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[International / GSM] [HOW TO] Root the GSM/HSPA+ Samsung Galaxy Nexus

Is your phone on the fastboot screen when you click on install-superboot-windows?

I have the same issue. I unlocked the bootloader successfully and the phone rebooted to a normal screen. Once unlocked I assume it stays unlocked until one actually re-locks it? I am unable to get the phone recognized by the PC at the CMD prompt when I boot into the bootloader screen. I assume I have to install the root files from the CMD prompt whilst in the bootloader screen (would this work when you are normally booted up)? I have taken a break after spending countless hours repeatedly reloading the samsung drivers and PDAnet. I have set up the phone as I would like, it communicates with the PC when in normal phone screen. Will I lose my files and setup if I know root, having already unlocked the bootloader? thanks
 
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I have the same issue. I unlocked the bootloader successfully and the phone rebooted to a normal screen. Once unlocked I assume it stays unlocked until one actually re-locks it? I am unable to get the phone recognized by the PC at the CMD prompt when I boot into the bootloader screen. I assume I have to install the root files from the CMD prompt whilst in the bootloader screen (would this work when you are normally booted up)? I have taken a break after spending countless hours repeatedly reloading the samsung drivers and PDAnet. I have set up the phone as I would like, it communicates with the PC when in normal phone screen. Will I lose my files and setup if I know root, having already unlocked the bootloader? thanks

when you go to bootloader does it say unlocked in the bottom of the screen?
 
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when you go to bootloader does it say unlocked in the bottom of the screen?

It says "unlocked"
Almost every time I thought I was launching the bootloader screen I held the volume key with one finger and the power on button, only today did I realize why people are referring to the "three finger salute". For those having issues you need to depress the volume up AND the volume down rocker on the left as well as the power key!!. I will retry when I get home, though on one occasion I was in the correct bootloader screen and the PC was hung in the "waiting for device" at the CMD prompt, when I doubled clicked the root install files for the easy root method.
 
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Hi,

(newbie question)

I have CWM recovery installed on my galaxy nexus (installed w/o ROM MANAGER). I've successfully created a backup. I've tarred the backup directory and moved to file to my computer.

I know I can restore easily with ROM Manager or booting into CWM but I'm trying to learn things the hard way and want to restore command line using fastboot.

I've extracted the tar which contains..

boot.img
cache.ext4.tar
data.ext4.tar
nandroid.md5
recovery.img
system.ext4.tar

When doing some googling the process is to sequentally flash all the img files. However the data and system are not packaged as img files but tars.

So what is the process for a complete restore with fastboot?
 
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Hi,

(newbie question)

I have CWM recovery installed on my galaxy nexus (installed w/o ROM MANAGER). I've successfully created a backup. I've tarred the backup directory and moved to file to my computer.

I know I can restore easily with ROM Manager or booting into CWM but I'm trying to learn things the hard way and want to restore command line using fastboot.

I've extracted the tar which contains..

boot.img
cache.ext4.tar
data.ext4.tar
nandroid.md5
recovery.img
system.ext4.tar

When doing some googling the process is to sequentally flash all the img files. However the data and system are not packaged as img files but tars.

So what is the process for a complete restore with fastboot?

I understand what you are trying to do. I am not sure if it can be done and I would warn you that flashing things in the bootloader/fastboot is the most risky thing you can do on your device. If you screw up a flash in recovery it is fixable (I've yet to see a time it isn't) If you flash something in the bootloader that say makes the bootloader corrputed then you have a brick and I am not sure it would be recoverable.

Different recoveries will make nandroids different ways so you would need to find a way to make the tar files img files based on the recovery they were made by (I would assume the most current version of CWM) and flash those.

You can always flash a recovery via fastboot so even if you change recoveries and want to get back to a previous nandroid you made you can flash an older recovery without issues.
 
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Sorry again but i have a noob question. How do u install the naked samsung driver from the folder you download?

Ivan,

I put some pretty detailed notes for how I did that under the "Unlocking The Bootloader" section (click the "Show" button underneath that section and then the "Show" button under step "F").

Hopefully, that'll help.

Cheers!
 
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I had the freakiest experience doing this last night. Got my phone yesterday and was pleased to see that there's decent 4g reception in my house. Like any good Nexican, the first thing I wanted to do was get root and CWM going.

I unlocked the bootloader and used Paul's easy superboot script, which worked like a charm.

I reboot and there's my superuser, but my phone won't connect to 3g or 4g!

Airplane mode on/off a million times, phone on/off a million times. I was freaking out that I had fried my radio or SIM. I flashed everything back manually using fastboot and the factory image.

Went to bed at 3AM, frustrated and worried, and wake up to see that it was due to the nationwide network problems!

It's now rooted and getting good reception again. Phew!

So either I broke Verizon's network when I rooted, or I have epic timing and Verizon's network went down in the twenty minutes it took me to root.

Thanks to the OP for the awesome guide.
 
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I had the freakiest experience doing this last night. Got my phone yesterday and was pleased to see that there's decent 4g reception in my house. Like any good Nexican, the first thing I wanted to do was get root and CWM going.

I unlocked the bootloader and used Paul's easy superboot script, which worked like a charm.

