CoyotesFan4Evr

OK, I'm sure there are plenty of threads on this topic BUT what I'm asking for is that someone to either chat with me live thru whatever messenger someone might have on their computer or thru e-mail step by step on how to root my Eris. This is the only phone I have and I can't default back to an old phone if I brick this one. I love my phone and it has been a long time coming on making the jump to android. I got my wife a CPO incredible from Verizon and was instantly jealous so even with months of searching on C's list before I got her phone I finally found my Eris. Paid 100 bucks for it. It's perfect, but anyways back to my question. Would someone please help me root my Eris step by step as I have never attempted such a thing before. A friend of mine said there is a 40% chance that if I do it, that I'll brick it. Knowing my luck that will happen. This is why I'm asking for help. I have a lot of questions before this happens so be prepared. Thanks in advance to anyone and everyone that is willing to help. I'm brand new here and just want all the garbage apps off my phone.

doogald

First things first.

You're friend is wrong. Where the heck did he get 40% from? Has he surveyed every Eris user who has attempted to root?

The only people that I know of who have bricked the Eris while rooting were using a different method to root than I am about to suggest. This method you are about to use has a very, very low chance of bricking.

However, know going in that there is a slight risk. It is not a 4 in 10 chance, though.

There are easy-to-follow directions (with illustrations) right here: Universal Eris Root for Dummies!

Those instructions suggest downloading and installing a ROM called PlainJane, but at this point I think that xtrSENSE is better. You can download it from this link: [ROM][GPL][3/15/2011] xtrSENSE5.0.1 [cache2cache,apps2sd,oc,jit]-HTC Sense - xda-developers (look for the link next to the text that says, "Download xtrSENSE 5.0".) Copy that xtrSENSE5.0.1.zip file to your SD card - make sure you do not put it in a folder on the card - it needs to be on what is called the root directory. Then check that the file size on the SD Card is the right size. After that, follow the instructions in the Dummies thread and you should be fine.

Sorry, I'm traveling over the next week or so, so I won't be available to chat, but you can do it - you'll be fine - and there are plenty of others here who will help you out.

And, as a note to those others, please let's not confuse this guy by suggesting other ROMs to install, ok? As a beginner who is reluctant to root, xtrSENSE is the perfect first ROM to flash.

CoyotesFan4Evr

Well, the thing is he is a huge tech guy and knows ALOT of stuff. He will probably have the biotic before it comes out for sale in the stores. His brother works at Verizon corporate. Anyways, this isn't about him. OK I was reading the thread you suggested and was going to go with that method if I had to. Now I want to keep the HTC sense set up. I like it very much. What will happen once my phone is rooted? Will anything noticeably change on my screens and such? What apps should I stay away from for rooted phones that I have seen and could possibly want to use? (I told you I had a ton of questions) I appreciate your help and once I get home from work, so long as I'm not totally beat I will attempt the root from the thread that you suggested. One last question, if I decide part way thru the root process to not do it until I'm more rested or have the chance to research it a bit more can I back out of it and not hurt my phone? THANKS AGAIN!

bobcat331

All the questions your asking have been asked many times. Just take a little time and read thru some of the treads. Rooting is very easy. Although there is always a very slim chance of bricking your phone as doogald said it was because someone has not followed instructions and did not do any reading before jumping into it.

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Praetorian

I don't know your friend but I do know he doesn't know anything at all about rooting if he thinks there is that much of a chance of bricking the phone. For awhile I was flashing my phone 4 times a week trying to find a rom to settle on and sometimes I even flashed a corrupted zip file with nothing bad happen once I flashed a working zip file. Not saying there is 0 risk but Come on 40% is just bs.

bobcat331

Use the rom doogald suggested. Once you root there a lot of different roms you can try. Read the posts on the dummies thread.

Last edited by bobcat331; April 16th, 2011 at 04:08 AM.

bobcat331

If you have questions about the rooting process just ask. I monitor the forums quite frequently and some of the others do as well.

doogald

No worries. Just wanted to let you know he was either exaggerating or full of it.

That is the great thing about xtrSENSE - it is almost exactly the same as the stock Eris, with a few major improvements:

1. It is overclocked when you are using it and underclocked when you are not (which means it runs faster than stock when you use it and slower when it sits with the screen off idle), which both makes it faster when you use it and burn less battery when it is idle.

2. It has a feature called cache2cache, which I will not explain fully, but the result is that it opens up a tremendous amount of space for more data and apps. If you are running out of room now, you will have a lot more space when you start running xtrSENSE.

3. This I think you can worry about later, but it comes with a way to remove the apps teeter, peep, footprints and stocks, plus it does not come with Amazon MP3 at all (you can add that from the market if you want it.)

