SBF to root and to unroot

[jstafford1]

A huge thanks goes to Motocache1!!!!! The marathon work he did to get this done, got it tested, and now out to the public is nothing short of amazing.

 

[furbearingmammal]

Big props to Motocache1! You are an inspiration!

 

[skylordusa1]

Sorry if I offend anyone for being so noobish but I am having a little trouble with flashing sprecovery because I am a Noob.. I have the original droid non rooted and just got the OTA 2.2 update yesterday. Am I still able to flash sprecovery on my phone or did I screw up by accepting the OTA 2.2. I followed the steps on the first page. Downloaded RD lite to my compooter then downloaded the 32bit drivers. Then I downloaded the new sbf only file (thanks to motocache1) that was posted today to my compooter. When I connect my droid via USB and run RD lite and start the flashing process it seems like it works. But when I close RD out and disconnect my phone. I power it off then power it back on holding x and it still comes up with the factory recovery not sprecovery. Am I missing something? Any help would be appreciated. I am knew to the whole rooting process but would really like to get into it so any help/guidance would be much appreciated. Thank you.

 

[MotoCache1]

if i understand all this correctly, i can take my stock 2.2 droid 1 phone, use RSD Lite to flash this file and all it does is install the sprecovery, leaving my stock install / kernel / apps / everything else alone?

and then from there, i can use sprecovery to make a full nandroid backup (of course, always make a backup!), and then install any custom roms / kernels / whatever?

or is there an intermediate step between installing sprecovery onto my 2.2 and installing custom roms?
Thanks!

You have it exactly right sir. No intermediate step necessary.

 

[furbearingmammal]

Sorry if I offend anyone for being so noobish but I am having a little trouble with flashing sprecovery because I am a Noob.. I have the original droid non rooted and just got the OTA 2.2 update yesterday. Am I still able to flash sprecovery on my phone or did I screw up by accepting the OTA 2.2. I followed the steps on the first page. Downloaded RD lite to my compooter then downloaded the 32bit drivers. Then I downloaded the new sbf only file (thanks to motocache1) that was posted today to my compooter. When I connect my droid via USB and run RD lite and start the flashing process it seems like it works. But when I close RD out and disconnect my phone. I power it off then power it back on holding x and it still comes up with the factory recovery not sprecovery. Am I missing something? Any help would be appreciated. I am knew to the whole rooting process but would really like to get into it so any help/guidance would be much appreciated. Thank you.

First off, :welcome: to the forum!

I have to ask, did you flash the file only once? If you did then it might not have installed correctly, so try flashing it again -- and be CAREFUL not to pull the cable out. How charged was your battery? If it's not almost full it might not work, so make sure it's charged. Did the bootloader step work alright, or were their issues?

 

[0chilly]

I'd say you have it right.

i hope you guys are still watching this thread

i just flashed the sprecovery onto my phone (2.2 stock OTA, no root, full battery) and rsd lite says it completed 100% and told me to manually boot phone. the phone had already rebooted and booted up completely. closed rsd lite, (it gave me a warning that it wasn't done, but it was...unless 100% isn't done...) and checked out the phone. looks good.

shut down the phone, held X key on the physical keyboard and hit the power. still holding down X, on screen i get the M logo (M inside white circle) and then that goes away only to show me a black screen with a yellow ! (exclamation point) inside a white triangle, and underneath that a picture of a phone.

no sprecovery or anythign else.

not sure what to do now, help!

edit: all i can do at this point (the screen with exclamation point/triangle/phone is pull the battery. the phone will boot into the normal phone operation just fine.

edit2: holding dpad-up while powering on brings me to what looked like the stock recovery i saw when i first started. it says: Bootloader 2c.7c battery ok, ok to program, connect usb data cable.
looks like i'll try flashing sprecovery again. weird.

 

[skylordusa1]

First off, :welcome: to the forum!

I have to ask, did you flash the file only once? If you did then it might not have installed correctly, so try flashing it again -- and be CAREFUL not to pull the cable out. How charged was your battery? If it's not almost full it might not work, so make sure it's charged. Did the bootloader step work alright, or were their issues?

Thank you for the welcome furbear.

Yeah I tried to flash it a few times on two different compooters and it never worked. Cable seems secure. Battery is at 80%. Think it needs to be charged more? Yeah everything seemed to work fine looked exactly like the video that was provided. Got the black bootloader screen. Hit start on RD lite then the bootloader screen changed to black screen SW update then the phone began to reboot itself. RD said 100% exacuted and please manually boot your phone. Phone was already on from flash process so i closed down RD lite and unplugged the phone. Then shut it down and held x and powered it back on and each time it just goes to the exclamantion mark triangle default recovery. Seems like im missing a step or something. Or is it not working cause I did the OTA 2.2 update and this was meant for 2.1? Thanks for getting back to me really appreciate you taking the time. I was all excited to do this so I can root my phone cause it seemed super simple but of course I run into problems. FML hahhhahhahhahah.

 

[skylordusa1]

Sounds like we are having the same problem Ochilly. the triangle exclamation point is the default factory recovery we are trying to overide with sp recovery but for some strange reason it is not working. When you try to flash again and if the triangle ! comes up again you can just press the volume up button and camera button at the same time instead of taking the battery out. that will bring the default recovery settings up and you can just press reboot phone to get it out of that state. Hopefully there very smart and talented people on this forum can figure out where we are going wrong. Or if you get it to work please hit me back to let me know. Thanks.

 

[0chilly]

I'd say you have it right.

i hope you guys are still watching this thread

i just flashed the sprecovery onto my phone (2.2 stock OTA, no root, full battery) and rsd lite says it completed 100% and told me to manually boot phone. the phone had already rebooted and booted up completely. closed rsd lite, (it gave me a warning that it wasn't done, but it was...unless 100% isn't done...) and checked out the phone. looks good.

shut down the phone, held X key on the physical keyboard and hit the power. still holding down X, on screen i get the M logo (M inside white circle) and then that goes away only to show me a black screen with a yellow ! (exclamation point) inside a white triangle, and underneath that a picture of a phone.

no sprecovery or anythign else.

not sure what to do now, help!

edit: all i can do at this point (the screen with exclamation point/triangle/phone is pull the battery. the phone will boot into the normal phone operation just fine.

edit2: holding dpad-up while powering on brings me to what looked like the stock recovery i saw when i first started. it says: Bootloader 2c.7c battery ok, ok to program, connect usb data cable.
looks like i'll try flashing sprecovery again. weird.

flashed the sprecovery sbf a 2nd time with the same results. full battery 100% each time. rsd lite 4.7 says
status: please manually power up this phone
progress: executed: 100%
result: in process ...

i let it sit like that for a few minutes - the phone was already fully powered on. i left usb cable plugged in and rsd lite runnign this time. powered down phone, unplugged usb cable and held X while powering up - brought me to the same exclamation point/triangle screen. pull battery, power up holding dpad-up and it brings me to the original thing i saw before trying any of this.

i'm doing this on windows vista 64 bit with rsd lite 4.7 and the 64 bit drivers 4.7.0 (motoconnect found an update for the drivers today, for motorola media connect, i assume it's the same driver rsd lite uses).

so whatever is happening, it's not replacing the boot up recovery program. if i can provide any additional information somehow, please let me know!

 

[MotoCache1]

Sorry if I offend anyone for being so noobish but I am having a little trouble with flashing sprecovery because I am a Noob..

Nothing to be sorry for. You have to start somewhere. Here's as good a place as any.

I have the original droid non rooted and just got the OTA 2.2 update yesterday. Am I still able to flash sprecovery on my phone or did I screw up by accepting the OTA 2.2.

Unless they did something really crafty in the OTA, you should be able to flash SPRecovery on, no problem.

I followed the steps on the first page. Downloaded RD lite to my compooter then downloaded the 32bit drivers. Then I downloaded the new sbf only file (thanks to motocache1) that was posted today to my compooter.

Just to confirm, the file should be named MC1_A855_1282081087_Recovery-Only_SPRecovery_0.99.3b.sbf. Even more importantly, the file should have an MD5Sum of 252ab1b6f07c72c044cda197da3f1373 (we should probably post that MD5Sum on page 1). When dealing with firmware it's always a good idea to verify the MD5Sum to know your file isn't corrupted (and that you've got the right one).

When I connect my droid via USB and run RD lite and start the flashing process it seems like it works. But when I close RD out and disconnect my phone. I power it off then power it back on holding x and it still comes up with the factory recovery not sprecovery. Am I missing something? Any help would be appreciated. I am knew to the whole rooting process but would really like to get into it so any help/guidance would be much appreciated. Thank you.

Your description doesn't really go over the details of how the flashing progresses. Here's how it should go. Let me know if it goes any differently on your end. [Note: the below is more detailed than it probably needs to be - the intent being that it would be usable by someone of any experience level.]

1. You've already got RSD Lite and the 32 or 64 bit drivers installed on your computer. If you're running Windows XP, life is good. If you're running Vista or Windows 7 you need to be sure to run RSD Lite as Administrator. Hopefully your computer isn't too old. Some machines with older BIOS (like 2002 era) have been known to have USB issues that cause trouble with flashing.
2. You plug your phone into a USB cable attached to your machine. Depending on whether or not you have USB debugging turned on, have had your phone attached to the computer before, etc., you will at least probably hear the "device insertion tone" in Windows, and you may see the New Hardware Wizard install the drivers for your phone. Wait until your computer settles and looks bored before continuing.
3. Fire up RSD Lite.
4. If your phone is powered up normally with the OS running, it's not going to be "seen" by RSD Lite yet. That's normal. Power your phone off in the usual fashion.
5. Once your phone is all the way "down", slide your keyboard open (on the phone).
6. Summoning your best contortionist skills, press on the "up" direction of the directional keypad rocker (dpad) (yellow circle in image below) while simultaneously pressing and holding the power button of the phone. When you see the backlight of the screen come on you can release the power button and the bootloader screen should appear (it will say "Bootloader" in the upper left corner). At the bottom of the text it should say "TransferMode: USB" if your cable is properly connected. If it says "Connect USB Data Cable", then you need to do so.
7. At this point the phone should show up in the grid in the bottom half of the RSD Lite window. If it does not, in RSD Lite, click Config, Device Id Options, and choose "First-Come-First-ServeDeviceId Mode" and press "OK". RSD Lite may say you need to restart RSD -- if so, do so.
8. Assuming that you now can see your phone listed, click the "..." button to the right of the "Filename:" box. Find the SBF file you intend to flash on your hard drive. For this instruction we're working with MC1_A855_1282081087_Recovery-Only_SPRecovery_0.99.3b.sbf. After choosing the file the right hand File details pane will fill in.
9. Before you press Start - there will come a point when RSD Lite reboots your phone. You'll want to be watching for that point. As soon as you see it say that it's rebooting the phone, hold "up" on the dpad of the phone again. The idea is to have it go back into the bootloader right after the reboot. If you miss it, don't worry, it's not critical. More about this later.
10. Press Start.
11. Since this file is pretty small, the steps will proceed rapidly. There will be a good delay at the step where it waits for re-enumeration. Eventually it will check the checksums and tell you it is rebooting your phone.
12. After the re-enumeration step finishes, it will have a quick flurry of activity (with this file it's quick) and then will say that it's rebooting the phone. If possible, be ready to hold "up" on the dpad. If you miss it, don't worry.
13. If you were able to hit "up" on the dpad at the right time, you should come back into the bootloader. If not, and your phone boots up, as soon as it finishes booting, do a normal shutdown on it, and then hold "up" on the dpad while you power it on so you go back into the bootloader. The goal is to, one way or another, be back in the bootloader before the "Progress" for the "rebooting" step reaches 100%. If you do, then chances are, under "Result" it should change to "PASS" when the Progress reaches 100%. Now you can hit Close to exit RSD Lite.

Note that the activities in steps #12 and #13 might not be absolutely necessary, but I believe they are a good idea. Most folks don't even know to do them and I don't necessarily think it's necessarily hurting their phone. Even if you don't end up back in the bootloader before Progress gets to 100%, that's OK, still -- reboot your phone to the bootloader (using "up" on the dpad) and let RSD Lite sit on the "please manually boot the phone" screen. Be patient. Within about a minute the status will change to "Finished" and the result will change to "PASS" (unless there was a problem -- but I've never had not not go to PASS).

[Edit: we just had someone who could not successfully flash recovery succeed after they did this step and got "PASS". Could be coincidence, but wouldn't you rather RSD Lite say "PASS" than "If you exit now you may damage your device"?]

If all went well, now you can power the phone off, and repeat the power up sequence in Step #6, but instead of holding "up" on the dpad, hold the (letter) "X" key on the keyboard while you press the power button. When you see the Motorola logo you can release the power button, but keep "X" held until the recovery app pops up. You should now have SPRecovery 0.99.3b.

 

[0chilly]

Hey skylord! yeah i think we're in the same boat here. thanks for the tip about the volume/camera keys - i didn't know that.

i have been waiting to root too, hoping something easier like this would come along. i guess we'll be waiting a bit longer =) i'm just hoping there's just some more information we can give to help get a fix. when i first saw the exclamation point i was like o fuuuuuuu lol then it powered on (after battery pull) just fine, so i'm just glad the phone is still working now lol.

