Root How to Root Your Droid (For Non-Linux/Non-Geeks)

[Droidphann]

Hey guys Im pretty new to Android. This might be a stupid question, but when I get my Droid rooted how will I be able to upgrade to 2.1 when it comes out? Will the rooting prevent me receiving updates? or how will I be able to upgrade in the future? thanks..

 

[slammer]

Droidphann,

Rooting MIGHT stop over the air updates.....not sure. You should look into that before rooting!

 

[Canefan]

I have read countless threads on rooting and flashing various cooked 2.1 ROMs and I want to do this very badly but a couple of things are holding me back.

There seems to be several different methods to rooting, some involving just a few steps, while others are much more complicated with more room to screw up. Why are there so many different ways to root and is the end result the same??

There are a number of different 2.1 versions floating around out there. Is one more stable and bug free than another?

I would try it if I fully understood how to back up my current system and restore it in the event of a screwup. I know that Nandroid is somehow involved in this but again the process is described differently in multiple threads.

I am not well versed in Linux, but I do have a computer science degree (from a LONG time ago) and am typically very good at doing this sort of thing. I just like to have a better understanding of what the steps are before I begin rather than just blindly following a cookbook recipe of steps.

 

[CRPercodani]

Canefan - The reason for all the different root guides is because when we first figured out how to do it we only had access to it through an adb shell, and then we had to use adb to make it local on the DROID. The newer guides with the 2.0.1 update W/ root exploit built in are the best ones to use, and all you need to do is copy the .zip to your sdcard (make sure it is named update OR update.zip if you show file extensions on your computer) then hold x and power when turning your DROID on, when you see the yellow triangle you just hit volume up and half click the camera button at the same time. When you see some options appear use the dpad to select apply update.zip, after it is done you can reboot.

Next step is to get the droidroothelper app which should be in the big 2.1 thread or somewhere on alldroid.org, after you finish flashing everything from it then you can put 2.1 on your DROID, personally I think the first release of it is the most stable, from there you can apply whatever fixes you need to it (keyboard backlight, paid apps, animated wallpapers etc etc). The big 2.1 thread has most of this stuff in pages 4-7, and instructions to fix the keyboard backlight. You will need the Android SDK to use ADB, you use it from cmd which I imagine you know what that is. Do some browsing of the big 2.1 thread and you should find all your answers, anything else shoot me a PM or post in that thread.

 

[dst897]

When I get to this step it tells me Operation not permitted.

mount -o remount,rw -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system

I have no idea what I'm doing wrong.

I am having the same issue. Do not see an post on a solution. Any thoughts?

 

[iamkewl]

I am having the same issue. Do not see an post on a solution. Any thoughts?

Are you in su?

Type su before that and you should get "#" then enter that

 

[Deleted User]

When I go to my Device Manager and look for the A855. The first thing I notice is that there is no "!" next to the name. Then when I go to update the driver and select C:\Android as the folder to browse, it tells me that it is already up to date. Am I doing something wrong here?

EDIT: Nevermind, looks like the phone appears in two different sections under the Device Manager, found the one with the exclamation and successfully updated the drivers. Phone is now rooted

 

[Soulja85]

Do i have to do this before i can view my phones system/memory? I'm trying to install beautiful widgets weather app.

 

[Canefan]

I have read countless threads on rooting and flashing various cooked 2.1 ROMs and I want to do this very badly but a couple of things are holding me back.

There seems to be several different methods to rooting, some involving just a few steps, while others are much more complicated with more room to screw up. Why are there so many different ways to root and is the end result the same??

There are a number of different 2.1 versions floating around out there. Is one more stable and bug free than another?

I would try it if I fully understood how to back up my current system and restore it in the event of a screwup. I know that Nandroid is somehow involved in this but again the process is described differently in multiple threads.

