Root Convince me to Root!!!

[Dregun]

I'm no stranger to smart phones, flashing roms, overclocking CPU's, GPU's and memory. I've flashed the rom on my old HTC Touch when they released WM 6.5 etc etc.

However, I love my Droid and if it wasn't for the fact that I recently got my wife the Droid2 I probably would have just left it alone...but...I can't.

I now want to overclock this sucker and load a different rom..but...I have my reservations. I've seen many threads and articles on how to root the phone and I even helped a co-worker root and flash his Eris but...I have my reservations.

My Reservations are:
Paid apps I could possibly lose
Losing the ability to get OTA updates (even though I think my Droid is finished getting the latest updates now)
Possibly bricking my phone
and....
Installing new Roms every other day...and then bricking my phone

I would love to OC my phone to around 800-900 when I'm using it and down to 200-300 when I'm not and put UD 1.0 (if my phone will let me) so it stops laa..a..gg..g.ginnngg on me at times. My goal is to get familiar with rooting my phone and then tackling the wifes D2 and OC'ing hers to about 1.4 to help reduce some of the Moto app lag she gets.

So convince me.... Whisper into my ear how easy it is to Root the phone, how effortless it is to install a new Rom and how awesome it is to OC the phone and have superuser access. Be a salesmen, use your experiences to sway me to tackle these projects. Tell me how you would root the phone and what programs you would use to load roms..oc..etc etc

Best of all, the worse retaliation that could happen is the phone locks up and a post with a shows up asking for help on the forum. Then if it Bricks you guys can help me decide what phone I should get next

THANKS!!!

 

[Papadroid]

The Droid is by far one of the most root friendly phones around. Let me deal with your reservations one at a time:

Paid apps: The ROMs available for the Original Droid are excellent and built very well. The chances of having a problem with this is slim to none. The only time I've seen this issue is while running leaked software from Verizon such as running 2.2 before 2.2 was released.

Losing the ability to get OTA updates: Once you're running a custom ROM, trust me, you won't look back. As a matter of fact you'll probably be ticked that you didn't do it sooner because of the performance boost you're going to see. Also the Devs are always ahead of the OTAs. You'll have the latest and greatest much earlier than those running stock.

Possibly bricking your phone: It is nearly impossible to brick your phone and chances are if you think you're bricked, you're not. With RSD lite you can flash sbf files and restore your phone. The only way I know of bricking a Droid is by using RSD lite and removing power to the phone during the flashing process.

Installing new ROMs every other day: Sorry I can't help you with that one, although lately I haven't really been flashing much because I've been so happy with my current setup.

I've been telling my brother-in-law to root his phone for months now. He's an IT engineer and is very familiar with Linux. But because he's always on his phone he just never took the time to root it. After the last OTA his phone was having problems and he called me to ask what he should do. The first thing I asked was if he did a factory reset after the OTA because that usually fixes the problem. Since he had to reset the phone he just went ahead and rooted it. He felt like an idiot for not doing it sooner because of how much better his phone ran and the improved battery life he was getting.

 

[Lock-N-Load]

look at the size of just the Root subforum.. that should be convincing enough

 

[myko14]

I rooted using EasyRoot a long time ago. Yesterday, just for S&Gs I used RSD to flash an .sbf from Verizon to unroot my phone. I then used Soup or Root to root again. I was running a custom ROM with all my user data and apps loaded in about half an hour.

The worst part of rooting your phone is that there are so many awesome ROMs and devs that you won't want to put your phone down. It is like the day you got it all over again.

 

[istolvampire]

look at the size of just the Root subforum.. that should be convincing enough

This says it all.

 

[The_Chief]

If you're happy with Verizon's watered-down, stripped down version of Android, then don't root and let your phone stay "stale". But if you want top performance and all of Android's bells & whistles, then ROOT & ROM. The developers have taken all the best of Android and optimized it for stability and performance. Verizon wants you to drive your Droid like a Buick and we're all around the Ferrari level!

Root it, ROM it, overclock it and customize it. And it'll never get stale: as every new ROM comes out (or even the one you love gets updated) the phone re-invents itself all over again and it's like new!

I have not met a single person who successfully rooted and ROMmed and then went back to stock in disgust... those that had problems likely didn't follow the instructions correctly or didn't wipe. And as has been noted: you have to TRY to brick your Droid, and even THEN I'm not sure it can be done. The vast majority of us wonder why we waited so long to do it.

 

[CBLJazz]

All of your reservations are accurate.
True believer "rooters" don't fully accept forever stock people.

Imho, it comes down to one thing.... the play factor.

i Just rooted 2 days ago- had all of your reservations and more. but my stock phone was boring and slow.
after you get all of the cool apps and games you're eventually left with a boring phone that has 10 times more potential that stock can ever achieve.

rooting your phone makes it fun again.
you know you're bored.
risk it.
you are on the cusp of having fun again.
stock droid 1's are boring and slow.

