[HACKS] Root Droid 1 - regardless of OS version

[nxmehta]

Yeah, understandably. I guess we'll get the brave Motocache to try and test this with his new Ubuntu box I will certainly wait to try sbf_flash with this method until we get the all clear!

 

[stannenb]

$ ./sbf_flash SPRecovery_ESE81.sbf 
SBF FLASH 1.08 (mbm)

And with that, you downgraded your kernel.

Yeah, I know. Surprised me, too, when I did the same thing. I had the same symptoms, freaked, but had the presence of mind to check system versions and saw the downgraded kernel. In that context, the remarkable thing is that the Droid runs at all, not that all sorts of things appear to be broken.

You need to use the "recovery only" SBF file that Motocache so kindly provides at the top of this thread.

 

[gavron]

And with that, you downgraded your kernel.

Yeah, I know. Surprised me, too, when I did the same thing. I had the same symptoms, freaked, but had the presence of mind to check system versions and saw the downgraded kernel. In that context, the remarkable thing is that the Droid runs at all, not that all sorts of things appear to be broken.

You need to use the "recovery only" SBF file that Motocache so kindly provides at the top of this thread.

Awesome - thank you for explaining the mystery! Linux SBF works

E

 

[zinethar]

On the directions in #1 a quick thought. I was watching a person do this and he had trouble. Discovered that it never told you to unattach the phone from the computer between steps 3 & 4. It won't go to the bootloader if still attached and had him frustrated! Just a thought! After adding this step it worked great! We force installed the 22D update, then did this and his phone rocks now. I think we have another convert to the dark side...

 

[MotoCache1]

On the directions in #1 a quick thought. I was watching a person do this and he had trouble. Discovered that it never told you to unattach the phone from the computer between steps 3 & 4. It won't go to the bootloader if still attached and had him frustrated! Just a thought!

Sure it will. I do it all the time... ?!?!

After adding this step it worked great! We force installed the 22D update, then did this and his phone rocks now. I think we have another convert to the dark side...

Cool. Tell 'em "welcome to the dark side".

 

[jbwiden]

I guess their was one slightly confusing step for me.
12.

in step 11 it seemed to suggest to skip step 12 if you caught the boot?

I can see how my phrasing could have been misleading:

If you didn't catch the boot and the OS booted, continue with Step 12.

What I was getting at was that even if you didn't catch the boot -- keep on rolling and we'll see if it mattered in a bit.

I've updated the sentence to read:

Even if you didn't catch the boot and the OS booted, still continue with Step 12.

Thanks for helping me make it more clear.

Maybe I am missing something but the confusing line for me was this one:

"If you caught the boot in Step 10 and went straight back into the bootloader without booting the OS in between, skip Step 12 and go to Step 13."


Thanks for the work you have done on this. I am very appreciative.

Jbwiden

 

[furbearingmammal]

After adding this step it worked great! We force installed the 22D update, then did this and his phone rocks now. I think we have another convert to the dark side...

Cool. Tell 'em "welcome to the dark side".

And that we have cookies. Soon in Gingerbread flavor.

Motocache, I have two questions for you. After we've rooted using your method, we'll have sprecovery installed, along with busybox and superuser. So,

1. If we ever need to receive an OTA update, will sprecovery block it? If so, how do we get around that to apply the update? Once we install any OTA we can use your method again to re-root it (which is really great because it's a universal method!) but I just want to make sure that there's a path to installing the OTA. Some of just want a stock, rooted Droid with maybe a low voltage kernel.

2. If we install busybox from the market, will it detect your version and just update it? Or will it install a second version? If it installs a second version, might it be better to distribute update.zip without busybox so we can use the market to keep it up to date? The same goes for superuser.

Thanks for your hard work!

1. This has been answered so many times I'm losing feeling in my fingers. Yes, it will block the install. You have many ways of getting around this. I'm going to grant you the gift of knowledge by letting you figure out what those are for yourself.

2. Yes, it will. Since you need busybox for 90% of root-only apps this is a turn-key root job and keeps all the people who don't want to read or research or study or learn what root means, etc, from flooding his thread with the same question(s) and accusations and "YoU sUcK!!1! FAIL!" posts.

I don't want that, you don't want that, Moto doesn't want that.

 

[nxmehta]

1. This has been answered so many times I'm losing feeling in my fingers. Yes, it will block the install. You have many ways of getting around this. I'm going to grant you the gift of knowledge by letting you figure out what those are for yourself.

