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Root Some info before rooting

S

subarustiman

Lurker
I'm new here and was looking around the forum. I realize there are some good stickies and I have gathered some good info, but also I have some questions that I still need answering before rooting my X2 that is on 2.3.4.

My ultimate goal is that I want to root so I can freeze/delete bloatware and then SBF back to 2.3.4 or go back to the newest stock Gingerbread. I am aware that OTA updates usually wipe most root access, but:

1)if I want to get future OTA's, like 2.3.5, do I need to SBF back to 2.3.4?

2)Are SBF/unrooting the same process?

3) If I root, freeze/delete bloatware, then unroot/SBF back to 2.3.4, are my changes permanent; will that bloatware continue to be blocked or do I have be rooted in order to stop those crappy apps from taking up system resources?

4) Once I'm back to stock hopefully, would I use something like RootChecker to verify it's all stock?

5) I'm pretty knowledgeable about tech, so I'm not really used to being new with stuff like this. When I do something like this, I always make sure that I have all the info/steps of the process at hand. I was planning on using Pete's OneClick for rooting. That being said, what are the chances that my phone would brick or become unusable?

6) Is there an official 2.3.4 SBF or are we all currently limited to the "leaked" version. Basically if I need to recover, I want to make sure that I can go back to the original. Is that something that would help by doing a back-up?
 
subarustiman said:
I'm new here and was looking around the forum. I realize there are some good stickies and I have gathered some good info, but also I have some questions that I still need answering before rooting my X2 that is on 2.3.4.

My ultimate goal is that I want to root so I can freeze/delete bloatware and then SBF back to 2.3.4 or go back to the newest stock Gingerbread. I am aware that OTA updates usually wipe most root access, but:

1)if I want to get future OTA's, like 2.3.5, do I need to SBF back to 2.3.4?

2)Are SBF/unrooting the same process?

3) If I root, freeze/delete bloatware, then unroot/SBF back to 2.3.4, are my changes permanent; will that bloatware continue to be blocked or do I have be rooted in order to stop those crappy apps from taking up system resources?

4) Once I'm back to stock hopefully, would I use something like RootChecker to verify it's all stock?

5) I'm pretty knowledgeable about tech, so I'm not really used to being new with stuff like this. When I do something like this, I always make sure that I have all the info/steps of the process at hand. I was planning on using Pete's OneClick for rooting. That being said, what are the chances that my phone would brick or become unusable?

6) Is there an official 2.3.4 SBF or are we all currently limited to the "leaked" version. Basically if I need to recover, I want to make sure that I can go back to the original. Is that something that would help by doing a back-up?
Click to expand...

Actually, I've been reading that the one-click method will unroot as well for a while now, but never actually tried it. I've been planning on going back to stock and test this out for myself, if for no other reason than just to verify it. Tonight's as good as time as any, so I'm flashing the SBF now to play around with rooting/unrooting. I'll let you know about all that when I'm done.

SBF ROMs are simply the stock ROMs. When folks say they are going to SBF to 2.3.4, they mean they are going to flash the SBF using the RSD Lite tool, which will install the official 2.3.4 OS.
The 2.2.2, 2.3.3, and 2.3.4 are the official stock ROMs. The 2.3.5 hasn't been released yet, that one was plucked from Motorola servers. Since it hasn't been released, it can't be known whether or not it contains what may be the official 2.3.5 OS.

Rooting simply means granting yourself higher permissions, it doesn't actually change your phone. So if your rooted or not, you're ROM doesn't change. That's not to say you can't change your ROM with apps, scripts, etc. that require root. The trick is to research what you wish to do before you do it, although if you minimize what you do, there's little danger of anything. So unrooting is simply revoking those permissions. It still changes nothing, except limiting what you can do to your phone. Personally, I'd just leave it rooted. When and if the time comes for an OTA update, you simply unfreeze any apps and let the OTA go through. It's always unrooted the phone with past updates, and you'll probably want to root after it's done to freeze apps again anyway.

As far as bricking your phone by rooting with the one-click method, I haven't heard of that happening to anyone, and it's been done thousands of times by now. Pretty good track record there. If for some reason something did happen, you can just grab RSD Lite and use it to flash the SBF for the OS version you're running (2.3.4 I'm assuming) and you're back to out-of-box stock condition. This is where backups are important. I do all kinds of crazy, not 100% reliable stuff, so I keep my backups current.

Let me finish with playing around a bit, and I'll throw up answers for the rest of your questions.
 
After much playing around last night, I can't get the phone to unroot using the one-click rooting method. Trying some other stuff now...
 
Ok, the short answer is no, you can't unroot. I've read reports of running the one click method again unrooting, but I've tried 5 times now (going back to stock, rooting, trying to unroot, completely reflashing phone, repeating), and can't do it.
I did come across the rooting code, and it looks like I might be able to make up a little script to unroot at least. I'll see if I can't get it going tonight.
 
