Root rooting TB for newbie

[TRSN]

I have had an android phone for over 1 year, but never attempted to root it. I am still up in the air between TB and Charge and was leaning towards TB until...

1) read something about not being able to root TB once you upgrade to GB
2) friend has a Charge, rooted his, does tons of neat stuff, loves it, and will help me root my phone

Now, quite frankly, not sure what to do. Here are my questions:

1) I assume if I get a phone today at Best Buy, it will have froyo?
2) Assuming the above, I suspect that the GB update is coming soon, and if so i better root the TB asap
3) If I root the TB, will I be able to upgrade to GB?
4) with some level of help from my friend, should rooting TB be relatively easy?
5) Once rooted successfully, is there still a danger of a newbie bricking the TB?

Thanks

 

[pr0jektblack]

I have had an android phone for over 1 year, but never attempted to root it. I am still up in the air between TB and Charge and was leaning towards TB until...

1) read something about not being able to root TB once you upgrade to GB

This is because the HTC Evo (a very similar phone) was updated to GB awhile back, and it fixed all of the exploits that had been used to root, and they have been very unsuccessful in gaining a root since the update, and it's assumed the same will happen with the Thunderbolt.

2) friend has a Charge, rooted his, does tons of neat stuff, loves it, and will help me root my phone

Now, quite frankly, not sure what to do. Here are my questions:

1) I assume if I get a phone today at Best Buy, it will have froyo?

Yes, but your time is running, even though nobody knows for sure when GB will come out however.

2) Assuming the above, I suspect that the GB update is coming soon, and if so i better root the TB asap

Yes

3) If I root the TB, will I be able to upgrade to GB?

There are already GB Custom ROMs for the rooted community, and there will be much more once the OTA comes out officially. I recommend doing some kind of a Custom ROM, it's honestly the best part of a rooted phone, and your friend should be able to help you just fine.

4) with some level of help from my friend, should rooting TB be relatively easy?

Yes, I used my knowledge from rooting my Inc a year and a half ago, to gain root on this phone, it's not that hard.

5) Once rooted successfully, is there still a danger of a newbie bricking the TB?

You will learn what to do, and what not to do. I would recommend a custom ROM in order to keep you from installing an OTA on accident, that's honestly your best chance at screwing something up.. I accidently installed an OTA on my inc while it was rooted, was very fortunate it didn't brick it.

 

[WormDoes]

Moved to All Things Root section

 

[scotty85]

5) Once rooted successfully, is there still a danger of a newbie bricking the TB?

the biggest danger in a newbie bricking a phone after rooting is during an hboot flash. the root process leaves you with an s-off,unsecured,engineering bootloader that is good in many ways,but bad in that there is not a single better way to brick your phone that flashing a bad or corrupt file in hboot.

i dont meant to scare you,but you need to understand the importance of not being careless,as the s-off bootloader does not make any kind of security checks and will try and flash literally anything that is packaged up in propernly named IMG files. a corrupt file could potentially brick your phone.

as long as you use reputable files from reputable developers,and make sure you double and triple check your md5 sums,and charge the phone to 100% before flashing, youll be fine, id suggesst chekcing out the stickys,and let us know if you have any other questions