Ah, the gift of knowledge. Perhaps I should have rephrased my question. I actually DO know of some ways of applying an OTA:

1. Install it manually from some file snooped from Google's servers before the actual OTA arrives. This is detailed in several forum posts here. I would prefer to actually install the OTA that is pushed to my phone, thank you.

2. Flash a stock 2.0.1 .sbf. This will put my phone back to factory status and allow me to receive OTAs. However, one of the reasons that this thread is so good is that it avoids flashing specific versions of full OS .sbfs; flashing all the way down to an ancient version seems like something that would be nice to avoid. This is because I don't really fully understand what will happen to all my settings when I suddenly deprecate the OS to something from like 1.5 years ago. Maybe I am worrying over nothing.

My question was is there any of of forcing the OTA that is pushed to my phone. As in, can I tell SPRecovery to back off and allow the update, since using your method I can trivially install it again.

I have actually spent a decent amount of time searching the forums and google for an answer to this, but perhaps I have missed something obvious. I understand that you are busy addressing the many questions people have for you, so please don't feel obligated to respond. However, if there's anyone else that has an answer or even just a link to an answer for me, it would be very much appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[bigfire]

Ok, everything went fine except for a little quirk on my droid 1. I bought a sandisk 32GB sd card. Clockwork seemed to have problem loading it. SPRecovery also can't seemed to load it. I have to resort to putting the old 16GB card in, rename the update.zip and added the necessary files for root. After that, every seemed to be ok, and I was able to restore some of my application settings using titanium backup.

 

[furbearingmammal]

Ok, everything went fine except for a little quirk on my droid 1. I bought a sandisk 32GB sd card. Clockwork seemed to have problem loading it. SPRecovery also can't seemed to load it. I have to resort to putting the old 16GB card in, rename the update.zip and added the necessary files for root. After that, every seemed to be ok, and I was able to restore some of my application settings using titanium backup.

Depending on the class (speed) of your 32GB SD card I don't know as SPRecovery or CW would be happy with it, so I can understand the issue. Just don't lose that original card!

Welcome to the Dark Side. We have cookies.

Soon in Gingerbread flavor!

 

[viper3773]

Hey motocache, quick Q, did anyone ever elaborate on the downsides of the 1 click rooting? I am very curious as I will be able to do it the regular way but if I can do it 1 click without any repossessions then i will do that

 

[furbearingmammal]

1. This has been answered so many times I'm losing feeling in my fingers. Yes, it will block the install. You have many ways of getting around this. I'm going to grant you the gift of knowledge by letting you figure out what those are for yourself.

Ah, the gift of knowledge. Perhaps I should have rephrased my question. I actually DO know of some ways of applying an OTA:

1. Install it manually from some file snooped from Google's servers before the actual OTA arrives. This is detailed in several forum posts here. I would prefer to actually install the OTA that is pushed to my phone, thank you.

2. Flash a stock 2.0.1 .sbf. This will put my phone back to factory status and allow me to receive OTAs. However, one of the reasons that this thread is so good is that it avoids flashing specific versions of full OS .sbfs; flashing all the way down to an ancient version seems like something that would be nice to avoid. This is because I don't really fully understand what will happen to all my settings when I suddenly deprecate the OS to something from like 1.5 years ago. Maybe I am worrying over nothing.

My question was is there any of of forcing the OTA that is pushed to my phone. As in, can I tell SPRecovery to back off and allow the update, since using your method I can trivially install it again.

I have actually spent a decent amount of time searching the forums and google for an answer to this, but perhaps I have missed something obvious. I understand that you are busy addressing the many questions people have for you, so please don't feel obligated to respond. However, if there's anyone else that has an answer or even just a link to an answer for me, it would be very much appreciated.

Thanks!

There's no way to force the FRG22D update at this time with SPRecovery. Rather than SBFing your phone's data into oblivion, try installing the large FRG01B update file, which, interestingly enough, like every other official Verizon update, also returns your phone's recovery image to stock. If you're running rooted stock you will get OTA notices and the nag screen, sure enough. Once you have that, install the FRG22D update, then root again, or install P3Droid's rooted FRG22D file.

The answer to your first question has been available for less than 48 hours, so it's not surprising you missed it unless you were looking at the news page and following the developments of the rollout post-by-post.

http://www.droidforums.net/forum/dr...ota-patch-here-download-now-9.html#post776694

You've mentioned you don't want to install the rooted FRG22D file. That's your choice, and would be mine in your shoes -- there have been reported issues with it, and personally I'd want to see what became of that controversy. I also would hate to have gone through the trouble of installing a ROM only to have Verizon tell me I need to update again. Seems like a lot of trouble for nothing -- but at least you'd have a bone-stock phone at the proper build to get the next OTA. Roundabout route to get there, as far as I'm concerned.

