Disclaimer:
Disclaimer: Rooting your phone can be a risky procedure, and if you make a mistake and brick your phone: These forums, authors of this post, or other subsequent posts, nor any party, company, corporate entity, individual, or estate; living or dead, associated or otherwise connected with the above shall not be held liable for any damage you do to your device, others devices, your person, other people/living things, or property belonging to you any other entity in the known universe should you attempt to root your phone. You take full responsibility and liability for any action you choose to take to attempt to gain root access to your phone. Rooting will prevent your phone from receiving automatic updates. Do this at your own risk.
How Do I Root My Epic?
ROOTING YOUR PHONE WILL VOID YOUR WARRANTY AND COULD "BRICK" YOUR PHONE. Proceed with caution and at your own risk!!! If you are not comfortable with these risks, do not do this!
There are currently TWO main methods for rooting the Samsung Epic 4G. Only ONE method will be discussed here as the other may or may not be needed to flash ROMs.
This method will work for ANY of the current Epic software versions (currently EC05). To check which version you are on, click Menu/Settings/About Phone. Scroll down and read the last FOUR letters/numbers of the Baseband Version.
The first letter stands for the year that the build was created (D=2010, E=2011, F=2012, ...). The second letter stands for the month that the build was created (A=January, B=February, C= March, ...). The last two numbers stand for the date that the build was created. In the case of EB13, the build was created on February 13, 2011.
To root the Epic, you will need to download the following:
http://firon.net/xda/one.click.root.exploitv2.5.5.zip
Note: If you scan this it will likely report that the file "ragethecage" is a trojan virus. Simple answer is that it is! This file is used to crack open the system files on your phone long enough to insert files that will allow you root access. Yes it's technically a virus, no it won't infect your computer. If you aren't comfortable with this, stop now!
1. You will also need to install the appropriate Samsung Galaxy S Drivers
[I]32-bit drivers:
http://firon.net/xda/Samsung_Mobile_Driver_V1.3.800_For_SPH-d700_Epic_4G.zip
64-bit drivers:
http://firon.net/xda/usb_drivers_GalaxyS_x64.zip
2. On your phone, push Menu/Settings/Applications/Development, then enable USB debugging.
3. Connect your USB cable to your phone
4. Extract the file that you downloaded from above and run run.bat
5. Enjoy!
Source: One Click Root & Recovery for the Epic 4G! v2.5.5 Now has ClockworkMod Redirector! - xda-developers
If you run into problems, try a different USB cable and a different USB port on the computer.
NOTE: This method should also work for Linux and Mac users chmod +x run.sh and run it.
This means nothing to me and I can't help with it... sorry!
Running into further problems or have any questions? Ask below!