I am not well versed in Linux, but I do have a computer science degree (from a LONG time ago) and am typically very good at doing this sort of thing. I just like to have a better understanding of what the steps are before I begin rather than just blindly following a cookbook recipe of steps.

So I was bored yesterday and thought well - I'll just apply the root update and see what happens. So I did ... and nothing bad.

Then I thought, okay now I'll just try to install DroidRootHelper and see what happens. So I did ... and nothing bad.

Then I thought, let me see if I can make a Nandroid backup of my current 2.0.1 system. Easy. Now I'm getting confident.

So yada yada I have 2.1 running on my phone.

Btw, the new Gallery is absolutely sick. One thing that I haven't seen mentioned is that it links to Picasa and pulls in any galleries that you have on PicasaWeb. I clicked the gallery and thought "whoa - where did all of those pictures come from"? It also does automatic face detection if you are adding a picture to a contact from the gallery. The gallery is a really elegant app now. The live wallpapers are very very cool. Voice entry with the screen keyboard works really well. Overall, very impressed.

 

[odsquad64]

Hi, earlier today I tried to do this from a terminal emulator and after I did
cd /system/bin

mv su osu

cat /data/local/su > su
I got an error, I don't remember exactly, about that location not existing. Then I managed to fat finger my way out of the terminal before I could figure out how to fix it. Ever since then I've had sort of a psuedo sudo if you will. So long as I say su, the terminal doesn't argue with me and pretends to perform an action, but it doesn't actually do the things I tell it to do. I tried removing the terminal from the remembered apps in the super user permissions, but it hasn't asked me to grant it permission again. Anyone have any idea on how to fix this? If not does anyone know if a factory reset would fix it? And would I need to reactivate the phone or anything with Verizon if I did that?

 

[Siz3.thr33]

EDIT: fixed. im rooted

 

[odsquad64]

Let me give some more information to see if anyone can help me. After mv su osu, I can't use su because su isn't anything anymore. I can't go in to fix it because I would need su to fix su. I tried to osu instead, but it says I'm not allowed to, specifically "uid 10046 not allowed to su." Is there any way I could get su back without resetting the phone? (Additionally, would resetting the phone to factory default fix this?)

Thank you

 

[xsylus]

The su command should be stored on your computer under c:\android\tools\system\bin . You also should have downloaded su.zip and should be able to extract that file to said location if needed. If you have the superuser permissions app icon on your phone try running it while going through the steps it may prompt you to authorize the changes at some point. Check the box on the prompt and OK it.

Another option is to download an app called droidroothelper and install it on the phone. It will give you a graphical UI with buttons to mount mtdblock3, su, chmod, etc.

http://alldroid.org/download/file.php?id=898 Droid Root Helper TOOLS

http://alldroid.org/download/file.php?id=897 Droid Root Helper APK

 

[geekabilly]

Here's a guide written for non-linux users on how to root your droid. What you do beyond that, well, I have another thread set up for that. Let's get going!
....


http://www.smilepak.com/temp/Droid_USB_Driver.zip


Once you have all these files downloaded, extract them all into a new folder at C:\Android

You should now connect your Droid to your computer and Mount the SD Card through the phone (A dialogue will pop up on your phone asking to connect your SD Card. Click Mount)

Courtesy of Fadelight:
(go to Device Manager. There you will see your droid (A855) with a yellow "!" next to it. Right click. Select "Update driver" and point it to the android folder. That is where the drivers are.)
.....

I can not get these drivers to load on my W7 64bit machine -- any ideas? I point to the folder, which contains:

WdfCoInstaller01007.dll
WinUSBCoInstaller.dll
WUDFUpdate_01007.dll

but device manager sez it can not find the files --

Thanks for all the help -- a great krewe at work here!

 

[xavious85]

So in the cmd after I type in

"adb shell"

and then type in

"su"

I get

"su: permission denied"

help????

