Newbie Guide to Rooting the Fascinate

[roofz]

Looks like i celebrated way too soon, I have the app and when i open it, it's just a black screen

 

[mrdroid]

Looks like i celebrated way too soon, I have the app and when i open it, it's just a black screen

Yea, that's good. It will be blank until you grant an app root privileges. Once you do that.. that app will be listed in that black screen.

 

[roofz]

Thank you MrDroid for this writeup!!!!!

 

[Steeeler]

Im up! Dude you are the man! I have tried loading adb on my computer many times in the past with no luck. You step by step made it sooo easy for me.

Now its time to go to work with root explorer!

Big Thanks!

 

[mrdroid]

Yay!

The Fascinate rooted army has begun

 

[Steeeler]

Yay!

The Fascinate rooted army has begun

Hopefully that army will get some roms soon!

By the way, over at Android Central, they have posted a wireless tether app that works for the Fascinate. I'm online right now with the wireless tether.

Link to app:

wireless_tether_2_0_5-pre9.apk - android-wifi-tether - Wireless Tether for Root Users 2.0.5-pre9 *** EXPERIMENTAL *** - Project Hosting on Google Code

 

[mrdroid]

Yay!

The Fascinate rooted army has begun

Hopefully that army will get some roms soon!

By the way, over at Android Central, they have posted a wireless tether app that works for the Fascinate. I'm online right now with the wireless tether.

Link to app:

wireless_tether_2_0_5-pre9.apk - android-wifi-tether - Wireless Tether for Root Users 2.0.5-pre9 *** EXPERIMENTAL *** - Project Hosting on Google Code

Nice find
I looked earlier and couldn't find it on the code site.

 

[schnyd]

success, thank you!

 

[JoeK]

Still nothing

I am still having issues. I pm'd you earlier. I have tried the root for newbies and the rootkitz root for the fascinate. One has a one extra command at the end- abk install Superuser.apk
When I get here- and enter this in the cmd.exe- I get an error that it is already installed. I really need help. This should have only taken 5 min. and not it is 12 hours into a root. Help me please.

Yeah! Done, and it said success, but i didn't get that blue notification on my phone saying i'm a super user, is my phone rooted?

You should have an app installed called Superuser. The icon is like droid skull and crossbones. If you can launch that without error you should be good.

Also you can download Titanium Backup from the market. It will request Root Access when you run it, and it will also validate Busybox.

It also has an option to fix Busybox so even if you don't use it for backups it's still pretty useful.

You can also open the Terminal and type su.

 

[mrdroid]

I am still having issues. I pm'd you earlier. I have tried the root for newbies and the rootkitz root for the fascinate. One has a one extra command at the end- abk install Superuser.apk
When I get here- and enter this in the cmd.exe- I get an error that it is already installed. I really need help. This should have only taken 5 min. and not it is 12 hours into a root. Help me please.

Fell asleep before I saw your PM. If you're trying to install Superuser.apk and it's tell you it's already installed you might need to do a factory reset. I tested as many scenarios as I could and when I was stuck with Superuser.apk installed and no root I wasn't able to find a way to remove it. However, the factory reset worked in removing Superuser.apk. I did several factory resets and then followed my own guide. After the factory reset enter your google account information and follow the guide as the first thing you do.

Factory Reset
From the home screen hit the menu button
Go to Settings
Go to Privacy
hit Factory data reset

You will lose all your apps and settings and start fresh.

 

[christim]

Two suggestions.

I'd also suggest numbering your steps, so folks can easily say "I got stuck on step 6"

Actually the second suggestion is part question. I've never used adb but would the following work?

