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Root Telus HTC Hero Root Guide.

Has this tutorial worked for you?

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    4
As promised I have created a full step by step root guide.

This was designed for the Telus Hero in mind but will work with any GSM Hero. Downgrading process may not be necessary on some models of GSM Hero.

I have designed this guide for some one with extremely limited computer knowledge.

Note. Windows 7 did give me some trouble so you may want to use Windows XP. I had to sue an XP machine to downgrade.

This took me about 3 days of trial and error. I will be on here and be able to give any one help if they need it.


VISIT How To Root your Telus HTC Hero | Bak 2 Basiks for the tutorial. I would post it here but its MASSIVE.

Post below with any questions or comments. you can also leave comments on the story. check out my site. I am giving away a Windows 7 Key to help promote the site. I'm going to post up some contest info. on the homepage.

My Web Site is no longer live like it used to be. so here is the tutorial:

In this guide I will show you how to Root your Telus HTC Hero step by step.
Don’t be fazed by the length of this tutorial. This tutorial is 105 steps compared to all the other tutorials out there but it is the same process as you will see everywhere else but described in EXTREME detail. Every click and button press is outlined.
READ THIS WHOLE THING THROUGH BEFORE STARTING! I WOULD EVEN SUGGEST DOWNLOADING EVERYTHING IN THE TUTORIAL FIRST SO THAT IT’S ALL PREPPED FOR YOU. EVERYTHING IS LINKED AND READY TO GO! After completing the root myself using the tutorial I have found Windows XP to be the most useful. You may be able to get the process to work with windows 7.
This was made for the Telus HTC Hero Running android 1.5. This tutorial should work perfectly on other GSM hero models but was designed for Telus users. All of the files, processes, and downloads are things you have to use on the other versions of the Hero.
I am not responsible for anything that happens to your phone. EVER! You do this at your own risk. I cannot also guarantee that this will work for you. ALWAYS MAKE BACKUPS OF ALL YOUR DATA BEFORE STARTING!
Please keep in mind that the numbering of this document will change from time to time due to editing. As People tell me about things and we find out new tricks, this will be updated.
Let’s get to it!
1. Download the Android SDK. http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html
2. For this tutorial you will need a windows machine. It will work on a Mac running windows.
3. Extract the Zip file you downloaded above to your C Drive (c:\).
4. Go to your C Drive and rename the folder you extracted above to AndroidSDK.
5. On your phone, click Settings > Applications > Development and make sure USB Debugging is on.
6. Plug your phone into your computer via USB cable (make sure your phone is on).
7. Now open a command prompt window. Once your phone is plugged in and it has installed the drivers correctly. Click start (if using XP click on run and type in CMD) in the search box type in cmd and press enter.
8. Type in the following commands into the command prompt window. Press enter after each line:
cd\
cd AndroidSDK\tools\
adb devices
9. You then see some text pop up about Daemons and stuff, and then it should display your serial number.
10. You can now unplug you phone cause it’s time for the fun stuff…..
11. You must now create a GoldCard. A GoldCard is what we will use to allow your phone to be downgraded. I will use the term GC for the remainder of this tutorial to refer to a GoldCard.
12. Put the Micro SD card you want to use for your GC in your phone. Keep in mind this card will be formatted and erased so you may want to make a backup of its content before you begin. This process may not work with the SanDisk card that came with the phone. You may need a Kingston Micro SD card. You will also need some form of card reader.
13. With the Micro SD card in the phone. On your phone. Click menu>Settings>SD and Phone storage.
14. Click on unmount SD.
15. Once it unmounts, click on Format SD Card. (Please keep in mind that some memory cards don’t work, and this will erase all data on your SD Card so back all the data up first to your computer)
16. Go back to your homescreen.
17. Click the menu button>settings>Applications>Development.
18. Turn on USB Debugging.
19. Plug your phone back into your PC.
20. Once your phone is plugged in and it has installed the drivers correctly. Click start (if using XP click on run and type in CMD) in the search box type in cmd and press enter.
21. Type in the following commands into the command prompt window: (we will do this again to make sure the phones connected correctly.)
cd\
cd AndroidSDK\tools\
adb devices
22. If you see the serial number show up then we are good to go.
23. In that same command prompt window type in(there is a space between cat and the /):
adb shell
cat /sys/class/mmc_host/mmc1/mmc1:*/cid
24. A Code will appear. Ex. 03534443553032878000e45d580098g6
25. Write down that code. EXACTLY 100% the SAME!
26. Double check it. THEN TRIPLE CHECK IT!
27. Go to http://hexrev.soaa.me. Type in the code from the step before and click submit.
28. It will reverse the code and add the appropriate 00’s to it. Before this was a more lengthy and difficult process. This site does it automatically. YAY. Ex. 009800583de400804732305453445363
29. Make sure you write that new number down. Copy and paste it so that it’s perfect.
30. On your computer go to: http://psas.revskills.de/?q=goldcard
31. Type in your e-mail address twice.
32. Type in your CID. This is the number we generated in step 28. Paste it so that its Perfect.
33. Type in the image code, and then click Generate code.
34. In a few minutes you will receive an e-mail with an attachment. Save that attachment some where safe. Don’t change it at all. It should be called goldcard.img, or something along those lines.
35. Now you need to download HxD Hex Editor. goto http://download.cnet.com/HxD-Hex-Editor/3000-2352-10891068.html?part=dl-HxDHexEdi&subj=uo&tag=button
36. Install it.
37. Unplug your phone. Then turn it off or unmount the SD card.
38. Take your Micro SD card out of the phone. Put it into an adapter or into a card reader.
39. Plug it into your PC.
40. To note. You will now have your MicroSD card. Plugged into a separate SD card adapter and plugged into your computer. Separate from your phone. Your phone should not be plugged into your PC.
41. **make sure you run as admin. In windows 7 To do this right click run as administrator**Now open HxD that we downloaded and installed in step 36.
42. Click on extra>open disk
43. Under Physical Disk select Removable Disk (your SD card you just put into the computer). Make sure to uncheck “Open as Read Only”. Click OK.
44. Goto the Extra tab again and click Open Disk Image. Open up the goldcard.img that you saved from your email. You should now have two tabs, one is the SD card (Removable Disk) and the other is the goldcard.img
45. Press OK when prompted for Sector Size 512 (Hard Disks/Floppy Disks).
46. Click on the goldcard.img tab.
47. Click on edit>select all.
48. Click on edit again, and select copy.
49. Click on the removable Disk tab (your SD card)
50. Select all of the random numbers and hex code from 00000000 to 00000170 then click on edit>paste write.
51. Click on file>save.
52. You can now close HxD
53. To test what we’ve done, take the card out and put it back in.
54. If it worked it will allow you to see the drive and open it.
55. If it tells you that the drive is damaged and it need to be formatted in order to open it, format it and start over from step 41.
56. Take your newly created GoldCard out of the adapter and put it back in your phone.
57. It is now time to perform the downgrade process.
58. Reboot your phone after the MicroSD card aka. Gold Card is back in your phone.
59. Download HTC Sync while your phone is rebooting. Go here: http://www.htc.com/uk/SupportDownload.aspx?p_id=283&cat=3&dl_id=933
60. Once the download is done. Install it.
61. This worked fine for me in Windows XP but windows 7 gave me some trouble. Some people have been able to get it to work in Windows 7.
62. Once done, download the official HTC Hero RUU: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=XDXZYP7F
63. Once that’s done downloading plug your phone into your PC.
64. Once plugged in pull down the window shade(notification bar) and click on HTC Sync.
65. Sync should now start doing things and say that it is connected.
66. **the gold card should still in the phone which will be plugged into your PC.
67. Now locate the RUU you downloaded in step 62
68.***run as admin in Vista and 7*** Open the file. Follow the onscreen procedure. (if you get any errors try on an XP machine. If XP machine doesn’t work. Then recreate the gold card)
69. Your phone is now downgraded.
70. It is now time to do the actual Root. Please remember that at this point you may void your warranty by doing this. CONTINUE AT YOUR OWN RISK!
71. Your phone should now be unplugged from your computer.
72. On your phone. Press the menu button, click settings>applications, make sure that unknown sources is checked. This will allow the phone to install applications from unknown sources obviously.
73. Go to settings>SD Card and phone storage, click unmount SD Card.
74. Then click Format SD Card. After this is done it should automatically remount.
75. Plug the phone into your computer.
76. Pull down the window shade, click on SD card>mount.
77. Download these 2 files:
http://zenthought.org/system/files/asset/2/flashrec-1.1.3-20091107-2.apk
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=WP29CWHK
78. You should now put some thought into a ROM** see step 94 for more info on ROMS**. And Download one. Make sure it’s meant for the hero GSM. Save the 2 Files above to your computer.
79. Copy the 2 files (and your ROM) to the root of the SD Card. Root = directly on the SD Card not in a folder.*** DO NOT PUT THE FILES IN A FOLDER!!!!***
80. Unplug your phone from your PC.
81. Go to the android market and download a file manager. Either Astro or Linda File Manager. I use Astro. (for some reason I could not get WiFi to work after the downgrade and your phone will not have the proper network settings so your 3G wont work. I had to use HTC sync rather than astro file manager to install the Flashrec.apk. This worked fine. If you need help with this post in the comments or on android forums)
82. Open the file manager and locate the files on your SD Card. This will be a simple process. I would describe in more detail but everyone will be slightly different.
83. Locate the FlashRec.apk. Click on it.
84. It will ask you if you want to run the file. Click yes. Install the FlashRec.
85. Open the application. You should be able to do it right in the file manager but you may have to go to your app menu.
86. Click on Backup Recovery Image. Wait for it to finish…
87. Once this is done. Click on the empty text box in FlashRec. Type in that box:
/sdcard/recovery-RA-hero-v1.5.2.img (if you can not click on the flash recovery image button that means you did not copy the file over to the SD card. Plug it back into the PC and make sure its on there)
88. Then click on “Flash Recovery Image”. Newer versions of FlashRec may be slightly different but should generally be the same.
89. Wait for it to finish.
90. Once done. Turn off your phone.
91. Turn it back on in recovery mode by holding the Home and Power Buttons. Keep holding them until you see the recovery screen.
92. If you see this menu (text with a background) your phone is now technically rooted! You will now need to load a rom onto the phone in order to do anything.
93. Now its time to load a ROM.
94. You should already have done some research about what ROM you want to use. I have used, Villian 10. But you can use any GSM Hero ROM you want. There is a bunch out there. You can find ROMS at: http://androidforums.com/all-things-root-hero/
95. Download the ROM you want to use if you haven’t already. If you already put the ROM on the SD card. Then continue to step 100.
96. Plug your phone back into your computer.
97. Pull down the window shade and mount your SD Card.
98. Copy over the ROM to your SD Card. This file should be a ZIP file. Leave it that way. Don’t extract it or anything just put the zip on the root of your SD Card. See step 79 for the definition of ROOT if you don’t remember.
99. On the SD Card. Right click>Rename on the ROM file you just put on the SD CARD. And rename it to Update. Make sure the file type is maintained to .zip. *If the icon changed after renaming its most likely that you accidently deleted the.zip after the filename simply right click it and click on rename again and type update.zip.*
100. Unplug your phone. Turn it off.
101. Turn the phone on in Recovery mode by holding down the Home Button and Power Button.
102. Select Wipe form the menu.
103. Do a wipe of factory reset, dalvik, and ext partition.
104. click back.
105. Select Apply Update.zip
106. Once this is done, select reboot. This will take a LONG time to boot. If It is booting for longer that 15 minutes it may have froze. Go back to step 101 and start again make sure you do the wipes, they are very important.
107. Your phone is now fully rooted and should now be working properly. You may notice that your phone is working but you have no 3G or HSDPA. If this is the case continue on. If you do have 3G then you’re done.
108. once the phone is booted.
109. click menu>settings>wireless and networks>Mobile Networks>Access Point Names>menu>New APN>
110. fill in the info:
NAME: Telus
APN: sp.telus.com
MMSC: http://aliasredirect.net/proxy/mmsc
MMS Proxy: 74.49.0.18:80
Tethering APN: isp.telus.com
All other field should be blank.
111. click back to save the settings
112. The phone should acquire a 3g/hsdpa connection within a few minutes. If it doesn’t reboot the phone.
113. You are pretty much done! unless your a Telus User. Telus users may experience and issue where you will not be able to dial *611 (the number to call telus from your telus phone) or some numbers with a 1 infront of them. To fix this we will update the radio firmware.
****NOTE THESE STEPS ARE FOR TELUS USERS ONLY. THIS FILE IS FOR THE GSM HTC HERO ONLY!!!!! IF YOU USE THIS ON ANY OTHER PHONE IT WILL BRICK YOUR PHONE!!!!!****
If you have the problem described above. please do the following steps. The best way to test for this problem is to call the number *611. If you get busy tone then you need to do the following steps.
1) download this file. ***THIS FILE IS FOR THE GSM HTC HERO ONLY!!!!! IF YOU USE THIS ON ANY OTHER PHONE IT WILL BRICK YOUR PHONE!!!!! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED***
2) copy that zip file to the root of your SD card on the phone. *do not unzip or edit any of the files*
3) reboot your phone in recovery mode. (turn off your phone and turn it on holding power and home.)
4) in the recovery menu select flash .zip file.
5) select the file we just put onto the SD card.
6) it will do its thing and take you back to the main recovery menu.
7) click on reboot now.
for me the phone did its thing again, showed a image of a box yellow arrow and a phone, then took me back to the recovery menu.
9) once back at the recovery menu again. I let it sit for a bit to make sure it wasnt doing anything I couldnt see. It never changes so your done.
10) click reboot phone. test call *611 again. If it doesn’t work. Reboot your phone again (phone may require another reboot. no need to go to recovery menu just turn phone off and on).
114. DONE!
All those steps but your DONE! Your phone should now be working fine and should be rooted. You should be able to install ROMS and do all sorts of fun stuff.
You can now install new ROMs. To do this start from step 93. And you should be able to install new roms whenever you want.
I want to thank all of my sources. I did not make this tutorial. I simply took all of the other tutorials out there re worded them, added a bunch of skipped little steps that are common sense for people who are tech savvy.
Thanks to, and please check out:
http://androidforums.com
http://forum.xda-developers.com
http://theunlockr.com
http://b2basiks.com
<');"text-align: center;">http://basikradio.com
Thanks to:
Xyro, and all the other members of Android Forums who gave me all sorts of advice and answered all my questions.
Thank the above sources! They helped me learn this process! Without the support from the people on these forums and places I wouldn&#8217;t have been able to do this.
KNOWN ISSUES:
unable to dial *611 or some number with +1 infront of them : to fix this see step 113 avove
Error 130 when downgrading: This is a problem with the phone not being recognized during the downgrade process. This can be caused by many things. A bad driver install on the machine (re-install them). it could also be your goldcard was not made correctly (make sure you follow all of the instructions above. EXACTLY). If you are using windows 7 then try XP&#8230;.
 
so just got home with a kingston and its STILL not working... :z not too happy. all i get asked when checking in the computer is to format it. FRUSTERATING!!!!

I tried with a lexar card reader, no go. so i put it in the adaptor that came with th kingston card. and that into a generic card reader and no go. time to find a reader built in to a computer?
 
Upvote 0
so just got home with a kingston and its STILL not working... :z not too happy. all i get asked when checking in the computer is to format it. FRUSTERATING!!!!

I tried with a lexar card reader, no go. so i put it in the adaptor that came with th kingston card. and that into a generic card reader and no go. time to find a reader built in to a computer?

Are you sure your using physical disk and not logical disk. If you click on removable disk under the logical section it will not work. it has to be physical.
 
Upvote 0
My phone is unlocked, it will remain unlocked after rooting i assume


to be honest I have no idea weather or not your unlock will stay in tact. I dont know on what level the unlock happens. It may happen base-band level but may happen OS level. you may want to do some research. some one here may know.

As for using the phone as a card reader. That should work find Ive looked around and from everything ive been reading it should be perfect.
 
Upvote 0
Hey guys.
I just installed a rom last night.
I used the Villian10.3 rom

I could not get any card readers to work, but using the phone as a card reader worked just fine.

My phone can curenttly not place calls on the network. I can recive calls, use the internet, and send and recive text mesages. The only exception to this seems to be my home number.

I get an error recording from telus, saying
"8UC2 call cannot be completed as dialed"

I'm on with tech support as I type but he has no clue. Anybody have an ideas as to what this would be from or how to solve it?

Could it be something to do with still having the gold card in? I will try and remove it once I'm off the phone with tech support.

Kurtis
 
Upvote 0
has any one had any luck with there hero's? using my guide? is there anything that needs to be edited or changed?

I have successfully rooted 2 HTC hero's on telus using this method. and 1 more coming this weekend.

DJ, Your root guide was incredible comprehensive. I was able to successfully root an unlocked Telus Hero (I'm running it on AT&T in the US). Just a couple points:

- in step 40, the instructions state: "To note. You will now have your MicroSD card. Plugged into a separate SD card adapter and plugged into your computer. Separate from your phone. Your phone should not be plugged into your phone." Should be: "Your phone should not be plugged into your PC."
- I was unable to downgrade using the 1.76 RUU. After several attempts, I tried the 2.73.405.5 RUU available on xda - worked like a charm. Could've been issues with my hardware, but I don't know. Using the 1.76 RUU, I continually received an error message when flashing that stated I was using the wrong ROM utility.

Either way, great guide - excellent work! Thanks so much! :)
 
Upvote 0
Thanks for this guide, I've been using it to try update my girlfriend's phone from 64bit Windows 7. Here's a couple things you might like to add:

1) Make sure to use the older Windows Vista HTC drivers rather than the ones that come with HTC Sync 2.0.3 or the "Windows 7 compatible" 2.0.33 ones. Neither of them will let the RUU app detect the phone even if syncing works! This part caused me the most grief. Will write up more detail about how to switch the driver explicitly later.

2) Run the RUU file as administrator, or else it won't even load up.

3) I used the 2.73.405.5 RUU as mentioned by the above poster, but after figuring out the driver issue I don't see why the older RUU wouldn't work either.

Finally got through the downgrade portion, working on the actual rooting now, will keep posting updates.
 
Upvote 0

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