• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Root part way through rooting Desire

M

manutius

Newbie
(skip to end to cut out the gumf):o

Hi one and all, I'm part way through rooting my phone fully. In fact I have got root access using the unrevoked method and have the superuser icon. I have used titanium to backup my apps and am about to run the nandriod backup but I must admit I am getting a bit twitchy when it comes to picking and running the correct ROM.

Ideally I wanted to do this to get over the limited internal memory issues but have to admit I'm a bit confused as to whcih way to go. Maybe in fact its very basic and I'm no missing anything but I could do with someone holding my hand. Does it matter that I used the cyanogen image? do I have to choose a cyanogen ROM?


  1. suitable ROM for my needs ( Internal memory limitations)
  2. do I save ROM to sdcard anywhere?
  3. partition or not partition?
  4. once I have run nandroid backup am I good to go?
 
Very brief as am on my phone.

Nandroid first is essential. Read the rooting faq for info on backups before flashing ROMs.

Also read the root memory faq, linked from the All Things Root Guide sticky post. That explains options for improving storage.

Simplest is to use a partition and rom which supports a2sd+. Most ROMs include this, with CM it's an add-on (as are Google apps!). Without the partition you won't gain very much space just from flashing the ROM.
 
Does it matter that I used the cyanogen image?

i dont know what you mean, what's this?

You should partition your SD using Gparted.
We say Gparted because windows sucks at making Linux partitions. ( Android is based upon Linux) it will do it, but not properly and you will have issues. ( I know this first hand)

The guide is under the link in my Sig ( Looking to Root )

the ROM, you place on the root of your SD, but please PLEASE read the guide as these are pretty standard questions.
 
awesome guys thanks. I think I was maybe over engineering things in my head reading and re-reading as it seemed "too simple" in theory.

I have read the FAQ many times and greatly appreciate the work that has gone into them. I think I got a bit confused as with all the threads opening up from different links I tied myself in knots :lol: Running my own forum I know what its like to get the noob questions so appreciate your time to answer.

Will run Gparted and once done choose a ROM, still not sure what type is best for me though :(
 
manutius said:
Basically I have the little turquoise dude at the bottom of the Root options screen thingy.
Click to expand...
Thing is, I don't know what you mean why the root options screen :). No, seriously, there's the superuser app, and the recovery, and I've never seen a CM logo on either.

As for best ROM, that's a matter of taste. The sticky thread "Which ROM type are you using?" might give you some clues. But basically there are 3 main types:

  • Sense ROMs: either rooted, maybe tweaked/themed versions of the HTC ROM, or ports of later Sense versions to the Desire.
  • AOSP ROMs: Android Open Source Project, i.e. Android without the HTC modifications. Smaller, more streamlined, generally faster, but with a different look and feel.
  • MIUI ROMs: based on AOSP, but very heavily modified, even down to different styles of menus.
The great thing is that if you remember to take a nandroid backup first, you can flash a ROM, play for a couple of days, and then flash another (or revert to your earlier one), & repeat until you find one you like.

Beware though, this does become addictive - ask Dan55! :D
 
ok cool, I think I might go with a sense version first and see how I go, would that be advisable?

As for the screen I see, When I boot into recovery my screen is black with turquoise writing with the skateboard dude and the options I see are

1. reboot system now
2 usb-ms recovery
3 backup/restore
4 flash zip from sdcard
5 wipe
6 partition sdcard
7 mounts
8 other
9 power off

Any ideas? I am also struggling with getting the flipping gparted to work to partition the drive. Could I use the option up there ?
 
Backup /Restore
Back up.
Wipe data / factory reset
Choose file from sd card.
Scroll to the ROM you have downloaded.
Select it.
Wait for it to finish.
Done.
 
What recovery is that?

Most recoveries don't do a good job of partitioning - you can easily end up with reduced write speeds. People claim that 4Ext does it well, but I've not tested (it takes forever to reload 27GB of data back onto my card, so I'm not that inclined to try it out!). GParted we know will do a good job. What problems are you seeing?
 
manutius said:
ok cool, I think I might go with a sense version first and see how I go, would that be advisable?

As for the screen I see, When I boot into recovery my screen is black with turquoise writing with the skateboard dude and the options I see are

1. reboot system now
2 usb-ms recovery
3 backup/restore
4 flash zip from sdcard
5 wipe
6 partition sdcard
7 mounts
8 other
9 power off

Any ideas? I am also struggling with getting the flipping gparted to work to partition the drive. Could I use the option up there ?
Click to expand...

This is what I did - can anyone explain to me why we should use gparted instead of this?
 
Partition alignment - most recoveries do a bad job of this, and if it's not aligned your write speeds are reduced.

4Ext will test your alignment for you - really am liking that recovery.
 