I reboot and there's my superuser, but my phone won't connect to 3g or 4g!

Airplane mode on/off a million times, phone on/off a million times. I was freaking out that I had fried my radio or SIM. I flashed everything back manually using fastboot and the factory image.

Went to bed at 3AM, frustrated and worried, and wake up to see that it was due to the nationwide network problems!

It's now rooted and getting good reception again. Phew!

So either I broke Verizon's network when I rooted, or I have epic timing and Verizon's network went down in the twenty minutes it took me to root.

Thanks to the OP for the awesome guide.

You are most welcome! :)

I'm hoping / guessing that you just happened to experience a coincidental outage in your area...

Installing the root binaries shouldn't do anything at all until and unless you use them (and then, of course, it depends on what uses them).

Welcome to the GNex root club :)!

Cheers!
 
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If I softboot to root, can I still receive the OTA updates or are those just out on a rooted phone?

Welcome to AF :D

If you want to receive OTA updates and root the best chance to receive them woudl be softbooting CWM.

There has been discussion that it could still prevent you from getting a OTA update depending on what is check by the update proir to committing, but from what I have seen with other phones I don't believe that will be the case.
 
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I have unlocked, flashed Clockwork Mod and have done a backup, but for whatever reason I can't push the Super User. It keeps telling me that my device is not found. Any ideas?

Cincybearcatfan,

I'm guessing its the "adb push..." command that's failing?

Which USB drivers have you installed and what state is your phone in when you are trying this (i.e., which rooting method)?

Thanks!
 
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questions about internal sd card being wiped during the root process...

-is there a to get root but still keep your internal sd card contents?
-it only wipes internal sd card contents when unlocking the bootloader, it won't wipe every time you update a rom?

hopefully there is a way to gain root without wiping the internal sd card in the future. having to back up over 20gb of data (in my situation) and then put it back on the phone is an annoyance. if it needs to be done i can understand, just hope i don't have to do it every time i update after initially rooting.
 
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please help rooted galaxy nexus with odin followed all the steps but when phone was supposed to reboot it did not go past boot screen now its stuck that way with picture of unlocked lock on the bottom please adcise what to do

Cedric,

Welcome to the AndroidForums!

I've not yet used Odin for flashing my device (this is my first Samsung)...so, I'm not exactly sure what steps you followed to root.

I too, got a boot loop that sounded similar to your when I tried some of the GSM rooting methods on my VZW LTE GNex, but pulling the battery and rebooting fixed things for me.
 
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questions about internal sd card being wiped during the root process...

-is there a to get root but still keep your internal sd card contents?
-it only wipes internal sd card contents when unlocking the bootloader, it won't wipe every time you update a rom?

hopefully there is a way to gain root without wiping the internal sd card in the future. having to back up over 20gb of data (in my situation) and then put it back on the phone is an annoyance. if it needs to be done i can understand, just hope i don't have to do it every time i update after initially rooting.

Well, let me qualify what I'm about to say with this: you need to unlock your bootloader at least once in order to root, and that will wipe your device.

Next, you can use the ClockworkMod method of rooting that either flashes CWM or soft-boots it, and you install the su.zip root package to insert the root binaries (su and Superuser.apk) onto your phone's /system partition.

That method and even the ones involving Superboot don't wipe your device...

Discussing the device wipes (specifically the "SD card") for a custom ROM is a little trickier since usually part of the installation process for installing a custom ROM does include some wipe operations. You'll have to consult the dev's particular ROM thread for information on whether that is necessary for any given ROM.

I have read a few things over on XDA about a tool (Super Wipe) that reformats some of your partitions so that wiping the "SD card" is not necessary. That's a little too much for me to bite-off at this point in time, but you can read about it and research in this particular ROM thread: [ROM] Android Revolution HD
 
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If I might weigh in here. P3Droid's method flashed CWRecovery before the "fastboot oem unlock" command since _I think_ he said that would prevent a total data loss, i.e. it wouldn't wipe the partition on the phone in either /sdcard/ and/or /data/media; or better some of your saved photos, etc.

Also I'd like to add for the CDMA/LTE version (even though the GSM/CDMA sections are still being cleaned up), that sometimes when you issue the "fastboot boot [name of your CDMA boot].img" command the VZW phone might hang there, or worse boot into the OS. At that point, go ahead and do what you need to do to get it to boot, then reboot into fastboot/bootloader mode and start over from that point in the instructions. From there on you will get a harmonious outcome.

On the other hand, since most of the custom roms for this device now have a 'boot.img' file with "ro.secure=0" already set in the ramdisk, you could go ahead and flash the unsecured 'boot.img' file anyways via "fastboot flash boot [name of your boot file].img" and then not have the 'hang' at all. Again a more harmonious outcome.

good luck
 
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Is anyone else having problems, after the superboot install, with wifi? Everything is working on my phone except wifi. Not wifi TETHER (they have a new build of that that works, btw.) But actual wifi.

I can connect to the network, get an IP address, but can't ping the gateway. I've tried multiple different networks, turning on/off mobile data, everything. (Mobile data works fine too.) I'm stumped on this one. Going to try to un-root one of the phones and see if it's some sort of hardware issue or if it's actually caused by rooting.

The same problem here.
 
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