Root The one and only official SYSTEM-RW for Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra (and other devices) by lebigmac

[Ramon18]

Hi, I'm newbie to Android modding so I have some queries about how to get system into RW
I have a Lenovo Legion y70, Android 12, and from what I've seen the system is RO, so I want to leave it in RW for possible modifications in the future. But I don't know exactly where to start.So I wanted to know the step by step of the easiest method to do this procedure if you have one. This is a screenshot of the partitions if it helps in any way.

https://imgur.com/caz7DLS

 

[lebigmac]

Oh another Lenovo user. Great! How do you like the Lenovo device so far?
EDIT: Ohh Lenovo actually bought Motorola. Cool.

Ok do this. Root your phone with Magisk if you haven't done so already.
Then install my latest Ultimate DIY Custom ROM Maker app
Now launch the ROM-Maker app
Press red menu button in top left corner to show the menu
Press INSTALL to install the System-RW script into /data/local/tmp/
Press SUPER RW to generate a brand new super.img
Pull the super_patched.bin to your computer and flash it with fastboot
You might run into the same broken adb shell error as the previous poster so please see my previous message for how to disable the experimental ADB ROOT feature.
Good luck! 👍

 

[Ramon18]

Oh another Lenovo user. Great! How do you like the Lenovo device so far?
Is Lenovo similar to Motorola?

Ok do this. Root your phone with Magisk if you haven't done so already.
Then install my latest Ultimate DIY Custom ROM Maker app
Now launch the ROM-Maker app
Press red menu button in top left corner to show the menu
Press INSTALL to install the System-RW script into /data/local/tmp/
Press SUPER RW to generate a brand new super.img
Pull the super_patched.bin to your computer and flash it with fastboot
You might run into the same broken adb shell error as the previous poster so please see my previous message for how to disable the experimental ADB ROOT feature.
Good luck! 👍

I've been using it for a little over 1 week, but so far I'm finding it to be a great phone, although the stock ROM isn't global, so support for certain apps is pretty bad, which isn't a big problem, well, I don't know if it's that similar to Motorola, I think Myux(Motorola) is more like AOSP, whereas ZUI(Lenovo) seems to be Ctrl+C Ctrl+V on MIUI with a few differences.I had little experience with both so I can't tell the difference for sure, anyway I'll work on making RW, soon I'll post the result

 

[Ramon18]

well I think everything went good How can I confirm that everything is ok?

 

[isrgish]

Are you saying that you are only modifying the fstab inside /vendor partition? Is the one in /vendor the real fstab as opposed to the fake one? And does it even matter which one

I'm not sure what you mean by fake fstab can you explain.
I did change the fstab file in `/vendor/etc` and this seems to work as expected.

Thanks for the suggestion. 👍

Yeah sorry about that broken ADB shell. This most likely happens because the ADB ROOT feature is still quite experimental and is not guaranteed to work on ALL devices out there yet. I'm still working on making it more universal... Easier said than done.
I've only tested it to perfection on all my Xiaomi devices and Samsung S23 Ultra. It should work on Samsung S23, S22, S22 Ultra too.
Your only option right now is to disable the whole ADB ROOT procedure by modding the /data/local/tmp/sysrw_1.42/bin/superw file with your favorite text editor app and commenting out line # 355 as well as line # 492, then save file and finally generate another super.img and flash to your device.

NOTE: you might have to restore your stock boot.img too! Or the Magisk patched one.

Good luck and let us know your results. 👍

While waiting to hear back from you I have found another script that worked.

I wish you great luck in your continued development. It is always appreciated the work that developers do even when I don't actually use it.

Thanks again for all your help.

 

[Ramon18]

Actually, one of the reasons I'm looking for RW is to be able to disable encryption.


If your looking for a terminal you may want to look at Termux. On terminal Emulator I get a message that it is made for older Android (it still works).

Now I ran the SystemRW and it was a success, but after installing the patched super image (and changing the fstab file to be able to disable encryption) I now can't access the Developer options. When I select Developer options it just takes me back to the first settings screen. I now can't select USB debugging and can't access my device with adb.
Why would this happen with updating the super image? Can you think of anything I can do to correct this?

Edit
Confirmed that even without changing anything in the partitions I still lose the Developer options. I also lose the adb connection and since I can't get into Developer options I can't reinstate USB Debugging.

The problem with the developer option also occurred here, I click it but it doesn't open, it just returns to the beginning, did you fix it somehow?

