[Q] Rooting your smartphone - Droid Incredible Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I'm thinking about rooting my smartphone. but, first, I would like to learn more about it. I have a HTC Droid Incredible 1, and I have not had it that long. I heard from another forum, that if you root it, and don't know what's going on, the phone may be fried? What are the chances of rooting your smartphone?

.
Thread moved to Q&A due to it being a question. Would advise you to read forum rules and post in correct section.
Failure to comply with forum rules will result in an infraction and/or ban depending on severity of rule break.

Danny1971jdw said:
I'm thinking about rooting my smartphone. but, first, I would like to learn more about it. I have a HTC Droid Incredible 1, and I have not had it that long. I heard from another forum, that if you root it, and don't know what's going on, the phone may be fried? What are the chances of rooting your smartphone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A mod will be along any moment now to move this to where it should be but whilst we wait I'll point ya in the right direction and attempt to answer your questions for ya.
First let me give you a few links to the HTC Droid Incredible section of the forums:
General Discussion
Q&A
Android Development
Here is a link to a pretty well written thread aimed at people who are new to rooting there phones.
The act of rooting your phone typically involves a certain level of risk the best way to keep this risk to a minimum is to read all the threads & ask as many questions as you have to get a firm grasp on what your doing. Once you think you know how to do it there's nothing left but to actually do the deed and hope for the best there is always the chance something could happen and your phone could die even if you have done the same thing a 1000 times before with no problem.
The first step is always into the unknown, personally I get a rush when I start modding a new device and I've been modding random stuff for years.
Like I said before read the forum for the Incredible as much as you can stand and then take the plunge.
-Ice

Related

Rooting Help, EVO 4G Noob

I have just moved over from an iPhone, which I had used for the past 3 years. I love my Evo but want to be able to do more with it through rooting. I have read many guides and can never get it to root or understand half of the terminology. My current setup is an EVO 4G with Android 2.2, software build: 3.26.651.3, and baseband: 2.15.00.07.28. Am I able to root this setup and what all is needed. There may not be a method for this setup yet which is fine. I am just very new to all of this and would love to understand it and get to work on the underlying beauties of Froyo. Thanks.
You currently can't root that build yet. I'm sure it will happen sooner than later. I would just stay tuned for now and keep reading up on roms, terminology, etc. so that you are more familiar with everything when the time comes.
no way to root that yet. i don't think it will be too long though. read through some guides, and study up in the meantime. you'll be better off when a method is ready.
Wrong Section not sure how rooting your phone is considered "Development" unless you have discovered ROOT.
zone23 said:
Wrong Section
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here come the mods in training!!!!
I suggest learning everything you can before rooting, I knower howe easy jail breaking an iphone is, this is not as easy but as long as you read you should be fine and its ask pretty easy. You will get it. Oh and my suggestion use search there is alot of flaming that can be avoided by searching and posting in the correct forum
DanBergundy said:
Here come the mods in training!!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If no one points it out, no one would learn.
cloud858rk said:
If no one points it out, no one would learn.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This ^
See my post here for Explanation: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=7467897&postcount=12
And for those who wish to argue that point and call everyone jerks for saying "wrong forum" see here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=7480503&postcount=16
And for those that wish to continue to attempt to prove an already wrong point, see here: http://www.wwwdotcom.com/
cloud858rk said:
If no one points it out, no one would learn.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Doesn't mean you can't answer their question so they don't have to respond back while also NICELY guiding them to the right section. (saves time and keeps the community nice)
the question was answered above so i dont think in this case they really needed to answer it again so that they could point out that the person posted in the wrong forum : \
also as an honest question how is you criticizing them for pointing out the op is in the wrong forum on every thread different then them?
honestly i think "noobs" will always just post where they want as many are only around to get questions answered as quickly as possible with as little effort as possible (nothing really wrong with that per say) and could careless about anything else. With people posting in the wrong section you will always have people complaining its in the wrong section so do we really need to add 2 new groups to this ? the people complaining about the person pointing out wrong forum and the person complaining about them to the list?
I would suggest learning to live with it and we can all pray for a forum utopia where everyone posts where they are supposed to, no one flames, and everyone learns how to search.
omegasun18 said:
the question was answered above so i dont think in this case they really needed to answer it again so that they could point out that the person posted in the wrong forum : \
also as an honest question how is you criticizing them for pointing out the op is in the wrong forum on every thread different then them?
honestly i think "noobs" will always just post where they want as many are only around to get questions answered as quickly as possible with as little effort as possible (nothing really wrong with that per say) and could careless about anything else. With people posting in the wrong section you will always have people complaining its in the wrong section so do we really need to add 2 new groups to this ? the people complaining about the person pointing out wrong forum and the person complaining about them to the list?
I would suggest learning to live with it and we can all pray for a forum utopia where everyone posts where they are supposed to, no one flames, and everyone learns how to search.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Or they could restrict posting new topics in this forum completely and make a subforum off it for users to post and be reviewed and be moved into this forum after it was deemed development worthy, thereby eliminating the ability to post in the forum altogether. Works well in a lot of other forums I've been on and moderated before.

