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Root ROOTING For Dummies

1) I'm using this emulator

Android Terminal Emulator - Android app on AppBrain

2) "echo $PATH" returns "/data/local/bin: /sbin: /system/sbin: /system/bin: system/xbin"

Do the following:

1) ls -l /system/bin/

Do you see busybox listed? on mine, busybox is a symlink (shortcut) to /system/xbin/busybox. It's denoted by a "->"

2) ls -l /system/xbin/

Same as above. Do you see busybox here? All of the busybox terminal programs will be symlinks to busybox as well (e.g. grep -> busybox). If you see none of that, titanium backup must have installed it somewhere else. I'll see if I can find any info on that. Presumably, you could just fix it by installing the market version, but I'm not sure what would happen if you already had it installed elsewhere. Obviously, make a nandroid backup before trying that.


EDIT: Okay, I did a little research, and it seems that titanium backup uses it's own version of busybox (stored somewhere; I didn't install it this way, so I can't search, myself), but it will work with the market version (since I've done that in the past, I know). Unfortunately, the thread I found on it was pretty old, so I can't verify 100% that this is the case. Here's what you should do:

1) Make a nandroid backup
2) Install busybox from the market
3) Verify titanium backup didn't break
4) Open the terminal emulator and type "busybox" and see if it reports available commands this time

If you like, you can run the other commands I gave you to see what I was talking about.
 
Then I think you're rooted. Maybe terminal emulator is just being dumb about it. Could try removing it and reinstalling from the market, but I don't know if that would fix it. Or remove its SU permissions and make it ask for them again.
K thanks for some reson now it did give me the #.
But inresting why when doing it with evo-recovery on pc with adb-windows shell it gives me the $
 
Do the following:

1) ls -l /system/bin/

Do you see busybox listed? on mine, busybox is a symlink (shortcut) to /system/xbin/busybox. It's denoted by a "->"

2) ls -l /system/xbin/

Same as above. Do you see busybox here? All of the busybox terminal programs will be symlinks to busybox as well (e.g. grep -> busybox). If you see none of that, titanium backup must have installed it somewhere else. I'll see if I can find any info on that. Presumably, you could just fix it by installing the market version, but I'm not sure what would happen if you already had it installed elsewhere. Obviously, make a nandroid backup before trying that.


EDIT: Okay, I did a little research, and it seems that titanium backup uses it's own version of busybox (stored somewhere; I didn't install it this way, so I can't search, myself), but it will work with the market version (since I've done that in the past, I know). Unfortunately, the thread I found on it was pretty old, so I can't verify 100% that this is the case. Here's what you should do:

1) Make a nandroid backup
2) Install busybox from the market
3) Verify titanium backup didn't break
4) Open the terminal emulator and type "busybox" and see if it reports available commands this time

If you like, you can run the other commands I gave you to see what I was talking about.

Thanks, I'll post the results of that when I get back from church. Thanks for the help.
 
K thanks for some reson now it did give me the #.
But inresting why when doing it with evo-recovery on pc with adb-windows shell it gives me the $

You might still be getting a su prompt to allow/deny it. Try it again, and check the phone screen to see if it is.
 
Do the following:

1) ls -l /system/bin/

Do you see busybox listed? on mine, busybox is a symlink (shortcut) to /system/xbin/busybox. It's denoted by a "->"

2) ls -l /system/xbin/

Same as above. Do you see busybox here? All of the busybox terminal programs will be symlinks to busybox as well (e.g. grep -> busybox). If you see none of that, titanium backup must have installed it somewhere else. I'll see if I can find any info on that. Presumably, you could just fix it by installing the market version, but I'm not sure what would happen if you already had it installed elsewhere. Obviously, make a nandroid backup before trying that.


EDIT: Okay, I did a little research, and it seems that titanium backup uses it's own version of busybox (stored somewhere; I didn't install it this way, so I can't search, myself), but it will work with the market version (since I've done that in the past, I know). Unfortunately, the thread I found on it was pretty old, so I can't verify 100% that this is the case. Here's what you should do:

1) Make a nandroid backup
2) Install busybox from the market
3) Verify titanium backup didn't break
4) Open the terminal emulator and type "busybox" and see if it reports available commands this time

If you like, you can run the other commands I gave you to see what I was talking about.


