Friday, February 25, 2011

Rooting

Today, I want to cover the concept of rooting your Android phone. What this refers to is gaining root access to the system, allowing the user to install different apps, UIs and ROMs. The instructions I will provide today focus on completing this process using z4root. Quoting from the original post on xda-developers, this app provides a permanent root option on the following phones. Samsung Galaxy S (All variants), Backflip,Sony X10,Xperia Mini,Droid 2, Galaxy Tab, Galaxy I5700, Galaxy 3 I5800, Droid X, Samsung Acclaim, Cricket Huawei Ascend, Motorola Cliq, Huawei 8120, Hero, G1, Optimus T,Droid 1, Garmin Asus A50, Motorola Defy, LG Ally, Motorola Flipside, Motorola Milestone 2, Dell streak, X10 Mini Pro, Smartq v7 Android 2.1. If your phone is on that list, then download the apk for z4root from the link I uploaded it too. Donations can go to the paypal posted on the forum post. Alright so now you should have this apk on your computer. Now place the apk on your phone's SD card; this can be done by plugging it into your computer and then moving the file to a known folder on the SD card. After this, you may remove the connection from the phone to the computer and then you can find the apk using ASTRO File Manager or any file browser. A prompt should then come onto the screen from Android asking you if you would like to install that apk. After choosing next, and looking at the permissions, accept the prompt and install the app. One of the problems that people have at this step is that they fail to enable "USB Debugging", this took me a while to work out. This option can be found by going to Settings > Applications > Development > USB Debugging. Then go back and enable "Unknown Sources" if you haven't already, this will allow you to install the apk if you were unable to do it before. After you open the app, it should have a button that simply says "root". Click this button, and your phone should do some stuff, if the app freezes in the middle you can go to Settings> Applications> Manage Applications> Whatever app it is and click force stop. Try restarting the app afterwards to give it another shot. In the next post, I will talk about what you should do with your new root access including the best apps you can now use.

7 comments:

  1. That seems so easy. I remember what a pain it was to root my moto Droid when I did it. It's funny how far smart phones (and the reverse engineering that follows them) have come.

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  2. Handy tips. If only I had a smart phone!
    I'll pass it on though.

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  3. Rooting is the NUMBER 1 reason I want a Droid. I really want to get one, but my carrier is AT&T, who doesn't stock many droids because they are too hyped up on their iPhone. Lame.

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  4. My future Android purchase decisions will be based on easy of rooting, considering the Desire was a bitch to root.

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  5. good to know now to get a smartphone

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  6. Glad to see other people out there spreading info on these awesome phones!!

    Rooting and flashing a custom rom on your droid is the best decision you will ever make with your device!

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  7. I also encountered a problem when I didn't enable "USB Debugging". It was a pain, but I figured it out as well.

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