 

[0chilly]

MotoCache1, i was just going to ask someone to verify the MD5 the one i'm using matches what you posted:
252ab1b6f07c72c044cda197da3f1373|MC1_A855_1282081087_Recovery-Only_SPRecovery_0.99.3b.sbf

i did not know about holding up on the dpad in your steps 12 & 13, so i will try that now and see how it goes.

also, as i have tried this a few times, i'm getting more files in with the sprecovery file i downloaded.
f80678ab43e918883dd6f4aff124b87a|mc1_a855_1282081087_recovery-only_sprecovery_0.99.3b.hmg
3d6d5ac06d02345bc451b30119622ce0|mc1_a855_1282081087_recovery-only_sprecovery_0.99.3bCG47.smg
446525a218010fcccf0f35fc71b11296|mc1_a855_1282081087_recovery-only_sprecovery_0.99.3bRDL3.smg

not sure how/why those are appearing - is rsd lite making them? those are the md5 hashes and the file names. i can post them if you like.

 

[MotoCache1]

flashed the sprecovery sbf a 2nd time with the same results. full battery 100% each time. rsd lite 4.7 says
status: please manually power up this phone
progress: executed: 100%
result: in process ...

i let it sit like that for a few minutes - the phone was already fully powered on. i left usb cable plugged in and rsd lite runnign this time. powered down phone, unplugged usb cable and held X while powering up - brought me to the same exclamation point/triangle screen. pull battery, power up holding dpad-up and it brings me to the original thing i saw before trying any of this.

i'm doing this on windows vista 64 bit with rsd lite 4.7 and the 64 bit drivers 4.7.0 (motoconnect found an update for the drivers today, for motorola media connect, i assume it's the same driver rsd lite uses).

so whatever is happening, it's not replacing the boot up recovery program. if i can provide any additional information somehow, please let me know!

I didn't see this until after my previous post as it took quite some time to type all that. A couple things about your setup:

1. Folks running Windows 7 frequently have trouble. While I'm not going to say you can't do it on Windows 7, it may be more hit or miss. Be sure you're running RSD Lite as Administrator. To do this, in your Start menu, instead of left clicking the RSD Lite choice, right click it and choose "Run as Administrator".
2. You're running RSD Lite 4.7 whereas the typical setup is RSD Lite 4.6 (which is what is linked on page 1 of the topic). No guarantee that's a deal breaker, but every little thing that deviates from what most people are running (and more importantly, what I'm running here ) is another question mark.
3. You note that MotoConnect updated your drivers. You'd hope that it would be smart enough not to update them to something that was incompatible, but this is yet another difference between your system and the usual setup.

At this point, for your specific situation I'd say that if you were running as Administrator, and running RSD Lite 4.6 with the 64 bit drivers linked on page one doesn't work, then the path of least resistance may be to either find a 32 bit Windows XP box that you can use briefly. Let's see if anybody else picks up on something I may have overlooked.

 

[MotoCache1]

MotoCache1, i was just going to ask someone to verify the MD5 the one i'm using matches what you posted:
252ab1b6f07c72c044cda197da3f1373|MC1_A855_1282081087_Recovery-Only_SPRecovery_0.99.3b.sbf

i did not know about holding up on the dpad in your steps 12 & 13, so i will try that now and see how it goes.

also, as i have tried this a few times, i'm getting more files in with the sprecovery file i downloaded.
f80678ab43e918883dd6f4aff124b87a|mc1_a855_1282081087_recovery-only_sprecovery_0.99.3b.hmg
3d6d5ac06d02345bc451b30119622ce0|mc1_a855_1282081087_recovery-only_sprecovery_0.99.3bCG47.smg
446525a218010fcccf0f35fc71b11296|mc1_a855_1282081087_recovery-only_sprecovery_0.99.3bRDL3.smg

not sure how/why those are appearing - is rsd lite making them? those are the md5 hashes and the file names. i can post them if you like.

Those are the temporary files that RSD Lite creates while it is doing the flashing. They will disappear after you exit RSD Lite. The good news is the MD5Sum for the CG47.smg and RDL3.smg is correct. The MD5Sum for the .hmg file will be different every time that particular temp file is generated (because it has a date that gets generated inside of it each time it is genned), but I'm sure it's fine too.

 

[0chilly]

"Before you press Start - there will come a point when RSD Lite reboots your phone. You'll want to be watching for that point. As soon as you see it say that it's rebooting the phone, hold "up" on the dpad of the phone again."

MotoCache1, whatever this does, holding dpad-up when it starts rebooting, fixed it for me! in RSD Lite, i never received 100% "PASS" status - just 100% "In Process ..."

I just tried a third time - same procedures as everything else I've done, with the exception of hitting dpad-up when the phone rebooted after flashing the sbf. holding dpad-up brought me straight into SPRecovery! woo!

here's my next question. how do i go back to the stock recovery now? not that i want to right now, but i may in the future. thanks so much