Root Problem Getting S-Off/Root with Revolutionary - adb shell gives "error: device offline"

[chrisr789]

Hello,

I have an HTC Desire that I would like to get root so that I can install custom ROMs. I am following the thread from this forum (http://androidforums.com/desire-all...ff-root-htc-desire-revolutionary-updated.html). Step 3 involves using ADB and so I have been following the instructions in this thread (http://androidforums.com/desire-all...fastboot-windows-updated-1st-june-2011-a.html).

So far I have:
1) Downloaded and installed HTC sync, and then uninstalled it
2) Decided to go the revolutionary method to getting S-Off.
3) Downloaded, extracted and installed the Android USB drivers
4) Downloaded and extracted the SDK tools and changed my system environment variables in Windows 7 to access ADB from the command line
5) Restarted my phone in recovery mode
6) At the windows command line types "adb shell". I get the message:

"error: device offline".

If I type "adb devices" it returns:
"List of devices attached
SH13SPX##### offline"

Where X is a letter and # numbers (I assume I shouldn't share this number). I've tried killing the adb server and restarting it, I've tried unplugging the USB cable and putting it in different ports on my PC, I've tried restarting the PC, I've tried restarting the phone and reentering recovery mode. All to no avail.

Any ideas?!

 

[Hadron]

Step 3 just involves installing that stuff. Don't worry about running adb commands that aren't in the revolutionary guide.

The reason this won't work is that you haven't run revolutionary yet, and have a stock recovery. You can run adb shell when in recovery mode if you have a custom recovery, but the stock one doesn't support this. And you can't install a custom recovery until you've run revolutionary.

So don't worry. You've clearly installed adb successfully. If you've also installed fastboot then you can just move on to step 4

 

[chrisr789]

Brilliant! Thanks for the quick reply. Jeeez, I used to love tinkering with old pentium 100 MHz PC as a kid but haven't done anything vaguely techy since then - this is all a bit overwhelming but kinda fun. I've never bought a phone in my life, always had old hand-me-downs, but just bought this HTC desire second hand for

 

[Bazcabs]

looks good.

S-OFF isn't absolutely necessary just for installing a rom but is very handy to have later when you might want to change partition sizes

 

[nicka3200]

Choice of custom ROM is really down to personal preference. If you narrow it down to a few there's bound to be someone here who has tried them.

 

[Hadron]

Your 3 steps look good. Do take a backup from recovery (aka a "nandroid" backup) before proceeding to step 3, just in case.

 

[chrisr789]

Ok, so I've rooted my phone and am now weighing up the custom ROM options. I think I'll go for the open source route and am torn between:

[O]CyanogenMOD CM7 Nightly [Official]
MildWild based on CyanogenMod7
MildWild based on Oxygen 2.3.2
[Croniccorey][Rom/Kernel][CM9/CM10.1/AOSP][4.0.4/4.2.1]

Is it a terrible tactic to go the the CM10.1 ROM because it's based on the latest android release?

 

[nicka3200]

Personally I stick with gingerbread ROMs but why not give your chosen ROM a whirl. If you do a Nandroid back up first going back is easy.

The Mildwild ROMs are very popular.

 

[chrisr789]

I recall reading somewhere that CM releases after 7 aren't really CM, but didn't understand what was meant by that. Yes, I've noticed that the Gingerbread ROMs are popular; any idea why that is, i.e. why the developers haven't moved to the newer android versions?

I flashed wildmild (oxygen) this morning and am playing around with it now. Seems...okay. Not quite sure what I was expecting to be honest.

 

[Hadron]

The CM9/CM10 ROMs for the Desire are not official CM builds - they are built from people outside the CyanogenMod team based on CM sources.

The reason there is no official CM9 for the Desire is that they felt that the hardware wasn't up to it.

You'll find that coming from Sense there will be a difference in style. What I noticed was that for a day or two I was constantly aware of the things that didn't work as I expected (which is often what people mean by "worse"), and it took a little longer to appreciate the things that worked better. However, I have never returned to Sense.

 

[nicka3200]

I've noticed that the Gingerbread ROMs are popular; any idea why that is, i.e. why the developers haven't moved to the newer android versions?

The big problem with the desire is that it has insufficient space for modern large apps as the stock Sense ROM occupies 250mb which leaves 40mb for cache & 147mb for user data. There are 2 main ways developers have tackled this issue. They either use apps2sd+ with an ext partition or a smaller system size. Many use a combination of both.

Of course as android has developed through Ice Cream Sandwich & Jelly Bean the system size has grown. Some ROMs now use sd ext partitions for system overflow. Also later versions of android need better hardware (as Hadron said) but also consume more power. The poor old Desire battery can't really cope.

All in all Gingerbread makes the most of the Desire's hardware & Gingerbread AOSP ROMs are probably the lightest on battery.