 

[isrgish]

The problem with the developer option also occurred here, I click it but it doesn't open, it just returns to the beginning, did you fix it somehow?

Look in the answer from @lebigmac Here. He suggests to disable the ADB ROOT and redo the fix. I didn't try it since I have already used a different script from elsewhere and already have RW.

 

[Ramon18]

Look in the answer from @lebigmac Here. He suggests to disable the ADB ROOT and redo the fix. I didn't try it since I have already used a different script from elsewhere and already have RW.

Well I had seen the previous post and before doing the procedure I disabled the ADB ROOT, but it seems that the bug with the developer options still happened, well, if I can't access the Developer mode so I can't enable USB debugging and I can't detect it on the computer to try to do it one more time. Unless it works for TWRP to flash the super. Anyway, can you tell me where you found that other script? I think it would be much more advantageous and straight to the point to solve my problem

 

[lebigmac]

I have found another script that worked.

If you're talking about the fake System-RW / Make-RW / ro2rw copycat by that dubious Russian cyber thief leegarchat then I wouldn't recommend it. That guy stole my whole System-RW script from me since day one when I first created it from scratch back in 2021 and deleted me from my own program and wrote his name on it and never even gave me any credits or support to improve my original System-RW script whatsoever. He even stole all my unique and original program names including (but not limited to) System-RW, Make-RW / ro2rw -.-
While you think it may 'work', you never know what kind of virus, trojan horse or keylogger he has implemented in his ripoff version of my tool. I personally would never trust the dubious software of some shady cyber pirate but that's just my personal preference. Thanks for your understanding.

well I think everything went good How can I confirm that everything is ok?

To verify if it worked you can simply remount your system partition as rw

mount -o remount,rw /

Even after disabling the whole ADB ROOT procedure (by commenting out line # 355 as well as line # 492 in the bin/superw file) you still get Developer Options crash? That's interesting. I'm not exactly sure what could be causing that error in this case. Did you check the dmesg or the logcat while clicking on Developer options? Any clues?
I'll have to try with the latest Xiaomi firmware to see if I can produce the same error on my Xiaomi device.

 

[Ramon18]

If you're talking about the fake System-RW / Make-RW / ro2rw copycat by that dubious Russian cyber thief leegarchat then I wouldn't recommend it. That guy stole my whole System-RW script from me since day one when I first created it from scratch back in 2021 and deleted me from my own program and wrote his name on it and never even gave me any credits or support to improve my original System-RW script whatsoever. He even stole all my unique and original program names including (but not limited to) System-RW, Make-RW / ro2rw -.-
While you think it may 'work', you never know what kind of virus, trojan horse or keylogger he has implemented in his ripoff version of my tool. I personally would never trust the dubious software of some shady cyber thief but that's just my personal preference. Thanks for your understanding.


To verify if it worked you can simply remount your system partition as rw

mount -o remount,rw /

Even after disabling the whole ADB ROOT procedure (by commenting out line # 355 as well as line # 492 in the bin/superw file) you still get Developer Options crash? That's interesting. I'm not exactly sure what could be causing that error in this case. Did you check the dmesg or the logcat while clicking on Developer options? Any clues?
I'll have to try with the latest Xiaomi firmware to see if I can produce the same error on my Xiaomi device.

Well, at first it seems that the RW didn't work, I write the command

mount -o remount,rw /

But nothing happened
Here is the log, maybe I managed to catch the error

 

[isrgish]

Well I had seen the previous post and before doing the procedure I disabled the ADB ROOT, but it seems that the bug with the developer options still happened, well, if I can't access the Developer mode so I can't enable USB debugging and I can't detect it on the computer to try to do it one more time. Unless it works for TWRP to flash the super. Anyway, can you tell me where you found that other script? I think it would be much more advantageous and straight to the point to solve my problem

Since the op seems very upset about it I don't feel right mentioning it here. If there is somewhere else we can communicate then ...

 

[lebigmac]

Well, at first it seems that the RW didn't work, I write the command

mount -o remount,rw /

But nothing happened
Here is the log, maybe I managed to catch the error

Thanks for the log. How do you like that KernelSU? Is that an alternative to Magisk?
If you write mount -o remount,rw / and no read-only error occurs that means it works. To verify you can type
mount | grep ' / '

Since the op seems very upset about it I don't feel right mentioning it here. If there is somewhere else we can communicate then ...