1. Use a text editor to create a document named install.bat and put the following in it
   
   adb push rageagainstthecage-arm5.bin /data/local/tmp/rageagainstthecage-arm5.bin
   adb shell
   cd /data/local/tmp
   chmod 0755 rageagainstthecage-arm5.bin
   ./rageagainstthecage-arm5.bin
   
   adb push su /sdcard/su
   adb push busybox /sdcard/busybox
   adb shell
   mount -t rfs -o remount,rw /dev/block/stl9 /system
   cd /system/xbin
   cat /sdcard/su > ./su
   cat /sdcard/busybox > ./busybox
   chmod 4755 su
   chmod 4755 busybox
   exit
   
   adb install Superuser.apk
   
2. include the install.bat in the root.zip file and just double click on the batch file (install.bat)to run all the commands. This way the chance of typos is removed.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   3rd question....can you unroot this phone? How do you undo that which is about to be done?

 

[JoeK]

Finally rooted. I rooted 2 devices now. It only took 5 min.- after the previous 12 hours of not knowing that I done it- the first time I tried to root. What I did not notice is that it puts a superuser app on the phone. Then I need to download titanium backup to delete some of the verizon bloatware. Now I can remove unwanted apps. Thanks Mr. Droid for all of you help.

 

[JoeK]

Major issue now

My wife was trying to install launcher pro and deleted or uninstall touch wiz. now the phone will not do anything. it boots up, but only has a black screen. I have found the touchwizlauncher.apk and odex file. Where do I place the odex file to adb install?

I am still having issues. I pm'd you earlier. I have tried the root for newbies and the rootkitz root for the fascinate. One has a one extra command at the end- abk install Superuser.apk
When I get here- and enter this in the cmd.exe- I get an error that it is already installed. I really need help. This should have only taken 5 min. and not it is 12 hours into a root. Help me please.

Fell asleep before I saw your PM. If you're trying to install Superuser.apk and it's tell you it's already installed you might need to do a factory reset. I tested as many scenarios as I could and when I was stuck with Superuser.apk installed and no root I wasn't able to find a way to remove it. However, the factory reset worked in removing Superuser.apk. I did several factory resets and then followed my own guide. After the factory reset enter your google account information and follow the guide as the first thing you do.

Factory Reset
From the home screen hit the menu button
Go to Settings
Go to Privacy
hit Factory data reset

You will lose all your apps and settings and start fresh.

 

[mrdroid]

Two suggestions.

I added 5 main sections to the actual rooting portion of the guide. That should help narrow it down when someone has a question on which section.

You could use a batch file... but doing so for users that are new to this would require a lot of error handling and output and it is just easier to deal with issues if the user can just see each command and see if 1 single command throws an error.

The only way I know to uninstall is to do a Factory Reset. I'm sure someone will come out with a one click root/unroot soon.

 

[mrdroid]

My wife was trying to install launcher pro and deleted or uninstall touch wiz. now the phone will not do anything. it boots up, but only has a black screen. I have found the touchwizlauncher.apk and odex file. Where do I place the odex file to adb install?

How did you remove touchwiz? You removed the .apk? You should be able to just replace it and reboot.


First see if the apk and odex are still there. Connect your phone, start an adb shell and search for the Touch wiz apk and odex.

When you type 'su' in the commands below make sure your Fascinate's screen is on and you're at the home screen because you will need to click Allow to grant permissions.

adb shell
su
busybox find /system/ -name Touch*

should return the following:

busybox find /system/ -name Touch*
/system/app/TouchWizCalendar.odex
/system/app/TouchWizCalendarProvider.apk
/system/app/TouchWizCalendarProvider.odex
/system/app/TouchWizCalculator.apk
/system/app/TouchWiz30Launcher.odex
/system/app/TouchWizCalendar.apk
/system/app/TouchWiz30Launcher.apk
/system/app/TouchWizCalculator.odex
#

If TouchWiz30Launcher.apk and/or TouchWiz30Launcher.odex are missing then just push them back to the system.
On your PC put the files in C:\rootfiles and open a cmd window and type the following.

c:\
cd c:\rootfiles
adb push TouchWiz30Launcher.apk /system/app/
adb push TouchWiz30Launcher.odex /system/app/
reboot

And you once your phone reboot unlock it and hit home and you should get a choice of which launcher to use.