Success! I did the nandroid backup, just in case, and installed busybox v1.17.1 from the market. Ti backup still works fine, and now the terminal emulator has all of the new busybox functions.

grep RSA /dev/mtd/mtd0 now returns exactly this:

RSA-REQUEST
RSA-REPLY
RSA-REJECT
RSA-ACK
RSA-1024
RSA-REQUEST
RSA-REPLY
RSA-REJECT
RSA-ACK
RSA-1024
RSA
ReRSA
RSA requests
RSA replies
-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----


I assume this means my key is intact, and I'm good to go for 4G, correct?
 
Success! I did the nandroid backup, just in case, and installed busybox v1.17.1 from the market. Ti backup still works fine, and now the terminal emulator has all of the new busybox functions.

grep RSA /dev/mtd/mtd0 now returns exactly this:

RSA-REQUEST
RSA-REPLY
RSA-REJECT
RSA-ACK
RSA-1024
RSA-REQUEST
RSA-REPLY
RSA-REJECT
RSA-ACK
RSA-1024
RSA
ReRSA
RSA requests
RSA replies
-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----


I assume this means my key is intact, and I'm good to go for 4G, correct?

Yep, you're good. Somewhere on the last page, we had a small discussion on the wimax_mtd command. You might want to read that.

Thanks for the confirmation. I guess we should all stop recommending people install busybox through TB instead of the market. Most of the functionality you get out of busybox is from the command line. It's probably accessible somewhere through the TB method, but whatever the path is, it's not in $PATH, so it can't find it.
 
In the guide in the OP, I am on Step 2: Installing Drivers. I have downloaded the drivers from the unrevoked website, and unzipped the file to my desktop.

The OP says this:

(Important Note: for some reason, my phone didn
 
Ok, in response to my post above. I just watched a crappy youtube video, but it was good enough to show me that what I was seeing in Device Manager was exactly what I was looking for.
 
Ok, things are not going as smoothly as I had thought they would, but hopefully there is an easy answer.

I am on the rooting step where you actually run the unrevoked reflash tool. I am running windows vista, I have turned off my firewall and my anti-virus software. I have right clicked on the file and selected Run as Administrator. But I keep getting an error that says:

Error during execution "reflash.exe".
Access is denied.

Any suggestions? I also have ubuntu installed on my laptop but don't have very much experience using it. I will try ubuntu if it will get me past this step.

Also, if I run the Reflash tool from Ubuntu, will that effect anything that I have done before this step (installing drivers); and will I be able to do the rest of the steps on Vista or will the rest of the steps have to also be done in Ubuntu?
 
Ok, things are not going as smoothly as I had thought they would, but hopefully there is an easy answer.

I am on the rooting step where you actually run the unrevoked reflash tool. I am running windows vista, I have turned off my firewall and my anti-virus software. I have right clicked on the file and selected Run as Administrator. But I keep getting an error that says:

Error during execution "reflash.exe".
Access is denied.

Any suggestions? I also have ubuntu installed on my laptop but don't have very much experience using it. I will try ubuntu if it will get me past this step.

Also, if I run the Reflash tool from Ubuntu, will that effect anything that I have done before this step (installing drivers); and will I be able to do the rest of the steps on Vista or will the rest of the steps have to also be done in Ubuntu?


I think it's still your driver issue. When installing the unrevoked driver, did you start the phone in its boot menu and choose HBoot USB before plugging it into the PC, as stated in the instructions? If the phone is booted normally, it will try to install that ADB interface driver, but if it's in the boot menu it will show up as Android 1.0 (or at least mine did).

You should end up with a device called "Android Bootloader Interface" after the driver install, with your phone still in the boot menu.

I wouldn't switch OS's in the middle of the process. Pick one and stick with it.
 
I ended up going to the unrevoked IRC channel and asking them what they though i should do. One of the guys was good with linux so he had me boot into ubuntu, download the reflash tool, and run it through a terminal and unrevoked finally started up for me.