Well thanks, I certainly appreciate your help on this. I was suspicious that you couldnt unroot. Hopefully other people will see this as well.
 
But, like I said, you can always root to do what you want to, and just leave it rooted. It won't hurt OTA updates (which will unroot the phone) as long as you unfreeze stock apps. If the phone needs to go back to the carrier, just flash a SBF stock ROM with RSD and you're good to go. And never take a phone back to the carrier with Unknown Sources checked.
 
My brainfartitis is chronic, it seems. I forgot all about Pete's Motorola Root Tools for 2.3.4. Yes, it will let you root, freeze apps, then unroot. Your apps will stay frozen (even though it says unfreezing user apps while unrooting).
 
Ok, I made a little guide on how to root, freeze apps, then unroot. The frozen apps stayed frozen, and I tried it multiple times in a row, rebooted in-between, cleared data, etc. It worked fine every time, I couldn't get it to screw up.
 
subarustiman said:
I'm new here and was looking around the forum. I realize there are some good stickies and I have gathered some good info, but also I have some questions that I still need answering before rooting my X2 that is on 2.3.4.

My ultimate goal is that I want to root so I can freeze/delete bloatware and then SBF back to 2.3.4 or go back to the newest stock Gingerbread. I am aware that OTA updates usually wipe most root access, but:

1)if I want to get future OTA's, like 2.3.5, do I need to SBF back to 2.3.4?

2)Are SBF/unrooting the same process?

3) If I root, freeze/delete bloatware, then unroot/SBF back to 2.3.4, are my changes permanent; will that bloatware continue to be blocked or do I have be rooted in order to stop those crappy apps from taking up system resources?

4) Once I'm back to stock hopefully, would I use something like RootChecker to verify it's all stock?

5) I'm pretty knowledgeable about tech, so I'm not really used to being new with stuff like this. When I do something like this, I always make sure that I have all the info/steps of the process at hand. I was planning on using Pete's OneClick for rooting. That being said, what are the chances that my phone would brick or become unusable?

6) Is there an official 2.3.4 SBF or are we all currently limited to the "leaked" version. Basically if I need to recover, I want to make sure that I can go back to the original. Is that something that would help by doing a back-up?
Click to expand...

If you root your phone using Pete's Rooting tool, you have the option to root or unroot. I have went back on forth on my own person DX2 and it works fine. Here is an article on exactly how i did it
How to: Root the DROIDX2, DROIDX, DROID2, DROID3, DROID PRO, and DROID CLIQ With 2.2.3 Gingerbread



Let me know if there's is anything else I can help with. I have a DX2 my self so I know the ins and outs.
 
Scur said:
My brainfartitis is chronic, it seems. I forgot all about Pete's Motorola Root Tools for 2.3.4. Yes, it will let you root, freeze apps, then unroot. Your apps will stay frozen (even though it says unfreezing user apps while unrooting).
Click to expand...

Yeah, I was gonna say that I unrooted using Pete's method, and it worked like a charm. I then restored all apps/widgets with the sbf and did a factory data reset to bring it completely back to stock, which is how it is now.

My X2 always ran fine with not issues at all.

I found no, I mean no advantage in performance in the X2 by rooting and removing the bloatware. All I got was a smaller app drawer. ;)

As it is, I never use live wallpaper or the silly animations/transition effects, etc, and I keep a pretty clean home screen with only one other screen used for a weather widget. I'm probably not the typical smartphone user. :D
 
I've been searching all day yesterday for a way to change the M.IP and/or S.IP settings on my X2 for the wifi hotspot. Decided to give up and lean towards rooting and just run Barnacle (did this before on a Moto Droid Milestone). Very glad and relieved to have come across Pete's Root / Unroot Tool! After reading a LOT of posts about it, that takes a lot of worry out of my decision to root my DX2. The best thing I have to say though is that I can use the same tool to unroot should I need any warranty work.

One question I have before going through the root process, is that is there an app or Windows program out there I can use to back up my installed apps to my PC? Only just in case something happens and I end up having to flash SBF and back to stock. I don't have a ton of apps installed or nothing, but I do have enough that I don't want to have to redownload and reinstall each of them individually if I can keep from having to do so!

Thanks!
 
Wow, some good info in here. Thanks for all your help Scur. Same to you rottenpixies. Although I am a little surprised at your findings. I find it odd that freezing the bloatware didn't increase performance even slightly.

When I open my task managers, I often times see apps running that I never initiated, like annoying CityID and Amazon MP3(that I wish I could straight up delete), and they seem to be taking up system memory. Weird.
 
Well, no matter how many times you force close or kill running apps, more will pop up. Android keeps a certain amount of it's memory doing something, it really hates a bunch of memory wasting away doing nothing. The whole OS is designed to keep much of the memory in use.

And I'm not surprised at all that freezing or removing bloatware doesn't make a difference. The X2 has quite a bit of umpf to it, it's rather beefy.
 
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