It is rootable now. I posted this in the Cyanogen forums but I'll repost it here incase it helps somebody else.
I came to this situation because my first Android phone was the HTC Desire CDMA from US Cellular. I hated all the crapware I couldn't uninstall so I rooted my phone. Then I started looking to other ROMs and found Cyanogenmod to be excellent. I was happy for quite sometime. Recently though, my phone took a dump (the micro USB port broke and would no longer charge properly). But with US Cellulars free phone replacement, I was able to get a brand new Desire. Bad news was it came preloaded with 2.2 Froyo. After learning that unrevoked would no longer work and the problem was with my S-ON nand, I found this thread to learn what I could do. At this point I will thank 2fast4u88 for confirming that AlphaRev was the right track (although many pages of typing would have been saved if he had specified AlphaRevX [For the record I had already discovered AlphaRevX supported CDMA Desires, but I was hoping there was an easier way and I also wanted to clarify since the original AlphaRev seemed like a simpler process]).
So the good news is AlphaRevX does work for HTC Desires CDMA running 2.2 Froyo! Here is what I did to go from stock 2.2 Froyo on HTC Desire CDMA on US Cellular to S-OFF rooted and installed Cyanogenmod 7. I did NOT have a Windows computer (Only Mac) so I had to borrow one to accomplish this. The video posted above somewhat explains the same process, but I wasn't impressed so I decided to write it out for those who need help.
The first thing you should do it make sure your phone is well charged. So plug it in first if it's not. I'll point out later why this is important.
The next thing you should is download HTC Sync for Windows (
http://www.htc.com/u...ular/downloads/). Not because you're going to need the software, but because it installs the drivers you'll need for AlphaRevX. After you've installed HTC Sync, uninstall it. (Not sure if you need to but that's what I did; it could possibly interfere with AlphaRevX when you plug in your phone).
Download AlphaRevX (
Revolutionary). When you click the download link, a Beta Key frame will appear below. Enter your model "HTC Desire CDMA" in my case, and your only choice for HBOOT (1.06.0000) Keep this window open for now.
If your phone is sufficiently charged, connect it to your computer now via USB.
Once it's downloaded, this is where it got fuzzy for me. I should say now that I HATE Windows, I've never owned a "PC" and I never will. I only use Macs so this is why it's fuzzy. After it downloaded, it unzipped itself. There are several files. The one we want is called "revolutionary". Double click it. At this point it gave me the option to Extract or Run. When I tried to run it, it says it was installed incorrectly. When I extract, it opens another window that appears identical to the one I already had open: several files and one called "revolutionary". Double click this and the command line app should run.
If the app says "Waiting for device..." and nothing changes, something is wrong and you probably didn't get the drivers installed. If everything is working, it should offer you a serial number. Copy and paste this into the revolutionary.io webpage you left open earlier. (Copy and Paste in the command line is different than most apps. You can highlight the numbers, but to Copy you have to right-click the title bar and go to Edit -> Copy. Same thing for Paste)
The website should then give you a Beta Key. Copy and paste this back into the app and push Enter to start the app.
It is at this point that having a charged phone becomes important. Halfway through the process, the app told me my battery was too low and aborted the process, which I then had to charge my phone and try again.
If your phone is charged, it should go through all the steps. Reboot your phone a couple times and eventually get a success message with something about lemons (you'll see).
It then asked me if I wanted to download and flash a recovery. I typed "n" for No and the program ended. I didn't have internet at the time, so I couldn't do it. Turns out I didn't need to then, but you may want to at this point. Your choice.
After it was done my phone was in fastboot, and at the top it clearly displayed "-Revolutionary-, BRAVOC DVT2 SHIP S-OFF, HBOOT-6.06.1002" SUCCESS! The S-OFF is what I was wanting. Reboot your phone.
Now that I had S-OFF I ditched the Windows PC. If you only have Windows, you can continue following, but I did not. I went to the market place and downloaded ROM Mananger. Then I downloaded the latest Unrevoked. Because this thread is titled after the error message Unrevoked gives you without S-OFF, I was fairly confident it would work this time. And I was right. Unrevoked rooted my phone and flashed Clockwork recovery like it's supposed to. Unrevoked finally said "Done" at the end. My phone had some error messages on it when it was done, but I ignored them and restarted my phone.
When my phone restarted I confirmed I had Superuser (root) and went into ROM Manager. I flashed the ClockworkMod recovery again (the top option). Not sure if I needed to, but I wanted to make sure I was current. After that I used ROM Manager to install the latest Cyanogenmod!
As you can see, this process is NOT user-friendly and is the reason AlphaRevX is classified as pre-beta "developer preview". Hopefully it will be rolled into an easy app in the future and made available to Macs also. Hope this helps those of you stuck with stock Froyo S-ON.
Cannot Root Desire, Nand Flash error
