Two weeks ago, my wife and I were each equipped with an LG Ally that were rooted and loaded with the Velocity ROM. The process to root and ROM the Ally was not as involved a process as it is with our new phones, the Droid 3. The reason for the upgrade was due to hardware failure (specifically the microphone) on my wife's Ally. She didn't want to get a new phone unless I were to get one as well. Anyhow, I digress...upon receiving the Droid 3 replacements, I was happy to discover the striking difference in performance versus the Ally with only the stock ROM. Not even a day passed and I grew tired of the stock apps included on the Droid 3. Thus, I began my quest to root the Droid 3 and subsequently find a ROM to load that provides the functionality that I seek. Excuse the redundancy of reposted information, but I think it might be helpful to those who find themselves in the same boat or to developers to help provide a more fool proof guide:
1) Searched for forum with details on rooting Droid 3 and loading a new ROM
- Found -> [ROM] Steel Droid: 4.5 Gingerbread - 5.7.894 - DEODEXED - 1-3-2012 - xda-developers
- Point of failure -> 9: Wait for the phone to finish flashing, and booting (it will reboot a couple times, leave it alone, its supposed to!)
- Result -> Bricked the new Droid 3; straight power-on resulted in the "AP Fastboot" screen, could be bypassed by holding "Vol+ & Vol- at the same time when powering the phone on."
2) Searched for way to return Droid 3 to a normal power up
- Found -> http://androidforums.com/droid-3-all-things-root/530290-droid3-flash-failure.html
- Result -> Restored phone to bootable condition
3) Searched for guide to root Droid 3, part two:
- Found -> http://androidforums.com/droid-3-all-things-root/408712-root-ultimate-droid3-root-rom-thread.html
- Point of failure -> Step 4) From the new folder on your computer, double-click on Pete's Motorola Root Tools to begin the root process.; specifically the 3rd exploit failed
- Result -> started new search for working root tool :dong:
4) Searched for guide to root Droid 3, part three:
- Found -> http://androidforums.com/droid-3-all-things-root/511127-droid-3-will-not-root.html which lead to -> Security Research by Dan Rosenberg
- Result -> Droid 3 successfully rooted
5) Installed ROM per instructions from step 1):
- Result -> Stock ROM reappeared after first reboot of installed ROM
- Point of failure -> Needs to be answered by someone with more knowledge and/or experience
6) Searched for different ROM to install since aspects of sought out functions were missing (namely Google Talk) from Steel Droid noticed before reboot aka Point of Failure in Step 5)
- Found -> [Rom] Liberty3 V2.0 For The D3 11/28 - Sunday Bloody Sunday! - xda-developers
- Result -> Bricked again; will not boot beyond Motorola Dual Core Technology splash after waiting for 15 minutes.
Conclusion - after unbricking following process from step 2) for a second time, I will just suck it up and live with a rooted version of the stock ROM by freezing the undesirable apps. :tomato:
One question resulting from my experience:
- Is the "external SD card" a reference to the card insterted in the provided expansion slot? If so, is it by design that it is not mountable in the Recovery Menu? My preference is to perform nandroid backup to the "external SD card" versus the "internal SD card".
Will address any questions about what I have shared if anyone cares to entertain the notion.
Lastly, many thanks to all the developers despite my user failings. :adore:
1) Searched for forum with details on rooting Droid 3 and loading a new ROM
- Found -> [ROM] Steel Droid: 4.5 Gingerbread - 5.7.894 - DEODEXED - 1-3-2012 - xda-developers
- Point of failure -> 9: Wait for the phone to finish flashing, and booting (it will reboot a couple times, leave it alone, its supposed to!)
- Result -> Bricked the new Droid 3; straight power-on resulted in the "AP Fastboot" screen, could be bypassed by holding "Vol+ & Vol- at the same time when powering the phone on."
2) Searched for way to return Droid 3 to a normal power up
- Found -> http://androidforums.com/droid-3-all-things-root/530290-droid3-flash-failure.html
- Result -> Restored phone to bootable condition
3) Searched for guide to root Droid 3, part two:
- Found -> http://androidforums.com/droid-3-all-things-root/408712-root-ultimate-droid3-root-rom-thread.html
- Point of failure -> Step 4) From the new folder on your computer, double-click on Pete's Motorola Root Tools to begin the root process.; specifically the 3rd exploit failed
- Result -> started new search for working root tool :dong:
4) Searched for guide to root Droid 3, part three:
- Found -> http://androidforums.com/droid-3-all-things-root/511127-droid-3-will-not-root.html which lead to -> Security Research by Dan Rosenberg
- Result -> Droid 3 successfully rooted
5) Installed ROM per instructions from step 1):
- Result -> Stock ROM reappeared after first reboot of installed ROM
- Point of failure -> Needs to be answered by someone with more knowledge and/or experience
6) Searched for different ROM to install since aspects of sought out functions were missing (namely Google Talk) from Steel Droid noticed before reboot aka Point of Failure in Step 5)
- Found -> [Rom] Liberty3 V2.0 For The D3 11/28 - Sunday Bloody Sunday! - xda-developers
- Result -> Bricked again; will not boot beyond Motorola Dual Core Technology splash after waiting for 15 minutes.
Conclusion - after unbricking following process from step 2) for a second time, I will just suck it up and live with a rooted version of the stock ROM by freezing the undesirable apps. :tomato:
One question resulting from my experience:
- Is the "external SD card" a reference to the card insterted in the provided expansion slot? If so, is it by design that it is not mountable in the Recovery Menu? My preference is to perform nandroid backup to the "external SD card" versus the "internal SD card".
Will address any questions about what I have shared if anyone cares to entertain the notion.
Lastly, many thanks to all the developers despite my user failings. :adore: