• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Root [Guide] S-OFF and ROOT HTC Desire with Revolutionary - Updated

The first problem is that Minitool is rubbish. We recommend GParted - there's a guide to using it in the All Things Root Guide sticky post. I tend to trust 4Ext Touch recovery to partition cards as well - more so than CWM (but I trust that much more than Minitool!). You should also use Ext4 or Ext3 rather than Ext2.

As for the rest, I need to read your post again (on TapaTalk and was interrupted).
 
Upvote 0
Ok, not sure what you've done. Wiping user data should not do that unless you've used Titanium Backup to convert some system apps to user apps (if you have, then a factory reset will delete them!). Please don't take this wrong, but I recommend learning a bit more about this stuff before you try changing things - for example, Titanium has nothing to do with moving apps to ext partitions. Being S-Off means there is nothing to stop you messing the system up if you don't know what is ok to do and what is not.

Most important question: did you take a backup from recovery (a "nandroid" backup)? If so, restore that and you are back to where you were when the backup was made. Beware when partitioning, as that usually wipes the card (where your backups are!), so always back up the card first.

If you have no nandroid and you have wiped data from recovery then there is nothing left to lose. In that case you may as well flash a custom ROM. If you want to use an ext partition to gain space you'll need to do this anyway, as the default HTC ROM doesn't support the scripts needed for this. In this case I'd recommend redoing the partitioning first, choosing a ROM, then installing that. Read the root memory faq (linked in the same sticky thread) first.

If you could give a little more detail on what does work we might be able to come up with another solution (all I know now is that 2 things don't work). But I have to go offline now.

One other, slightly more major way, would be to reflash to stock using a RUU - but choose the right one (a recent unbranded Froyo or the Gingerbread upgrade). This will unroot and remove your recovery, but you'll still be S-Off so can redo those. It's more major, but for getting the phone working quickly might involve learning less. This also erases all user data, and you wouldn't be able to restore a Titanium Backup until you'd rooted again.

Without more info on the status those are the ideas I can come up with.

Good luck - I'll check in later when I can.
 
Upvote 0
Hi,


The memory issue is now really an inconvenience and I have made the choice to root my phone, however I just don't feel confident enough to start the process. I have read this thread several times but there are too many technical terms used which I don't really understand.


My aim is to root my device so I can remove/freeze some of the apps that came with the device (e.g. Flickr, Footprints, Friend Stream, etc) that I have never used, also to extend the phone memory over to a partition on the SD Card for extra storage.


There are a lot of terms that I am not familiar with and feel lost in all this (e.g. sticky post, md5, recovery, img, etc).


I am on Win 7 and below are the details of my phone device,


BRAVO PVT3 SHIP S-ON
HBOOT-0.93.0001
MICROP- 051d
TOUCH PANEL-SYNT0101
RADIO- 5.11.05.27
Aug 10 2010



I would appreciate if you could tell me what I would need to start and complete the process successfully. Any specific Guides that I would need to read.


I know the threads have very useful steps and discussions, but I get lost in all the different questions that others have asked.



Many Thanks
 
Upvote 0
Sorry, on my phone so can't easily post links. A sticky post is a thread that remains at the top of the list in this forum regardless of when the last post was. So look for a thread called Desire All Things Root Guide on the first page of this forum's list of threads and that's it. That one is also the red link in my signature.

In that thread you'll find links to posts explaining some of the terminology. I'd also recommend reading "[faq] Rooting".

Recovery is a small program which is intended to help you fix things if there is a problem with your Android installation. The one that comes with the phone doesn't let you do much, so we replace it with a custom version which does a lot more, including letting you modify your software and take system backups.

Don't worry about "image" - img is just the file type here. Copying an image means filling a particular partition with the contents of the .img file (which may be a single program, or a set of files).

There's a thread that explains md5 checking linked from the ATR Guide thread.

Don't rush - it's important to know what you are doing before trying it.
 
Upvote 0
Hi,

Excuse my ignorance, but this step is not clear at all (Step 5) Run Revolutionary).


I assume the phone will have to be connect with the USB cable to the PC/Laptop, but does not mention in what state the phone should be in (switched off, Hboot, switched on as normal???)


Maybe this was covered in another place but I must have missed it.


Also, at what point do i use the Root file from "4 b)"?



Thanks for your help on this.
 
Upvote 0
I have an HTC desire, for which I have been following your excellent guide through steps 1-5.

Proceeding onto step 6, I entered HBOOT, went to the fastboot screen and connected my phone to my PC, whereupon the notification changed to FASTBOOT USB as expected.

I moved the image files (Both the Amon-RA that I intended to use and the Revolutionary) to the c: root directory, and typed the fastboot sequence... at which point everything goes awry;

My Windows 7 PC simply refuses to recognise 'Fastboot' as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file. So I am unable to load a custom recovery through fastboot... and therefore cannot root!!

What can I do to get this fastboot to work or to bypass this issue entirely?
 
Upvote 0
Hi,

Excuse my ignorance, but this step is not clear at all (Step 5) Run Revolutionary).


I assume the phone will have to be connect with the USB cable to the PC/Laptop, but does not mention in what state the phone should be in (switched off, Hboot, switched on as normal???)


Maybe this was covered in another place but I must have missed it.


Also, at what point do i use the Root file from "4 b)"?



Thanks for your help on this.


I didn't get a reply to the above, would you please let me know.

Thanks
 
Upvote 0
Hi guys! I managed to get to 3 when realising i cant download clockworkmod because the 'Useful Downloads thread' is not working. Hopefully the links further down aren't dead either. Can someone help me out? Thanks In Advance!
It's working fine for me.

It is password protected to prevent leaching of Rasta's bandwidth. The username is in the thread, and the current password is in the last post.
 
Upvote 0
Have you installed the fastboot command on your pc (early step in tutorial - part of the SDK on Windows IIRC)?

Fastboot is both a program on the computer and a mode on the phone.

Ahhh.. No, sorry. How should I do that? .. "part of the SDK on Windows IIRC??" For those non-teckies, a link to a quickstep tutorial, or at least an explanation would be good. Sorry for being dim, :D

OK.. Installed SDK tools and now going to try Fastboot again.
 
Upvote 0
Ahhh.. No, sorry. How should I do that? .. "part of the SDK on Windows IIRC??" For those non-teckies, a link to a quickstep tutorial, or at least an explanation would be good. Sorry for being dim, :D
Sorry, it's hard to post links from TapaTalk while travelling, which is where I was when I sent that.

But it's step 3 of this very guide: it tells you to go to the adb and fastboot faq (and provides a link) and to follow the setup instructions. The setup instructions are the second item in that faq, "how do I set up my windows PC to use adb and fastboot?".

I can't add a lot to them because I don't use Windows very much at all myself.
 
  • Like
Reactions: marky2864
Upvote 0
Sorry, it's hard to post links from TapaTalk while travelling, which is where I was when I sent that.

But it's step 3 of this very guide: it tells you to go to the adb and fastboot faq (and provides a link) and to follow the setup instructions. The setup instructions are the second item in that faq, "how do I set up my windows PC to use adb and fastboot?".

I can't add a lot to them because I don't use Windows very much at all myself.


Great.. Fastbooted successfully. Now going to root and finally get Jelly Bean onto my Desire! Phew. thanks for all your help (so far):D


Now running Cyanomod 10 successfully. Many thanks. Now just need to sort out the Apps2SD and I'll finally be sorted. Cheers
 
Upvote 0
Hi,

New to the forum but have spent a while reading.
Was following the guide but got stuck at "adding custom recovery", it's probably something simple but in command prompt when I use the command "fastboot flash recovery c:\file location" I get the reply ""fastboot" is not a recognized command".
Any pointers?

Edit: should I be in ADB shell?

Thanks in advance
Hottomato
 
Upvote 0
Hi Hadron, Thanks for the reply.

I have (i believe) installed fastboot.
I think I was in the wrong directory. In the programs files directory c:\Program Files\android-sdk\platform-tools\ there is an application called fastboot.
Am I right in thinking this is what I'm trying to use with the "fastboot flash recovery" command?
i.e. from cmd I should type "cd c:\Program Files\android-sdk\platform-tools"
then from that directory type "fastboot flash recovery c:\Users\Documents\Rooting\recovery.zip" where c:\Users\Document\Rooting\recovery.zip is the file I am trying to flash?

Hottomato

i mean recovery.img not .zip
 
Upvote 0
That sounds about right to me.

Test it by connecting the phone (in fastboot mode) and typing "fastboot devices". That should return the phone's serial number. If you get that, it means that your fastboot program on the PC is working and talking to the phone correctly. I always do this before I use fastboot for anything more serious ;)
 
  • Like
Reactions: hottomato
Upvote 0
The easiest way is to connect the phone to the pc via usb, mount the card from the phone (do HTC call it disk drive mode? It's been a couple of years since I used HTC software) and use windows explorer to copy the file to your sd.

If you've already installed a custom recovery there should be an option to mount the card over usb in the recovery menu, if you don't want to boot back in Android.

Or use a card reader if you have one.
 
Upvote 0
There are two ways to increase storage, both described in the "root memory faq", which is linked from the All Things Root Guide sticky post in this forum (red link in my signature).

Basically these are:

* add an ext-format partition to the card (a linux file format) and a script that will move apks, and often the dalvik cache, to the partition. Many custom ROMs have this script built in, and you can add it to most others.

* use a smaller ROM than the HTC Sense one, then a custom hboot which shrinks the /system partition (where the ROM lives), allowing the space to be added to the /data partition (your "internal storage").

As I say, the guide gives more info on both.

As for removing apps you don't need, if you are S-Off you can simply uninstall them. However, do this with care because sometimes there are other things which depend on them. A safer way is to "freeze" them using Titanium Backup - safer because it is simple to undo - which stops them running. I would always recommend taking a nandroid backup before messing with system apps, just in case you get something badly wrong (the worst mistakes can stop the phone booting, in which case a nandroid restore will fix it).
 
Upvote 0

BEST TECH IN 2023

We've been tracking upcoming products and ranking the best tech since 2007. Thanks for trusting our opinion: we get rewarded through affiliate links that earn us a commission and we invite you to learn more about us.

Smartphones