Root Rogers and rooting - simple question on risk for an experienced rooter

[gluebunny]

Hello all,

I am contemplating switching from getting an iPhone to an HTC Magic. I would like to do some development and I like the openness of it. It also looks like it has a far more interesting future than the iPhone.

It seems I will have to root the phone in order to get some of the paid apps I want since I live in Canada. It also seems that some interesting functionality may be available if I have it rooted.

My questions:

- How many situations can brick the phone? Is it just stupidity and there is an easy way to flash back to stock?

- Is there anything I need to look for when I get the phone to make sure it has the proper SPL? From what I gather, Rogers only has the 009 SPL so I should be fine and do not have to check, correct?

I have experiencing rooting things before (I have jailbroken my Ipod Touch and other various mp3 players and Rockbox, routers to put on DD-wrt, etc) and am comfortable on command line and in the UNIX world.

Since this phone is $520 and is also my phone rather than just an mp3 player, I want to figure out if it is one of those situations where it can randomly brick on you based on the gods will, or if it will only brick if you do something stupid like pull the battery while it is flashing ROM. Apparently if I brick it I can get it to someone with a PROM reader that can unbrick?

Note: I have never bricked a device before, I just like covering my ass

I am voraciously reading the xda-developers forums as well

Thanks

 

[noonehereyet]

Hello all,

I am contemplating switching from getting an iPhone to an HTC Magic. I would like to do some development and I like the openness of it. It also looks like it has a far more interesting future than the iPhone.

It seems I will have to root the phone in order to get some of the paid apps I want since I live in Canada. It also seems that some interesting functionality may be available if I have it rooted.

My question:
How many situations can brick the phone? Is it just stupidity and there is an easy way to flash back to stock?

I have experiencing rooting things before (I have jailbroken my Ipod Touch and other various mp3 players and Rockbox, routers to put on DD-wrt, etc) and am comfortable on command line and in the UNIX world.

Since this phone is $520 and is also my phone rather than just an mp3 player, I want to figure out if it is one of those situations where it can randomly brick on you based on the gods will, or if it will only brick if you do something stupid like pull the battery while it is flashing ROM. Apparently if I brick it I can get it to someone with a PROM reader that can unbrick?

Note: I have never bricked a device before, I just like covering my ass

I am voraciously reading the xda-developers forums as well

Thanks

Well if your reading through XDA you have probably have seen the guides and know the differences in rooting based on the phones origin and distributing company... That being said it is VERY hard to brick during the actual rooting process as long as you follow the directions exactly and in the correct order.... and remember that you ALWAYS flash the radio before flashing the modified SPL.... and obviously pulling the batter when flashing the bootloader is a VERY bad idea....

 

[gluebunny]

Good stuff, thanks. There is SO much info out there on this and in varying states of completeness (early stuff, later stuff) that is it hard to sift through some of it.

From what I gather you can brick a phone getting root or doing a new SPL.

Can you brick a phone by updating to a new ROM or does the bricking only result from a bad bootloader?

EDIT: found the answer on xda finally....You won't brick the phone if you update a "bad" rom you just need to get a new rom on to the memcard and do the fastboot process once more.

 

[gluebunny]

From what I gather from this: XDADeveloperWiki - HTC_Sapphire_Hacking

and this: http://www.karrderized.com/romguide/


I do not need to install a new SPL nor radio if I have a .009 SPL already.

I can just go straight into flashing the new firmware (with the assumption that the firmware does not specifically need .005 that is)

Is this a correct assumption?

 

[UnderWhat?]

Cool man, I also just recently switched to a HTC Magic

(Just sold my iPhone, buying the HTC later today)