How would you feel if you were deleted from your own program that you came up with from scratch by some ruthless cyber pirate? It's not such a nice feeling let me tell you. And BTW, cyber piracy and intellectual property theft is against the law even in Russia.

 

[Jessy89]

Hi ..I am using Samsung galaxy F04(Android 13) ..I have installed rom maker and successfully got super_patched.bin ..I have tried to send that file through fastboot but failed ..I have also tried to flash super_patched.tar via Odin but it was unscuccessful ..pls guide me how to flash super_patched.bin in samsung to get full R/W capability .

 

[lebigmac]

Hi @Jessy89
Did you notice any errors in the log?
Current version of my tool converts all your super partition's sub-partitions to EXT4 file-system format. By default Samsung only allows for the System sub-partition to be booted as EXT4 file-system format. Therefore in order to get the FULL-RW you will have to manually patch your fstab file which should be hidden somewhere in boot.img or vendor_boot.img or wherever the Android developers have decided to hide it this time around.

If System-RW + ADB ROOT is good enough for you for the time being then you might have to re-run my script and generate a new super.img but before you do that you have to exclude all sub-partitions of super.img except system in the included config.ini file. Example

In next version of my tool I will try to add the ability to convert to brand new f2fs files. That way Samsung users won't have to mess with neither the fstab nor the config.ini file...

 

[Jessy89]

Yeah ..Thank you so much for your reply ..I have done what you said but after getting super_patched.bin how to flash this file in samsung phone to make system R/W.

 

[lebigmac]

For Samsung users things get complicated. Why did Samsung deliberately remove the fastboot for their users to begin with?! 🤔
You must rename super_patched.bin to super.img and tar it and then reboot to download mode (just click reboot button in the ROM-Maker app and then reboot download) and then finally flash it with Odin as administrator in Windows into the AP slot I believe.

NOTE: The ADB ROOT feature is still highly experimental and is only guaranteed to work on most Xiaomi devices and a select few next generation Samsung flagship devices (such as S22, S22 ultra, S23, S23 ultra...) so you might want to disable it first just to be on the safe side.
To disable ADB ROOT feature just open the file /data/local/tmp/sysrw_1.42/bin/superw with your favorite text editor app.
Now comment out lines #355 as well as #492 by placing a # symbol in front and then save file and run script again.
I'm working on making that novel ADB ROOT feature more universal as we speak...

Good luck!

 

[ocnbrze]

For Samsung users things get complicated. Why did Samsung deliberately remove the fastboot for their users to begin with?! 🤔
You must rename super_patched.bin to super.img and tar it and then reboot to download mode (just click reboot button in the ROM-Maker app and then reboot download) and then finally flash it with Odin as administrator in Windows into the AP slot I believe.

NOTE: The ADB ROOT feature is still highly experimental and is only guaranteed to work on most Xiaomi devices and a select few next generation Samsung flagship devices (such as S22, S22 ultra, S23, S23 ultra...) so you might want to disable it first just to be on the safe side.
To disable ADB ROOT feature just open the file /data/local/tmp/sysrw_1.42/bin/superw with your favorite text editor app.
Now comment out lines #355 as well as #492 by placing a # symbol in front and then save file and run script again.
I'm working on making that novel ADB ROOT feature more universal as we speak...

Good luck!

i might have asked earlier, but does this work with Sasmung snapdragon Fold phones?

 

[lebigmac]

Well the System-RW should work on pretty much all Samsung devices out there running Android 10 or later. For the FULL-RW and experimental ADB ROOT feature to work straight out of the box on ALL Samsung devices, I will have to invest some more hard work...
It's been quite a busy year in real life but now I'm ready to dive back into the virtual Android world

 

[ocnbrze]

Well the System-RW should work on pretty much all Samsung devices out there running Android 10 or later. For the FULL-RW and experimental ADB ROOT feature to work straight out of the box on ALL Samsung devices, I will have to invest some more hard work...
It's been quite a busy year in real life but now I'm ready to dive back into the virtual Android world

well when the Fold 6 comes out, which i plan on getting, i want to try this on my Fold 4. so you have time.....lol and believe you me, i understand busy. its been crazy busy this year for me as well.

 

[Jessy89]

For Samsung users things get complicated. Why did Samsung deliberately remove the fastboot for their users to begin with?! 🤔
You must rename super_patched.bin to super.img and tar it and then reboot to download mode (just click reboot button in the ROM-Maker app and then reboot download) and then finally flash it with Odin as administrator in Windows into the AP slot I believe.