- 1st time it hung on the "running" screen for about 45 minutes
- 2nd time it went through the whole process it seemed but ended with an error after it said it had rooted. I went and checked hboot and it was still had s-on.
- 3rd try, it finally worked, showed it was successful and was able to reboot with s-off
 
unrooting for dummies?
I followed 100% directions and it just does not work. I've hardware 0004 came new with 3.3 and was on 3.7 when I rooted. I went to xda and searched google and found no answers.. I have a mac and thought that might be the issue, went to work and it failed on a PC.
S on worked like a champ.
Suggestions I found on the net, did not work(change file name to PC3GIMG) and lose the long file name... and no i didn't double the .zip ext.
Any Ideas and help would be great! need to bring to sprint for a blown speaker, then back to root:cool:
 
unrooting for dummies?
I followed 100% directions and it just does not work. I've hardware 0004 came new with 3.3 and was on 3.7 when I rooted. I went to xda and searched google and found no answers.. I have a mac and thought that might be the issue, went to work and it failed on a PC.
S on worked like a champ.
Suggestions I found on the net, did not work(change file name to PC3GIMG) and lose the long file name... and no i didn't double the .zip ext.
Any Ideas and help would be great! need to bring to sprint for a blown speaker, then back to root:cool:

1) Which PC36IMG.zip did you use (hboot version and source)?
2) Did you get any errors when you went to hboot and tried to flash it, or did it just not even recognize it was there to flash?
 
1) Which PC36IMG.zip did you use (hboot version and source)?
2) Did you get any errors when you went to hboot and tried to flash it, or did it just not even recognize it was there to flash?

I used " PC36IMG.zip - HBoot 2.10 - S/W 3.70 " ... source I tried here listed in post 1, also thought file might be bad, so went & downloaded from xda and one other site ... all three files were named the same(tried straight up and renaming shorter)
rebooted into recovery as step 10 of the directions and the file came up as not valid.. not recognized in flash

Would it screw anything up if I tried the other h boot file for 3.3 ?
 
I used " PC36IMG.zip - HBoot 2.10 - S/W 3.70 " ... source I tried here listed in post 1, also thought file might be bad, so went & downloaded from xda and one other site ... all three files were named the same(tried straight up and renaming shorter)
rebooted into recovery as step 10 of the directions and the file came up as not valid.. not recognized in flash

Would it screw anything up if I tried the other h boot file for 3.3 ?

1) That's the right file
2) It has a long name when you download it. I know you already said you did, but I'll reiterate - the file must be renamed to PC36IMG.zip, exactly
3) You're supposed to flash this from hboot, not recovery. How did you get to recovery? A reboot option, like in ROM manager? You need to turn the phone off, then turn it back on while pressing and holding the volume down button to get to hboot. The file should be automatically recognized. Is that what you did?
4) You can't flash an older PC36IMG.zip file. It has to be equal to or greater than your current hboot version. Anything older will not flash. It will just give you an error.
 
I'll reiterate - the file must be renamed to PC36IMG.zip, exactly
i'm such a dork.. I was doing this into the wee hours of the morning... I was naming the file PC361.... not PC36I
Thanks for your help!
Matlock maybe you could mention in the unrooting section to rename the file.
thank you!
 
i'm such a dork.. I was doing this into the wee hours of the morning... I was naming the file PC361.... not PC36I
Thanks for your help!
Matlock maybe you could mention in the unrooting section to rename the file.
thank you!

Oops! Don't feel too bad. I've had those days where I spent hours trying to figure out why something wouldn't work only to find out it was because of a typo.
 
I keep reading about Titanium Back up I've been able to make my nandroid back ups flash and flash back with the stock. Am i doing it wrong? Btw i rooted with unrevoked 3 and had CM installed with the rooting process.
 
So I know this has been answered 1000 times. 1001 please! Just switched over to CM yesterday and my market won't update. Force stop wipe cache reboot...nothing. It came installed on calk so I didn't have this problem. Am I missing something?
 
Success! I did the nandroid backup, just in case, and installed busybox v1.17.1 from the market. Ti backup still works fine, and now the terminal emulator has all of the new busybox functions.

grep RSA /dev/mtd/mtd0 now returns exactly this:

RSA-REQUEST
RSA-REPLY
RSA-REJECT
RSA-ACK
RSA-1024
RSA-REQUEST
RSA-REPLY
RSA-REJECT
RSA-ACK
RSA-1024
RSA
ReRSA
RSA requests
RSA replies
-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----


I assume this means my key is intact, and I'm good to go for 4G, correct?

Thank you very much! I would use Titanium Backup's busy box, and it never showed my keys. I always thought I lost them until I tried your method and I get the exact same reading you posted. Again, Thanks!
 
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