 

[UBRocked]

I would have sold my Droid a long time ago if rooting it wasn't an option. Pumped up to 1.1Ghz and having a much better ROM + theme on it makes for an "acceptable" device compared to some of the stellar devices that are out now. I'm still upgrading soon, but I have a device that I can comfortable use until the device I want is available.

That may not seem like a "glowing" statement regarding our droids...but rooted, my phone is showing it's age (I know it's just one year...) so I'm pretty sure that I'd be going nuts if I had a stock D1.

 

[markc2]

Speed and themes. Stock is just ugly and slow. Rooted, themed UD1 is fast and pretty.

 

[bigdroiddog]

We should not have to convince you, do some reading and you will be convinced by all the knowledge you will find in these forums, just hop on over to rooted side.

 

[Dregun]

Well...I did it; but not without some serious "Oh ****" moments!

Friday Night: 1:00 am
I used the "one click" root method that was posted here, after a couple of tries my phone was rooted. I expected this method to be much quicker and better then it was; however I understand the limitations in the scripts and it worked so no complaints.

However the problems happend when I tried to install a different rom 1:30am. I followed all of the instructions I could find. I download UD 1.0 renamed it as a .zip file and made sure I double checked my settings so that it wasn't hiding file names. I also made sure I put the file in the root of my phone and never opened up the .zip file on either device.

Rebooted the phone into recovery mode and tried to install "update.zip", unfortunatly it wouldn't as it said something about "whole signature". I did a lot of searching on the net for that particular problem but everything said I didn't name my file correctly or it wasn't in my root or other things that I know were correct. I downloaded 3 different roms multiple times, so much so that I forgot what ROM was on my SD card (was now 3:30am)

Then found an article saying I was getting this error because I didn't have the proper recovery file on my phone. Great, downloaded RSD, the Recovery file, followed the instructions (read them 3 times first, then each step individualy as I went) and loaded it onto my phone and then rebooted it....

BAD IDEA!! My phone would show a dead battery, it wouldn't load the OS at all and I knew I really messed up my phone!

Did another search and found out since my phone was already rooted and that Recovery gave me root access it kinda messed up the phone. So searching the net again someone offered a solution whereby I flash my phone with a stock rom. Nervously I did and everything went pretty good and within 30 minutes I was back to having a fully functional phone. (5:30am)

My phone was much faster at this point, it felt clean and responsive; a surprising improvement considering it was just stock at that point. I almost left it, however after seeing the improvement with a stock rom..and learning so much I decided to try again.

Saturday: Midnight
Tried the "One Click" root method again but this time I couldn't get it to work. I tried both versions of the method and cleaned my computer of the Souproot folder each time but nothing.
1:00 am Found an app on the market that would root my phone, was lucky that the base version I had was NOW compatable with it. The simplist root known to man, wow was that impressive!! After that I downloaded ROM Manager and followed more instructions I found on the net.

The phone rebooted into Clockwork recovery, I did a backup and then put the phone back to factory defaults. Installing the ROM was now painless no signature errors, it installed just fine and then rebooted showing a Blue eye and then forming an X. Was so excited until...it just kept looping..GREAT! 1:00AM

Searched the internet and all that showed up was "How to unbrick your phone" and it was telling me I would need to put my phone back to stock again...grr!! Now, someone might have noticed that earlier I said I did a backup and reset the phone to factory defaults...but ..never cleared my cahche. So, I cleared my cache, did another factory wipe and then proceeded to install my update.zip.

SUCCESS 2:00 AM
Turns out that the last rom I downloaded to my SD card was Chevy's Simply Stunning (It certainly is). This rom has been a CHAMP, not a single force close for any standard services or apps! So I then purchased and installed SetCPU and now have that setup and running.

Although I would love to test out some new ROMS (Particularly the acclaimed Shadow and Ultimate Droid ones) I am extremly happy with Simply Stunning! Although I expected to see more out of the phone now that it was rooted and a custom rom was installed it still out performs what my standard Droid did.

However I did have 1 issue with information on this site that I think needs to be updated. When I first tried putting my phone into recovery mode I was greated with a simple Triangle Icon with an explanation point in the center of it and a phone next to it. This confused me because none of the instructions that I saw on this site mentioned this and I thought I had an error. I wasted a lot of time searching the net to find out what was wrong until I found out that I had to hold the volume up and camera button at the same time to get into the Recovery menu. I guess that should have been my first clue that I had the wrong Recovery file on my phone..but again..I didn't see anything about it prior.

All in all I'm happy with my success and am itching to install new roms..but I really like Simply Stunning and from what I heard each rom acts differently on each phone and SS is a champ on mine while others have problems with exchange and what not...so for now SS is staying!

 

[The_Chief]

Sorry to hear you had so many problems (I don't trust one-click root programs) but happy that you're finally up and running.

Backup early and often! I can never emphasize enough the importance of having good, CURRENT backups available.

Happy ROMming!