14/Jun r6 riskfreeroot - HTC Desire rooting guide - now with HBOOT 0.80 and OS to 1.21 support

[Guest Silvarbullit]

Rooted! Thanks to Paul and everyone else who contributed!

I had a little bit of fun and games with my Desire but found a few points which might help others when doing this using windows.

First off - I had a Telstra (Australia) branded/supplied Desire with the OTA update (1.16 from memory) for GPS fix and HTBOOT 0.75.

I rooted using r4 and using windows only, I have more than 10 years experience with Linux but didn't want to setup a vm or download a live distro if I could avoid it out of pure laziness.

After reading all 88 pages of the thread I decided to give it a go using a Winxp laptop not my usual Win7 64 bit laptop due to all the negative feedback and problems others were posting. I did however make my goldcard using the win7 laptop which didn't seem to have any problems at all before switching to the winxp laptop for the root.

I installed the latest HTC sync on both machines, downloaded the android SDK and all the components on page one.

I did get the HBOOT 90 error while running step1 but it seemed to repeat the step again automatically which did come up with the error the second time through but did seem to work OK. I got the instructions to go to Recovery mode. I pulled the battery and flipped my gold card out to stick another card with rootupdate.zip on it.

This is where I ran into trouble.

I connected my phone at the FASTBOOT stage but windows kept prompting me for the "Android 1.0" device drivers which I couldn't seem to find anywhere. After trying all the drivers in the HTC drivers folder and searching the android SDK I thought I'd try running the step on my win7 laptop just to see what happened.

Same problem. Needed Android 1.0 drivers!

Fearing I'd bricked my desire, I ran step 1 again on the windows 7 laptop which failed with the version check error 31... I started downloading a ubuntu live cd fearing the worst but figured while I was waiting I'd try running step 2 again WITHOUT POWERING THE PHONE OFF TO CHANGE SDCARD since I didn't use the goldcard the second time around for step 1.

WORKED! My phone was detected as "My HTC" not "Android 1.0" this time so the drivers installed fine.

I had the red triangle screen so I selected recovery, did the wipe steps and then loaded rootupdate.zip off the sdcard... ROOTED! So far everything seems to be working beautifully.

So there is my story on rooting the desire using a Win7 64bit laptop and how I got past the Android 1.0 drivers thing. Try copying rootupdate.zip onto your goldcard and running step 1 and step 2 without powering off to swap cards between changing to FASTBOOT.

Hope that helps others.

[Guest hkfriends]

hi Paul,

I currently have Desire with HK version (including CHT, CHS and Eng Language), and I really want to keep the CHT language. If I root it using this R4 methond. my device will become Eng WWE version.... Is there any way to root but keeping my built-in Language?

[Guest Silvarbullit]

Looks like the GPS fix on the Telstra handsets disappears after rooting :)

Just tested gps using gps test and its back to not working with mobile data turned on again! ;)

I'd still love to know how they managed to break gps on these!

[Guest Neill Alexander]

Just used these instructions to root my Desire. Have signed for ad-free account to show my appreciation. Great work!

:) ;) :D :( :( :D :D

[Guest NisseGurra]

And again, avoid a2sd in you want your phone to be unbricked

[Guest fatwolf]

And again, avoid a2sd in you want your phone to be unbricked

Actually a2sd and a2sd+ both work fine.

The trick is you have to partition your sdcard 1st like before you flash.

If you are already in the reboot loop your phone will boot if you take the sdcard out.

you need a fat32 or vfat partition 1st and the ext3 partition second.

This can be done within linux or using many other partition tools

I used a microsd card to USB converter so it was easy in linux you just need the fdisk and mkfs.ext3 and mkfs.vfat commands.

Windows can't natively make ext3 partitions but there are partitioning tools available that will do it.

Just remember to backup your sdcard 1st as repartitioning the card will wipe it.

I have not tried if using the phone as the sd to usb converter works and i have not tested if the tools exist on the phone already.

[Guest afiorillo]

[...] i have not tested if the tools exist on the phone already.