NOTE: The ADB ROOT feature is still highly experimental and is only guaranteed to work on most Xiaomi devices and a select few next generation Samsung flagship devices (such as S22, S22 ultra, S23, S23 ultra...) so you might want to disable it first just to be on the safe side.
To disable ADB ROOT feature just open the file /data/local/tmp/sysrw_1.42/bin/superw with your favorite text editor app.
Now comment out lines #355 as well as #492 by placing a # symbol in front and then save file and run script again.
I'm working on making that novel ADB ROOT feature more universal as we speak...

Good luck!

I have done what you said but it was failed flashing through odin ..please help me out atlease to make system R/W in samsung android 13 F04 mobile

 

[lebigmac]

well when the Fold 6 comes out, which i plan on getting, i want to try this on my Fold 4. so you have time.....lol and believe you me, i understand busy. its been crazy busy this year for me as well.

Well if that's the case I'll have to dust off that S23 Ultra and polish my program some more for Samsung devices (Xiaomi user here). You can find out what file-system your device is using inside your fstab:

cat /vendor/etc/*fstab*

Latest version of my tool should support EXT4, EROFS as well as F2FS file-system 👍

@Jessy89 what do you mean failed to flash through odin? The flashing process itself did not complete successfully? Did Odin give you an error message?
Can you please show me your log files? Just zip the whole /log subfolder and upload here. You can find it in this location on your phone:

/data/local/tmp/sysrw_1.42/log/

 

[RxdrigoMika]

Hi lebigmac, great job for this tool, it's very useful, I can test the generated super img on 'Dsu Sideloader'??

my original system does not have any modifications, I want to use a gsi with root to test this script, could this cause any problems?

thanks for your attention.

 

[lebigmac]

Hello. Thanks for the kind words
I don't know I never tried DSU sideloader. Is it any good? Judging by the screenshots at github it looks really good . Do you actually need an unlocked bootloader to be able to use the new DSU feature? 🤔
I don't see why my script shouldn't work on a GSI. It's just another ROM right? You've got 2 options:
1) Run my System-RW / Super-RW script (if your device has got a super.img) and then extract the embedded system.img from the super_patched.bin using the included lpunpack tool and flash that with your DSU sideloader to your device . Which device is it BTW? 🤔
2) Just use the included Make-RW / ro2rw by lebigmac program on the extracted system.img file itself (/data/local/tmp/sysrw_1.42/bin/makerw). That's the program that my System-RW / Super-RW script is using under the hood to perform the ro2rw (read-only-2-read/write) conversion process for all sub-partitions of super partition

Please report back your results. I'm always curious about the GSI related stuff but never have much time to actually explore it. Thanks!
Good luck! 👍

 

[RxdrigoMika]

Hi lebigmac, great job for this tool, it's very useful, I can test the generated super img on 'Dsu Sideloader'??

my original system does not have any modifications, I want to use a gsi with root to test this script, could this cause any problems?

thanks for your attention

Hello. Thanks for the kind words
I don't know I never tried DSU sideloader. Is it any good? Judging by the screenshots at github it looks really good . Do you actually need an unlocked bootloader to be able to use the new DSU feature? 🤔
I don't see why my script shouldn't work on a GSI. It's just another ROM right? You've got 2 options:
1) Run my System-RW / Super-RW script (if your device has got a super.img) and then extract the embedded system.img from the super_patched.bin using the included lpunpack tool and flash that with your DSU sideloader to your device . Which device is it BTW? 🤔
2) Just use the included Make-RW / ro2rw by lebigmac program on the extracted system.img file itself (/data/local/tmp/sysrw_1.42/bin/makerw). That's the program that my System-RW / Super-RW script is using under the hood to perform the ro2rw (read-only-2-read/write) conversion process for all sub-partitions of super partition

Please report back your results. I'm always curious about the GSI related stuff but never have much time to actually explore it. Thanks!
Good luck! 👍

Thank you very much for your answer

yes i have bootloader unlocked, I had tested a gsi 'vndklite' to have a RW partition, and it didn't work, but now with your instructions I'm sure it will work, thanks

 

[NemezAK]

Hi lebigmac, thanks for your job!
I've got an error "Partition must have a valid size." with no solution in google.
Have you any ideas about it?
Log is attached