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Root [Verizon] Unable to root Galaxy s4 on verizon

A

Arsenic

Lurker
I did my fair share of troubleshooting and googling before I made this thread, so I would really appreciate some help. I also have experience rooting a droid bionic successfully so I am not brand new to the rooting scene.

I found a general root guide for the galaxy s4 and followed it. It involved getting developer mode, enabling usb debugging, and using motochopper. I did exactly as instructed and I now have superuser but superuser makes me update it but then says it fails to update. I installed root checker and it says I do not have root, and my other root apps dont work.

After googling I found that for verizon I need to use a different guide which involves Odin, flashing, and download mode. I had many problems here. I absolutely can not get into download mode. I pressed volume up and down with the power button and that booted into safe mode... but I could only get it to do that once. now it wont boot into anything. I saw a guide of 4 different ways to get into download mode but none of them worked. I tried the volume up + power + menu, volume up and down plus power, etc. I never get prompted to do anything, it simply boots normally.

I am highly confused and I do not know what I am doing wrong. I just got this phone yesterday because I had it preordered on verizon. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
 
Arsenic said:
I did my fair share of troubleshooting and googling before I made this thread, so I would really appreciate some help. I also have experience rooting a droid bionic successfully so I am not brand new to the rooting scene.

I found a general root guide for the galaxy s4 and followed it. It involved getting developer mode, enabling usb debugging, and using motochopper. I did exactly as instructed and I now have superuser but superuser makes me update it but then says it fails to update. I installed root checker and it says I do not have root, and my other root apps dont work.

After googling I found that for verizon I need to use a different guide which involves Odin, flashing, and download mode. I had many problems here. I absolutely can not get into download mode. I pressed volume up and down with the power button and that booted into safe mode... but I could only get it to do that once. now it wont boot into anything. I saw a guide of 4 different ways to get into download mode but none of them worked. I tried the volume up + power + menu, volume up and down plus power, etc. I never get prompted to do anything, it simply boots normally.

I am highly confused and I do not know what I am doing wrong. I just got this phone yesterday because I had it preordered on verizon. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Click to expand...
I would suggest before rooting a perfectly working $650 smartphone, to do a test run, to make sure the device is working properly, before trying to mod, just in case you have to exchange it, heck wait those 15 days they give you, and just give it a nice test run.
 
I just rooted mine today and had no problems. I used this one... http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2290798

As for the download mode, I held the Down Volume, Home and then when those 2 were pressed I held the power button. It took a few seconds and then went into download mode.

Also when I flashed the first time it turned on the "show pointer option" from Dev Tools which scared me at first because I thought I broke something.

Everything is running fine now and works great! Good Luck!
 
Here is my collection of others work regarding root.

Step 1 - Preparation

Download and Install Samsung Official USB Drivers - Link (http://downloadcenter.samsung.com/c...ng_USB_Driver_for_Mobile_Phones_v1.5.14.0.exe)
Download and extract ODIN v3.07 - Link (http://samsung-updates.com/Odin307.zip)
Download the VRUAMD2 Prerelease Kernel - Link (http://open1your1eyes0.cnlson.com/SCH-I545_MD2_423399_Kernel.tar.md5)
Download the VRUAMDK Stock Kernel - Link (http://open1your1eyes0.cnlson.com/SCH-I545_MDK_562219_Kernel.tar.md5)
Download and extract the Motochopper Root Exploit Tool - Link (http://open1your1eyes0.cnlson.com/motochopper-supersu.zip)

Step 2 - Flashing VRUAMD2 Prerelease Kernel to remove Root block

Boot phone into ODIN mode (power down, hold in down volume, home & power)
Flash the VRUAMD2 Prerelease Kernel using ODIN v3.07 ***in PDA section only*** (See here for guide on flashing)
Boot back to Android and verifying everything is still working and kernel has flashed successfully

Step 3 - Rooting Your Device

Verify in Security on your device that you have "Unknown sources" checked
Verify in Developer options setting on your device that you have "USB debugging" checked
Verify in Developer options setting on your device that you have "Verify apps via USB" unchecked
Connect your phone to your computer and open "Run.bat" file from the location you have extracted motochopper to
If successful, after your phone reboots, open SuperSU app and let the binary update itself to the latest ***IMPORTANT*** - You will loose root on the next step if you do not do this.
Once complete, just open a root application and verify that is able to access root properly

Step 4 - Restoring VRUAMDK Stock Kernel

Boot phone into ODIN mode (power down, hold in down volume, home & power)
Flash the VRUAMDK Stock Kernel using ODIN v3.07 ***in PDA section only*** (See here for guide on flashing)
Boot back to Android and verifying everything is still working and kernel has flashed successfully
After your phone boots back to Android, you should now be fully rooted and on the fully original stock firmware as the device came


After rooting I wanted to also install ClockworkMod. That took a bit of digging, here is how I did it.

download Loki files from here:
Rwilco12's Android Repository - Downloads

Unzip files, then push to phone with ADB:

adb push loki_flash /data/local/tmp
adb push recovery.lok /data/local/tmp

Install Android Terminal Emulator from play store on phone

In terminal emulator:
su
Allow SuperSU Access
cd /data/local/tmp
chmod 755 *
./lok_flash recovery recovery.lok
reboot recovery
 
I followed the guide that stirfry linked to step by step and it worked for me. The suggested links to explain steps helped a lot as I was not familiar with those steps.
 
Would anyone here be willing to make a youtube video visually showing us step by step what you are doing while rooting the phone? it helps to have a visual aid and I've never done this before, I would greatly appreciate it
 
question, when I'm extracting the mottochopper file I don't see a run.bat file in the destination folder like it says in the instructions, but I see run.sh

is this going to be a problem?
 
BzB said:
to get into download mode you hold volume down and power. only volume down and power, nothing else.

this root guide worked for me. [ROOT] Root Method for Verizon GS4
Click to expand...

This method has the wrong exploit package. More specifically a different su package that will make you go crazy as you keep losing root. Follow the one on XDA, download the moto package from the link on XDA. Someone should update the "guide" here that links to that site.

If you use the linked one here, you will go through loop after loop of losing root if you flash back to the stock kernel after rooting and updating.

Guess what I did for a few hours today :D:D
 
Janth said:
question, when I'm extracting the mottochopper file I don't see a run.bat file in the destination folder like it says in the instructions, but I see run.sh

is this going to be a problem?
Click to expand...

Use the link that Atma provided to DOWNLOAD the packages. The links on that page have the proper motochopper download:

Atma said:
Janth if you look in this thread there is a video that may help.
Click to expand...


Don't forget to open SuperSU (not superuser!) and have it update before flashing the stock newer kernel back.
 
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