First things first - root the phone, install xtrSENSE, get it set up, and then ask questions about apps.

metlcat

I would suggest trying the rooting process when you are comfortable. The same rule applies to rooting as carpentry, measure twice, cut once. Keep track of what steps you are doing incase something does go wrong. If something goes wrong, post exactly what you did and someone here will be able to help you. Even if all hope seems lost and you can't get your phone to cooperate, there will be someone here that can help get your phone going again.

Do your research first, read as much of the thread that doogald suggested as you can. Just diving into rooting your phone is never a good idea, no matter how safe it is.

scotty85

just wanted to say again that the chance of bricking an eris,is very,very low. my eris was the first phone i rooted and since its not an active phone at the moment has become a testbed for all sorts of other shenanigans it has been unrooted,and re-rooted several times to satisfy various curiousities.at the moment it is helping me learn about issuing commands in an ADB shell on my PC.

i hate to mention this,but there is(or was,at least) a one click eris root app in the market. the "root for dummies method" is designed to walk you thru rooting your phone by using it to download the files,and move them up to the root of the sd card with a file manager so you dont have to use a PC at all. the root for dummies method is highly reccomended by the forum members here so users dont just get the one click app,and run amock and try and flash roms without knowing what exactly what they are doing.

so "root for dummies" is a great way to root your phone. however,if you really feel intimidated by the things needed to do with this method,you can use the one click app,but i would VERY HIGHLY advise reading thru the dummies thread first so youll know what to do after your phone is rooted. there are very good instructions in the first few pages on how to make backups,flash roms,etc.

as was said,dont do anything untill you feel comfortable. read thru the thread,and ask whatever questions you have BEFORE your phone is an unusable state

have fun,rooting is fun and will make your phone perform much,much better

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CoyotesFan4Evr

Thanks a lot everyone, I will be trying this very soon. Probably before the weekend is up. I do want to put out one thing in defense of my friend. He hacked his eris when he first got it to the point where IF he were to go to like Japan then Verizon would think he was still here in the states and he wouldn't get charged anything. But everytime he got on the internet with his phone they wiped it. Happened to him 3 times before he decided not to do it again. He got the eris as a test group type thing. The way he put it to me was Verizon and HTC were taking a stab at Android and this was the first one and they wanted to see how well it worked and what problems there would be. His opinion and mine....great phone. I wanted the moto droid instead of this one but now that I have this one and have seen the incredible in action....Yeah I love it. lol Again thanks a lot to everyone for now and I'm sure more thanks will go around here soon once I get this thing rooted.

dockmaster

After reading this thread, and wanting to root my Eris for the last few months....WOW. Rooting (for Dummies) with pictures!! Got everything set up on the phone, went thru the process and hit one snag that made my heart drop....NO TRACK BALL to move between the menus.....
Did a little reading and figured out by putting in my usb cable (still hooked to to my USB port on my comp...) seemed to give me enough trackball to get going, and the rest of the process flew by!!
What a difference. One program that would freeze before (wolfgangsvault.com) works flawlessly now. Happy camper here. Now just need to figer out if I want to put DXhome back on or try another home page program. DX updates way too much.
Also, I had paid for PowerAmpPro. I thing even though I backed everything up, that paid info is not on the phone (that I can find)...gotta find out where it is!!
Great instruction and am using XtrSense Rom...good enough..just want stable at this point.

Rock on

BillD

scary alien

Bill,

Yeah, when you are ready or if your trackball ever actually conks-out on you and the USB trick doesn't fix it, you might want to have a look at this thread:

Amon_RA 1.6.2 Custom Recovery: trackball not required!

Cheers!

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bobcat331

Haven't heard from you in a while. Good to know your still looking in on us.

scary alien

lol...you can't get rid of me!

doogald

Hacking any phone like that is a great deal more than rooting and installing a custom ROM. Yes, I would say that the carriers are going to seriously object when you try to defraud them.

HTC had Android phones for a year before the Eris - the Eris was probably the last of the devices that are similar to the original G1. I think Verizon wanted more than just one Android phone at launch, and perhaps they wanted one low cost for budget shoppers, so that's why they took what was essentially the Sprint Hero for Verizon as they were also launching the Moto Droid.

CoyotesFan4Evr

Hey, question....I downloaded the xtraSense, but the rooting the eris for dummies is based on a different rom. Do I do anything different or do I need to download what that thread says and go from there with following the instructions? A fast reply would be AWESOME!

metlcat

The only difference will be in the last step, Fig. 40 where the ROM that you will select will be xtrSense. Other than that, it's all the same. There are other things for flashing some ROMs, but at this point you do not need to worry about that. Good luck and if you have any other questions, let us know.

CoyotesFan4Evr

Thanks, I'm going to give it a shot. One last question though.....will I loose all the stuff that I have on my phone now? Or is that taken care of when I do the backup as part of the rooting process?