[FYI]If You're New to Modding/Rooting, Read This First! (Updated 08/05/10)

[highlight]Mod Edit: @Mikey or overground: I have stuck this thread in here, but I will let both of you decide on the future of this sticky as I don't want to step on your toes in the organization of such stickies. It is a pretty good "Read First" thread and should remain stuck IMHO.
egzthunder1[/highlight]
When you start to look into rooting your phone, remember what Uncle Ben said:
"With great power comes great responsibility."
I struggled with whether to post this thread under "Development" or "General." I didn't see anything similar already under Development, and I firmly believe a thread such as this needs to be front and center in the Development area. As the OTA has been leaked (twice!), more and more inexperienced "junior modders" have started to comment in the forums. This is all well and good, but there really should be a central, basic tutorial including terms, do's and don'ts, etc. available to those that need it, while at the same time cleaning up the threads for specific ROMs from non-ROM-specific questions.
With that being said, I am going to post some basic guidelines/facts below. If you believe any of this information is not correct, please PM me so that we can come to a collaborative agreement without spreading confusion within the thread.
General Information for Beginners (Please At Least Read This Info!)
1. ROOTING IS NOT FOR EVERYONE! Please don't root because it's "cool" if you don't have any idea what you're doing. There really is nothing wrong with waiting for the official OTAs, etc. If you want to experiment with your phone, I applaud you - but see #2.
2. Always read ALL of the directions in a thread FIRST. Keep in mind that many threads will direct you to yet another thread for full instructions on a process - read those instructions entirely too!
3. Once you read the instructions. FOLLOW THEM. Do not take shortcuts. If you do, you may be the owner of a very expensive paperweight.
4. If you think your phone is stuck, boot looping, frozen, or whatever else, especially during a system, radio or ROM flash - DO NOT REMOVE YOUR BATTERY. Step away from the phone, and give it time. Give it at least half an hour, then reassess. (Thanks to sryan2k1)
5. If you encounter a pitfall, you should search the thread before you post your request for help so that you can see if others have had similar difficulties, as well as how they resolved them if they did in fact fix the issue.
6. If you found a solution to your problem you've asked for help on - please, post that you resolved it, and HOW you resolved it, especially if none of the advice offered by others helped.
7. The developer community is inherently an open and helpful one. Always feel free to post your questions, but please try to do your research first and always post your questions in the proper forum and thread. (Thanks to Linux4me28)
8. It's good practice to always make a backup! That may take the form of Nandroid (backing up your entire system, usually through Recovery), but if you start dabbling in ADB it also means rather than overwriting files you should simply append the old file's name until you're sure you've got it right (myfile.zip > myfile.zip.bak).
Rooting and Mod Terms, Basics, etc.
1. "Rooting" means, essentially, providing yourself with administrative rights to your phone.
2. A "ROM" is basically an entire system image - think of it like Windows XP versus Windows 7.
3. A ROM will *not* root your phone.
4. "Bricking" your phone means it's permanently borked. If you can turn your phone on and get to virtually any system screen, you're probably not bricked, and there's probably hope for you and your device!
5. You must be already rooted to install a ROM.
6. A ROM is installed through a custom recovery, such as ClockworkMod Recovery.
7. There are tools in existence, such as UnrEvoked3.x that will assist in easily rooting your phone.
8. The "Radio" is (in layman's terms) the part of the phone that interacts with a service provider's tower, and it too has firmware. Flashing a Radio image is a bit more of a risky proposition than just flashing a ROM, but it may be required in some cases. Again, ALWAYS READ THE DIRECTIONS.
9. ROMs are device-specific and, oftentimes, Radio-specific as well. This means that you must pay attention to the requirements for the ROM you want to install.
10. Remember: Rooting doesn't mean that you'll have any more success in "pirating" software. It just means you'll be able to control more of your phone's functions. I think you'll find that the developer community is even more protective of IP rights than the average user-base. A lot of developers work off of donations, but that doesn't mean that credit for their original works shouldn't be given.
Miscellaneous
1. Google is your friend, and so is the "Search Thread" tool. Please do not post questions in a thread when you could easily, and more quickly, find the answer by doing a search. That's just lazy .
Links to Other Helpful Threads
HTC Droid Incredible Helpful/Popular Threads (Thanks to stroupified)
I welcome any additions, but let's keep this polite and courteous. I was new at this once, myself - three weeks ago I purchased my first Android device, the Dinc. And yes, I mean that to be a somewhat strange statement. Before I've done ANY modifications, I've read the instructions, read the entire thread, and followed all directions to the letter. The only pitfall I've had was because I took a shortcut - once (but I learned my lesson!).
Changelog