Not on the phone, but in the recovery console pushed into it. It's the only, safe way to partition your card for A2SD with zero-brain utilization. :)

[Guest afiorillo]

And again, avoid a2sd in you want your phone to be unbricked

This is nonsense, rooting is 90% about achieving A2SD. It works perfectly, usb-damaged phones have other causes.

[Guest fatwolf]

Not on the phone, but in the recovery console pushed into it. It's the only, safe way to partition your card for A2SD with zero-brain utilization. :)

I don't know some people have trouble getting into recovery.

[Guest NisseGurra]

Have to disagree, this rooting process has way to many bricked phones and is not normal.

[Guest afiorillo]

Have to disagree, this rooting process has way to many bricked phones and is not normal.

I agree with you, but the usb-damaged phones ended up with an entire file system portion missing, besides some low-level flags raised: if you look into the A2SD scripts, you'll realize that it cannot be the cause for that mess.

So, there's certainly something wrong with some phone/ROM/people/computer combos, but A2SD doesn't play any role in that.

Take this post as an example: http://android.modaco.com/index.php?s=&amp...t&p=1276515 :)

Edited May 16, 2010 by afiorillo

[Guest neomoz]

Just a quick post to thank paul for his hard work, I rooted my phone over the weekend (0.75 generic uk desire). At first i tried win7 x64 but it failed dead in it's tracks on the HBOOT 90 error. Moved it over to my old winxp laptop and got step1 to work completely, still got the HBOOT 90 error which reading is normal, but looking at the script it just runs the same command again and works. Step 2 failed at first, basically adb didn't work or see the phone correctly, after rebooting the device again step 2 worked completely, I'd say the problem was more my pc and adb being first run. I installed the R2 modaco rom release with a2sd+, so far been running great and it's awesome being able to just install any app I feel like without scrounging for something to uninstall. With the kernel source out now and 2.2 about to hit, will be interesting to see what pops up.

Thanks again. :)

[Guest ede444]

Hi,

I have rooted my desire. When I open the new "app" "superuser....", there is only a dark screen with the name "superuser genehmigungen" on top. Did I something wrong or is this normal?

Also I am not able to get the O2-update 1.2 onto the phone. message " no updates for your phone", before I had it.

For the information of new mails, I now have to use K9-mail, besause the automatic information with htc-mail is not working.

Last thing is, when I want to use some benefit of the "plus membership", I still have to buv it.

Thanks in advance.

Thanks to you guys for your great efforts.

Joe

edit: It is not possible to use the O2 update 1.2 anymore, but I red that the new HTC 1.45....4 has probably the same functions, so it is not necessary to use the O2 1.2...!

edit: the info of new mails is now working, there are some possible adjustments in the email account, such as delivery days and times !

Edited May 18, 2010 by ede444

[Guest afiorillo]

[...]

I have rooted my desire. When I open the new "app" "superuser....", there is only a dark screen with the name "superuser genehmigungen" on top. Did I something wrong or is this normal? [...]

It's normal, "Superuser Permissions" is initially a blank window that fills up with apps that have asked root access over time.

[...] when I want to use some benefit of the "plus membership", I still have to buv it.

Just clear your cache and cookies. :)

[Guest stoyan]

I followed described procedure, but I got error during step 1:

INFO[RUU]WP,radio,100

FAILED (remote: 90 hboot pre-update! please flush image again immediately)

< waiting for device >

Any way - I continued further and I got my device working - all steps were done under ubuntu 10.4 - except creating goldcard. I think even it could be done using dd - but I was not so brave :)

Unfortunately I cant use wipe - no key worked after second step - I mean when my device went to recovery screen - all buttons were "frozen". Removing battery - then back - and device started. Of course I went through all steps - and I am curious why there weren't simply English.

And I cant run Wifi Tether.

But I have su.

My be I have to go through all steps again.

[Guest geek78]

Paul, can we hope a safer process to root ? If yes, this week ?

[Guest afiorillo]

[...]

Unfortunately I cant use wipe - no key worked after second step - I mean when my device went to recovery screen - all buttons were "frozen". [...]

Read carefully, in that phase you have to use the optical trackpad to navigate menus, not the hardware keys.