Hadron said:
What recovery is that?
Click to expand...

basically using unrevoked in the start screen I went to file and chose an img file, one that I downloaded as suggested by the giude I was following, it said download an img file so I did. I'll try and take a picture if that helps? See what I mean about tieing myself in a knot. I think at one point I had 10+ tabs open :eek:

as for Gparted, I think my laptop wont run it as my laptop came out before penicillin was discovered lol. I tried using daemonlite to run it but kept getting server errors when I tried to get adburn!!!!, can I try anything else?

I also used the titanium backup and now have no user installed apps on my phone, I tried to restore them and nothing. I could happily take a hammer to the phone

aaaaaaaaand finally if I have royally screwed this up am I able to totally restart it?
 
It's a BOOTABLE cd!

If you want to use it without burning to cd and booting from it, you'll have to use my vm guide in the all things root sticky
 
If it was our guide you followed then it should be ClockworkMod 2.5.0.7 or Amon Ra 2.0.1, and that menu isn't CWM 2.5.0.7 (I've never used Amon Ra, so that may well be the AR menu). I'm really just asking because of the CM logo on recovery not being something I recognise.

So what happened to user apps? Can you tell us exactly what you did? Ti Backup won't remove apps unless you tell it to - it can uninstall apps, but the option is well labelled and a long way from "backup" in the menus, so you shouldn't hit it by mistake.

As for GParted, maybe your laptop can't manage a VM, but although they are more hassle it should be able to manage a live cd - GParted requires a lot less resource to run it than Windows. Unfortunately I don't know daemonlite/adburn - I'm not much of a Windows user.

Don't think there's much to restart, as you have rooted. Need to work out whether your apps are recoverable, i.e. what happened to them. I presume you've tried rebooting?
 
firstly can I say a big thankyou for your help. You must get fed up with divs like me :(

I think perhaps I followed a guide on the xda site, after my multiple tab mishap I maybe forgot where I was??? I will try and find the link if I can

All I can tell you is that its got build RA-desire -v2.0.0 at the bottom.

As for titanium I definately selected the backup all apps and it showed data being moved onto sd card. When I got twitchy thinking I had muffed it all up I tried to restore and nothing there. I have sort of lost the plot, perhaps I erased it when I thought I'l look at the partition option listed above and it went off an partirioned the drive at 512mb. How do I check whether the driuve is partiioned correctly? Should I check the write speed or am I getting ahead of myself.

if you woulod like to take me out to the woods and shoot me please feel free I'm sure I wont notice lol
 
Quick system info pro from the market will show your partition.
I think titanium backup does too.
 
No worries about shooting - spam and abuse of other forum members are the only capital offences here :)

Ti and QSI can show that the partition is recognised, but only when the ROM has an A2SD script installed. If you have partitioned with GParted, and selected "align at MiB" you should be fine.

As for the backup, have apps gone from the phone or is it just that Ti has lost the backup? Also did you back up the card before partitioning? That process will wipe the card.

Do read the guides and faqs linked from the All Things Root Guide sticky post. The reason we recommend these over others is that we know they are actively maintained - many guides you find through a search may have been fine when written but may not describe current software or hardware, and so may be sub-optimal or may omit something important.

Oh, and don't use ROM Manager, no matter what any guide or thread recommends.
 
thats cool info many thanks.

So would you advise I run with what I've got in terms of recovery options and choose a ROM and go for it? Or can I format the card and start again?

I'm going to go through the FAQ's again, but the only thing it might have been would have been on the xda site. If I can partition the drive then I'll feel like I've made progress. The Qsi shows no partition, which I guess is good as I can do it using the Gparted

As for the Ti backup I if I look at application list they are listed but have no data at all and the icons are gone. Its not that big a deal really, I can download them again I guess once I've come out the other side?
 
Formatting the card won't affect the recovery - that's installed on your phone.

One thing to check: "PVT version" (hardware revision) and erase size. There are instructions for checking this in our rooting FAQ, linked from the All Things Root Guide sticky post in this forum. The reason is that if you have erase size 40,000 (which is only possible on some PVT4 devices, so if yours is PVT 1, 2 or 3 you are OK) you want Amon Ra 2.0.1, and you say you have 2.0.0. If so, we'll deal with that, but it's as well to check it.
 
Re Ti, I take it that the apps have gone from the phone? In that case Ti should show the app (if it was backed-up) with the name struck through, and the number of backups below that. Just want to check for sure what the status is.

If you can run Ti at all then you are rooted. Before flashing a ROM you will want to back up contacts, messages etc. Ti isn't good for these, since they are stored as system data which you do not want to restore to a different ROM. Most people back up contacts with Google anyway, but if not you can save them from the contacts app to SD ("export"), or MyBackup can be used for this. MyBackup can also do messages, though I mainly use SMS Backup+, which can automatically back them up to your GMail account. This stuff is again in the FAQs, so we always advise reading until you are sure, and asking about anything you are not sure of, before actually doing.