08/04/10 - Cleaned up some formatting and spelling. Added contributions from others.
08/05/10 - Added links from other contributors, as well as additional information. Things were also getting unwieldy, so I broke things up a bit to make it more readable. If everyone prefers it all mashed together like it was, please let me know.
Excellent advice, sir.
I lurked here for months before trying to root and install ROMS. While I'm not a pro at it yet and have much to learn, I have more confidence in what I'm doing.
I think the reason most people try rooting is because they think they will get "free" apps or something, like its something they can do to pirate software with their phone or something. I do not think they understand the process completely.
To simplify your post OP,
If you want to root and are inexperienced, read what you are doing first over and over or at least have insurance...Most problems people have is caused by their ignorance, not the fact a program did something wrong.
I was new to rooting with my Moto Droid. Before that I was loading hybrid OS's on my POS Storm. Due to having lots of computer experience, I picked up rooting and ADB quite easily. Most people that root though, I really think they are looking for the ability to pirate and not to install custom ROMs, themes, and/or run apps at root level.
^^^ This should be stickied...
I agree with op couldn't said it any better. Also agreed it should be sticky post.
Sent from my ADR6300
Excellent! Bravo!
TNS201 said:
I think the reason most people try rooting is because they think they will get "free" apps or something, like its something they can do to pirate software with their phone or something. I do not think they understand the process completely.
To simplify your post OP,
If you want to root and are inexperienced, read what you are doing first over and over or at least have insurance...Most problems people have is caused by their ignorance, not the fact a program did something wrong.
I was new to rooting with my Moto Droid. Before that I was loading hybrid OS's on my POS Storm. Due to having lots of computer experience, I picked up rooting and ADB quite easily. Most people that root though, I really think they are looking for the ability to pirate and not to install custom ROMs, themes, and/or run apps at root level.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have a character flaw of wanting to wring the very last drop of performance out of my electronic devices...plus I find it challenging.
I'm sure there's a bit of "I'm really not supposed to be doing this" involved as well.
magneticzero said:
There is no reason this belongs in the dev thread. reported.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am going to have to disagree with you. A general set of guidelines for people to follow are always a good idea in a development forum. Something like this is bound to catch at least a few wandering eyes of new-comers into the site. By reading this, they will likely lurk around, read, and search before asking questions, avoiding possible flaming in the process (and making mod's lives a bit easier in the process too )
Also, fairly important, if you are in the middle of a flash/recovery, and you think the phone has frozen, or bricked, or stopped. DO NOT PULL THE BATTERY OUT.
Wait at least a half hour before touching it. It is the same with any device, a computer BIOS, phones, embedded devices, it may not look like it is doing anything, but it likely still is. That is one of the few ways to really brick a device is yank the power in the middle of a OS/ROM/Baseband/Etc flash.
We do it all the time on our hardware at work, but we have JTAG ports where we can reprogram the internal/external flash with a external tools. We don't have that luxury on these phones. Patience is your friend.
well said sir. the incredible was my first android device and i waited a couple months before i rooted it and felt comfortable with adb and weighed the benefits of rooting vs not rooting (that took like 2 min lol) I love technology and belive in running it to it's full potential because we paid $xxx.xx for our divices we should want to get our money's worth.
i was gonna suggest some threads that helped me out but someone has alread complied them into it's own thread. maybe you could make a shortcut for those people who are new to the forum. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=739428
magneticzero said:
Good read, but it is just "General Information". How is it directly helping me development a ROM or OS update? Just wondering...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It benefits you in that you hopefully might have fewer people cluttering your Dev threads. No offense, but you're assuming the average consumer is going to look in "General Information" for General Information. They don't. There should be some detterent in place. As these types of devices become more prevalent, you should understand that the average "Development" visitor and poster is no longer a Developer.
Sent from my ADR6300 using XDA App
thank you.
great hopefully more people will read this
magneticzero said:
So what you are implying it isnt really a development section of the forum....maybe they need to lock it and just post releases to you in the general forum....no matter what people are still gonna post crap and clutter this place.
I vote lock this forum to developers only and make it read only for general public.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
magneticzero said:
i am entitled to my opinion. cheers!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