 

[dcskater_12]

Im running Win7 x64 and when I mount my droid and look in device manager, I try to update the driver with the usb driver file, but it says windows cannot find the necessary drivers?
its an AMD 6000+ x2 processor btw

 

[robs67]

After typing cat /data/local/su > su I get the following:
No such file or directory

Can anyone help me out?

 

[Gremlin256]

Thanks for the instructions..

 

[droidman1]

I followed everything, drivers installed, update.zip applied, and when i go to enter in the commands, it doesnt recognize them. On the first command, it says the path could not be specified, and all the rest it says are invalid. Whats wrong?

 

[xsylus]

I followed everything, drivers installed, update.zip applied, and when i go to enter in the commands, it doesnt recognize them. On the first command, it says the path could not be specified, and all the rest it says are invalid. Whats wrong?

When you're in CMD (command prompt) make sure it's pointed to the right location. Typically it defaults to C:\Documents and Settings\yourusername>

Determine where the \Android\Tools directory is and then point CMD to that location.

 

[droidman1]

When you're in CMD (command prompt) make sure it's pointed to the right location. Typically it defaults to C:\Documents and Settings\yourusername>

Determine where the \Android\Tools directory is and then point CMD to that location.

Ok, i did that and the exact same thing happened. Im about to give up, and when i go into recovery mode, it says cannot install update.zip, any ideas?

 

[xsylus]

were you able to install the update.zip before? should only have to install it once. Here's a tool called DroidRootHelper, it's actually meant for putting the unofficial android 2.1 OS on the Droid so it has a lot of features that aren't needed for just rooting but it can be used for rooting. instead of typing the strings into the ADB shell via command prompt DroidRootHelper lets you click buttons to perform the same actions.

Droid root helper - Download from rapidshare.com - Filestube.com

What OS are you using?

BTW: Android 2.1 OS official for the Droid and Droid Eris is rumored to be released on the 22nd so you may want to wait until that update is pushed OTA before rooting your phone.

 

[droidman1]

were you able to install the update.zip before? should only have to install it once. Here's a tool called DroidRootHelper, it's actually meant for putting the unofficial android 2.1 OS on the Droid so it has a lot of features that aren't needed for just rooting but it can be used for rooting. instead of typing the strings into the ADB shell via command prompt DroidRootHelper lets you click buttons to perform the same actions.

Droid root helper - Download from rapidshare.com - Filestube.com

What OS are you using?

BTW: Android 2.1 OS official for the Droid and Droid Eris is rumored to be released on the 22nd so you may want to wait until that update is pushed OTA before rooting your phone.

Im running 2.0.1, the recovery screen says rooting your phone, installation complete, then it reboots. I havent entered any commands into any program, but i thought it was successful. Then when i go to better terminal emulator, it says su: uid 10090 not allowed to su. What should i do? It would say something like no su detected before this, so i know something has happened. I dont have busybox or any program like that on my phone.

 

[xsylus]

Sorry, I didn't clarify, I meant what OS are you running on your computer.

So you're using a terminal emulator on the Droid instead of ADB Shell from command prompt?

Another question, under apps menu is there an app called Superuser Permissions?

I've personally never used a terminal emulator on my Droid so I'm not clear on whether that method will work especially since in the guide on the first post you get the su.zip file thus when you're running ADB Shell in command prompt mode and you type su you're actually using the su file from the PC not the phone.

 

[droidman1]

Sorry, I didn't clarify, I meant what OS are you running on your computer.

So you're using a terminal emulator on the Droid instead of ADB Shell from command prompt?

Another question, under apps menu is there an app called Superuser Permissions?

I've personally never used a terminal emulator on my Droid so I'm not clear on whether that method will work especially since in the guide on the first post you get the su.zip file thus when you're running ADB Shell in command prompt mode and you type su you're actually using the su file from the PC not the phone.

Ok. Im running windows vista ultimate 64 bit. I never typed in anything into any program yet. No there is not. I thought that to check if your rooted you do type su from the terminal emulator on the phone.