To address the rest of your post, if my presence is so objectionable, I'd like to call your attention to the ignore option in your settings. Please feel free to hit it for anyone whom you find offensive. The purpose of this forum is to share information, and in doing so we occasionally ruffle feathers, and I seem to have done that to you in this case. I am willing to accept some of the blame since my words were potentially, but not deliberately, inflammatory and you chose to be offended. For that, I apologize.

The only other point I wish to make is that OTA-pushed updates have had a much higher frequency of boinked and borked installs. In this case I don't see it being much of a problem since it's such a small file, so have at it! Good luck, and don't forget that ignore option!

 

[furbearingmammal]

Hey motocache, quick Q, did anyone ever elaborate on the downsides of the 1 click rooting? I am very curious as I will be able to do it the regular way but if I can do it 1 click without any repossessions then i will do that

I don't think anyone has in this thread, so I'll put my two cents in, and if you think I've missed something, please add. Also, please note, this only applies to the Droid 1.

One-click rooting apps give you root access and nothing more. Some of them encourage you to install Busybox, which is required by 90% of rooted apps, but allows you no way to update it. This alone is an issue, and since you can download a busybox installer from the market that will keep your version of busybox up to date you should do that instead.

These apps might then encourage you to install ROM Manager, which is an awesome app for most people, but in a small but significant number of installs it starts borking downloads, losing backups, glitching, and in some cases messing up your recovery image. It's often not worth the hassle. Furthermore, with the updated bootloader many people got from the OTA FRG01B update, you cannot flash your recovery image without using MotoCache1's method of rooting.

None of the one-click apps block OTA updates, which always break root, rendering your phone stock again. Often stock with the rooting app not working until an update comes out. Yes, CW and SPRecovery will block these updates, but it's only a matter of time before that nag screen comes back. It gets tiresome, and it uses bandwidth every time the update downloads. This also might be a concern to some.

Without a custom recovery image (CW or SPRecovery), you cannot flash a ROM, install a custom kernel, theme, or make nandroid/clockwork backups, which become a vital part of messing with your Droid.

Finally, some of them are free while others cost money -- and the method outlined herein is free, as permanent as you want it to be, and unless you pull the cable out or lose power during the flash, foolproof and safe. The unless is the key word there, though. And nobody here, especially me, claims responsibility for any damage done to the software or hardware of your phone for following this or any set of instructions or guides.

I think that covers it, but I might have missed something or misstated something. Anyone have anything else? Please add, correct, or ask.

 

[nxmehta]

To address the rest of your post, if my presence is so objectionable, I'd like to call your attention to the ignore option in your settings. Please feel free to hit it for anyone whom you find offensive. The purpose of this forum is to share information, and in doing so we occasionally ruffle feathers, and I seem to have done that to you in this case. I am willing to accept some of the blame since my words were potentially, but not deliberately, inflammatory and you chose to be offended. For that, I apologize.

The only other point I wish to make is that OTA-pushed updates have had a much higher frequency of boinked and borked installs. In this case I don't see it being much of a problem since it's such a small file, so have at it! Good luck, and don't forget that ignore option!

Um, are you also MotoCache1? I'm sorry if my post was abrupt- going back and reading it now I see that it might be. I just wanted to make it clear that I'm not one of those users who doesn't try to find answers on my own... didn't mean to be short with you. I did honestly mean the part where I know that you're super busy and I don't want to bug you... but thanks for responding! This is like the MotoCache1 forum over here! You're one step from posting your phone number man. You really didn't have to respond

Thanks again for you hard work and for your response! I think I know where to take things from here.

 

[bigfire]

Hey motocache, quick Q, did anyone ever elaborate on the downsides of the 1 click rooting? I am very curious as I will be able to do it the regular way but if I can do it 1 click without any repossessions then i will do that

I did a 1 click root on my droid 1. For some odd reason, Rom Manager never was able to keep clockwork recovery on. And on one of my attempt at loading, it didn't go beyond Motorola M symbol. Went back to Verizon to get it unbrick, which flashed me to FRG22D, which broke 1 click root. So I follow Moto's method, and got Titanium Backup working again to restore my application's settings. I'm holding off on custom image for the moment, but enjoying the benefit of rooting.