With all due respect, you have been around for less than a month. XDA has historically been a place where people contribute, come to learn from each other, and get help if needed be. What you are suggesting here goes completely against the whole ethos of XDA as a community. Non-devs come here to learn from the devs. Unfortunately, many people from the newer forums have very little tolerance for others who may not be at their level, and this really gets in my nerves as well as the rest of the mods. While I agree that people should search and read prior to posting questions, I wholeheartedly disagree with the fact that as of recently, people cannot even post a single question without being flamed to smithereens. The OP simply posted a very useful and to the point guide with suggestions (and yes, it is basic but not everyone can understand how to make a new kernel).
At this point, I would like to ask you to stop posting these kinds of comments in this thread. You are trying to start a very much unneeded argument in a thread whose sole purpose of existence is to prevent the sole thing that you are complaining about in the first place. This thread will stay in place and that's the end of it. I have talked this over with overground and Mikey (both in charge of this section) and they have agreed with my decision.
While you are entitled to give your two cents, you are not allowed to troll and or flame, and starting unnecessary arguments for no reason is considered flaming.
Quite honestly this is the most sensible piece of information on XDA. I implore you to talk to some of the other dev mods (particularly evo 4g) and offer to add this as a sticky. I've been here a short while myself, but have already seen things devolved to a level of non-civility that makes me not want to participate anymore myself.
Seriously, awesome post.
Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk
egzthunder1 said:
With all due respect, you have been around for less than a month. XDA has historically been a place where people contribute, come to learn from each other, and get help if needed be. What you are suggesting here goes completely against the whole ethos of XDA as a community. Non-devs come here to learn from the devs. Unfortunately, many people from the newer forums have very little tolerance for others who may not be at their level, and this really gets in my nerves as well as the rest of the mods. While I agree that people should search and read prior to posting questions, I wholeheartedly disagree with the fact that as of recently, people cannot even post a single question without being flamed to smithereens. The OP simply posted a very useful and to the point guide with suggestions (and yes, it is basic but not everyone can understand how to make a new kernel).
At this point, I would like to ask you to stop posting these kinds of comments in this thread. You are trying to start a very much unneeded argument in a thread whose sole purpose of existence is to prevent the sole thing that you are complaining about in the first place. This thread will stay in place and that's the end of it. I have talked this over with overground and Mikey (both in charge of this section) and they have agreed with my decision.
While you are entitled to give your two cents, you are not allowed to troll and or flame, and starting unnecessary arguments for no reason is considered flaming.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
We all need to start somewhere. Few people come here at the level of a Mr Koush.
douger1957 said:
We all need to start somewhere. Few people come here at the level of a Mr Koush.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You know what's great though? Even he offered to meet me in IRC to help with an issue one time. That's what's great about this community.
I am a lurker and while I was good at messing with custom ROMS in Windows, I have been crawling up a steep learning curve with Android. But then I am a 50 year old lady lawyer so of course it's steep...
I rarely post anything. I do NOT ask questions because I do not want yelled at. BUT!
I have learned a great deal from other peoples' questions and the answers provided by the technically adept. Please don't close this forum to civilians. The information imparted in the give and take between n00bs and pros is invaluable as a teaching method, really it is.
The one observation I would make, though, is that 500 page forums are not really useful. Maybe shut them down more quickly as issues which emerge are addressed. For instance, once a newer ROM has been released, or patched, or an issue resolved, close that forum and start a new one with the resolved issue as the subject of the new thread and a link to it as the last post in the referring thread.
Thank to all of you for making owning a droid a blast!
Read and re-read....
I bricked a phone cause i read something wrong, once i read it again i got it, plus i had a few older phones that i toyed with to see if i understood everything.....nice having a few older devices around to test if your a noob. Like myself....
I totally agree with all that has been said here. The DInc took a long time to get root, but once it did, I was ready to give it a shot..as I had already been flashing, and cooking roms for my WM 6800..and also loaded a few hybrid OS's on my Storm.. so this was naturally the next chapter in my development as a developer...which is the endgame.. Bravo to all who help to keep rooting/modding fun, and edifying! Next I'm going to see if I can cook up my own Froyo ROM..