[Guest ede444]

When I rooted the desire in step2 for wiping I got several options to wipe. I have choosen the "first one", then I had to go back one step to come to the point "select the option to apply an update zip from sdcard, and select 'rootedupdate.zip'."

In the manual it seems to go automatically.

But all went good, and I had it rooted.

Thanks afiorillo for the quick answer.

Joe

[Guest trunksta]

Was bored enough to attempt this on my HTC Incredible out of curiosity. Got the expected result;

sending 'zip' (138708 KB)... OKAY

writing 'zip'... INFOadopting the signature contained in this image...

INFOsignature checking...

INFOzip header checking...

INFOzip info parsing...

INFOchecking model ID...

FAILED (remote: 41 model id check fail)

but, I believe with a few minor changes a similar root process may be derived... after a bit of editing and repacking step1 should work. Since i have an extra incredible for another couple days ill post any further findings.

[Guest craigcrawford1988]

Was bored enough to attempt this on my HTC Incredible out of curiosity. Got the expected result;

sending 'zip' (138708 KB)... OKAY

writing 'zip'... INFOadopting the signature contained in this image...

INFOsignature checking...

INFOzip header checking...

INFOzip info parsing...

INFOchecking model ID...

FAILED (remote: 41 model id check fail)

but, I believe with a few minor changes a similar root process may be derived... after a bit of editing and repacking step1 should work. Since i have an extra incredible for another couple days ill post any further findings.

That's for your own protection so you don't brick your device.

[Guest alpinux]

As we have the kernelsources now, is there a chance of getting write access on /system and maybe a custom recovery?

Edited May 18, 2010 by alpinux

[Guest mjm987]

1)

For a non-branded device, there is no Goldcard needed.

But in this case have I to ....

• skip the 'step1-windows.bat'
  
• or remove the SD-Card for step1
  
• or ?
  

2)

If flashing of the bootloader crashes, is there a way to fallback to the original HTC bootloader/firmware (is there a ROM-Bootloader in the Qualcom MCU which boots from SD or USB)?

[Guest jullejul]

when i install it going nice but the i can't start the mobile :)

[Guest geek78]

I have rooted my old Desire but i don't remember something : are we root after the 1st step (and without using the recovery-xxx.sh of course), and exactely, are we able to make change on /system throw adb ?

[Guest Shawe]

I've 3 questions:

1.- nandroid backup + ext isn't working correctly, and watching your files in r4-rooting I found this in nandroid.sh:

# dev: size erasesize name

#mtd0: 00040000 00020000 "misc"

#mtd1: 00500000 00020000 "recovery"

#mtd2: 00280000 00020000 "boot"

#mtd3: 04380000 00020000 "system"

#mtd4: 04380000 00020000 "cache"

#mtd5: 04ac0000 00020000 "userdata"

And I found that Desire say that is this the correct (with cat /proc/mtd):

#Desire

#mtd0: 000a0000 00020000 "misc"

#mtd1: 00500000 00020000 "recovery"

#mtd2: 00280000 00020000 "boot"

#mtd3: 0fa00000 00020000 "system"

#mtd4: 02800000 00020000 "cache"

#mtd5: 093a0000 00020000 "userdata"

Only recovery and boot have the same values.

I don't know if you are using the correct values, it appears like a comment, for this reason I consider saying to you.

2.- And other question, is possible include the files on r4-rooting into your ROM for don't need a PC to go Recovery Mode? If it is possible, can we do "/sbin/recovery" from a Terminal Emulator or using a little app for do it?

3.- And the last thing, I think that this is wrong on fstab file on r4-rooting (but I don't try it changing values):

/dev/block/mmcblk0p1 /sdcard vfat rw

/dev/block/mmcblk0p2 /sd-ext auto rw

With nandroid I parted it in this order:

-0MB Swap

-1GB EXT

-Reaming FAT32

And I think it must do

/dev/block/mmcblk0p1 /sd-ext auto rw

/dev/block/mmcblk0p2 /sdcard vfat rw

And I think that this can change if we activate de swap partition. I'm wrong?

I don't know if this affect or not, because if it is really wrong, nandroid backup also must not work, and it work correctly.

Thanks for your work!

Edited May 18, 2010 by Shawe