(PS the Blackhawks need to step up their game and get rid of those dang Canucks)

bobcat331

The nand will backup the state your phone was in at the time of the backup. Nothing on your sd card will be erased. You will however loose everything that is on your phone. If you want to keep your text's use sms backup & restore (free in the market), for your apps, they will be synced with your google account. One of the first apps to get is titanium backup. Their are two versions, free & paid, get both. Everybody uses that app. You posted after I went nitey nite but if you have any other questions just holla.

CoyotesFan4Evr

OK, so I'm reverting to using gscript instead of the extrsense because I did everything step by step so far up until fig. 18. I don't see the same thing in fig. 18 like I feel I should. So, I guess I'll do it the gscript way and if I don't like it and feel comfortable doing this all over again I'll go back and use extrsense. Unless someone can tell me what I'm missing here then I go ahead with extrsense. On the other note what about all my contacts and so forth? Before I go thru with the whole process I'm going to make sure that everything I want is all saved on my sd card. I know that I can't put apps on it which sucks but oh well I guess. I think that's all for now.

bobcat331

Refer to my lastest post a few minutes ago in the root for dummies thread and get back with me. Do you have your contacts synced with your google account?

CoyotesFan4Evr

No I don't have them synced. And I tried getting titanium backup using 4shared.com and it keeps giving me the rooted version and since I'm not rooted yet it won't work. Maybe I'm picking the wrong one to download. Also I got the free one in the market and something went wrong with it. It said install unsuccessful. Not sure what to do here. I did the sms backup though and that worked without any problems. Maybe I'll wait until after I get home from work later on and sit here and read the how to over and over again. I must be missing something somewhere.

bobcat331

TiB is only for rooted phones. I beleive there is a setting in accounts & sync, look under manage accounts and see if your account is set to sync.

scotty85

im thinkin you are a little bit confused. there is only one way to root the phone,and that way uses the app "gscript lite" to run the 2 files wich root your phone,then install the custom recovery needed to flash the roms.

xtrsense is a ROM,not a method of rooting. please note that you do not actually have to flash a rom as part of the rooting process. as metlcatsaid,you will follow the directions/pictures until figure 38. at this point,you can simply click on "reboot system now" with the tracball and boot back into your stock,but rooted, rom. after reaching this point,you have the option to download and use titanium backup to backup your apps. as was said,get the paid version as well,as it makes things a BUNCH easier when switching roms around

at this point i would also HIGHLY reccomend that you get scary aliens tracball optional recovery working as described in this thread: http://androidforums.com/"http://androidforums.com/eris-all-things-root/214240-amon_ra-1-6-2-custom-recovery-trackball-not-required.html" the sooner you do it,the better. its a great insurance that you wont be left without a workable phone because your tracball has stopped working in recovery

*do not forget to click the "thanks button on scary aliens original post in his tracball optional thread,and on any post that anyone has made that you find helpful. it goes a long way to showing folks that you appreciate their help and efforts

if you do want to change to a new rom,continue to figure 40,at wich time you will select xtrSense that you have previously placed on your SD card.

make sure all your contatcs are google contacts,and not phone contacts. that way when you sync with google,they will all come back. go to settings/accounts and sync/ and sync with google after chaging everything to "google" contacts.

as for the apps,if you boot back to your stock rooted rom at figure 38 as i described above,it will let you dowload titanium for root users and back up your apps. that way when you change your rom it will be easy as pie to restore them.

hope that helps clear up a couple things

Last edited by scotty85; April 18th, 2011 at 06:27 AM.

bobcat331

Well said.

CoyotesFan4Evr

Yes I was a bit confused. Now I understand everything a little better. The only thing is, is how do I make my contacts google contacts? Other than that I'm ready to mess with doing the root when I get home from work.

scotty85

i cannot recall exactly... im not on a stock rom now,so i cant easily check for ya,but look at a contact... at the top it should say "phone" or "google". if it says phone,you should be able to edit the contact and find a place to change it to google.

hopefully someone can chime in here and provide a little more detail.

once you figure out how,you will have to go thru each one and change them all to google. when youre done with that,youll want to go to accounts and sync,and make your phone sync with google so that theyll all resync later.

CoyotesFan4Evr

What on google is it syncing to? I only have my account for the market. Hmmm, I need to make sure that I save all my downloaded but free ringtones. I did have an issue the first time I downloaded gscript. It didn't give me the roots. So I took it off and put out back on, and now they are there. I'm getting exited now. Less than 2 hours and I get to go home.

scotty85

The contacts are syncing with your gmail account

CoyotesFan4Evr

OK, so I got everything going and I did the part 1 of the root. Before I do the second part I have a couple questions. First being if I do the second part now will I be loosing everything on my phone right now since I don't have a back up program right now? I have my sms backed up....I want to back up my apps. Do I have to wait until the rooting is done and just stay out of the root program of my phone? I'm throwing random questions out here that I may have asked already...I'm anxious. I synced my contacts to my gmail account. Will that get them back?

metlcat

If your contacts are synced to your gmail account, they will automatically be restored to your phone.