[Q] Ultimate Noob Rooting Thread

So I am considering rooting my phone, and I have been poking around and noticed all of the "essential" rooting threads are ages old, I have had my evo 4g for a week, and coming from a noob considering rooting I have a few questions (secondly im sure most of my questions just involve digging, but I am the kind of learner who needs to see everything in one or two places, not 20 or 30 different ones) so here goes my questions...
1. Why should I root, what are the advantages
2. What is the difference between deoxed and odexed
3. what is the step by step guide to rooting (im running snow leopard, but can get access to windows, would prefer to do it in snow leopard)
4. What are roms, kernals...other lingo and definations I need to or should know before rooting
5. what does rooting disable
and 6. Whats the coolest thing i can do once I am rooted
A special thanks to any one willing to take there time and explain these items to me rather then link me to another thread.
you seem like you haven't done any research what so ever.
What OS did you come from?
Yeah, it's kind of important to be willing to read a LOT. Or you probably shouldn't even bother. If you don't wanna read and really examine, then I would just stay stock. Evo is a fine phone stock.
'What's the 'coolest'thing you can do?'
(Aside from reading), I would say, that would be up to you what's coolest.
ROM is read only memory. Kernel, as I understand it, is the resource your ROM relies on to run, and greatly impacts battery life, and various functionalities. And allows for overclocking/undervolting, etc.
Root would disable/disallow you from accepting OTAs directly from Sprint
Kornsaq said:
you seem like you haven't done any research what so ever.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have done some reading on it, just as i said everything is spread out, and I have a very difficult time combining stuff from different areas, I am currently using osx, and all of the noob rooting instructions im able to find need files to be modified in windows/linux (osx is unix based)
Read the sticky thread at the top of this Q&A forum. The thread is called "Common misconceptions and useful information." ricsim included some really good pointers at the top of the thread and I have my own contributions at the bottom of the thread. I know you'll probably be a little annoyed by the fact that you have to find your own answers but it's critical that you learn what you're doing to your phone and why. Unless you do you'll turn into the next user who gets flamed for posting something similar to "OMG WHRE r Da GOOGLKE appzzzz" or anything resembling that.
What I'm trying to say is the rest of us learned by researching and we have faith that you can too.
Good luck.
beatblaster said:
Read the sticky thread at the top of this Q&A forum. The thread is called "Common misconceptions and useful information." ricsim included some really good pointers at the top of the thread and I have my own contributions at the bottom of the thread. I know you'll probably be a little annoyed by the fact that you have to find your own answers but it's critical that you learn what you're doing to your phone and why. Unless you do you'll turn into the next user who gets flamed for posting something similar to "OMG WHRE r Da GOOGLKE appzzzz" or anything resembling that.
What I'm trying to say is the rest of us learned by researching and we have faith that you can too.
Good luck.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Since i posted this, I have been doing some clicking around, and im very very slowly understanding stuff, i will read through the mentioned thread, and the reason im asking these questions is an attempt to help me understand some more of this, i really dont want to risk bricking my phone (however low the risk is) with out knowing what im doing

[Q] Rooting your Desire Z... its so easy - one step program and go

I WISH.
Surely someone has devloped a straightforward 1 or 2 step process to this well needed phone upgrade. I have read so much stuff now on the subject that I am just lost in it all - does such a program exsist - coming from an HD2 where dropping a new ROM unto your phone was no where near as scary I find myself almost desperate and willing o pay someone to root my phone for me.. seriously, what is out there for the likes of myself or is this really a case of "if you are not up to it leave it alone".
You have been a member for long enough to know the rules regarding posting in Development. Basically, if you are not a developer, you should not be creating new threads. Your question should be found in the development stickies rollup.

[Q] Should I Buy?

I have the Droid DNA but merely a year and a half in to it I've lost OS upgrade support from Verizon and HTC. If I upgrade to the One M8
1. Is it a good phone?
2. Will the same thing happen to the One that happened to DNA in only a year?
3. Is there root available?
Thanks in advance
Dude sorry to bash you and say this...but these questions are the most stupid someone ever asked...read through these threads/forum here and you see there is root otherwise there wouldn't be any Roms and kernels and whatever and if you would really read more about HTC news etc you would see this phone is superior and the update support will be 24 month or so active...so please never ask again such questions lol
And post questions in the Q&A section....not the general. What do you think Q&A stands for ?
1: do you think its a good phone
2: ask HTC
3: obviously....if you would have taken the time to check the many threads that cover root questions......
Thread moved to Q&A and Closed
All the answers you'll need are found above and would've easily been found if you'd even only had a quick look through the M8 forum.
Besides, asking a bunch of people who already have this phone whether you should buy this phone is pretty much guaranteeing you one response.
I'll close this as the answers are already here and because pesky trolls love threads like this and I'd rather not use too much troll repellent
Regards,
- KidCarter93
Forum Moderator

Categories

Resources