You said previously that you had partitioned your card. Ti certainly won't show the partition if the ROM does not support A2SD, and QSI isn't reliable in this case. But you should be able to check by looking at the size of the fat32 partition (the bit the phone sees as the regular SD card) - if that's shrunk by 0.5 GB then the partitioning has probably worked. The stock ROM (i.e. what comes with the phone) can't use this, so once everything else is ready we can consider how to fix that, i.e. choose a ROM which will.
 
Hadron said:
Formatting the card won't affect the recovery - that's installed on your phone.

One thing to check: "PVT version" (hardware revision) and erase size. There are instructions for checking this in our rooting FAQ, linked from the All Things Root Guide sticky post in this forum. The reason is that if you have erase size 40,000 (which is only possible on some PVT4 devices, so if yours is PVT 1, 2 or 3 you are OK) you want Amon Ra 2.0.1, and you say you have 2.0.0. If so, we'll deal with that, but it's as well to check it.
Click to expand...


I checked that before I statred anything and it was 20,000
 
Hadron said:
Re Ti, I take it that the apps have gone from the phone? In that case Ti should show the app (if it was backed-up) with the name struck through, and the number of backups below that. Just want to check for sure what the status is.

If you can run Ti at all then you are rooted. Before flashing a ROM you will want to back up contacts, messages etc. Ti isn't good for these, since they are stored as system data which you do not want to restore to a different ROM. Most people back up contacts with Google anyway, but if not you can save them from the contacts app to SD ("export"), or MyBackup can be used for this. MyBackup can also do messages, though I mainly use SMS Backup+, which can automatically back them up to your GMail account. This stuff is again in the FAQs, so we always advise reading until you are sure, and asking about anything you are not sure of, before actually doing.

You said previously that you had partitioned your card. Ti certainly won't show the partition if the ROM does not support A2SD, and QSI isn't reliable in this case. But you should be able to check by looking at the size of the fat32 partition (the bit the phone sees as the regular SD card) - if that's shrunk by 0.5 GB then the partitioning has probably worked. The stock ROM (i.e. what comes with the phone) can't use this, so once everything else is ready we can consider how to fix that, i.e. choose a ROM which will.
Click to expand...

Re Ti, I take it that the apps have gone from the phone?

if I scroll to teh very bottom of Ti-backup/restore then my apps are there with a line struck through but it states no backup yet and a warning triangle? They are no longer in my app list

As fort he partition it maybe has worked, its an 8gb card but its showin in TI as 6.98 gb so maybe its a 1gb partition???

Shall I choose a ROM and do the wipes and deal with that issue after? can you recomend the type of ROM or what I need it to support to get me where I want to be after??

many thanks again
 
Most likely you have a 0.5GB partition. An "8GB" card really only has 7.45GB, because card makers quote capacity in decimal units whereas computers use binary - for a G the difference is 7.4%. It's called marketing, or in plain English, lying. So if you have just under 7GB free then most likely there's another ~0. 5 GB partition.

Doesn't sound good on the apps. Maybe best to flash a ROM and then put things back. Take a nandroid first though.

As for ROMs, it's a matter of taste. If you are happy with the current software (HTC Sense) and just want more space, a "rooted stock ROM" might suit. Teppic74's ROMs are the ones in this category I normally recommend. The a2sd is an optional add on in these. I'll add links when next at a computer. Otherwise there are more customised Sense ROMs, ROMs without Sense (AOSP), or MIUI ROMs for those who like a bit of eye candy and a different interface. Most of these come with a2sd built in, except CM7 (where it's an optional add-on) and dGB (the ROM I'm using, which is designed to save space by being very small but needs further mods to take advantage of that).
 
awesome!!!!! I think I shall go ahead tonight after looking at the ROMS in more depth. The apps I have lost are no real biggy to be honest, the phone has got so locked up on internal memory spcae I just have to sort it out. I'm having to remove flash and maps updates to gain more space almost every other day.

So with the partition in place and done in the recovery software of no name do you think it will be an issue?

thanks so much for all your work and input, its been a real help

*edit* I just explored the sd card and in the Ti folder there are numerous zip files of variuos sizes, does this mean good things?
 
Ti folder full of zips is positive. Mine has pairs of files, one ".properties" plus one ".tar.gz" for each app. Logically there had to be something, since Ti knew the apps were there, but I don't understand why in that case it would report no backups present.

Your recovery is Amon Ra 2.0, which is fine with an erase size 20,000 device.

You can find a list of ROMs from the link "ROM list - XDA" in the All Things Root Guide sticky post. Each link in the thread takes you to the ROM's XDA thread. Do read the first couple of posts of the thread for info, such as the ROM's requirements, before trying to flash, and ask if anything is unclear. Teppic's stock Froyo ROM is [ROM] [20/06] Pre-rooted Stock Froyo (2.29.405.5) [Optional mods] - xda-developers (the first "Pre-Rooted Stock HTC 2.2 Froyo" in that XDA list), his Gingerbread one is labelled as such in the list.

The sticky post "What ROM type are you using" in this forum may give you some ideas too.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom