Root Rooted!

[Outsider(Avid HustlaZ)]

Now that we have what it takes to root the DC is there anybody that knows or any DEVs working on some roms/kernals for this baby? Ill tell you what since i been rooted my ram has been over 115mb constently.

 

[rushmore]

The key to making the Charge a great device is getting rid of the slow file system Samsung uses. The Droid X1 and Incredible are considerably faster than the Charge, but should not be.

 

[Outsider(Avid HustlaZ)]

Thats y im hopeing someone is making a custom rom to make everything faster

 

[shadowdude777]

We should not be worrying about making a custom ROM per se. That's a waste of time. What we should be doing is making every effort possible to port CyanogenMod 7 over to the Charge. CM7 has an ext4 filesystem which is far better than the crappy RFS that comes with every Samsung phone and bogs it down.

 

[tarheelmike]

Please share how you got root. I am a complete idiot when it comes to this so I need it really simple. I tried using Z4 Root, but I do not think it will work on the DC. Do you have a fairly simple process to achieve root access?

 

[shadowdude777]

[Instructions] How To Root The Verizon Samsung Droid Charge | Android News, Reviews, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets, Tips, Mods, Videos, Tutorials - Android Police

You must be on ED1 to do this. Check out my thread where more information has been posted including how to get back to ED1. http://androidforums.com/charge-all-things-root/336154-do-not-install-ed2-update.html

 

[tarheelmike]

Thanks Shadow. I guess I am too technically stupid/afraid to trying to recover to ED1. If I am able to achieve ED1 recovery, will the Z4 root process work?

 

[JLoftus]

Thanks Shadow. I guess I am too technically stupid/afraid to trying to recover to ED1. If I am able to achieve ED1 recovery, will the Z4 root process work?

Probably... but, if you follow the Odin method posted above, your ED1 image will already be rooted

You will just need to get the SU app from the market, oh and another handful of useful ones from there, e.g. root explorer, Titanium, Barnacle, yadda

 

[shadowdude777]

Thanks Shadow. I guess I am too technically stupid/afraid to trying to recover to ED1. If I am able to achieve ED1 recovery, will the Z4 root process work?

Don't be afraid; Odin is the tool Samsung themselves uses to flash phones. Please don't test this, but I believe that even if you interrupt Odin, you could probably go back into Download Mode and just run it again.

 

[tarheelmike]

Don't be afraid; Odin is the tool Samsung themselves uses to flash phones. Please don't test this, but I believe that even if you interrupt Odin, you could probably go back into Download Mode and just run it again.

what exactly is Odin? How do I get the phone to access Odin? Really Shadow, I am not at all familiar with the code stuff involved in the phone. I really hate to sound so stupid but I would really need step by step rooting for dummies

 

[shadowdude777]

Don't worry, we were all new at rooting at some point and used step-by-step guides. Okay, so you need these drivers: http://droidxcon.moregeekforless.com/Samsung_Mobile_USB_Driver.exe

And Odin and the .tar.md5 files from my link.

Odin is a tool Samsung uses to quickly and easily get the Android OS onto many phones simultaneously in their facility; we're using it to flash a hacked Android OS image to just one phone. First download Android Terminal Emulator and Superuser onto your phone from the Market. Open Odin, put your phone into download mode like so:

1) Pull battery
2) Hold volume down button
3) Plug into computer

It should go to a screen with a yellow triangle and something in Odin should pop up. Some COM text or something with a yellow background. In the PDA part of Odin, pick the .tar.md5 and then hit start. Let it do its thing. Once it's done and it says pass, pull your phone off the computer, put the battery in, and you should be taken to the Android recovery; hit Home to reboot to ED1 which is pre-rooted. You'll just need to block OTAs as follows:

1) Open Terminal Emulator
2) Type "su" (without quotes) and hit enter. Hit allow on the prompt
3) Type "mount -o remount,rw -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock4 /system" (careful here with spaces) and hit enter.
4) Type "cd /system/etc/security"
5) Type "mv otacerts.zip otacerts.old"
6) Exit

Now get out of Airplane Mode and you should be good to go. That last part may not work and you might get the OTA prompt, haven't had a chance to try it, but it won't harm your phone so hopefully it works for you.

 

[tarheelmike]

Don't worry, we were all new at rooting at some point and used step-by-step guides. Okay, so you need these drivers: http://droidxcon.moregeekforless.com/Samsung_Mobile_USB_Driver.exe

And Odin and the .tar.md5 files from my link.

Odin is a tool Samsung uses to quickly and easily get the Android OS onto many phones simultaneously in their facility; we're using it to flash a hacked Android OS image to just one phone. First download Android Terminal Emulator and Superuser onto your phone from the Market. Open Odin, put your phone into download mode like so:

1) Pull battery
2) Hold volume down button
3) Plug into computer

It should go to a screen with a yellow triangle and something in Odin should pop up. Some COM text or something with a yellow background. In the PDA part of Odin, pick the .tar.md5 and then hit start. Let it do its thing. Once it's done and it says pass, pull your phone off the computer, put the battery in, and you should be taken to the Android recovery; hit Home to reboot to ED1 which is pre-rooted. You'll just need to block OTAs as follows:

1) Open Terminal Emulator
2) Type "su" (without quotes) and hit enter. Hit allow on the prompt
3) Type "mount -o remount,rw -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock4 /system" (careful here with spaces) and hit enter.
4) Type "cd /system/etc/security"
5) Type "mv otacerts.zip otacerts.old"
6) Exit

Now get out of Airplane Mode and you should be good to go. That last part may not work and you might get the OTA prompt, haven't had a chance to try it, but it won't harm your phone so hopefully it works for you.

So once I have completed this process, my phone will be reset to ED1, correct? Then I will need to follow the process to achieve root? Would you please be so gracious as to provide me with the step-by-step guide for that as well? Thank you for your patience for someone new to the rooting process. I never really needed root with my Dinc1 but need it on the Charge for the hotspot. Thanks again.

 

[shadowdude777]

The ED1 image I provided is pre-rooted. You don't need to do anything once it's flashed.

But I would recommend making sure to get into Airplane Mode as SOON as you boot into ED1 because then ED2 won't be downloaded and you can use Terminal Emulator to get rid of otacerts.zip (by renaming it, it'll stop working, which is what we want) so you can't get any OTAs.

 

[tpriddy]

Now that we have what it takes to root the DC is there anybody that knows or any DEVs working on some roms/kernals for this baby? Ill tell you what since i been rooted my ram has been over 115mb constently.

115? Before you were rooted was it higher or lower? Are you talking about >settings>about phone>mem info(avail)? Are you hoping a new ROM will let you free up more memory or give you more creative things to do with it?

 

[Outsider(Avid HustlaZ)]

115? Before you were rooted was it higher or lower? Are you talking about >settings>about phone>mem info(avail)? Are you hoping a new ROM will let you free up more memory or give you more creative things to do with it?

My ram was lower before rooting because your able to freeze system apps to free up memory plus i use advanced task killer it helps me..yea im hoping there will be a ROM that will free up more space and have some creative things to add to the charge.

 

[tarheelmike]

The ED1 image I provided is pre-rooted. You don't need to do anything once it's flashed.

But I would recommend making sure to get into Airplane Mode as SOON as you boot into ED1 because then ED2 won't be downloaded and you can use Terminal Emulator to get rid of otacerts.zip (by renaming it, it'll stop working, which is what we want) so you can't get any OTAs.

Shadow,
One last question. So if I complete this process, gain root access and stop OTAs, can I go back into Terminal Emulator and simply type in the original otacerts.zip command so that I can revert to ED2, lose root, and get any future OTAs? Thanks again for the patience.

 

[shadowdude777]

Shadow,
One last question. So if I complete this process, gain root access and stop OTAs, can I go back into Terminal Emulator and simply type in the original otacerts.zip command so that I can revert to ED2, lose root, and get any future OTAs? Thanks again for the patience.

If you want to update the ED2 (which makes you lose root), all you have to do is go into Terminal Emulator and rename otacerts.old to otacerts.zip. Basically, do the steps I listed before for Terminal Emulator (the su, mount, and cd steps) and then on step 4, instead of "mv otacerts.zip otacerts.old", do "mv otacerts.old otacerts.zip".

Then go check for updates and you should be able to get them.