Newbie questions on rooting.

[Shinypaper]

Hi guys,

First off I'm new here so hi everyone!

Basically I'm a new android user looking for the fundamentals on rooting android devices. I've had a google around but I can't find anything definitive or clear enough. Pretty much the information I'd like is:

- What options do I have for backing up and restoring in case of bad firmware or other potentially crippling accidents. That's a priority.

- Once I have root, is it possible to unroot for security purposes?

- If I flash a custom rom with a bad kernel (was thinking of doing this for undervolting) is it possible to recover?

- Best way to safely flash and root (there are tons of guides for this, but I'm not sure which ones I should trust)

That's all guys and thanks for your time, I appreciate it.

 

[ch1k3n123]

Bumpity bump. I'm looking for the same things as well!

 

[Crashdamage]

1. Titanium Backup or a nandroid backup.
2. Yes
3. Yes
4. Depends on the particular device. There is no standard one-size-fits-all method.

Linux user #266351. Android since v1.0

 

[Shinypaper]

Hey guys thanks for your replies they are appreciated. Sorry I didn't reply sooner but email alerts haven't worked and so I haven't checked on it for a while.

I took the plunge anyway and got myself successfully rooted and I have a Nandroid backup made with CWF directly. Now what interests me is custom roms. There are a few available for my device but if something goes wrong would Clockwork successfully recover me? Is the bootloader/CWM on a different part of the ROM so it wouldn't get written over with a ROM replacement? I'm considering to use this ROM but I don't trust that it will work. --> http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1812583

 

[LyricWulf]

You want to flash a recovery first, did you flash the CWM Recovery image yet? If so, the first thing you should do is create a backup by going into the bootloader and backing up your current ROM through CWM Recovery, or you could flash the recovery straight from the CWM ROM Manager. One of the most popular custom ROMs is CyanogenMod (CM). You can get a ROM for your device at get.cm. For the HTC Desire C, the direct downloads are listed here at get.cm/?device=desirec.

 

[Shinypaper]

You want to flash a recovery first, did you flash the CWM Recovery image yet? If so, the first thing you should do is create a backup by going into the bootloader and backing up your current ROM through CWM Recovery, or you could flash the recovery straight from the CWM ROM Manager. One of the most popular custom ROMs is CyanogenMod (CM). You can get a ROM for your device at get.cm. For the HTC Desire C, the direct downloads are listed here at get.cm/?device=desirec.

I didn't think CyanogenMod worked work on my device else it would have been my first choice.

Here's what I did instead.

I made 2 Nandroid backups via CWM (from bootloader mode), went ahead and flashed the rom (Nameless v7.3). It didn't work at first (boot loop) and my backups would not restore, it gave me an error about the MD5 sum not matching. I managed to get the new ROM to work anyway by flashing a different kernel so all is good now but I don't know why both Nandroid failed like that, the SD card is not corrupt and has always been safely unmounted. etc. I'll probably stick with Nameless now as it provides some nice features like overclocking. Cyanogen doesn't look like it'd provide many other benefits and it probably isn't worth something going wrong again.