in super user. then got hung on the install froyo part, but then rebooted phone and it reread the image and completed sucessfull. Then i left it unlocked like that cause i was scared. I removed froyo and put cm7 on it. once again it crashed on first try, but loaded fine wite a reboot to hboot. I did my back up there, so i have a rooted unlocked cm7 OS. I know i did not complete your steps to full, but i got done at 3am, was tired. prolly messing up more that fixing. My only issue now is that cm7 seems to have a weaker internet and phone signal than GB did. I looked some but no real answers poped up in my searches. Is there a fiix for CM 7?

Thanks for this guide. I feel alot better about what I am doing. I am a novice, but this guide worked. And it was easy to follow, sort of...haha.
Thanks Scotty.
 
the poor signal is not from the rom you have installed,its from installing an old radio with the downgrade. i know you were tired when you finished,but if you werent going to do the last couple steps,you might as well have just stopped at htcdev unlock on gingerbread ;) at least then youd still be on the most current radio :D

heres all you really need to do,since youre on the froyo baseband:

flash the forever patch in recovery. this will give you s-off,at wich time you can install the newer radio,and hopefully that will fix things up for you :)

htcdev unlock sucks. dont be satisfied with it,when all you need to do is flash that last file. it is ONLY use here to temporarily gain root access to be able to downgrade,and then flash recovery and s-off.
 
Scotty, I tried to flash the forever patch but get the error wrong radio version. Is your current radio pictured 2.15.00.07.28 compatible with the cyanogenmod 7.2.0-Inc OS I am running? Don't want to reinstall OS again if possible. My current radio is 2.15.10.12.20.

Also, could you refer me to a stable OC'd kernel that is compatible with this OS. Been looking but can not find definitive answers. I have found the Hydra 1.5ghz one on a few sites but still clueless on a solid answer.

THANKS...many thanks.
 
well,the bad news is that i am not sure why youre experiencing poorer signal strengths,as you are on a very new radio(prolly the most recent). what are you basing this assumption on? dont use the signal bars,as they can be extremely misleading. cm has an option in status bar tweeks(IIRC) to change signal bars to actual DB. this will tell you alot more accurately what kind of signal youre getting.

the other bad news,is that youve apparently not downgraded,despite your thot having been successful. you will need to successfully flash the downgrade software to get the correct baseband for the forever patch to work.

no biggie,all you need to do is make a backup of cm7,and after youve got s-off,youll just restore it :)

you dont need to start completely over,cm7 is a rooted OS and should be fine to rewrite the misc image and downgrade. after multiple reboots,im not 100% sure if youre misc img has been bumped back up to its correct GB version. its possible all you need to do is flash the downgrade RUU,if youve successfuly changed it when you completed those steps.

heres what id do:
1)boot to recovery, make a backup

2)open a cmd window,plug in your phone

3)change to miniadb_inc directory:
cd c:\miniadb_inc

4)enter:
adb devices
if you get back: xxxxxxxxx recovery,then skip to this command in step 4 of the guide:
adb reboot bootloader
this should take you to fast boot. if you get some sort of error,then simply pull the battery,or power off option in recovery(if there is one) then boot the phone to hboot,then select fastboot. enter:
fastboot devices
if you get your serial number back,then carry on :)

5)pay particular attention to the nex command in step 4:
fastboot getvar mainver
you must get 1.22.605.2. if you do then enter the commands to flash the downgrade ruu. if you dont see the exact responses that are shown in the codebox to indicate the ruu flahshed completely and successfully,let us know. if you get an error to flush again immediately,simply rerun the command fastboot flash zip PB31IMG.zip. (you should not get this error,however. the downgrade ruu is not set for a hboot pre-update. when i flashed it,it just flashed the whole thing)
**if your main version is 4.06.605.xx then you will have to start over at step 4.. again,cm7 should be fine for this,no need to resinstall stock GB.

6)when the phone reboots after the downgrade,check the build number and make sure youre on software 3.26.605.1,wich will be froyo with a "forever"-compatible baseband :)

7)continue on to step 5 of the guide.

8) once the guide is completed,and youve verified s-off, youll want to install the newest radio as a PB31IMG. download it from here: Radios | PvilleComp's

9)restore your cm7 backup :)

may seem fustrating,but again,dont be satisfied with htcdev. its a PITA and s-off is superior in many ways.

last and not least,i would not bother to OC the original incredible. the processor is allready running on the ragged edge of safe,and you can only get another 100 mhz out of it before you start having bootloops and crashes. you will fry it at 1.5ghz,its a matter of time.

you are welcome to do your own speed tests and benchmarks,but i personally did not see any substantial benefits from running the processor at 1.1ghz.

let us know once your s-off and back up and running on cm7. there are a couple things you can check on,that may help your performance,but i dont want to overwhelm you with more facts and directions at this point.

i cannot stress enuff,how worthwhile the efforts are to achieve s-off.
 
Got your reply Scotty. I will continue at the method you posted and let you know. For now though a break tonight. Been up till 4am last couple nights and at work by 8am....so needless to say I am bushed. Will continue the process tomorrow evening round this time. Also...yes was looking at the status bars for net and phone. Switched it to numeric before I typed this and the web was ay -54 db. Hope that number helps you to answer if it is good or bad. Btw...this OS is awesome. And I like where the OC. is set. The OS is running at 1113 hrz. On the processor. And always have 220+ megs of ram free outside of applications ....frankly the phone is way faster.

Question on this site thou...my keyboard input here with phone is sluggish. Few milisecond delay That is quite noticeable. Does your phone act like that here as well when typing.? Or is it a setting I can adjust thru browser or OS Settings?


Once again....THANKS Scotty. Will keep you posted.
 
-54 db is excellent signal strength(its pretty close to optimum reception). You don't experience poor reception till about -90 to -120.

I run cm on my old inc and haven't experienced keyboard lag, but I also don't use it much. Do you notice the lag in any particular apps or all of them equally?
 
Hey Scotty,
Just got around to finishing the process. could not get the pg file to flash thru the adb command but did a workaround and put it on sd card and ran that way. all in all phone is now unlocked and s off.

so what were those preformance tweaks?

Thanks a million, without you or this guide i would be on a slow un root phone. You are the man!
 
awsome! glad you got it.

actually the main thing i wanted you to check was your kernel version. since you flashed cm7 with htcdev,it may not have written the kernel. i wouldnt really think cm7 would be booting and running with the stock sense kernel,but you never know! :eek:

now that youre s-off,it may do you some good to reflash cm7. a full wipe and reflash,start from scratch may bring the best results,but you can try restoring your cm7 backup,wipe cache,wipe dalvik,and then just flash cm7 again,NO data wipe.

also,make sure that you are NOT using titanium backup or my backup pro to restore any kind of system apps or data. only use these apps to restore user apps(and their associated data)
 
Hello Phandroid! This is my first post and first attempt to root and rom a phone.:D

I tried to download the PB31IMG.zip file but my browser interrupted it and it failed. I don't know why it did this so I retried and when it was done I tried to open it but I got a message that the file was corrupt. I tried two more times (wasting an hour and a half in the process) but got the same message.:mad:

Obviously there isn't much I can do about that and when I put the corrupt file in "miniadb_inc" and used "md5sums PB31IMG.zip" in cmd to check the file it gave me "f9e639a7ac6892c14ee0627ad09e60a8" which doesn't match what I was supposed to get.

What can I do about this? I know I can leave it as is at this point but I wanted to root because the phone got the 2.3.4 update and started randomly boot looping. I cleared the system cache and that fixed it but I wanted to put a custom rom on it before it started again.

One last thing. I think I want to put cm7 on this phone but i keep finding different links and instructions for installing the rom. I want to know if I can somehow use cm7 instead of the corrupt file?:confused:

any help is much appreciated!!:)
 
that message is fairly common as windows tries to automatically unzip the download,and then cannot. i have downloaded many,many .zip files and been told by windows that they are "corrupt".

go ahead and put the downloaded zip file into miniadb_inc,and procede with the directions. as long as you get the correct md5 output when instructed to check it you can rest assured that it is fine.

if the md5 is off becasue your firewall or antivirus software are interfering,then you may have to turn those off temporarily,or use a PC that isnt quite as "locked down" as your current one to download the files ;)
 
The thing is I downloaded all the other zip files without a problem and have downloaded hundreds in the past and never had a problem with them either. I will try lowering security to see if that fixes the problem, but I doubt much will change...

EDIT: DONE!! I don't know what changed but I got everything working! thanks for the great guide!

reEDIT: Ok I'm not done.. So lets just say I screwed up flashing cm7 to the phone and had to reflash froyo. That worked perfectly and the phone is now normal.

Well... it seems I lost root during the process.. I still have s-off but no root and no clockwork mod either! I can't reflash anything without getting an error that says I'm not allowed to do whatever it is I'm doing. when I try to get to clockworkmod I get a red triangle.

Oh and being a noob I put the froyo zip right on the root of the sd card and when I started hboot(?) it automatically downloaded the file and asked me if I wanted to install it. My thought was 'well I'm just about to enter clockworkmod to do this but I guess doing it here is fine' and I said yes...

And..... here I am...
 
oh no! everything was going so great, but I am stuck on 6:
fastboot flash recovery recovery-clockwork-5.0.2.0-inc.img

-youll see a (really fast) green status bar on the top right as your PC sends the recovery to your phone,then a (really,really fast) red bar as it flashes it. you now have clockwork recovery installed on your phone.

I get this error:
c:\miniadb_inc>fastboot flash recovery recovery-clockwork-5.0.2.0-inc.img
sending 'recovery' (3064 KB)... OKAY [ 0.458s]
writing 'recovery'... INFOsignature checking...
FAILED (remote: signature verify fail)
finished. total time: 0.995s

The hash values of the .img are correct.....

any thought?

Thanks!

NEVERMIND - I see CFeds reply now:
"FYI, if you get this at step 6... back up and make sure you did step 5 correctly:
c:\miniadb_inc>fastboot flash recovery recovery-clockwork-5.0.2.0-inc.img
sending 'recovery' (3064 KB)... OKAY [ 0.430s]
writing 'recovery'... INFOsignature checking...
FAILED (remote: signature verify fail)
finished. total time: 0.853s "
 
I am at the step where you get the token thing, which i have... but then u start refering to steps 9 and 10, which are not even on your post? help me!
 
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