You will not lose anything off of your phone until you go to flash the ROM and wipe data/factory and wipe dalvik. I don't have time to check which step this would be cause I'm between classes right now, but someone should be able to let you know. Basically when you are roooted, but before you flash a ROM you'll go into your phone normally, download titanium backup, backup your apps, and then you can proceed. Just be careful what you restore. System apps and system data restores can cause problems.

CoyotesFan4Evr

I just want the ones that I have downloaded to come back. And hopefully with some of them being ringtone apps that hold the ringtones to the app I'll get the ringtones back as well. Anyways, I have done both roots and now am going to get titanium backup going. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping I don't loose everything. I shouldn't but I don't have much in the way of good luck with stuff like this is all. Let's see what happens!

CoyotesFan4Evr

OK, I have done both roots now and downloaded titanium backup but it keeps telling me that it won't work because it can't detect the root. How am I suppose to back up my stuff if I have to fully root it with the rom in order for it to detect the root?

bobcat331

Do you have the superuser app? You should. Open the superuser app and see If TiB is listed. If it is clink on that and you should have a popup that ask's you to give permission to root access.

CoyotesFan4Evr

I do not have that app. Going to get it now!

CoyotesFan4Evr

Ok the heck with it. I'm going to finish the root. No matter what app I put on my phone the back up won't work, along with the other apps that are suppose to make the backup one work. Here goes!

bobcat331

I thought you were rooted already. Do you have the rom of your choice downloaded and in the root of your sd card? The rom will have the superuser app in it so after you flash the rom then you can use TiB.

Last edited by bobcat331; April 18th, 2011 at 05:10 PM.

CoyotesFan4Evr

Yep, no worries....I finished by doing the last steps of the process. I'm staring at the xtrsense logo on my phone right now. It's taking awhile though....

bobcat331

It will.

CoyotesFan4Evr

Ok,got it going and so far it's good. I kept all my pics and ringones but noje of my contacts will come back. I know I saved them to my card and synced with my gmail. Oh well, guess I'll be doing later....manually entering contacts. Oh and sms didn't carry over. Btw, anyone else on here put swype text on your eris? I did but now I have to do it all over again.

scotty85

you cannot save contacts to the sd card,and sync them with gmail,that i know of,so if you did that,then you prolly did not sync them with google.(gmail)

you did make a nand backup,right? you can boot back into recovery,make a backup of xtr sense,and then restore your stock backup. all your contacts and apps will be there. as soon as you get it back up,we can help you get titanium working so you can back up the apps,and figure out how to sync your contacts with google,so they will come back as well. you wont have to manually re-enter anything

as far as swype goes,it will be included in the backup that you make with titanium,so youll be able to restore it when you come back to xtr sense

metlcat

With Titanium, try hitting the "Problems" button. It will download busybox and that might help to get it working.

scotty85

yes,it prolly will. every time ive had trouble with titanium,that has fixed it... i dint want to overload him with info,so i was gonna wait till he had his stock rom back up and running before bringin that up

CoyotesFan4Evr

Well as far as I know I just synced them to gmail. Now something interesting, I went into file manager and some of my stuff was there. For some reason though some of my ringtones are not right. The name is one thing but it plays something else. Also I have doubles the stock ring tones. I'm figuring some stuff out as I go which is fun but I already learned my phone once. So this is like relearning it. And I'm dying without swype. Lol. I have the downloader but can't remember my login.

CoyotesFan4Evr

Alright, I have superuser busybox and titanium backup. All of them work just fine now that I'm rooted. Now I made a nand backup of my original just like the step by step said. Is it as simple as going back into the boot screen and selecting to restart on the stock rom?

scotty85

Yup, it's pretty much that simple.
1)boot into recovery
2)make a backup of your current xtrSense
3)wipe data/cache/dalvic cache just like you did before installing the rom.
4) choose the restore option and pick your stock rom backup(the numbers correspond to the date made)

Now you can backup your Apps with titanium, after installing it on that rom.

CoyotesFan4Evr

Ok so I did all that and when I restarted my phone it got stuck on the 3 droids on skateboards. I'm trying it again to see what happens. I'm also going to read thru the root process to make sure I'm not missing any steps.

CoyotesFan4Evr

Ok so I tried finding my original setup before rooting and I'm not finding it. A little help please?

bobcat331

In astro you will find a file called nandroid, open it and there will be a string of letters and numbers, open that and there will be another string of numbers, something like 201119xxxx, that is your backup.